NeverSubmit's Xanga

I got my pictures

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:30:54 GMT

It took three days, but I got it. I got my pictures. Several of them, in fact. I also took a bunch of pictures on Monday even though it was too cloudy to see the sun. Some of them are surprisingly interesting, if not good. Now I need to sift through them and find the ones that are fit to post. I played around some with the settings, which didn't really give me much except some that were really grainy. I might post one or two of those, just to show the contrast, but I don't think any of them really "work." Oddly, I don't think I have a link to my deviantArt site on here; I better take a look. Last week I uploaded more photos in one day than I had previously uploaded in only one month, way back in October 2005. That's a seven-and-a-half-year record. I'm kind of proud of that; my output had dipped for quite a long time. I'm still not uploading writing, which I'd like to, but I don't have anything I want people to see at this point. Except for one haiku that'd possibly be easy to link to my real name. But whatever. It's more of a senryu anyway, and I hate those.

But now that I've been wishing the sun would come out all week, it's out, and it is freaking hot, which I don't like, and it's bright, which I like even less. Kiss my ass, sun.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Mon, 20 May 2013 03:00:26 GMT

I have a love-hate relationship with vacations.

I like the beach...sort of. I mostly like seafood. I love being able to see my family.

But where are all the godsdamn spoons? And I hate eating nasty fast food long the way. Runs right through me, as it did today. Yuck. I can borrow most of the stuff I need to cook with. But since I'm here with my family, I won't be driving myself around much, if at all. I also wish my dog were here.

Pulled in here yesterday. We will be here until next Saturday. I am going to spend a lot of time ignoring cable news this week. I hope when I get back to be pleasantly surprised that time and resources were devoted to a tropic that actually made a fucking difference. But I have too much experience with television to hope very much.

I plan to take photos. The sun coming up over the beach would be a nice one. I don't believe I've taken very many of those; actually, I'm not sure I've taken so much as one.

I am thinking of getting some new music. I've already bought a new Nine Inch Nails album. I got my favorite song of theirs stuck in my head, but I couldn't remember the name of. So I dug through a ton of youtube videos until I finally heard it ("last"). So I bought the album it was on (Broken). I'm still obsessed with songs from two different albums. And I've also discovered another band I like. And another Rammstein album that I need. Of course, this is all old stuff where I'm coming late to the game. I don't really care, though.

I've also got something new to be excited about. Adding solar panels to schools to save them from the sequester. Imagine adding enough of them that the school can then function as a power station and fund itself. Our education problems would seriously falter. I mean holy shit, I need to research this now. Hopefully I can get the local Green Party on board. I can imagine it backfiring, but with a strong and genuine Green party it wouldn't have to. Relying on the Democrats for leftist policies on the other hand, well....

Good night.

My thoughts on Abercrombie and Fitch

Thu, 16 May 2013 03:45:33 GMT

Things that matter:

Education.
Healthcare.
Civil liberties.
Due process.
Wages.
Peace.
Grassroots democracy.
Clean energy.
The natural environment.
The right of freedom of speech and public protest and a free press.
Equality of opportunity and the equal protection of the laws.
Social safety nets.

Things that do not matter:

Your shallow pointless butthurt consumer life.

Liberals have been attacking the mainstream right wing in this country for wasting their time and ours on pointless stupid battles like 37 attempts to repeal the ACA, or finding a witch to burn over Benghazi. Liberals now find themselves confronted with an equally pointless battle that appears left wing but whose outcome will neither help nor hurt the important issues facing us as Americans. In order to be a truly left-wing movement (instead of yet another label that ignorant conservatives confuse with communism) Liberals need to understand and accept that there is no right not to be offended. They need to waste less time on butthurt and spend more time on shit that actually affects people. There are more people protesting one man's proclamation that fat people's money isn't quite as green than the suspension of school lunches for poor children. This is the left wing version of chik-fil-a day. Shopping is not a form of patriotism, and fighting to be able to shop at A&F of all places while funding for science and education have been slashed is a sick joke.

Monday stuff....

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:22:53 GMT

This was a good Monday. I made an excellent stew with beans, peppers, celery, potatoes, onions, and garlic. I'm eating some right now. Very filling. I slept in. Then when I got up, I went to the monthly meeting of the local Green Party. Small meeting, which is totally understandable. We talked about hydraulic fracking. One of the attendees informed me that natural gas is not just methane, though I plan to do some more research on that issue post-haste. The discussion focused on getting regulation of fracking passed. We could pass it here in Knox Co. maybe, but we don't really have any wells here. I brought up sustainable methods of producing methane, as a way of getting regulation passed in other counties that are struggling with jobs, which also happen to be the ones with the wells. There were a few other things, like a pro-recycling license plate, and getting on this group that checks out wells (I didn't). It was a good discussion, and I got a t-shirt and a button out of it. I'm also on the local party's listserve now.

i duz a mem3 l0l

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:13:27 GMT

1. Who are you?

I am a lone wolf in search of a pack.

2. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you?

1. I have opinions that I am able and willing to defend intellectually. If you think you're smart enough to change my mind, I welcome the attempt. I am willing to accept that you might be right, and you owe me the same fucking courtesy.

2. I fucking cuss.

3. I am extremely fucking awesome.

3. When you aren’t doing memes like this one what are you doing?

Wondering what I should do next. Right now, I'm split between brushing up on my Latin, and learning more Chinese.

4. List your classes in school from the ones you like the most to the ones you like the least (or if you are out of school, think of the classes you did like and didn’t like at the time).

I'm between semesters. My favorite class turned out to be chemistry this past semester, then French, then Literature, then Public Speaking. This coming semester, I will be in two science classes, and a martial arts class. It's all very ancient Greece.

5. What is your biggest goal for this year?

Hard question. I guess learning how to write. Before today, I would have said, “getting my associates” but everyone I talk to about it says they're overrated. I'm now working on transferring. We'll see how that goes. I want a degree. But I also want to continue my studies, and I've exhausted most of the language classes available here.

6. Where do you want to be in 5 years?

New York fucking City.

7. What stage of life are you in right now?

Extended college years. It's a bit embarrassing. I've had to recover from three major crises, and I think I'm doing very well at that, thank you, but I don't like to talk about it with people I've just met.

8. Are you more child-like or childish?

I literally don't know what that means.

9. What is the last thing you said out loud?

“What am I going to do today?”

10. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now?

Hard one. Let me look. Aha! Found one.

11. Have you ever taken martial arts classes?

Yes, actually. I started last summer and continued into the fall. Skipped this past semester, though.

12. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same?

It damn well better get better.

13. Does time really heal all wounds?

I really doubt it. Some experiences just don't go away. You do learn how to cope with them better, though.

14. How do you handle a rainy day?

I like the rain. Sometimes I go out, sometimes I stay in. Depends on how much rain, really.

15. Which is worse…losing your luggage or having to sort out tangled holiday lights

Depends on the luggage. I hate Christmas lights; if it weren't for them I might still be a hypocrite. But I pack light and if I'm lugging anything important around, like my computer, I keep tabs on it myself.

16. How is (or was) your relationship with your parents?

Well, I live with them, so it better be good.

17. Do you tend to be aware of what is going on around you?

Depends on if it's interesting. My greatest level of awareness is when I'm out in the woods by myself for awhile.

18. What is the truest thing that you know?

All truths are contingent on the evidence presently available.

19. What did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was a little kid I wanted to be a fisherman. We lived right on the ocean, and I wanted to catch fish. But then we moved to the mountains, and of course it had to be that part of the mountains that was downstream of a nuclear power plant. So all the fish around here have three eyes.

20. Have you ever been given a second chance?

Yes.

21. Are you more of a giver or a taker?

I try to give as much as I get. I'm unemployed, but I volunteer, bend my mind to the problems I see, and I bend people's ears to the solutions I can figure out, but we'll see if there is a net benefit.

22. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind?

Yes. I am open to all possibilities.

23. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?

A year and a half of bone surgeries. Fucking hell.

24. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you?

The year 2011. So much shit happened in just one fucking year. Fuck.

25. Who have you hugged today?

My dog.

Tomorrow is another dream...

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:59:29 GMT

Tomorrow I am helping out with a run for "clean fuels." I checked them out, and they have some interesting ideas. But oh, looks like they support fossil methane and fossil propane. I am le disappoint. I'm still going to go through with it, though, because I figure interest has to precede information. I also burned through some of the news programs I recorded during the week. And I wrote two hundred words of fiction. I guess the most important part is always to begin. Now I get to see if I have any talent for narrative, I guess. But I must out, because I have to be out there by six forty-five, and that's if we're being generous.

Goodnight internet.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:19:00 GMT

Alright. I'm pretty sure I now have an A in English. I did get an A on my term paper, which I'm pretty excited about. She told me it was "very powerfully argued." Her words, not mine.

Some things I've been working on lately besides school:

I'm growing shallots. I bought shallots a month or two ago, and didn't use all of them. One of them started to sprout, so on a whim I decided to plant it. The shoots are now almost a foot long and growing. I had been keeping it inside, so it wouldn't get drowned in the rain, but now that the storms have abated I've placed on the porch so it will get a full day's worth of sun. When the shoots turn yellow and start dying, that's when I'm supposed to harvest. We'll see how it turns out.

I made another sort of stew kind of thing. This time with steak in it. I bought one pound of steak. One bunch of celery. Two really scrawny green bell peppers (about as much pepper as a regular sized bell pepper). An onion. Four cloves of garlic. Two cans of pineapple chunks. One tin of pineapple chunks. Two tins of water chestnuts (drained them). Three bowels of water. Oregano, basil, vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and ground black pepper. And a tiny little bit of sugar.

I cut the steak into bite sized pieces, sprinkled it with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then added olive oil, mushed it all together, and let it sit in a bowl for an how. Then I put it on the stove in a big pot and cooked it through. Then I added onion, garlic, and celery, and the three bowls of water (basically I filled it so all the ingredients were wet). I added my herbs. I boiled it until the onions turned translucent. Then I added the canned pineapple and tinned water chestnut. Salt and pepper. Let it cook for a while. I tasted it and it was way too watery. So that's when I added some vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, and more salt. Seemed to help. I also added the tin of pineapple chunks. I think next time, I will replace half the water with beef broth, and the other half with pineapple juice. I might keep the vinegar and soy sauce, I haven't decided. I also need to measure more things. My "eh, fuck it," cooking style suits me just fine, but nobody else will touch it so it just sits there. More for me, sure, but that means that I can't make anything else for about a week.

And I am finally free to screw around and do politics. I already retook the Istandwith quiz. Funnily enough, I'm reading Plato's Republic and his politics are making me really uncomfortable. No Athenian democrat this guy.

I also had great fun on my French tests. To prove our receptive ability, we were supposed to watch a DVD movie, which I didn't do. On our tests, we were frequently given questions about the plot and how it went. The main character is the star of some show on Canal 7. She ditches work to prove her grandfather was not a traitor or some such thing. This gets her into a lot of trouble with her boss. Now you know why I didn't watch the DVD. So I decided to have a little fun. She's actually an undercover cop investigating her boss as a terrorist. It turns out her boss is actually part of some sort of Cthulhu doomsday cult. Very exciting stuff, but all of it was in French, so I didn't understand a word of it.

So last week, this person posted a story, quite publicly, so that anyone could read it, that purported to be a demonstration of how their favorite economic policy worked. Except it wasn't; it was just a made-up parable. There wasn't a single verifiable fact in there. It was the kind of thing a scientifically minded person like me would be completely embarrassed to post. So I made note of this, and I got the deeply intellectual response "Don't read it then!" Then I got blocked. I didn't even get the chance to say anything rude. I just want to run around screaming "fuck you!" at the top of my lungs. Personally, I think that if your politics can only be explained in made-up parables, then they probably only work in a made-up world. I didn't get to say that, though. The ideas weren't defended at all. There was no debate. I was simply ordered not to read them. Well, fuck you, bitch, I'll do what I want!

And now. I think I might try writing something fictional every single day. Maybe post it on deviantArt. Ooh, and I can upload pictures there now, too. I'll get on that. Not to mention the deplorable wreckage of my bedroom....

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:12:35 GMT

It seems that there is good interest in I&R on the green forum. I haven't gotten an email response yet. I still plan on talking to OFA about it, but I really have no idea how to get into contact with the TP. There was talk of the Tea Party "infiltrating" OFA, so maybe whoever it was that exposed the invasion would know who it was and could get in contact with them. But these are all idle musings. I passed my French test today. I could calculate my grade now if I wanted to. Tomorrow I've got literature, which will be my last test of the semester. And then, as I said, it'll all be over but the screaming. I still haven't gotten my grade back on my research project, and it is driving me batshit insane. I have to know how I did. I want to see my mistakes. I want to rewrite it again already. But what I really need to do is read through those assignments I missed. So, I must get on that. I will have to keep the computer turned off in the meantime. So that's that, then. Good night internet.

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Tue, 07 May 2013 22:32:52 GMT

Okay. Everything worked out fine. Nobody fucked me over, I was just mad because I skipped my morning cup of tea. I got two "Bill Nye" references today, so that was fun. I think at least half my problems with people is I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'll probably inspire more connections by being more open generally. Like today wearing my lab coat. I decided to just have fun and not care, and that's how it happened. I still don't feel good about trying to get in contact with people. I definitely took the time to communicate with everyone over the subject of the speech, but no one really reciprocated. I remember it didn't matter back when I did whatever the hell I felt like. But it still did, there were just those few people who were willing to reach out to me. Now, where has everyone gone? Am I a better or a worse person than I was back then? Did everybody else change? Did the weirdos just all disappear and now I'm the only one left? I know I'll be happier strange than quiet. I don't know if that's really enough.

Now that I'm done emoing. I emailed a coordinator for the Green Party in my area, and posted in the forum. And I must go study for my French final.

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Tue, 07 May 2013 07:07:20 GMT

My chemistry test was already graded by the time I got home. Weird. I think I have a C. Could be better. Oh well.

Tomorrow is my speech final. We're no longer demonstrating anything with paper. We changed it--and when I say we, I mean they. They changed it to cheating. We're going to demonstrate how to cheat on tests. Okay. I was late to class. WTF, I didn't even technically have to be there except long enough to turn in my folder. No, but everything had to change the day of. This is why I mostly avoid working with people, because they fuck me over. It matters little. I decided I'm going to wear that labcoat I bought. Good thing too, or else I might never do anything with it. I must make sure and wake up with terrible bedhead as well. And I will need a clipboard. Screw them, I'm going to have fun with this. I thought about shaving, but I have decided against it.

Then comes the real work. French. And literature, but mostly French. Lit I just need to read the selections I skipped. Hah. Fuck it. Finals week rocks. I wonder if I'll get back a graded copy of my term paper.

Meh, probably not.

I wish I didn't have to get up so early, though.