Thursday, June 15, 2006

2 Proverbs (can be read as "two proverbs" or "Second Proverbs")

Two very random observations, just to get things going:

The word dizzyingly should be used to describe its own pronunciation.

Statistics are as useful and as dangerous as religion.

OK, one more, just becuase it just came to me, and it sounds almost good enough to be true. (It's amazing how carefully worded rubbish can be so convincing.)

The difference between simple and complex is quite often familiarity.

I'll have to think about that statement for a while before I can tell you if I agree with it or not. It's basically an adaptation from one of the things my trumpet teacher would tell me when I'd comment how it was harder to play passages in C.. than in F.

I just finished For Whom the Bell Tolls. It reminded me why I like Hemingway so very much. This is probably my favorite book of his that I've read, with A Farewell to Arms being a close second. Still, I haven't read The Old Man and the Sea. I need to. But I'm promised to another Dostoevsky first. Too bad I'm out of Salinger. I love books. I think I've said that once already today. I should make a list of all the things I love so I remember to love them every day. I wonder which would be a better use of my time. Remembering to love books or reading them. I wonder if it's the same with people.

Also, I'm trying to put together a summer reading list. Suggestions would be nice. Or else just tell me what you're planning on reading, or what you wish you could read if you have the time. I probably won't have the time, but that's not really the point.

Monday, June 05, 2006

What they call disorder I call defense mechanism

I feel like I should go on a rant or something. Like how much I hate this and that and whatever, or how the rules that most of society adheres to (with regards to life, love, family, friends, duty, driving, poverty, or politics) is dafter than Jack Sparrow (Captain, Captain Jack Sparrow) (but not the good kind of daft, the bullocks kind. Blimey, I believe my English is almost passable. Well no need to cock a snook about it).
But no, the ranting must wait, for a proper rant requires a condemning tone, insidious accusations, and an anti-establishment sentiment against high-handed dealings and abuses. I'm just not feeling it. Now I know I've been known to talk as though every news report, every government bill, every social grace, every materialistic message, every PC catchphrase is the plot of Satan, as carried out through his corporeal vassals. Not that conspiracies don't run deep, or that there isn't treachery about, but deviousness takes a considerable amount of work, and I have to believe that the media has better things to do than scheme for corruption and manipulation. It makes for a good hobby or summer internship, but as a full time job, it feels like it would be tedious to plot demises all day long. I'd get sick of it at least. But then, I've also gotten sick of video games. Well, not for any length of time. It was like 15, maybe 17 minutes.
Still, as is unwritten custom, I write these blogs either to moralize or (im)mortalize, and that often requires passing judgement of some sort. I know I usually do, and it's strange because I try to keep up some illusion of que sera sera (well, it's more than an illusion; I do utilize that theory quite often in fact). Now, I won't use the word pro@..î$@!active because it's one of my least favorite words ever and I think it should burn in the innermost circle of word hell, but I often like plans, even when they don't work out right. Now some look at me and mistake contentment for lack of assertiveness (which I also possess, situationally), but I think I've long advocated a "figure out what you want to do and do it" mentality. I mean this in the grand sense and in the daily sense. It's why I like lists. I make lists of all the things I want to accomplish in a day, and by the time I go to sleep I have, on good days, half of them checked off. Now is that any real indication that I'm getting done what I should be getting done? No. Sometimes my list has things like "Watch a movie" on it. Still, it is good for order and productivity. So I guess I'm a happy, plan-making guy who doesn't so much care how the plans turn out. And I think prolonged perfidy is more trouble than its worth. And I'm not ranting today. Or maybe I did. I can't tell sometimes.
Peter, I think you're right. I think next time I should just write a Wooch column. I'll have to think of a topic. If anyone has good ideas, I'm happy to hear them. And make fun of them.