Collin

Because some things bear remembering

2009-11-05T07:29:41Z

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy)
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring. (Holla)
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason, why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot!
A stick or a stake for King James' sake
Will you please to give us a fagot
If you can't give us one, we'll take two;
The better for us and the worse for you!

This is Halloween, this is Halloween...

2009-10-06T17:55:57Z

Having recently been forced to acknowledge the dismal passage of time by way of my overdue cable bill, as well as the more pleasant process of the leaves changing color in the crispening (yes it is, Look It Up) air, I was delighted when it occurred to me that Halloween will be shortly forthcoming. This realization brought with it, however, a certain few bittersweet memories of "the good old days" of Halloween, chief among them being recollections of all the wonderful Halloween Specials both animated and live-action that my generation was graced with as children still capable of appreciating such things. Every year, it seemed, the network stations couldn't broadcast enough Halloween-themed one-shot programs, and anyone with access to a studio was throwing together every other spookily (ditto) iconic All-Hallows-Symbol into a delightfully campy little package of wonders, showering us with these pearls from what seemed like the very instant that the school year really got down to the serious business of sucking, hardcore.

As a tremendously awkward, antisocial kid, these little fantasy worlds I was graced with (at exactly the time of year that I was made most aware of how genuinely unpleasant the real world could be, no less) had a profound impact. Not only were they a delightfully mystical escape from the the otherwise cold, harsh existence of Public Elementary School, they were also a huge inspiration for me. Each of these specials seemed, to me, to represent the idea that anyone with a head full of pictures and stories got the opportunity to share those pictures and stories with kids like myself, anxious to see the worlds that others had created and even more anxious to create worlds of my own. These worlds of mysticism, wholly independent of any motive other than to be halloween-themed and slightly campy, were an absolute delight to me because they seemed to want only to exult in their own wonderful...wonder. It's no inexplicable mystery to me that the things I create tend toward the spooky or eerie, neither that I have a definite fondness for the undead and the otherwise monstrous. I find these things loveable because, to my young self, they were loveable; moreso than the unicorns, smurfs and carebears of my generation's other programming. Halloween had no agenda, no moral to impart. Nothing, in short, to make it completely transparent and obvious to a child who grew up on afterschool specials that amounted, more or less, to moral convolutions of spina-bifida proportions with bare-bones plots constructed around them.

...forgive the osseous metaphors, I have Halloween on the brain.

Anyway. Halloween existed to share its own sense of wonder and joyful weirdness with the world. An unintentional moral that, as it happens, is the only one I really absorbed from that era of overtly preachy television. Presently, whenever Halloween rolls around I always wonder vaguely where that sort of delightfully bizarre and mystical randomness went. They certainly don't show such things anymore; when was the last time you saw something of The Worst Witch or Count Duckula caliber? Even The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror degenerated into pseudo-scifi, fantasy randomness that was only really bizarre because the rest of the season's episodes weren't responsible for anything done in that one special.

I'm not suggesting that there's been a degeneration in quality, by any means. If anything, the acting and animation in children's and young adult's programming is getting better, and I would never honestly or seriously claim that Tim Curry's performance as a sexified, crooning Dumbledore in The Worst Witch was Oscar-worthy. But it most definitely was awesome. It was so grin-inducingly, wonderfully FUN to see him slink around the screen while those indescribably shitty special effects made him into the Master of Witchcraft. This wasn't just a normal world in which it happened to be Halloween - this was a world that was perpetually Halloween, in terms of mood if not always in terms of calendar date.

That's what I really miss about Halloween. But then... there's always nostalgia. That's what the internet is for, after all.

Happy Halloween, my Loyal Zombie Minions. This month is for you, whether the world knows it or not.

The last thing I said to her was, "See you soon."

2009-01-14T08:09:20Z

This is going to be a bit different from my normal entries, my zombie minions, though I suppose calling any entries on this blog "normal" these days is kind of odd considering how infrequently they come up.

For one, this entry is not going to be long, involved or wordy. This entry isn't for my sake, or for the sake of my ever-growing armies of the undead; it's about a friend of mine who, considering recent events, was not nearly so close a friend as perhaps she should have been.

Becky Borlaug, who I met less than a year ago, died this past Friday. She didn't have a peaceful or traditionally virtuous life, and there were not always exclusively complimentary things that could be said about her, but she was always very kind to me.

We played cribbage a few times. I think she might have cheated.

She had...a very troublesome life. In whatever way it may come about, I hope she's better off now than she was. She was twenty-six years old. I liked seeing her. She was my friend.

Know what killed Vaudeville? The movin' pictures!

2008-02-26T09:21:25Z

Movie meme
1. Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.
5. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
6. Those who guess correctly have to do the Meme next!

1) "I think you mean to draw a Lister Knife." jeklnskinsgrl
-From Hell

2) "It's really hard for me to play with myself in this thing..."

3) "We thought you'd shot your bolt!"

4) "They look like good, strong hands" whichbunny
-The Neverending Story

5) "For a handful of coin I happen to have a private and uncut performance of "The Rape of the Sabine Women"...or rather, woman...or rather, Alfred..." jeklnskinsgrl
-Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

6) "Can you remember no melody of mine? I was the most famous composer in Europe. I wrote 40 operas alone."

7) "It's practically the distillation of my life so far - I've become famous simply for being outrageous."

8) "Don't dare impugn me honor, boy!" veggisubstitute
-Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl

9) "Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated." petshopboy1983
-Quills

10) "I don't fucking believe this! Can everyone stop gettin' shot?" petshopboy1983
-Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

11) "No one likes a debtor, so it's better if my orders are obeyed" koriandrkitten
-The Phantom of The Opera

12) "You mistake me, my dear. I have the utmost respect for your nerves. They've been my constant companion these twenty years."

13) "Oh, can't I have a little peril?" petshopboy1983
-Monty Python and The Search For The Holy Grail

14) "Tell me how you would harm me - when even I don't know how I could harm myself." jeklnskinsgrl
-Shadow of The Vampire

15) "The slow blade penetrates the shield" evil_jim
-Dune

Bonfire Night

2007-11-05T20:31:13Z

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;

More to follow after I take a shower and load up on caffeine.

sweetconcord @ 2007-11-02T14:48:00

2007-11-02T19:53:38Z

This actually intrigues me...

If you had me alone...locked up in your house for twenty-four hours and I had to do whatever you wanted me to, what would you do with/to me?

I want details! ;)

All replies will be permanently screened because it's a secret. Then repost this in your LJ. You might be surprised with the responses you get.

I've actually worked out how to screen my comments, and they won't be made public or shared with anyone. I'm kind of curious to see if anyone comments at all, and if at all honestly, so go to town!

Friday Five, fifty-eight minutes into Saturday...

2007-07-28T05:58:54Z

1. What item would you be embarrassed for people to know you own?

I don't really own that much, and what little I do own has been hand-picked to suit me as a person. That kind of makes it hard to pick out anything I own that embarrasses me. I have a couple Disney movies on VHS, one of which is Mulan and all of which I'm very fond of. That's a little embarrassing, maybe.

I also have a small box of what can only be described as Discount Porn, which isn't embarrassing because it's pornography so much as it's embarrassing because it's the kind of pornography that you buy when you don't have enough cash for anything decent.

But even that isn't really all that embarrassing. I suppose the most embarrassing things I own are old drawings that I've done which are, compared to what I can do now, utter crap. It's pretty embarrassing to show those to other people and say, "Yeah, I did this."

2. What is something you splurged on just for you?

As I said, I don't really own that much stuff. However, the most expensive thing I own by far is my Wacom Tablet. It was totally frivolous, I get around to using it much less than I would like, and it was remarkably expensive. I also bought the largest one I could find, because I don't like working small and the little ones looked like they would limit my range of motion.

3. What is something that you own with no real world value that is priceless to you?

My sketchbooks? Also, I own a share of Hal's Ass that has yet to have any quantitative monetary value set for it by the New York Stock Exchange. I shall continue to wait and sit on (haha!) this particular commodity until such a time as the world recognizes its remarkable value.

4. Do you collect anything?

Porn. Well, I used to. My computer used to have a rather impressive and encyclopedic collection of digital smut, but I have since had to wipe the hard drive. I do kind of collect books, too. Especially books that pertain to the humanities or contain noteworthy illustrations. And, like any bibliophile, I have a particular fondness for old books.

5. What item belonging to a friend/family member do you covet?

I dunno if there's anything anybody owns that I covet out of sheer greed, really. I covet some of my friends' cars, because having one would make the logistics of my life much simpler. I covet my friend Justin's laptop, but if I were to be completely honest with myself I would admit that, if I had one, it would see about as much use as my Wacom Tablet; I have a nice desktop, a flash drive, and a tendency to sequester myself in my bedroom - I have no cause to use a laptop. I do know someone who has something that I covet quite desperately, but I don't really know if possession can be applied to the thing in question; it's not even a thing, really, and the question specifically asks about an item.

The closest I've ever really come to covetousness is when I admire other people's talent. I covet some of my friends' artistic ability, and I covet my brother's ability to write, particularly in rhyme and meter. I suppose that's about as close as I can get to actually answering the question...

On heroes and villains

2007-07-23T02:46:04Z

First things first: I cannot find my cellphone. I must apologize to anyone who has tried to call me in the last two weeks or so; I haven't been ignoring you so much as I've been completely cut off from any mode of communication that isn't the internet. So if you need to (or, for some lunatic reason beyond my understanding, want to) contact me, AIM or email would be the best ways. My email address is still yayforspooky@yahoo.com and my AIM name is "Yay For Spooky".

Now, on to the pointless rambling that I probably care about more than anyone reading. Yay!

As much as I hate to be the typical arrogant college student (I prefer instead to be a thoroughly unique sort of arrogant college student), I have to admit that I've been reading some of Nietzsche's writing and found it to be quite interesting. Two of his ideas in particular struck me as being very insightful.

The first was a differentiation between what he called the Priestly Virtue, the way things are now, and the Knightly Virtue, which hasn't existed in a very long time. The Knightly Virtue, he said, went like this -
X = Good
I do X
Therefore, I am Good

This, I think you will find, leads people to be generally pleased with themselves and, overall, quite happy. After all, you're always Good. Even if someone is very obviously more Good than you, you still have at least something to be proud of.

The Priestly Virtue, on the other hand, ran along these lines-
X = Bad
I do not do X
Therefore, I am not Bad

The best you can hope for when you see the world and your place in it like this is a kind of neutrality. Your absolute height of achievement is, through constant vigilance, to reach a sort of moral Zero in which you've managed to totally avoid slipping into the negatives at all. Effectively, you break even.

According to the Priestly Virtue, the world is full of Bad things waiting to be done, so WATCH OUT. The world of the Knightly Virtue, however, is full of great things being done by people who see themselves not in the context of all the terrible things they and their fellows have done that count against them, but in the context of all of the great things that they and their fellows have done that make them fucking awesome.

When you get right down to it, people do good and bad things. There is no more or less wickedness in either of these systems, or so Nietzsche said, but one of them produces happy, exuberant people who enjoy life and the other leads people into self-loathing, guilt and psychological agony. And even worse, he said, since the Priestly Virtue has become our dominant method of thought, it's very unlikely that we'll get back to anything like the Knightly Virtue ever again.

The other bit of Nietzsche's writing that I found quite moving(once again, to my deepest shame for following the trends of College Chic) was something commonly called the Demon Parable or the idea of Eternal Return. It was, if nothing else, really well written. I probably won't be able to reproduce all of that style and eloquence here, and it's too long to quote, so I'll do my best to get the gist of it. It went like this-

"What if, in your loneliest of lonelinesses, a demon came to you and said, 'Your life, as you have lived it, as you live it now, and as you will live it, you will live again. Every breath, every moment, every sigh of pain and gasp of joy, and even this moment between you and me, you will live again and again, for times without number. You will experience this life exactly as you have experienced it, without any memory of experiencing it previously, over and over for all time.'?
What would you do? Most any of us would throw ourselves to the ground and weep at that hellish proclamation. But who among us has experienced one single moment that would prompt us, upon recollection, to say to that demon, 'You, sir, are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!'
And would this knowledge weigh infinitely heavy on your shoulders so that, with every passing moment, you thought, "Do I want this again and again, times without number?" Or how well disposed toward life and toward yourself would you have to be to want for nothing greater than this eternal sanction and seal?"

Between those two ideas, the opposed virtues and the Eternal Return idea, Nietzsche obviously had a pretty epic outlook on life. Or, at least, he wanted to. He kind of got into it about how the Priestly Virtue had killed any hope of ever getting even close to anything like the Knightly Virtue alive in the world again, but I like to think that he hoped for it. The Demon Parable kind of did the same thing, sort of encouraging anyone who read it to live their lives in such a way that, no matter what else happened to them, the good outweighed the bad.

So that's my philosophical musing for the moment, my horrible zombie minions. Now go out there and maul someone into a fine, pasty goo. But remember to do it in an epic manner.

sweetconcord @ 2007-07-15T06:20:00

2007-07-15T11:19:18Z

Yeah, I know I haven't posted anything of any real merit recently. I do plan on making an entry about CONvergence, because that was just awesome, but I don't think I have the mind power right now.

...That always seems to trip me up, not having mind powers. So many of my problems would be solved if I were a Jedi.

Anyway! Here's the Friday Five survey of the week. This one seemed like it would be a lot of fun, just because I really like quotes.

What is your favorite quote....

1) ... on family?

"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest

"Above the hearth was a huge needlepoint sign saying 'Mother'. No tyrant in the whole history of the world had ever achieved a domination so complete."
-Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

2) ... on relationships? (marriage, friendships, etc)

"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other."
- J.K. Rowling

"A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores."
- Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

3) ... attitude?

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!"
- Soren Aaby Kierkegaard

"I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones."
- The Doctor, Doctor Who

4) ... happiness?

"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."
- Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

"A man may fight for many things: his country, his principles, his friends, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally I'd mud wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock, and a sack of French porn!"
-Blackadder

5) ... success?

"The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for."
- Oscar Wilde

"My mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope.' Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."
- Pablo Picasso

I wish the topics had been more conducive to my more entertaining quotes, but I suppose the survey was designed to make you go "huh"....

Three-word answers only

2007-06-28T05:28:35Z

I was gonna make some kind of play on the bridge-keeper's lines from Holy Grail in the subject heading, but...too tired to be clever.

So, here it is. Some of them were actually a bit challenging

1. Where is your cell phone?: Around here somewhere...

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend?: Impossible to predict

3. Your hair?: Shoulder-length blond

4. Where is your father?: Usually Home Depot

6. Your favorite thing to do?: Gaming, nudey-groovin'

7. Your dream last night?: I didn't sleep

8. Your favorite drink?: Gin and Tonic

9. Your dream car?: Does the TARDIS count?
(TARDIS, being not only an abbreviation, but a fictional abbreviation, is not an actual word...and this, being in parentheses, is not part of my actual answer)

10. The room you're in?: Comfortably lived-in

12. Your fears?: Peter Pan Syndrom

15. What you're not good at?: Pretty much everything

16. Muffins?: Sound lovely, thanks

17. One of your wish list items?: A nice laptop

18. Where did you grow up?: Madison's east side

19. The last thing you did before this survey?: Finished my essay.

20. What are you wearing?: Jeans, combat boots

23. Your computer?: serves my purposes

24. Your life?: Will mean something

25. Your mood?: Exhausted, relieved, anxious

26. Missing?: Wisconsin, and cigarettes

27. What are you thinking about right now?: Gotta do dishes

28. Your car?: Was fucking awesome

29. Your work?: Gainfully unemployed, thanks

30. Your summer?: Hectic, but productive

31. Your relationship status?: Confused, but content

32. Your favorite color(s): Black, Green and Silver

33. When is the last time you laughed?: Few hours ago

34. Last time you cried?: I lost her.

35. School?: Actually looking up

sweetconcord @ 2007-06-20T21:26:00

2007-06-21T03:39:19Z

I might have talked to a few of you about this already, and I might have already written about it here, but I'm going to write about it again because it's just one of those things that I find remarkably impressive. Actually, it concerns a fellow who remains one of the only members of the clergy that I have any respect for.

So, in the early 15th century, there was this fellow named Nicholas of Cusa. He was a Cardinal in the Catholic Church, and also a fairly learned mathematician and theologian. During this time period, the official scientific view of the Church was in a Geocentric model of the universe - That is, the Earth was the center point around which all other celestial bodies revolved.

Nicholas of Cusa, being a rather odd and inquisitive thinker, found this idea inherently flawed. In fact, he produced one of the most amazing pieces of reasoning that I have ever heard to disprove a Geocentric universe, and it had nothing to do with astronomical calculations or the Sun, or anything else. He did it entirely with If-Then statements and logic, which I think is pretty damned impressive.

If, he said, we assume that the Earth is the center of the universe, then we must assume that the boundaries of the universe are all equidistant from the Earth. That's what "center" means. So, for something to have a center, it has to have an outer edge. However, he said, if we are to put boundaries on the universe, and therefore on space itself, then we have to define what is beyond those boundaries in spacial terms. That's impossible if there is no space beyond the boundary of space, which cannot exist if there is nothing beyond it with which to define the boundary itself.

This, obviously, presents a paradox, which he called the Paradox of Bounded Space. Explaining it is easier with pictures, but it also kind of helps to understand it if you consider the paradox he presented by extending the same idea to time, as well as space. If, he said, we assume a Beginning of Time, we have to define that event as a point in time - It has to be defined in temporal terms like "after" and, more problematically, "before". Any other point in time has a "before" and an "after", as well as existing as a "before" and an "after" to other points in time. The Beginning of Time has nothing before it. There is no way to define the time before the Beginning of Time using temporal terminology, and therefore no way to define the Beginning of Time using temporal terminology. It simply cannot exist as a moment in time.

Obviously, he couldn't have had any evidence that would lead him to these conclusions. This was all an act of reason, unprompted and unsupported by any other theories of the time period. It's also really elegant and simple, when you get down to it.

So...I dunno...fair play, Mister Of Cusa.

Anyone hoping for an entry that has anything to do with my life, or what's been going on recently, is probably seriously disappointed right about now. That's okay, Nicholas of Cusa is a lot more interesting that me, anyway...

twenty-three years and fifty minutes, and not all that much to show...

2007-05-08T16:21:37Z

I don't know if I like this. Twenty-two was a bit like twenty-one, which was itself a pretty cool age to be. Now, though...twenty-three? I feel old, and kind of like I ought to have accomplished a bit more by now.

Those mad scientist guys had better get their shit together on that gene therapy that stops aging. Mortality just isn't my thing.

sweetconcord @ 2007-05-05T03:16:00

2007-05-06T00:32:09Z

In doing research for my final essay in my English class, I came across something that started my mind off on a tangent. I was reading a paper written by a professor of Sociology at a christian liberal arts college that concerned his teaching scientific ideas on gender roles to a student body that had been indoctrinated with christian dogma all their lives, and were expecting that he continue that tradition. He wrote mostly about maintaining scholastic integrity in the face of that religious indoctrination, and about how he convinced his students not to ignore empirical data regardless of its not agreeing with their personal beliefs - Facts are facts, more or less, but you're still free to believe whatever you want.

This got me thinking about, not surprisingly, teaching at a private christian school. What really struck me was the idea that it genuinely wouldn't bother me, provided I were teaching something like Art History. I imagine that a christian school's coverage of art history would focus mainly on the Renaissance, which would be ideal for my purposes for two different and equally functional reasons.

First, the vast majority of renaissance art was intended to convey religiousity of some kind. That means I wouldn't have to skew the context or meaning of the work in order to give the students the message that the school administrators want. Quite simply, it's already there. I wouldn't have to feel dirty about saying that a particular work was inspired by religion if it actually was.

And secondly, Renaissance art being what it is, and students who chose to go to private christian schools being what they are, my job would be very nearly done for me. Show me a devoted christian who looks at the Pieta or the Sistine Chapel and needs to be convinced of its inspiration. I don't need to explain to them how such things evoke feelings of faith and devotion when, shit, I almost reconsidered my agnosticism after seeing a few of the more moving pieces. The only difference, really, between their point of view and mine is that where they look and see the glory of god, I look and see the glory of man. And, in terms of word usage, the explanations are quite similar.

So I teach what I would be teaching anyway, maybe slip in a surreptitious "Man is the measure of all things" here and there to stew in their brainpans, and I'm subtly forcing open the minds of youth otherwise doomed to zealous dogma. I could only hope that some of the ideals of the Renaissance might slip in along with whatever stories they want to tell themselves about the world at large.

I don't know why I felt compelled to tell you all about that, my precious zombie minions, but it kind of made me stop and go, "huh..."
So that's that.

Spooky

2007-04-19T00:17:37Z

I had something interesting happen to me last night.

It was around four thirty in the morning and I had gone outside for a cigarette. I was standing on the stoop when I saw an old homeless man walking down the middle of the street, along the yellow line. He was wearing an old, tattered coat and carrying plastic bags full of, I assume, whatever he had managed to hang onto over the course of whatever life he may have had. He looked like he was about to die, just shuffling down the street toward the bus stop on the corner.

Just as he got to the corner, a bus pulled up to the stop and the old man got on. I didn't see him pay any kind of fare, I don't think, and buses in Minneapolis stop running at around two in the morning. They don't start again until after the sun has come up.

As the bus drove off I saw that there was no one else on it except the driver and this old man. I couldn't shake the feeling that he had died some minutes ago, and that there's a bus that comes to pick up the people who die homeless and alone. I suddenly felt very sad for him, and all I could think was, "Better luck next time, old boy." I hope he got to wherever he needed to go.

I suppose I kind of have to...

2007-04-18T04:37:05Z

Comment and I'll:
1 - Tell you why I friended you.
2 - Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, a sexual position, etc. (Or, not)
3 - Tell you something I like about you.
4 - Tell you a memory I have of you.
5 - Associate you with a character/pairing.
6 - Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
7 - Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
8 - In return, you must post this in your LJ.

I seem to have gone quite thoroughly mad...

2007-04-10T11:03:40Z

God, I'd forgotten what comes after the first 48 hours of being awake: Paranoia and blurred lines between fantasy and reality. I'd like to think that the idea of constantly peering over my shoulder to check for ghouls and goblins that I know are only in my head to begin with but frighten me nonetheless, simply with the prospect of being frightened of them, would inspire me to not pull all-nighters two days in a row.

I'd like to think that, but I have a feeling I'll end up doing this again. So, I imagine I'll have another chance to almost-see some of the awful things my subconscious can create.

"The other day, upon the stair,
I saw a man who wasn't there;
He wasn't there again today;
Oh, how I wish he'd go away!"

Expect more of an update in the near future, after I finally manage to sleep away my night terrors.

Just another survey

2007-04-02T10:17:02Z

Q: Kissed someone on your top friends?
A: Top friends? Wait...what? I think most of my friends are bottoms, actually.

Q: Been arrested?
A: Not arrested, no. I was, however, put in the back of a police car and given donuts once.

Q: Kissed someone you didn't like?
A: Yeah, my first girlfriend, Cassie. There was a period of time, toward the end, where I didn't especially like her.

Q: You like someone?
A: Oh my, yes.

Q: Held a snake?
A: Yup.

Q: Been suspended from school?
A: Not suspended, no. Academic probation, though.

Q: Been fired from a job?
A: Not so much fired as "let go"...

Q: Sang karaoke?
A: Yup. Five Hundred Miles and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Q: Done something you told yourself you wouldn't?
A: Constantly. My willpower is remarkably flimsy.

Q: Caught a snowflake on your tongue?
A: Yup, though not for a long time.

Q: Kissed in the rain?
A: Yes, and I highly recommend it.

Q: Sang in the shower?
A: Again, constantly. The acoustics are just too good not to.

Q: Sat on a roof top?
A: Yup. There's something about drinking on a rooftop, staring at the clouds and contemplating, that makes a person feel a lot more philosophical than he has any right to.

Q: Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on?
A: Never. I fight like a cornered animal in those situations.

Q: Broken a bone?
A: Again, never. I'm kind of a coward, so I tend to avoid situations in which I could break a bone.

Q: Shaved your head?
A: Not personally. But once, when I was really little, I had my head shaved. I discovered that I have a very unattractive skull, as well as a veritable crop of freckles on my cranium.

Q: Played a prank on someone?
A: Not anything elaborate enough to call a prank. My friends and I mostly just engage in extended sniping and verbal confustication.

Q: Had/have a gym membership?
A: A trial membership, though I didn't go often.

Q: Made a girlfriend/boyfriend cry?
A: Yes, to my everlasting shame.

Q: Shot a gun?
A: Not a real one, no. I don't like guns.

Q: Donated Blood?
A: Yeah, as often as I can make time for.

Q: Had your heart broken?
A: God, yes

Q: Broken someone's heart?
A: Once again, to my everlasting shame.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Who was your last?"
just be 100% truthful

LAST PERSON.

1. You hung out with?
A: A group of people I've been playing DnD with: Mitch, Justin, Mike, Nick, Vah and Spencer

3. You were in a car with?
A: Mitch and Nick, when they came to pick me up for the aforementioned DnD session

4. Went to the movies with?
A: I saw 300 with Gavin last week.

5. Went to the mall with?
A: Gavin, to meet Hal and Jonah over winter break

6. You talked on the phone?
A: Probably my mom, explaining why exactly Gavin had to bring me back to Minnesota and why he had to spend the night.

7. Made you laugh?
A: One of the DnD guys, though I can't remember which.

8. You hugged?
A: Shanti, actually. He always hugs us when he leaves the apartment.

10. You cried with?
A: Hal.

WOULD YOU RATHER...?

1. Pierce your nose or tongue?
A: Nose. I don't like oral wounds of any kind, and my nose certainly has room for a ring or two. My mouth is kind of small in general, though, and a tongue piercing would just bother me.

2. Be serious or be funny?
A: Oh god, funny. I don't do too well with serious things, unfortunately.

3. Drink whole or skim milk?
A: I prefer whole milk.

4. Die in a fire or get shot?
A: Shot, definitely. I can't think of a worse way to die than being burned, unless I were to get overly elaborate and somehow involve the application of rodents. A gunshot is quick, relatively painless, but still very dramatic. I would want it in the chest, actually, because I'd like to know it was coming before I died.

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY...

1. Sun or moon?
A: Moon. The sun seems very abrasive to me, but the moon is so much more gentle

2. Winter or Fall?
A: Fall. The only unfortunate thing about the fall is that it leads to winter, which is much less pleasant and much colder.

3. Left or right
A: Left, for most everything. Though, because I'm left-handed, the prosthesis I have planned for the event of my losing a hand is going on the right. I wouldn't want to lose my left hand, even if it were to be replaced with a stainless steel fist etched with snazzy runes. But my right hand...man, fuck that guy.

4. Sunny or rainy?
A: I prefer the rain. Summer rain is the best.

8. Do you want to get married?
A: I'm not planning on it, no. I know if I did it would feel more like a formality, like something I should feel excited about, but don't. Quite a lot like my highschool prom, actually, which is hardly something I want to associate with life-long love.

9. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it?
A: Twirl. Sucking up the long strands is just way too much fun.

13. Do You Cook?
A: I try to cook. I like to think I do well more often than I do badly, but who doesn't like to think that?

14. Current mood?
A: Resigned
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN THE LAST 48 HOURS HAVE YOU...

1. Kissed someone?
A: Technically, yes

2. Sang?
A: Yup. The Old Orange Flute, in the shower with the previously described excellent acoustics.

3. Been hugged?
A: Indeed. Again, Shanti. He's very affectionate.

5. Danced Crazy?
A: I don't really dance crazy so much as I dance stupid. I alternate between doing the Jon Travolta Pulp Fiction twist, and a more bizarre sort of body convulsion. The latter is sort of what I imagine a person would look like if they were at once on fire and could not find their keys.

6. Cried?
A: Not in the last 48 hours, no.

7. Like someone you can't have?
A: Constantly.

I have a feeling this may irritate some people.

2007-03-28T03:36:49Z

I’ve been thinking about something recently, and while it might seem like a result of my current situation it’s actually just something I’ve come to realize over a long period of time in interacting with most all of my friends. Jeremy and Marc are the first to spring to mind, as well as a few of my female acquaintances from MIAD, but it seems to come up pretty universally at one time or another for everyone I know. I want to preface this by saying that I know how angst-ridden it sounds, but believe me, my loyal zombie minions, I have put a great deal of thought into finding some evidence that it isn’t so. I just haven’t found any.

So, what is this grand and obviously depressing thought that’s been ricocheting around in my brainpan recently? Well, after a great deal of observation and investigation, and as much as I wanted to believe the contrary, I’ve come to this conclusion about the fairer sex: Girls are invariably attracted to assholes. Yup, as much as I hate clichés, I have been forced to concede to this particular favorite of the Emo crowd; nice guys finish last.

I’ve heard a depressing number of accounts from friends, both male and female, that support the idea. I’ve seen female friends repeatedly date uncouth, ill-mannered jackanapes that seem to treat them with only tertiary regard. And, over and over, I’ve seen some of the sweetest and most intelligent guys I know spurned for self-important, womanizing jackasses.

That last sentence, the one above this one, I considered leaving out. I nearly deleted it just now because I thought it sounded a little too…how shall I put this…personally narrative. I thought you, my loyal zombie minions, might assume that this entire entry was an ill-concealed rant limited in scope to my own immediate experiences. I didn’t remove it because that would have been dishonest. This post is partially inspired by my own experiences, but they’re hardly the beginning and end of this observation, and the sentence in question that might suggest they are applies to a fair few other people more accurately than it applies to me.

I’m hardly one of the sweetest and most intelligent people I know, for one. No, if there’s any anger in this post, it isn’t a passive-aggressive result of my current situation.

But now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to discuss some of the deeper thoughts I’ve had on the matter. Care to come along? Lovely.

The ever-present question with regards to this jewel of an observation is, of course, Why? What is it about wretched men that women find so very attractive? And what is it about women that fuels that attraction? As I said, I’ve put a lot of thought into the question over the years and, while my conclusions are hardly sage-like or overly insightful, the question does merit discussion, so I shall sally forth with them.

Growing up, I was assailed by all manner of imagery and media that suggested to me that, ultimately, the idea that girls want the bad boy who treats them like dirt is entirely fallacious and constructed entirely by an archaic patriarchy to justify the objectification and degradation of women.

Obviously, my young self thought, this is a bad thing (incidentally, my present self thinks this is a bad thing as well. If he didn’t, this post would have a much more upbeat, “yay, I get to treat women like dirt and come out on top” sort of theme). So I assumed that it was this ingrained idea that led women to stay in relationships with unpleasant men, that they had been convinced that this sort of individual was the sort of fellow they were supposed to date, despite inclinations to the contrary. After all, every after school special (and most every other modern work of fiction that involves such themes) suggested that women really want the nice guy, who is invariably shown to be the far superior individual at the end of the story.

And yet, as I find discrepancies between what is described in fiction and what exists in reality, I cannot help but find this rather disgusting myth proved true far too often for my liking. This attraction to the dregs of society undeniably exists. So, back to the original question of Why.

Delving into the idea itself (because if the old idea proves true despite assertions to the contrary, the old justifications for the idea may prove true as well), I can come up with several possibilities, none or all of which may be at least partially true. Is it an ingrained desire to be objectified or used? Is servitude to a domineering individual an undeniable part of the female psyche? Or is it simply that these traits that modern society seems to condemn in theory are really more desirable than we would like to admit to ourselves in practice?

I honestly don’t know, and it galls me. It gnaws at me, because I grew up trying to sculpt my own personality away from the more base, caveman, testosterone-drenched ideas presented to me by my peers, only to find now that those very same traits I was told were condemned are actually embraced by the people whose interests I was taking to heart in the first place.

But should it really turn my stomach that much when I consistently see guys much better received by females at large when they behave like pompous, condescending louts? What business is it of mine, really, if otherwise shrewd, savvy and proud young women, who by no means would tolerate genuinely crude, degrading behavior from a perfect stranger, tolerate the same behavior from their boyfriends?

It may well be none of my business, but I still want to know why. Such hypocritical behavior demands an explanation, though I can’t imagine one is forthcoming anytime soon.

Because everyone else seems to have done it...

2007-03-27T18:29:34Z

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Gamer/Computer Nerd You enjoy the visual stimulants of a video game, chatting on AIM, or reading online comics. Most of these types of nerds are considered dirty who lack hygeine, of course they always end up being the ones who make a crapload of money. And don't worry, that's just a stereotype; I'm not calling you dirty. ^_~
Literature Nerd
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Anime Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
Science/Math Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

When I think on Bunclody, I am ready to die...

2007-03-22T20:39:59Z

So, I've been prodded into making another Livejournal update...

This is hardly surprising, as I'm pretty impressionable and fairly easy to coerce. Unfortunately, because the impetus was not my own, this means I have no idea what to write about.

Not that that's never stopped me before. Now, let's see...

Well, for one, the electricity bill we received after a year of not paying for electricity - and that I managed to haggle into a monthly addition to our now-monthly bill - has become a lump sum again. Some nonsense about a change in Xcel Energy's billing system or something. Not that this is especially awful, as I was hoping to pay off my share before moving out anyway, but it kind of came at a bad time and necessitated borrowing some cash from my dad so as not to be completely strapped for the next few months. As it is, it will be nice not to have to worry about it once it's completely taken care of.

I suppose I could talk about my classes, but there really isn't much to tell. That's actually kind of pleasant, seeing as there aren't any problems to speak of. The only outstanding point of interest is that I have to read four chapters on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire before next week, for my World History midterm, and that's something I can do fairly easily. It'll just take some time and a little focus, so really it's only a matter of getting around to it.

My Geography professor doesn't even require that anyone come to class, except on exam days. Though, I'm glad I went in the day after the exam; he spent most of the class talking about his experiences in college, sort of as a "don't get discouraged" mid-semester pep talk. It was actually quite touching; I haven't done it justice by describing it as a pep talk. He's a really nice guy, very open and genuinely interested in helping more or less anyone he meets.

Anyway.

I've been in Madison all this week, for Spring Break. Mostly, I've just been hanging out with Gavin and screwing around. He and I met up with Grog a few times to playtest a tabletop RPG he'd written when he was still living in Florida. It's pretty amusing, and the system works really well so far, though we haven't gotten too far along.

There was also the St. Patrick's Day party at Nick and Kyle's house. Hal and Jonah were there as well, which was...different. Jonah spent most of the night schmoozing, while Hal spent most of the night playing Warcraft on her laptop. Marc spent the majority of the evening trying to tell me how much better off I was because now I could get drunk with him. I think I threatened his life at one point, and I'm pretty sure I discovered a much greater understanding of alcohol as a "depressant."

Other than that, there isn't much to tell.

I met up with a friend of mine, Peter, who I hadn't seen in several years. My first girlfriend was best friends with his first girlfriend, and he and I had been rather chummy before either of us could get a date, so our friendship is kind of unique. It was fun to catch up and converse about nothing; I think I may be going bowling on friday with him and some of his friends. I'm not sure, but I think I may have taken one of them to my senior prom. One of his friends, that is, not Peter. Still...weird.

I don't think I've done anything else of note recently. I've been watching a lot of Star Trek: Enterprise online lately, though, and I have to say that it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. As far as being a Star Trek series, it falls painfully short, but when compared to things like Andromeda or Farscape it's actually pretty amusing. Unlike the rest of Star Trek, though, I find myself liking the secondary characters more than the main characters. This is hardly a positive aspect of the show, seeing as the main cast becomes a kind of support for the regular extras, but I'd still watch the show just for Dr. Flox. The only instance of anything like that in a Star Trek series that I've encountered was the Garak character on DS9, but he was just distilled awesomeness, so I can understand how he could steal the spotlight of any episode he was in. I think half the reason I enjoy Enterprise at all is because I started watching it with very low expectations.

Anyway, that's all from me for now. Hopefully I've been at least mildly entertaining, but if not...eh. Apathy is the coin of the realm at the moment. Anything else, if you'll forgive my brief descent into angst, is just a little too painful.

So, until next time, my loyal zombie minions - Excelsior!

Potentially insulting, if not worded carefully...

2007-02-27T01:46:57Z

Today on the bus there were these three very hardcore...I dunno how to say it politely...urban gentlemen talking about the most efficient ways of not getting shot by cops when fleeing a crime scene. I'm not sure if it was just bravado or not, but they kind of sounded like they had experience in this particular field.

Anyway, I mention this for two reasons. First, they were talking in very heavy Ebonics, and I found myself analyzing the speech patterns used therein. I remember a disagreement Hal and I had some time ago as to whether or not Ebonics counted as a dialect, or if it was just bad English. I had always assumed that it was just really badly mispronounced English, but I think I might have been swayed just by listening to them. It made sense, all together, as its own language almost completely removed from the rules that apply to proper English. There was a structure that, while different from the structure of English, was no less present. I suppose it's something that you have to hear, and really listen to, to understand if it isn't a method of speech you learned through exposure. I was actually quite fascinated.

Secondly, one of these guys used the word "Banger" to refer to his gun, which I had never heard before and thought was kind of a cool term. Not that I could get away with using it or anything, it just sounds like something they would have said in Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or something...

So, those are Collin's Reflections For The Day. Who would like to tell me how big of a nerd this makes me? Posting on Livejournal about the linguistic merits of Ebonics? I could not be any more of a white boy if I were wearing tweed and argyle. Wait...sonuvabitch, I am wearing tweed and argyle. Eh, anyway, those are Collin's Reflections For The Day.

When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw...

2007-02-25T11:22:13Z

"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite spaces...were it not that I have bad dreams," says Hamlet.

I swear, if I have one more night's worth of trauma, I'm going to figure out which part of my brain handles REM sleep and carve it out with a melon baller...

Because, really, at this point I only have two kinds of dreams: The bad, and the awful. The bad dreams are like most bad dreams I've had, though they've been cropping up with more frequency recently. They tend to involve powerlessness and isolation, as most of my bad dreams have in the past.

The awful dreams, however, are somewhat different. These are the dreams that make me happy. They never last very long, but they always seem completely real, and in the few minutes they last I experience something so profoundly joyful that I am completely devastated when I wake up and find that it never happened. It's like having Paradise snatched away from you on a daily basis, and then having to go through your day painfully aware of its absence.

I think my own mind is trying to drive me crazy. If not, it should be, because it's doing a damn fine job and it would be the first thing my mind has succeeded at in a long time.

I can't think of a clever way to end this that involves zombie minions, but I quoted Hamlet twice in this entry, so that counts for something.

Holy. Friggin'. Crap.

2007-02-19T00:44:57Z

I recently had described to me over instant messenger a National Geographic special about sunken ships that had a few...unexpected scenes. There was a team investigating a ship at the bottom of the ocean, in some kind of submersible vehicle, at depths too harsh and caustic to harbor any overly complicated life.

Then they saw something in the sunken ship they were investigating. They saw it move. And they did not want to continue investigating.

But, being intrepid scientists trapped in a tiny submarine with a television camera and several thousand meters of pitch black liquid funeral above them, they had no choice. This movement they saw was apparently over a large enough area that they thought it was a group of things cohabitating, and at first they were disturbed by the fact that nothing should live long enough at such depths to form into any kind of colony and inhabit something like a sunken ship.

Then, as they analyzed the movement, they came to the conclusion that they had been wrong all along. The movement suggested that it wasn't a colony of creatures at all, but a single entity large enough to be mistaken for a colony. Then they were disturbed for all kinds of other fun reasons.

Eventually, because they weren't certain how the water would effect the dive suits they had, they sent out some kind of dummy dive suit on a tether. They lost the dummy when the tether was snapped by some force they were unable to identify.

Roll credits.

sweetconcord @ 2007-02-16T17:48:00

2007-02-16T23:49:35Z

I don’t have anything remarkably new to write about at the moment, but I thought I should keep up with the more frequent posts, so here’s…something, at any rate.

A few posts ago I put up the first stanza of a poem that I was rather fond of, and yesterday on the bus I worked out a second stanza. This is what I have now-

“In the lobby of corpses, they sit by the sill,
Waiting and watching, insensate and still;
While about them the shadows of doctors all mill,
Silent and faceless, bereft of their skill.

For ghostly hands can never heal,
But ghostly minds will always reel,
And ghostly cries will always peal,
For the pain that ghostly hearts e’er feel.”

I also have the first portion of a poem I’ve wanted to write for quite a while. It’s an ode, and was inspired by “Ode to Spot”, featured on Star Trek: The Next Generation and recited by Brent Spiner (playing Data). I really like the idea of a very lofty sort of poem, written in a very lofty sort of language, about something as mundane and simple as a housecat or as base as pornography. It’s still very rough, as I wrote it all at once before my History class, so please forgive the lapses in meter and rhythm. This is just the introduction, but I have no idea where to take it from here. Still, I thought it was rather appropriate for Valentines Day…

“When, of pleasing company, one finds oneself bereft;
There comes a cause, at self-sufficiency, to grow manually deft;
For, without a fond compatriot returning one’s affections,
It’s all that one can do, indulging onanistic predilections;
And from these most tragic circumstances universally is born;
That deep, dividing human interest in the wonder that is porn.”

At this rate, I should have a small collection of written work ready for publication about three years before I die. So, you know, be ready for that, my little zombie minions. It’ll be big.

...I swear I once was pretty, not the monster you now see...

2007-01-30T14:47:30Z

Anyone I talk to regularly will know already that Hal and I split up recently, and that I was really devastated for quite a while. I thought I had lost a relationship with the most amazing person I'd ever met, someone I've been in love with for the vast majority of my (albeit short) adult life - If mine can even be called an adult life, and I felt completely and entirely alone. I was absolutely desperate, and would have done anything to repair the relationship.

I spent a long time thinking about it, talking to the people I trust the most, trying to sort my head out and make sense of what's happened. I finally realized that, while I regret a lot of the things that happened that led to Hal and I splitting up, I cannot do anything about them now. This is the only way that she and I can move forward in our lives, both as individuals and as people who care about each other, and I've finally realized that I won't really be losing her from my life. Hell, I don't think either of us could completely remove the other from our minds or our lives, and we've actually gotten closer than we've been for some time in this past week. Whatever happens, I know she and I will always be very close friends, and that closeness is what I had missed in the last months of our relationship. As I said, it's the only way for us to move forward in whatever relationship we have.

While I was in Wisconsin over break I had a feeling that things were going to get better when I got back to Minneapolis, and when Hal broke things off I thought that those hopes had just been destroyed, but now I'm beginning to think that I was right.

It struck me very early yesterday morning that I'm going to be okay. It was a remarkable calm that came over me, and I knew that things were going to be alright, whatever happens.

Thanks to all of my zombie minions who talked me through things. Your vile undead master is finally doing well.