Voodoo Time Dot Com

In previous posts, I’ve touched on my Buddhist leanings. And while I have no hope of enlightenment in this lifetime, I really think that guy was on to something. One of the central themes of Buddhist practice is to see things for the way they are, and stop getting caught up in wishing things were different.

I think about this a lot, because I often catch myself wishing things were different. This is because I am an idiot idealist. I really get angry when I notice people acting selfishly. So, as you can probably imagine, I feel angry quite often. This happens a lot while I’m driving. Everyday someone cuts me off and I get angry. Nearly everyday, some jerk drives down the left turn lane, only to swerve back into another lane in the middle of the intersection, just to race ahead of the rest of us who obey traffic laws. (That is, except that bit about speed limits. I never could get the hang of speed limits.)

The problem with this is that I end up letting other people affect my happiness, which is dumb. A Buddhist forest monk from Thailand, called Ajahn Chah (”Ajahn” means “teacher”) taught an interesting lesson about this kind of thing. Apparently, in Thailand, the forests are chock full of monkeys (or at least they were when Ajahn Chah was still alive). Monkeys make a lot of noise, and they are forever swinging around and throwing things or stealing things. As a monk, one spends considerable lengths of time everyday in meditation. With monkeys making a racket, it could be hard to achieve tranquility in one’s mind. So the natural human reaction is to be angry with the monkeys.

One could try shooing away the monkeys, but they would just come back, or worse - attack. You could yell yourself hoarse, telling the monkeys to “shut up”, but monkeys don’t understand Thai (everyone knows monkeys only speak Dutch). If you’re angry with the monkeys, you’ll never achieve any kind of peace, because now there is a racket outside, and on the inside as well.

A wise person knows that this is simply the way monkeys are. There is no point wishing they would act otherwise. A wise person will relax and let the monkeys be monkeys.

So next time you’re angry at someone for being an ass, just remember that this is only human nature (or at least the nature of that particular human), and let it go. Let the monkeys be monkeys.

Bye for now.

Hello, all!

I’m ridiculously busy with work right now, hence the complete lack of new material here. But I just wanted to stop in to tell you guys about a new page I’m starting. It’s a brain dump for all the technical stuff I run across everyday, and don’t want to lose track of. If you’re not a tech head, you’ll probably not find it terribly interesting, but if you work (or play) with computers, come on by and take a look around.

VoodooTech

Wie Geht’s?

I thought I’d check in and clear out some of the cobwebs around here. Lately, I’ve been keeping myself occupied with a new project. For some unknown and completely arbitrary reason, I’ve decided I want to learn to speak German. Maybe it is for reasons of heritage. My father’s father is German. Maybe it is because German is widely regarded as one of the easiest languages for native English-speakers to learn, as both spring from a common West Germanic proto-tongue. But more likely than either of those reasons, is because anything you say sounds cool in German.

Die Katze ist unter der Flugzeug!!

It’s true. Anything said in German automatically assumes an air of authority and urgency. Perhaps this is merely a result of Germany’s aggressions in the first half of the last century. But I think it has more to do with the intrinsic nature of the language itself; switching back and forth between staccato and glottal consonants, and umlauted vowels. There is a reason why police and the military often train their dogs in German - because it sounds really scary.

But whatever the reason, I’ve picked up some materials and am in the process of getting in touch with my inner Teuton. But even as I begin, I know I am destined to fail; but not from lack of ability. Afterall, I am fluent in English. It only took a few years to learn. I learned Spanish in high school, and was quite conversational at the time. I can even read and write L33t! (in several dialects). And from what I hear, there are toddlers in Germany who have managed to pick up the fundamentals, so how hard can it be?

No, I will fail because I am one of those people who can’t finish anything they start. It’s not that I have a short attention span. In fact, for someone of the second TV generation, I am able to sit still for surprisingly long periods. I have read books of over 1,000 pages in length. And, perhaps most impressive of all, I am completely comfortable putting down the remote control while watching a television show. But for some reason, everytime I start a project I will inevitably set it all aside for something else. My track record is pretty dismal. Guitar? Out of tune. Physics books? Collecting dust. Weblog? Neglected for weeks at a time. (Sorry about that.)

I can only hope I have the tenacity to stick with this - at least long enough to order ein Bier properly should I ever find myself in der Vaderland, and to find my way to the restroom afterward. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. In fact, lately I’ve kind of been thinking of taking up the guitar.

Tschüß.

So I was reading the news today, and happened upon a couple of articles in the Health section that got my attention…

Frequent Sex May Cut Cancer Risk

Research Shows Video Game Playing May Help Surgeons

I don’t know how many millions of dollars were poured into these research projects, but I’m going to go on record as saying that it was money well spent.

Anyway, I’ve got to go. I’m late for my PlayStation therapy.

Bye for now.

Whilst shopping at a fine boutique last week, I happened across a disc for the Sony Playstation 2 containing several games ported from the original Atari 2600 game system. State of the art in 1984, these games are hardly recognizable as such after these twenty years of non-stop innovation. Nonetheless, these blocky eight-color images blipping and blooping across the screen are part of my childhood. I tend to get really excited about these kinds of things, so I bought it.

In the early days of video games, the technology was pretty primitive. The earliest example of a mass-produced home video game system was Pong - introduced by Atari and distributed almost exclusively by Sears in 1975. For a retail price of US$200-$300, the first units played only one game - a modified ping-pong in black and white. It was a phenomenon. Soon after, in 1977, Atari introduced the VCS, later known as the 2600. If Pong was a phenomenon, the 2600 was nothing less than a cultural sensation. The 2600 was a bit more complex than the clunky Pong units, but not by much. Most 2600 games consisted of vague, blocky shapes chasing, or attempting to escape from other vague, blocky shapes. Dragons were indistinguishable from ducks without the aid of the small manuals that explained everything. The graphics and sound were poor. The bad games looked just like the good ones.

The Activision Anthology package includes more than 45 games - and not a single instruction manual. Some of the games are fun, and some are completely lame. After spending a couple of hours running my square protagonists aimlessly around their little square worlds, I came to wonder if maybe I had been a little too excited about this find. Somehow I remember these games being absolutely fascinating. But after all the years, I’m having trouble seeing these little marvels as I did then. I tried to cut a small slice of my childhood. And it was sweet, but it just didn’t taste the same.

These experiences usually fall shy of my lofty expectations. Much of the magic is gone from those sights and sounds. They say you can never go home again, and from what I’ve seen, I suspect they’re right. Those things and those places aren’t magical anymore, because they’re not mine. They belong to this little freckled kid with a ridiculous cow-lick. He has his pants tucked into his socks, and he’s running around with a broom handle he’s calling a “lightsaber”. He’s the king of his world. He wakes up at dawn and never wants to go to bed. He’s a being of pure energy, and as such, he’s completely ethereal and inscrutable. I can see him only in moments, but can never grasp him. There is magic there, but the magic is in him - not in those things that surround him. The wand is only magic in the hands of the sorceror.

Yet, I continue to haunt those places he used to walk, and I sometimes try to find just a little bit of magic in the things he left behind. Sometimes I get lucky.

Bye for now.

As seen on Slashdot today:

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:

“Well”, says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you’re going, but you expect me to be able to help. You’re in the same position you were before we met, but now it’s my fault.”

Now you understand why I am so bitter and surly.

Our friend Cait has found my cat alter-ego in “Voodoo” the cat. Voodoo is dressed in pirate garb, which only goes to further my suspicions that cats are, by nature, scoundrels and ne’er-do-wells. But, while most cats try to pull one over on us by being cute and playing innocuously with balls of yarn, Voodoo makes no qualms about who he is. Voodoo does not want to play with you. In fact, if Voodoo had not lost his vessel in a high-stakes poker game in some Caribbean pirates’ cove, he would keel haul you in a second. Voodoo is one scurvy dog of a cat.

Meanwhile, he’s just biding his time… and eating fancy cat food from one of those crystal bowls like you see in the commercials. Arrrrrgh!

Wow - looks like it’s been a while since I’ve put anything new up here. I have a good reason though. I didn’t feel like it. Honestly… I just couldn’t be bothered. But I know you’ll forgive me, because you’ve all come to expect this kind of flaky behavior in these nearly two years I’ve been doing this. If you’re angry, blame it on The Real World, which has a way of cutting into my goof-off-online time.

Speaking of The Real World, I’ve been spending a lot more time in it lately. Recently, my wife and I have been lamenting the ever-increasing sizes of our respective asses. The first step in realizing our goal of achieving smaller asses is to spend less time sitting on said asses. Less ass time means less time for writing on this weblog. After all, the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. There is wisdom here. Call it derriere Taoism.

Today, for example, we spent the day at the Los Angeles County Irish Fair and Music Festival. This is one of those things where you head out to a fairgrounds in the middle of the desert and drink over-priced (but quite good) beer and listen to raucous neo-celtic rock bands, cheered on by legions of revelers wearing newly-purchased kilts in honor of their 1/16 Irish heritage. But it was a good time, and I didn’t get sunburnt.

This new cultural awareness movement is interesting. It seems that after 200 years of the “melting pot” mentality in which long Polish names became short anglicized names with a more favorable vowel to consonant ratio, there is now this drive to reclaim all this lost ethnicity. Just 100 years ago, “No Irish Need Apply.” But now Americans by the thousands are attempting to rediscover the history our grandparents worked so hard to put behind them. It can go too far, certainly, but overall I think it’s healthy enough. Anytime I get to eat sausage and drink beer, how can it be other than a good thing? Still, it’s probably also a good thing that St. Patrick’s Day and Oktoberfest are half a year apart.

So, anyway, I’m back from the dead. And hopefully, I will be spending a bit more time on the site from now on. And maybe I’ll even come up with something funny to write about soon, but I’m not making any promises. Either way, I’ll talk to y’all soon.

Bye for now.

There are people who, by virtue of their character or fame, the average person comes to admire - even envy. There are many rich and famous people in this world with whom the average person would trade places in a second, given the opportunity. As for myself, I am neither rich nor famous. But, nonetheless, some rat bastard out there is pretending to be me.

I just happened to check my checking account balance today, and it came up a bit short. Actually it came up a lot short. I had the automated voice droid run my last few checks. Hey! I thought, I didn’t write that check!

Or that one… or that one… or… damn.

In two days, someone has managed to write ten checks (so far) robbing me of a few thousand dollars. I spent the day closing my bank account, and trying to explain to customer service drones that I did not, in fact, intentionally drain my account of nearly all my money in the past two days. They explained that the case must now be formally investigated, results pending in five to seven business days. So I am assured that I will be hearing from a representative by the end of next week. So just try not to buy anything or pay any bills before then.

So some asshole is playing his new X-Box on his new HDTV, and consequently my wife and I now have to stay in for Valentine’s Day. This is just one more reason for me to keep hating people.

Sometimes, I can’t help thinking apocalypse can’t come soon enough.

Some days he finds himself among walking corpses, great crowds of the dead, all of them refusing to admit they’re done for, corpses mutinously continuing to behave like living people, shopping, catching buses, flirting, going home to make love, smoking cigarettes. But you’re dead, he shouts at them. Zombies, get into your graves.

– Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses