Diet Coke Bath Alternative - Jelly Belly Shower!

Just decided to see what it would be like to pour a bag of jelly belly jelly beans on my head. It was ridiculous much fun. Even more fun than the shower in a 2 liter of diet coke. It made me laugh and didn't require as much clean-up as the shower - remarkably, room temperature diet coke is actually kind of cold compared to shower water and so pouring diet coke on yourself in the shower sort of causes you to jump out of the diet coke, causing it to splash all over the place. One drawback of the diet coke shower. However, I have very sensitive senses and so the smell of the tropical mix of jelly bellys that I dropped on myself has now permeated the room and is making me slightly nauseous - hence, the drawback of this plan. I think having my sunlight-reproducing lamp on is amplifying the effect.
Back to watching Old School, one of the finest movies, ever.

The Kon-Tiki Expedition!

Is sixty years old!

Spotlight: Sixty years ago today, Thor Heyerdahl and five others set sail from Peru across the Pacific on a simple raft, in an attempt to prove that pre-Columbian South Americans could have settled Polynesia. The raft was called the Kon-Tiki; built of balsa wood, the boat successfully covered about 4,300 miles (6,900 kilometers), arriving at the Polynesian island of Raroia in 101 days. Heyerdahl's book about the voyage, Kon-Tiki, has been translated into more than 66 languages. The documentary made of the trip won an Oscar in 1951.

Quote: "Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity."

— Thor Heyerdahl
(from answers.com)


First of all, I've read the book, it is fascinating, and mind-expanding. He actually did this another time and there is a whole museum dedicated to the kon-tiki expedition that is outside Oslo that I visited during my time as a European vagabond. They have the ships there - honestly, unbelievably cool stuff. Basically the idea is that he set out to prove that south americans could have settled in polynesia - and to prove this, he took off on a raft to replicate the experience. It's crazy, but awesome.

Diane Keaton

I worry that I may secretly be an old person because I really relate to Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give. She also always has such an impeccable style in all the movies she's in - it's not my style but it totally works - like in Lyndsay Lohan's screen debut as the twins in the remake of The Parent Trap - brilliant clothing she wore. Of course, the fact that I sleep the same amount as a newborn baby and have the thought patterns and interests of a hyperactive adolescent tend to convince me that I might not be an old person. I think I am a fascinating compendium of characters. Yes, indeed :)

Leviticus 16:1- 20:27

So, having taken some sleep medication that I am trying to think-positive-thoughts about working, I figure I have some time to kill and end up through a series of clicks, listening to a reform interpretation of this week's torah portion. It's rather interesting. There's some stuff in there about Noah's son having born a son from Noah's wife, which is pretty bizarre to me, although admittedly, I haven't closely read the bible and maybe this is standard fare. I'm not so much sold on how the interpretation veers off from there - it provides a good lesson about protecting those closest to you, but I don't really believe the lesson follows from the passage. It's also sort of an obvious lesson, which led me to wondering about all this analysis and interpretation. Interpretations are actually provided by two rabbis on this occasion, both with the same lesson. But I just wonder, are there people out there who really need that lesson? Who actually need to be told that you shouldn't trip a blind person, either literally or figuratively? That loyalty should drive your personal relationships? It just makes me wonder what's out there in terms of personalities, that anyone would think to behave differently. I suppose the most popular videos on you tube should have given me some pause...

Sleepy Time Bear

Normally, that's me. It's a reference to my childhood, to the celestial seasonings tea - which as it turns out, is actually Sleepytime® Herb Tea, but there's a sleepy bear on the front of the tea box, hence the sleepy time bear concept. Plus, we would always have honey from the honey bear, reinforcing the bear-ness. And then there is winnie-the-pooh, yet another honey-associated bear. Nowadays, it is very difficult to get me to drink herbal tea, because I drink things to hydrate, caffeinate, or get tipsy, and herbal tea fits none of those categories. Plus, I often want tea at night and the celestial seasonings boxes kind of freak me out. It's late at night, you're a little out of it, probably a little stressed about work, and you end up reading one of the "inspirational" quotes on the box and begin wondering about all these people who came up with these witty and inspirational quotes and imagine that people who came up with this kind of stuff would be cozy in their beds, getting their 8 hours a night, thinking nice balanced socially-acceptable thoughts. For example, take this quote from celestial seasonings' website:

"Good impulses spring from a happy readiness of spirit." - Balthasar Gracian


Uh-huh. Sure, fair enough. Just, um, who exactly thinks in those terms? It turns out that Gracian was a Jesuit writer. And also, a strategist of sorts, saying also, for example: "It is both useless and insipid to play with the cards on the table." These additional writings put the quote into some context, outside the florid art on the celestial seasonings' box. His writings remind me of a lot of things I've been forced to read over time, things that have left me cold, in the sense that they are completely uninspiring to me, I think of LaRochefoucauld's maxims, which I had to read during one of my tragic undergraduate french classes, which in turn is kind of like reading the Importance of being Earnest, which, don't get me wrong I like Oscar Wilde and all, is irrelevant nonsense with a veneer of great importance. Which I think it the most dangerous thing of all, people and things that believe themselves greatly important, when in fact, they are average and simple. I just think those are the type of people who tend to ruin the world for the rest of us, the ones who think they are smarter and better than everyone else. The smart ones tend to keep quiet and the ones who aren't tend to speak up, and then lead a group of people to disaster and for some reason, the fact that they are talking leads people to believe they are competent. I won't list examples, for fear of retribution, as unrealistic as that is. Living too much in reality is unbearably dull.

Beez

I think there may be a hive of bees living in my ceiling. Last night, a bug I originally thought was a fly ended up being a bee. The bug was hanging out on my ceiling, and ultimately, in one of my closets. It is unclear to me how the bee arrived and whether it left (I had to sleep in the bathroom to avoid it). But I continue to hear the bee-type noises. I am not the only one concerned with bees. Of course, he is also concerned with grizzly bears, which are no doubt a menace, but even I don't think a grizzly bear is going to come wandering into my bedroom. Plus I sort of think if you end up in a situation where there are grizzly bears, it is pretty much your own fault. Particularly if you live in the United States. And particularly if you have a computer and can read this. Unless somehow you are a grizzly bear that has learned to read and somehow use a keyboard, which I think would be hard with those bear claws. But it might be like those geico cave man commercials, which have kind of convinced me that cave men might still exist, and are being persecuted. So maybe similar commercials with web-surfing grizzly bears could cause an alternate universe to exist where grizzly bears might be able to comment on this post. You know, if collectively enough people believe something, it ends up being true - maybe the placebo effect of conscious reality? Or to be more exact, it isn't true, but the fact that it isn't true is essentially irrelevant, a technicality, since if everyone else is going to believe it, and the world believes it, then what's the point in not believing it? And doesn't not believing it just make you crazy then, even if it is true? That basically sums up what I realized about the world from a young age - it is made up of a lot of people who believe things that aren't true, but even if you're right, they'll never accept that they're wrong and you can choose to fight them or you can sleep. I vacillate between the two.

Yeltsin

Cheers and zakusky to a man who loved vodka and attempted to create a free media in Russia. Moscow Times. NYT. Sad about the free media thing, but at least capitalism came...

UPDATE: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/23/yeltsin.tanks.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

CNN overlooks the crucial fact that Yeltsin was a nonfunctional alcoholic.

Fight club fears + First Tour has ended!

I worry quite a bit when I can't sleep about turning into the fight club character. I worry that in fact, when I believe I am dreaming, I am leading a complex alter existence that may wreck havoc on the world. It wouldn't surprise me terribly much, but the problem is that I think I would still be responsible for the actions of the alter ego. Part of it is that I have a decent amount of trouble distinguishing between my dreams and reality. Also part of it is that the world is a strange and confusing place to me. Also part of it is that in my dreams, since I was a small child, people are constantly telling me that I've done things and am responsible for things I never did. And actually, in real life too. So I'm sort of used to the idea that suddenly you become responsible for things that you never did and then you have to deal with the repercussions. But the problem is that I like to prepare in advance for tragedy because I am very sensitive and surprise tragedies hurt me too much. But when I am going to be held responsible for something I didn't know I did, a la should I become the fight club character, then there is no preparation. So I don't think I would take it well, or be prepared to give it my best fight. Hence the worry. Also, I normally sleep substantial amounts so when I don't sleep, I imagine there is something invidious occurring behind the curtain.
BTW, French elections, first tour is over, with a significantly more reasonable result than last time. Sarkozy will probably win, which is unfortunate because he reminds me of Putin, who I think will be responsible for an enormous disaster this century. Also, Sarkozy is racist and classist and lots of other ugly things that don't help when you are trying to fix a society that is breaking apart based on its cultural divides. The comments section on the iht article is particularly entertaining.

?

"I hate myself and I want to die" t-shirts are on sale...significance?

The cauchemar of flash

What exactly is a cauchemar? According to the delightfully serious french wikipedia article, for some it is a nighttime form of epilepsy, a bad demon, nervous temperament, and eventually of course, it simply becomes an expression of issues that haven't been properly dealt with by the conscious mind. In a sense, they're all essentially the same, something is amiss in the head and when the body sleeps, the mind will play. My complaint is that flash causes my brain to go into crazy mode while my body is still awake. To explain, I generally uninstall flash and any video playing devices from my browsers because the moving ads drive me nuts. I can stand them for a short while, then I move the window so I can't see them but after about 5 minutes of web browsing, I'm about to break the computer monitor I'm so stressed by the flashing and movement that I have to shut everything down. For whatever reason, the way that flash ads tend to flow and repeat and slowly move across the space agitates my brain greatly and causes it to think that it is time to begin bringing forth demons and other subconscious issues, all while I'm trying to figure out what's happening in telecoms. The problem is that eventually I really need to see a video - generally because I become convinced that the miscellaneous person who died in a car crash/shooting/jumping off a bridge is someone I know, but there are insufficient details in the written stories and so I have to see videos on the off-chance they spliced shots in an unprofessional way and you can actually see the victim (this reason is generally responsible for about 2-3 installs per month - and btw, this has never actually been the case). An alternative would be to sit down with a therapist and work through ways to deal with my irrational beliefs as regards people I know suddenly dying all the time and someone forgetting to let me know and then being in the awful situation of having sent an e-mail to a dead person, but it's really much easier to uninstall and reinstall flash, at least for now. If I start watching more local news, however, the balance will likely tip in the direction of therapy. Local news is just fuel on the fire for this stuff.

Insomnia

Insomnia is not really my thing. I'm more about hypersomnia. I've had a couple of prolonged periods of relative insomnia, and while I've eventually come around to the additional productivity that 6 hours adds onto the day, I always start out rather annoyed. There are the false starts on sleep and the unexpectedly quick depletion of my kalamata olive and diet coke supplies. Not to mention the steady decline in reasonable background-television as the hours creep into the single digits. But I've always been more productive at night than during the day so these bouts of insomniaish-ness tend to help me focus. Tonight, I am focusing on education and justice - specifically, the lack of justice inherent in the funding system for public education, a particular pet cause of mine. I hope eventually to fix the system, but it's been difficult to identify the specific problems, without which I have no hope of identifying the solutions. However, and as I am otherwise going through difficult times, I take a certain comfort in the statement of a great educational reformer: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." - Horace Mann. That victory can, and probably does, come in contradictory forms. I have no doubt that what I feel would be a victory for mankind would be considered something to be countered, itself a victory for mankind, by someone else. But I don't actually think this negates the fundamental value of the action. Part of it is that society moves forward by enough people believing in the same victories, thereby pushing the balance in one direction. But another part of it is that part of the victory is a victory for the individual, a way in which by reforming education, Mann allowed himself to grow and develop personally. I don't believe victories should be pursued for selfish ends - you should believe in the victory you are pursuing - but inevitably, there are collateral benefits to thinking outside yourself, thinking for greater humanity. And of course, you should always believe that your single contribution will change the world, because in some way it will. But even if it doesn't do exactly what you want it to do, it will likely still have great significance, so long as you undertake it with sufficient integrity. One thing I've learned over the years, over talking with many people, is that almost everyone has a good core. A lot of people hide it. Others are scared of it, and run away from it. Others are too aware of it, and exaggerate it, putting down others to build themselves up. But most of us, when touched by the words or actions of another person in the right way, slip into our good core. That place where all our dreams for society are. It's a calming, empowering place. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail does that for me. In reading it, you feel his passion, feel the righteousness of his argument - I can't imagine not being inspired to determine what great social justice we owe to the people of today.

Darfur

There are a lot of problems in the world. A lot. And a lot of issues that need to be addressed. But world-wide issues deserve emergency-room-style triage treatment. Just in case anyone wasn't aware, there is still genocide occurring in Darfur. An estimated 400,000 people have died as a result of the conflict. See wikipedia entry.
One problem is that many countries and individuals look to the UN and its institutions to address these global issues. But, and I want to say this with as little vitriol as possible, the UN is an extremely political institution. And by political, I mean focused on a handful of issues, sort of like gay marriage-type issues, that draw a lot of attention and soap box speech but don't really address the important human issues. Many people are too overwhelmed by a lack of empowerment that expresses itself as hatred to focus on positive action.
I believe that true social change happens when people with power use their power to change the world for good. But I also believe that with a great amount of effort and a substantial number of people, those without power can make a difference, particularly on clear moral issues like mass killing.
April 23-30 = Global Days for Darfur. This group brought together a number of organizations that are concerned about what is happening in Darfur and it is trying to create the critical mass that will make a difference.

Taxation sans Representation

Taxes this year ended up being far more taxing than normal - so far I have competed 6 forms and as much as I love doing my taxes (and I really do) even I am a bit exhausted by the endless circularity of some of the calculations. I actually on two occasions had to divide two numbers and then multiply the resulting figure by one of the original numbers, resulting in the remarkable outcome one would expect...
Inevitably completing the forms and the sense of accepted despair when you actually calculate the figure on the "tax" line leads to wonderment at the extent to which you personally are supporting the government. For me, it's pretty much as inevitable as my semi-annual mid-life crisis when exam period comes. Suddenly you recognize your own (potential) significance, view an accounting of what you have been doing for the past year or half year, and then briefly freak out. Then there is a burst of energy, a million new plans, motivated with the sort of honest vigor that children have when their parents discover they've broken a vase and the children realize they're going to be allowed to live but that a really earnest showing of a changed heart will improve the situation dramatically. Actually, it occurs to me that it makes infinitely more sense to make new year's resolutions mid-April, when you are REALLY assessing your situation.

Sake & DC

A couple thoughts on beverages today - sake and diet coke. Sake because I've been drinking it out of an espresso cup from argentina trying to force myself to sleep and diet coke because I decided a diet coke bath might be very intriguing. Was trying to determine how many 2 liter bottles would be required to fill the bathtub - it seems like rather a lot. Which led me to wondering why they don't sell diet coke in larger quantities, and then I considered the difficulty of drinking or even pouring from a larger container (which of course could be dealt with, but it would require altering the form of the bottle to something more akin to a wine box and I think that would destroy some of the brand strength without much benefit to coke b.c. they make more on the smaller bottles). The diet coke bath sort of comes from Zoolander - I've been thinking for a while about it - that scene where he pours a diet coke on his head - not sure why, but it always seemed very intriguing to me. But then I thought, why just do one coke, why even limit myself to a shower, when I could simply have a bath and thereby truly experience saturation in diet coke. On sake, I've been trying to adapt myself to it. It turns out that sake, like many hard alcohols, really changes with quality. Meaning that cheap sake is like drinking rubbing alcohol and good sake is smooth and delicious. When I was in Japan I kind of had to go with it because wheat and I are not one and there's a lot of beer and I like to drink on vacation, well, just because I do. Actually, it's because it adds some extra drama to the travel adventure. I don't think I've been on a non-drinking vacation in a long time and I think I would be unable to handle the sometimes-slow pace of travel. You can't always get where you want to when you want to, you often can't communicate, you have to check maps 20 times, and then many times you do all this to get to a place that is closed for the month or no longer even exists and you have to say, okay, so where to next. With a bit of alcohol, it's all a bit more entertaining.
But so am undecided on the diet coke bath - a number of potential problems - I know it's a little off, and I know that enough to have worried about attention I might draw by trying to bring 20 2 liter bottles of diet coke past my doorman - also, what if instead of enjoying the diet coke bath, I am grossed out by it and then traumatized for a while by my weirdness - or maybe I'll enjoy it too much and want to bathe in diet coke on a regular basis and then it's back to the practicality issue. Although I suppose I could install one of those soda machines in my home and buy the syrup.

Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut has evidently died. I'm upset, and it's hard to explain. Part of it, no doubt, was discovering Vonnegut as a 10th grader in English class. I'd been given the assignment of reading the first chapter or so of Cat's Cradle and as was my tendency, I ended up staying up the whole night and finishing the book. When I came into class the next day, after sitting in silence for a few moments waiting for the teacher to begin, he slapped his hand down on the desk next to where I sat and said, you finished the whole thing, didn't you? I didn't know what he meant at first, and he had to clarify but the answer was yes. He proceeded to bitch me out, telling me how it wasn't the way you were supposed to do it, etc. But of course, what was interesting, was that he knew I read the whole thing without my having said or done anything that indicated it. He knew it because he knew Vonnegut and he knew me and he knew I'd stumbled on something that would never have allowed me to stop reading.
I read all of Vonnegut's books over time. I felt like he was a different version of myself, an expression of thoughts I might have in the future. He had this melancholy optimism, it was me, but a me who had accepted certain things and rejected certain things and figured out how to deal with everything else and as a result, had distilled certain truths about mankind and life into humorous and poignant vignettes.
I was reading the nyt obit and was somewhat surprised to read the discussion of critics who claimed he repeated things - which of course he did - but that was a large part of what made his oeuvre. It wasn't exactly repetition, but actually development of an idea. You put something in one situation, and one thing happens. In another, an entirely separate thing happens. If anything, Vonnegut was didactic, but not in a condescending sense. He was a teacher, with that calm surety that allowed him to float his ideas without too much direction.
His existence made me feel like there was a place for me. Silly, in a way, but that he had found a place made it at least possible that I would as well. He wasn't just like me, but he was like part of me.