Tuesday, July 29, 2008

I need 883 numbers. Help me!

My cousin just sent me a text message: If you don't send this to 1000 people, you will be sexually harrassed by elves.

Talk about shitty luck... Now I've gotta start furiously accumulating cell numbers to preserve my well being. 10 people is one thing but 1000??? If only chain letters weren't real, then I wouldn't have to worry about the fairest of creatures doing unfair things to me. But alas... they are probably stringing their bows right now - bows made from the hardest of Yew wood - naming them with evil names like the "Bow of Anal Annihilation", or the "Yew Bow To Your Knees, And Please".

So, if you don't hear from me again, it is because I am lost in Lothlorien naked and cold with no one to protect me, but the ones I need protection from!

Monday, July 28, 2008

This post is random

No it isn't, you fools!

My first post made me think about how over/misused the word "random" is used in speech these days. "Random" is the new "like" (X is the new Y is also an overused phrase). For the sake of your eyes, and my shift key, I'm not going to throw quotes around "random" (starting now), and instead I'll italicize it. So don't worry. They didn't just randomly disappear.

Everyone knows what random means. Something that occurs by chance is random. Flip a coin, and it will randomly fall onto one of its sides. Now, anyone picky enough will say that it's outcome is predictable based on the variables such as flip speed and air flow, making it chaotic but not random. Well go fuck yourself, because it is about as random as you can get. Anyway, that is an event by chance. If you place Helen Keller in a room and tell her there are 4 sides with a door on each side. One of them leads to the outside, the other 3 lead to the Great Pit of Carkoon where the Sarlacc will devour her slowly. What is the chance that she chooses the right door? That is random. The genes you acquired from your parents were chosen at random (or so we believe).

HOWEVER, that dude that you talked to at the bar was NOT random. You didn't stick a quarter in a dude machine and cause him to tumble down the spiral ramp to greet you at the bottom. Why? Because if you did, then everyone would probably be looking over at you while you stand very awkwardly as he rolls down the ramp making that loud rolling sound everyone knows, taking an exceeding long amount of time to reach the end. And since no one was looking over, that event probably didn't happen.

It has become ingrained in our vocabulary to use random for strange events or things that may have been unlikely or unexpected. I think the growth of its popularity originates from a few sources:

Pop Culture - Most celebrity figures are idiots. Especially younger people in reality shows. Their immature communication skills get broad casted around the world and get passed to the viewers. They get picked up like memes and perpetuate the trend.

Education - There is no mandatory class devoted to vocabulary and communication. We did our little word lists in English class and forgot 99% of the words the day after the test. A class focusing on speech could use strategies to not only just strengthen vocabulary, but actually get people to use it in daily conversation.

American Dream - We all want to be successful by doing the least amount of work necessary. This might get integrated into speech as well. If we can get the point across with less effort, then more time can be spent doing other things. Restructuring something like "This random guy came up to me at the bar. Randomly he bought me a drink and tried to talk to be about some random stuff. It was so random." might take slightly longer. Most people know what that was intended to mean. A guy came up to this person at the bar. She wasn't expecting it, but unless the guy was blindfolded, and spun around with his nose on a bat 10 times before coming up to her, it probably wasn't random.

So here is where you say, "Then Dave. What must be done to stop this de-evolution of the English language?"
Well we have to treat the cause, not the symptoms. Stop making silly TV shows where stupid people are portrayed as icons. Teach kids not just what words and sentences mean. Teach them how to use the words, naturally in everyday communication. Most synonyms have slightly different meaning, and some can be more accurate than others for the particular context. And this doesn't mean just changing the sentence to "This arbitrary guy came up to me at the bar. Haphazardly, he bought me a drink and tried to talk to me about some desultory stuff. It was so whimsical." I'll punch you in the face if you say that. To us, this seems like a mighty task. We have already established a strong bond with our speech, and it would be very difficult to break from it. However, children could easily learn this if they had proper education. And finally, we would have to change the foundation of our entire society. We would have to get people to want to be productive and thorough (I don't see this happening anytime soon. At least not to me :)).

So that was longer that expected. Halfway through I randomly decided to do some serious analysis. I also randomly chose this point to stop, so until next time,

keep the whole world in your hand
not on the shoulders of Atlas, who be shruggin' like Ayn Rand
(Not chosen because of this post. It was totally random.)

(random)

"I only smoke when I'm drunk"

(This was previously a facebook note, but I decided to throw it here so it looks like I actually update this place.)

Top 5 worst habits:
5. Biting your nails
4. Picking your nose
3. Saying the word "like"
2. Smoking cigarettes
1. Throwing cigarettes on the ground

If there is one thing more disgusting than smoking cigarettes, it is the 3-day aftertaste of chitterlings (pig intestine). If there is another thing more disgusting, it is destroying the world with cigarette butts. Did the ground ask to bum a stoge? If my gravitational pull was that of the earth, and had people walking around on my limbs, would it be ok to throw cigarettes on me? Of course not! This obsurd disposal of faggotry is getting out of hand. Well today I saw the worst cancer stick toss in history, and couldn't handle it.

This woman was walking toward me about 50 feet away, smoking a cig like it was breakfast and she didn't eat the night before.

25 feet away - she takes the last puff. It lasted for what seemed like an eternity. Now don't quote me on this, because it may have just been the heat playing tricks on me, but I swear that nearby people actually shifted toward her as if that last inhalation was sucking in space itself. It was frightening, and I hope to never see that again.

10 feet away - she flicks the cigarette - as if flicking cigarettes was an olympic sport and she was the gold medalist - straight to the ground. It landed with so much force, the sparks exploded upward like the devil himself was erupting forth from the depths of hell. The cigarette bounced with such grace. People stared in awe as it flipped through the air like the wand from Super Mario 3 tumbling into the hand of the king. On a nearby advertisement, Joe Camel took off his sunglasses and began cheering at the perfect execution of her toss. The cigarette landed no more than 2 feet from the nearby building ashtray. For anyone not familiar with ashtrays, they are what cigarette butts go into. But this woman didn't want to be bothered with using it...

0 feet away - enter Dave stage left.

"Excuse me ma'm, but I think you dropped something."

The look on her face as I bent down and picked up her cigarette was absolutely priceless. It was a look of pure emptyness. Her entire understanding of the universe and its perfect structure completely collapsed. The routine of her life - wake up, smoke, drop cigarettes, sleep - was shattered in a single instant.

"I - uhmm - no I don't know what you mean."

"It's ok. Don't be so modest. I saw you drop this, and wouldn't want you to lose it."

She took it. Stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. How could one man break everything in another's life with one action? Her eyes longed for understanding of what just happened. I walked away, and didn't look back.

This story is more than just a simple tale of my morning. It is the start of a revolution! We must unite the people and cure the diseased of their habit. Whenever someone throws away a cigarette to the ground, pick it up and give it back. Do what you need to do until they properly dispose of it. Give it to them twice if needed. If they ignore you, put it down their shirt like an ice cube. Only instead of giving them the chills, it will give them the burns. Signs of their failure at life. If the person looks scary, put it out on their eyes so they can't see you when you run away. Soon the world will be free of cigarette butts. Once again we will be able to lick the ground and not have to worry if Benzene, Tar, Ammonia, or Carbon Monoxide are hogging up the licking space, wrapped up in cylindrical form.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Some bloggin' for your noggin

Welcome to Debloggery!

I'm a little late at jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. "You ain't cool unless you have a blog." That's what all the kids are saying these days, so here is my attempt at claiming the popularity that has laid dormant for the last several years.

The theme of this blog is "Chaotic." While I could have easily used the term "random", nothing is truly "random" - except possibly for spins of electrons, and other significantly tiny particles (waves?). Chaos describes events that appear random. They are unpredictable as far as we know, yet have underlying patterns. Since all thought pretty much stems from previous events, it isn't quite random, but may seem so often. Thus, Chaotic will be an appropriate description of this blog. Especially in the early stages. I'll probably use it just to dump all of the thoughts in my mind worth sharing, like a painfully bloated mind-colon spewing an explosive diarrhea of words all over the page, and as much as other might want me to use that scrub brush, I'm keeping this place raw - telling you how it is. Maybe in the coming days / months / years, I'll start taking those multivitamins and solidify my ideas a little better, and maybe even move to a theme that isn't chaotic.

Alright, folks. I'm out like Emiglio.