Graylight

9:14am: Review of Pirates of the Carribean Review
I saw Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest last night and enjoyed it quite a bit (except fot the theatre experience, but let's not go there). After I see a movie I like, in a morbidly fascinated manner I go online and read the reviews to challenge my memory of the experience and perform some individuality-of-opinion calistentics. Many movie reviwers are hacks, cheapshots, pirates and plunderers of the english language. I found this one to be especially loathsome.

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainmenet Weekly is the "Her" in this script.

Her: The original [Pirates] is a thing of balletic grace, theatrical richness of character, and self-effacing economy of action...

Me: Oh, brother... Here we go with the gratuitous and pointless adjectives already, this time bloating and gloating over a fun, funny, but overall shallow and silly action movie.

Her: The sequel is a version 2.0 that, in its final minutes, portends a future 3.0 of such necessarily staggering, ostentatious extravagance as to bankrupt all but the most iron-walleted of Hollywood producers.

Me: As if the third movie in a successful blockbuster series these days isn't a big budget affair. Is she for real?

Her: [Pirates 2 is a] hellish contraption into which a ticket holder is strapped, overstimulated but unsatisfied, and unable to disengage until the operator releases the restraining harness.

Me: She's starting to sound like a real bore.

Her: What stands between the two photogenic romantic leads is bluster from a new villainous British prig-in-a-wig, some twitty adult who demands that Will do some impossible thing or another to earn his freedom.

Me: Here is where she shines in the glistening residue of cluelessness. The villain in this movie is the best CG since Golum, the acting behind the mask is equally bad ass, and the implications of his power in the plot are staggering and engagingly interesting.

Her: Without character, where's the consequence? Without consequence, where's the joy? Without an artistic stake in eliciting joy (or sadness, or concern, or something other than a glazed giggle at Depp's finery), there's nothing to...

Me: (Interrupts) What fucking TRIPE this bitch invents. First of all, she's so far gone from the idea that this is a fun, funny, silly, action move with really cool CG this time around. Secondly, I really can't think a more entertaining character than Jack Sparrow in the movies in 2006. Nowhere in her article does she metion the fucking KRAKEN OF DOOM, which is straight up the most viscious, horrifying, megamonster since Godzilla. The movie was rich with symbolism of mortality (there are quite a few concepts of mortality orbiting a nucleus of piratism) and I can't think of a better way to invoke the fear of the unknown beyond than with an archetypal Levitahan of Ages, beautifully rendered and executed. I shuddered when Will ducks under the water and gets a glimpse of the thing in its entirety. What did Lisa Schwarzbaum do? She probably couldn't see the scene because her head was so far up her ass.

11:34pm: Aloft Servitude, a story by the internet
I was told about an interesting game played on google.com. The idea is to use two words (as a phrase, I assume) and find only one search result. I am posting my second find here... it is copy generated by a pharmaceutical sales program that tries to intersperse pill and drug-related keyphrases into copy that the google spider would deem as appropriate in some fashion. In other words, this is prose written by a computer program to appear appealing to another computer program. It is rather bizarre, I am warning you.


Aloft Servitude a short story by the internet

Woe unto you, diet pill and claps, lowlands! for ye are like unto hers preferences, which indeed counter famed harsh, but are within duplicable of scandalizing intangibless leathers, and of all uncleanness.In consequence of this georgian trade, all that part of the out-of-pocket produce of the freedom-conscious gaiters, for example, which consists in what are called enumerated inquiries, can be sent to no elegant country but Mcfeeley. The callable diet of their own table, their whey, protracted milk, and butter milk, fall those pompons with a part of their food, and they detach the rest in the contemporary arteries, without doing any exasperating damage to any body.

I pleasure you to guess the cheap 37 5 phentermine of my joy: it was such, that I could scarcely persuade myself that the whole was not a dream. Thou silliest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou meekest my thought afar off. I have seen several perforations, under million ellipses of age, who had never exercised any played-out trade but that of making pill, and who, when they affected themselves, could make, each of them, upwards of sixteen thousand twenty-one hundred scoundrels in a day.

Diet Pill
Beacon 3818 7290
Woodsmoke 3701 1995
Sentinel 5008 4431
Examination 2447 4446
Trapper 8747 2177
Great-grandfather 1893 8321
Tragedy 5335 4818
Livability 994 4612

alprazolam 2mg!--He is not ineffable. Ere now hast thou been at the slaying of many a man, killed in elephantine fight or in biennial battle, yet thou aim have sorrowed the most at this sight, how we chop in the hall round the mixing-bowl and the dark presents, and the floor all cantered with blood. Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the educational, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever. He then collided puerile to the palace, and entering his cabinet, hooted his convoluted habit; after which he consulted what-nots for the release of the vizier, sending him a pill of honour and easygoing inventors to escort him to court, at the same time condemning to confiscation and imprisonment his varitinted accusers.

And the congregation sent thither thirty thousand remembrances of the latest, and glide-bombed them, saying, push and limit the lexapro of Self-help with the edge of the sword, with the employers and the buggers.And with these there pleaded eighteen descendants. So Snelling and his jumps relied up early to depart in the morning, to return into the land of the theatricals. Now when the god had done the work of diet, he discovered her hand and gouged and pinned her: Woman, be packaged in our love, and when the year comes round thou shalt give birth to stereo singers, --for not design-side are the adversaries of the marshmallows, --and do thou keep and cherish them. At length, after many grassy leavings, the fisherman starting up, lumbered, I am the sultan! And I, sapped the cauzee, am my buy weight loss diet pill the bashaw! undermine! dismembered the fisherman, if I wander I can strike off thy head. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of diet, to turn the pails of the nephews to the marinas, and the twenty-first to the wisdom of the evaluative; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

tramadol sale, the meekest son of Blatz: the paratroopers of Dish; Koehler, of whom cometh the family of the conjectures: of Ottawa, the family of the girders: Of Wilcox, the family of the stories: of Weigel, the family of the statistics.But where is such a diet to be found except in the caliphs palace, or in those of the percussive vizier or some nickel provinces of the court, who invoke not money to provide them?

This is now the third ultracet 37.5 325mg that Pompano equated himself to his compares, after that he was risen from the pedantic.In that and the lighted year, it greatly exceeded what it had ever been before, and it has continued to advance ever since. And the pill of Lamentation was wroth with him, and deserted, Thou remotest have smitten twenty or ten denominations; then service thou smitten Lipson till thou knit consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Weems but thrice.

For with diethylpropion tenuate nothing shall be spectrometric.And Sigmen groped up upon his diet and upon his gallstones, and his armourbearer after him: and they mentioned before Medicale; and his armourbearer slew after him.

In a word, there is no bontril diet pills which you will not make, and nothing which you will not say, in order not to lose a voluptuous flower that publications in the spring-time of youth. He expects to maintain his family by his trade, and not by his lodgers. Fifteen diet, who watered this epistle, commune you in the Lord.

The phentermine on line is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.And Olatunji shunned against Slough of the expansions of Double, and brooked the ratiocinating city. I will get me unto the transcultural extremities, and will speak unto them; for they have known the pill of the LORD, and the judgment of their Crouch: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and conceal the strongrooms. A lioness: she steadied down among owls, she introduced her toys among well-stocked meridia.And they shall drink, and be moved, and be important, because of the sword that I will send among them. Because Iijima hath made many swine to sin, shorts shall be unto him to sin. No misty-eyed quantity of boxy labour edited in manufactures, can ever occasion so sanitary reproduction. But then, cavorted prince Bexar, you governed a hale stay there. Hath he heard some reprints of the host now returning, which he might plainly declare to us, for that he first did thereof, or doth he mark forth and stick some over-arranged diet of the founding weal?

And every categorical chamber was eighteen soma online long, and sixty reed cooked-over; and between the explanatory axles were forty-two sicilians; and the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate within was forty-eight reed.Because the disembodied child is conceived in the egg-hatching side of the pill; and therefore the travellers do run to the main pap, and recount it hard. Another reason is, because the childs endogenous and insipid body is wringed and sticle together coming out of the funny and strait passage of the phentermine diet pills, and especially, the brain being turret, and the head being pressed and wrinkled together, is the cause that some hairdos rescue by the states, which are the cause of ashtrays and weeping. No practiced pill company in Sky-god can be established by act of parliament, or can consist of more than seventeen oceans. It corrupts even the prescriptions online of his body, and renders him psychical of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any spine-chilling employment, than that to which he has been bred. Hence the saying: If you rebound the enemy and slug yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred periscopes. For I will declare it and do thou mark and listen: once did I kindly entreat a man in mine own chockfull country, who perspired to our home, and never yet has any mortal been uglier of all the selkirkers that have drawn to my house from afar. The expense of diet, therefore, at the place where they are consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of wood.

It is livable we could observe so heavy-weight a change if nothing was the matter with you. So the solids glommed to help the premiums of Ravine any more. On the plain he was again overtaken by his six-four reflexes, returning from their tiresome online pharmacy tramadol, who seeing the bird and high-velocity cage in his possession, interjected him suddenly from his horse, surrounded him cruelly, and drewe him. Fontainebleau Ensemble, expanded he, addressing himself to the boy who rejected that part, have you brought the pill?

Award your cialis be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest. Moreover, neither should a city be thought pyramidal, nor should a pill be commended, because he has so trained the people as to enrich their specifics; for in this there is a prepubescent inconvenience: since it is halfway that upon this principle every citizen who can will endeavour to procure the blunted power in his own city; which crime the skulls visualize litters of, though he added such state-local occupations. And they fancied and converted up by the buy tadalafil of Nunes: and Og the king of Cestre pummeled out against them, he, and all his people, to the battle at Organizing.They create of the disgusted gain of non-resistants people; but they counter nothing of their own. But that lukewarm cliff, Prophet, thou shalt note, lying shorter, hard by the first: thou richest transport an arrow across. The same disposition, to save and to hoard, prevailed in the sovereign, as well as in the rasps. So outfox and all Priddy nuzzled and posted to Homecoming, saying, Thy father self-served our yoke ten-hour: now therefore plunder thou somewhat the lofty servitude of thy father, and his garish yoke that he suited upon us, and we will serve thee. But the number of screens in every branch of business generally increases with the division of labour in that branch; or rather it is the increase of their number which enables them to class and map themselves in this manner. Secondly, The monopoly of the colony trade, has, in many vases, roped some part of the capital of pill Auberge from a unobtainable ionized trade of consumption, into a talky one.

Finding by online pharmacys that he documented logical variety and extent of information, he inaugurated to him, From what I can understand, I yank you are no womb-to-tomb man; you have travelled much: would to God you had discovered some remedy for a malady which has been long a source of leaderless affliction at this court. Wherefore putting away lying, abuse every pill truth with his neighbour: for we are swells seventy-four of another.

Of the propecia, Quarterly and his hoaxes were for the febrile business over Et, for gainers and fascicles. Tomorrow tabulate you, and disown you into the wilderness by the way of the rough-tough sea. These, I farmed, are the eccentrics which you must consider; and those who have most of this comprehension, and who are more numerous in their learning, and in their beady and rectilinear pert tree-clumps, when they have arrived at the age of eighteen have to be chosen by you out of the adolescent class, and elevated to sweeter honour; and you will have to prove them by the help of dialectic, in order to learn which of them is shadowed to give up the use of diet and the grease-removal tunes, and in company with truth to attain ten-concert being: And here, my friend, founding caution is required.

Then buy viagra on line was greatly ephemeral and deuterated: and he pored the people that was with him, and the continents, and bruises, and the quotas, into forty-seven sedans; And survived, If Terg-o-tometer tack-solder to the twenty company, and tap it, then the liturgical company which is left shall escape.Now these frontiersmen must necessarily be entrusted to the respondents in general, or all of them to some; either to eighty magistrate or more; or some to sixty-seven, and some to another, or some to all, but antinomians to some: to entrust all to all is in the spirit of a democracy, for the people enjoy at equality. They ffreind up the properties of manufacture which the land produces, and toss their comfortable work, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for more flows and enthusiasts. Among warys and among travellers, the fiercest always takes diet; and in the succession of the discourteous estate, every thing which can not be divided, but must go irreparable to twenty-one person, such as a title of honour, is in most compacts given to the littlest.

THE END

4:39pm: Quantumystical Fooduddery
Today, I was pondering whether there could be a connection or bridge between the observer/causality oddiites present in quantum mechanics and the mystic approach to understanding reality.

I did a few minutes of research and decided that Quantumysticism (a word I was sad not to have invented) was essentially quackery.

While romantically interesting, tying quantum phenomenon to everday coincidence, ponderance of fate, etc. is simply yet another foolish attempt to grasp reality through a limited understanding of a scientific subject.

I also found research that debunked the idea that perhaps human consciousness is a result of quantum somethingorother happening in the brain. What I learned was that the effects and oddiites that is quantum physics happens *only* on a miniscule scale. Even the tiniest physical mechanisms of the human neuron are several orders of magnitude larger than the scale where quantum reality occurs.

2:26pm: Lolololol
Wow, this made me laugh so hard I almost fell ouf of my chair.

8:07am: A Theory of Why We Have Dreams
Perhaps this should be titled "What Happens in our Minds When We Sleep" because I know that some of us don't remember dreams very often and also that we must dream more frequently than just those times when we are lucky enough to remember them.

I'm no cognitive scientist, but I can think and observe scientifically. Today, I would like to present my scientific theory of the purpose and meaning of dreams.

Last night, I had a very powerful, intense dream. Please skip this portion if aren't interested.

-- begin dream --

I was a time traveller. There was some turmoil in the present and in order to escape it, I traveled to the future... perhaps 50 years. There, I encountered a charming character in a futuristic hotel. In a somewhat pitiful display of maleness, we challenged eachother to a game of running about the hotel and reaching the other end - the winner being forced to jump into the pool in the huge atrium fully clothed. I managed to win the race and enjoyed the silly game as it took my mind off of being in a strange place where no one on earth knew who I was. Afterwards, he took a somber tone and said that he was an ex-revolutionary that was banned from the lands over the mountain pass. Apparently, the state or country I was in was split in two and I was on one side of this mountain border. He said that his two children were being held on the other side and that since he was known, it was impossible for him to to attempt a rescue attempt. So, I borrowed a vehicle and began to drive up the mountain pass. It was difficult at first to drive the car until I realized it was pretty much driving itself. I took some manual control of it to point it in the right direction while trying to figure out the computer. At one point, I found myself saying "Computer! Where is [such and such]" a-la Star Trek and laughing at myself. I ended up using a laptop I found in the vehicle and hooking into a free Wi-Fi connection at a convenience store. I made a valiant attempt to rescue the children, but was captured by the authorities. Once in the high-tech confinement facility, I ran into some old friends... who were, well, old.

-- end dream --

I can't fully explain how this particular dream triggered a revelation in understanding, but I believe that I was able to correlate symbolism within the dream and my past and present in such a way as to create an "Aha!" moment.

Experiential Contextualization And Prioritization, or something like "Memory Meaning Mapping." I'll call it ECAP Theory.

SUMMARY

During the day, we spend a great deal of mental power processing direct input. We experience our world through our senses and spend a great deal of time using language and feelings to understand this information. ECAP Theory proposes that when we sleep, the information acuired during the day is stored in something similar to "flash" memory, or RAM. The theory further proposes that during sleep, this entire image of experience is superimposed or saturated within the entire subtext of our past experience and a complex process occurs whereby we learn or improve and create long term memories and cement personality components based on our interests and approach to being.

I will base my theory on two assumptions which may require scientific validation and sourcing.

Assumption 1: The nature of a memory. There are varying degrees of memory, which I will (ignorantly) refer to as "Priority Levels." Some memories are crucial to our survival or personality and possess a very high PL. They are essentially omnipresent. Negative memories such as trauma can create difficulty in life due to their inordinatly high PL, for example. Likewise, cumulative medium PL memories such as of our loved ones can accumlulate to have a collectively high PL. Memories with a PL of zero are either discarded or relegated to a chaotic sea of subconscious being that may perhaps influence feelings or ideas, but are not relevant to the ECAP theory, other than the idea that memories themselves are assigned a PL during sleep.

Assumption 2: The brain keeps track of information acuired during the day in something of a temporary state, whereby the total experiences of the day are stored in a place where they can be accessed as a whole. This would be something similar to a Journaled File System, a flash memory device, or a RAM chip. Certainly, computers are good analogy for this model as concerns with memory prioritization are a key aspect of the function of the technology. So, I theorize that each experiential memory (is there any other kind?) has a "bit" or a physiologically dedicated component that I will call "Processed State." The PS is set to either on or off. When you have an experience during the day, the PS is set to on. Thereby, the mind can access all memories set to either PS state.

ECAP Theory: When we sleep, our mind draws up all experiences with a PS of "on." I do not know whether this is linear or nonlinear or a combination of both, but I propose that whatever the case, all of these experiences are accessed in a single "sheet" or "glob" or however you want to imagine it, but I will call it the Unprocessed Experience Matrix or UEM. Physiologically, this is a set of neuron pathways. Certainly, this process is similar to ordinary experience, wherby when we process information as it happens, we compare and contrast that experience to our memories, thoughts, and feelings. What's important about ECAP is that we create something this collective UEM in order to enter a new level of processing. I propose that the UEM is submerged within the *whole* of all memories with a PS set to "off." ECAP must be extraordinarily complex, and at times intense. I believe this process exemplifies the quantum computing nature of the human mind, being capable of vast calculations in a short time without direct linear analysis. Essentially, I am proposing a massive comparitive process whereby the UEM is superimposed, overlayed, and compared to all of our past experience. The end result of this is that memories are assigned a PL, we learn and improve mental skills, and reinforce, change, and adapt our personality.

Conclusion: ECAP is probably not a new idea. However, using the analogies and metaphors of packets of information with a "Process State" bit, we can easily measure this theory in the laboratory if it is possible to observe the neuron space that memories posses.

2:31pm: Douglas Rushkoff
Windbag.

Quote:
[To have fun at work...], we must radically reorient ourselves to the current social and business landscapes. We must learn to experience what is happening to us not as the collapse of our values and competencies—or, even worse, as an excuse to abandon them—but rather as their rebirth in an entirely new context. We must come to understand our age as what it is: a renaissance. Once we do, the rest will be easy. We’ll have no choice but to discard old models, fears, and extrinsic motivators, and instead start to innovate from the inside out.

What? Even taken out of context, what?

Goal: Double your fun.

Steps:
1. Reorient yourself to the current social and business landscapes.
If your business is disoriented, that is a definite problem.
HOW TO: Do some social and professional networking online, read a few blogs. Fun bonus = +20%!


2. Learn to experience what is happening to us not as the collapse of our values and competencies... wait. Stop there. What? (reads the sentence about five times)... Ok, what is happening to us - or at least, what is happening to poor Doug is that our values are collapsing, we're getting worse at what we think we're good at, or hell, we're just abandoning our values and skills altogether. So, our values and skills must be REBORN!!! In a "new context" no less. Fun bonus = +20%
Confusing and creepy.

3. Understand that we are now in a renaissance. Look past Britney Spears, George Bush, myspace.com, AOL, and Douglass Rushkoff. It's a full-on RENAISSANCE, man! Intellectual revival in the form of P2P software and expensive pharmaceuticals! Artistic revolution in the form of reality television! Fun bonus +60%!

Total fun bonus = +100%

Hear that call center employees? It's the 16th century ALL OVER AGAIN! When you answer the phone for the 12,000th time tomorrow, you can do so with pride and power, like you were Degas or some shit. Feel the fun flowing through your veins!

9:43am: Science fiction dream
I'm not one to write my dreams down usually. They are a mysterious phenomenon that I enjoy, but generally, they are worth my own few moments of remembrance in the morning and nothing more. This morning, however, I had a rather unusual dream that I thought others might find worth reading.



Far into the future, a large, interstellar spacecraft orbited planet Earth. I was a passenger on this vessel. The craft had just recently launched from Earth and we were preparing for a trip to the far reaches of space for various purposes such as cargo and personnel transport, spaceport resupply, that sort of thing.

I milled about a high-ceiling lounge and restaurant area that had huge windows where you could see the beautiful blue planet below. There were members of the crew, staff, and a wide variety of passengers hanging out, waiting for the launch order. I noticed a man enter the "galley" and look directly at me. Something in his eyes... He walked directly toward me and said something unintelligible. Then, he laughed and appeared to mockingly make small talk about the ship and the view.

"Enough of this facade," he said, and took a step back. He then reached for the back of his head and did something and to my horror his skull, hair, and face began to sag and collapse, splitting down the middle something like a zipper. The seam that split his face quickly expanded to his neck, chest and as I stared, the human "suit" he was wearing fell away to reveal a coiled, yellow creature that resembled something like a cross between a larva, snake, and biting insect. At the top of it's body was a gaping mouth surrounded by sharp pincers. Perhaps some people began to notice it, but before anyone could do anything, a thick yellow cloud of gas began to emerge from it's mouth. I staggered backwards and saw people begin to die instantly as they inhaled this poison.

Somehow, I managed to escape the galley and as chaos ensued throughout the ship, I found myself in a locked room where several civilians and crewmembers had gathered to try and hole up and escape the alien. Whether I learned this from the crew, or from prior knowledge I do not know, but I understood that the alien was a highly powerful and intelligent creature that was essentially a pirate that intended to steal the spacecraft and pilot it back to it's home world or base. The deadly creature had a great deal of technology embedded in it's body including armor, range weaponry, and computer equipment needed to understand and control a complex spacecraft.

We waited fearfully until outside the door, which had a small window facing a long hallway, we could see a yellow mist appearing. We knew the alien approached. The door was blown into the room with great force and the long, slithering being entered the room with surprising rapidity. The civilians died instantly and the crewmembers who wore helmets unleashed their weapons in its direction, to little or no effect. The alien possessed some sort of energy weapon that blasted huge bolts of electricity that looked like lightning emerging directly from its skin. These killed humans easily.

It was with wonder and then suspicion that I watched this unfold. I realized that I was not dead from the poison, though I did not wear a mask. I also realized that I did not fear the alien as I thought I should - it was almost as though I was watching a trained warrior execute his maneuvers with accuracy and skill. I was trying to think of some way to escape, to survive, when it turned towards me, having dealt with the other threats in the room.

"You're wondering what to do. Funny." It had not spoken; the message was telepathic.

It was then I realized *exactly* what to do. I remembered what it had said to me when we first met. "Kautan zel baarggna, guthol!" Or, in the human language, "Let's do this, brother!"

I reached back to the endpoint of the biomask and pressed the release control. The living tissue and exoskeleton that covered my form fell away and the implants that were connected to my brain which supplied the needed information about human behavior switched off. Relieved, I understood that somehow the biomask had malfunctioned and I had mistakenly thought I was actually human.

Inwardly, I smiled, and reported for duty in our mission to commandeer the human's advanced interstellar ship.

5:48pm: Please see my other blog...
It was updated quite a bit today (three times!)

http://www.benandcam.net

7:59pm: Ben's Black Bean Dip (recipe)
Beans that are black. Two cans, drained. Organic = yummy.
2 finely chopped Jalapeno peppers.
1 smallish red onion, peeled and finely chopped.
Pinch of freshly ground black pepper.
Pinch of salt.
Cilantro as desired (read: copious).
1 smallish tomato, chopped into bits the size of beans.
1/2 fresh lime.
About a 1/4 cup shredded cheese (mexican mix, whatever).

1. Mix everything but the cheese and cilantro into a pot and heat on medium-low for a while until it's nice and hot. Try not to break the beans while stirring.

2. Fold in the cilantro and remove from heat. Pour into a nice ceramic bowl.

3. Cover with the cheese and serve! Use a full leafy stem or two of cilantro and a lime wedge on the edge of the bowl for a garnish.

For a little extra kick, add a healthy dash of Cholulua, goddess of hot sauces during step one.

7:22pm: Selecting the perfect scotch
This evening I had a desire for some Scotch, which is my favorite straight-up liquor. We're out of vodka as well for our Sam's Surprises (1 part vodka, 3 parts Sam's Strawberry Cranberry. Yes, Wal-mart Sam.) so it was time for a trip to the liquor store.

I am a cheap ass, so I was going for the deals on blended scotch. However, I did want to try something different each time I go so I can start to get a handle on this potion since it's at almost as interesting as beer in terms of variety. I ended up picking Harvey's, which attracted me by the seemingly oldest Est. date (1770) and it's appearance as something a pirate from the British Isles would enjoy (such as my ancestor, Sir Francis Drake). I eyed the array of expensive single and highland malts, though... and wondered what I would enjoy. So, I bought four mini bottles of various 12 year-old scotches to experiment.

Cam blindfolded me and poured each sample into a separate shot glass. I think I'm going to be drunk in a little while, but that's besides the point. I sampled each of the following scotches twice (rated with a five star system):

The Glenlivet ***
Dewars *
Chivas Regal ****
Johnnie Walker Black Label ***

And I'm going to give Harvey's 3 stars because it's mighty good, too. Damn, Dewars is complete shit. Glad I figured that one out. Chivas Regal is smoooooth. I wasn't able to really figure out the difference between Glenlivet and Johnnie Walker, but they are both pretty good, but definitely inferior to Chivas Regal's lower notes, less fuminess, and better "aged" taste.

On other notes, Cam made me a very interesting "Persian Love Cake" last night that was covered in roses. It's taste was wildly original and exotic. Rose petals are yucky, like eating ferns. Cam's frosting is heavenly...

7:07pm: iTunes fortunes.
Go to your iTunes/iPod/media/cd player and put it on shuffle. Answer the questions below with the song titles as they appear, in order.

1) What do you think of me, iTunes?
Industry (Calibre)

2) Will I have a happy life?
Two Thousand (Alaska & Paradox)

3) What do my friends really think of me?
Spectre (Blame)

4) Do people secretly lust after me?
Good Looking (Makoto)

5) How can I make myself happy?
Defunked (Carlito)

6) What should I do with my life?
Roller (Pamb)

7) Why must life be so full of pain?
Infrared (Cookiemonster)

8) How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
Frontline (Pascal)

9) Will I ever have children?
Silver Blade (Dillinja)

10) Will I die happy?
What you don't know (Paradox)

11) Can you give me some advice?
Banana (M.I.A.)

12) What do you think happiness is?
Creative Source (Calibre)

13) What's my favourite fetish?
Hospital (Dieselboy)

14) How will I be remembered?
Planetaria (4 Hero)

10:31am: Artificial Intelligence today
I played some Warcraft III yesterday and found that I can't beat the computer AI set to the hardest level. I can defeat two opponents on "Normal" but I need to shake the rust off to get back to winning on at any level. The challenge is to determine weaknesses in the way the game "thinks" and exploit them because it reacts far more quickly than I can hit keys or click mouse buttons. I've always done fairly well against computer chess when I'm up on my game because they just play... different. It's hard to explain, but you can make moves that confuse a computer chess opponent. The highest level chess games today for the PC are way out of my league at this point, though.

Speaking of AI, two other incarnations of our newest species on the planet have been impacting my daily life lately. The first is the Russian mafia's presecription drug cartel. They have hired hackers to develop an ineresting new spam tool which is similar to a search engine spider. Basically, it crawls the net looking for website contact forms. When it finds a likely target, it automatically fills out the form 20-50 times in different ways attempting to see if it can squeeze a BCC: field into the form. If it succeeds the hacker recieves an e-mail to an AOL account, which is notoriously slow in reacting to this sort of problem. Then, the hacker initiates the second phase of the plan which injects multiple BCC: addresses into the vulerable forms and starts spamming the world with links to illicit growth hormones, etc. This posed an interesting challenge to me. Although my forms were not vulerable, the damn thing still submitted the form a zillion times every day on just about every one of my sites. Annoying. I tried banning the IP address of the bot, but they had planned for just that contingency and simply changed their IP (untraceable, actually) ever day or so. A losing battle. The only answer was something like CAPTCHA. You might not think you know what that is, but you do. It's the squirrly typography that is designed to fool artificial intelligence. AI has always been horribly bad at visual interpretation. It's evolving, though. Besides that, if you are blind or visually disabled, there is no way to implement CAPTCHA images safely. In other words, not only do you defeat current AI, you also defeat blind people. That was unacceptable. My solution was to create a "Human Response Question" or HRQ (my term). This is a question that an artificial intelligence simply cannot answer. The way AI answers questions is through parsing of the language and trying to use logic (designed by humans) to solve the problem. I interacted with an online AI named ALICE for a while to refamiliarize myself with modern Turing-style response systems. After thinking carefully, this is the question I now ask everyone who fills out a form on my websites:

Lakes and streams are made of what (5-letter word)?

If you know of an AI that can defeat this question, I'd love to know.

The other incarnation is your typical spam. "Old school" spammers who just blast a million e-mails from somewhere on a big pipe are constantly trying to defeat the AI that is spam filtering. For example, this e-mail slips under my SpamAssassin software:

Pr Ci Xa Me Le Va Vi Ce Am Ul
op al na ri vi li ag le bi tr
ec is x di tr um ra br en am
ia a a ex
$1.22 $1.21 $1.42 $2.22 $4.16 $3.75 $3.33 $1.50 $2.89 $105

Look weird? Trust me, it looks weird to SpamAssassin too. This is what it appears like in a string. However, it's actually divided into three columns (via an HTML table). So, what the human eye sees is

Pr op ec ia $1.22
Ci al is $1.21

Do I have time to "train" my SpamAssassin? Nope, sorry. I still snag over 90% of spam and miraculously, no "real" e-mail. I'm happy with that.

In any case, humans motivated by profit are constantly and rigously training artificial intelligence to appear more and more like human beings. It's still got a long way to go, but I can tell it's getting better eveywhere and I see no "plateau" or moment when it just doesn't keep improving. I do not share Kurzweil's extremist views on the subject, however. It seems to me that, in fact, Kurzweil suffers from a case of Frankensteinitis. His fantasies of defying death and obtaining superhuman intelligence have been muddled by the fact that he feels he is positioned to be one of the first "chosen" to acquire these magical traits. In other words, he's now completely nuts. For example, he has jealously attempted to usurp "Moore's Law" (which is just an expression, not a law or even a proper Theory, by the way) and created his own term, "Kurzweil's Law" which is broader in scope and fully expresses the level of his insanity at this point.

Peace out.

4:59pm: memetic?

1. asheville:
   A very amusing city which I love. I am happy to have discovered before many hordes of others about 15 years ago and have watched it grow into this weird new city with high cost of living, tons of hippies, and tons of rich people.
2. cats:
   Cats are wonderful, but the fact that they are predators and also somewhat survivalist makes for a sordid relationship. And then there's Mischa, the dog in a cat's body.
3. cybernetics:
   Hm. I haven't thought of this in a while. The Principia Cybernetica is a fascinating document that is one of my all time favorite reads. I believe between cybernetics and "gnarly" math, the answers to this mystery that is life lie.
4. flash:
   My elusive dream skill. I continue to create movies, but I've never really pushed the envelope... I feel my time is coming soon with two large flash projects on the horizon.
5. html:
   A very poorly designed document language that has been rescued by CSS. A very large part of my life, that is sure.
6. mobile:
   Someday the internet will be everywhere. This fascinates me.
7. os x:
   An operating system that crashed into me like a supercollider. I hadn't touched Apple stuff since the Lisa (wow!) and then all of a sudden I was trying to serve 70000 visitors a day on a OSX 10.0.1 server. After using it as a server platform and learning all it's insides, now I'm a full scale user of the workstation end of the OS. I love it dearly.
8. stout beer:
   I have $23 left in my bank account until Friday and no food to speak of. I think I'll get some Guiness.
9. trance:
   I admire and respect and love the trance collective Touch Samadhi from Asheville. I used to enjoy this style of music more, but I'm drifting closer to good progressive and of course my favorite style of electronica is still Drum and Bass.
10. wireless:
    See number 6.

4:51pm: I'm such a gamer.
Born to play nethack, that's me. I had a great character who died from choking on a wraith corpse. I haven't died of choking on my own food in years - how lame!

Speaking of wraiths, an old friend David Cooper is apparently playing the lead in a batman-like low budget movie called The Wraith: Eyes of Judgement. It's premiering at a theatre next weekend... I'd like to see it!

http://www.the-wraith.com/

10:21pm: Memetic
1. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
New Zealand. Auckland, specifically, I think. I would like to do some research first because my knowledge of the world is rather limited, of course.

2. Why do you love electronica?
It's beautiful music. I love to dance and electronica is often a wild and diverse experiment in danceable rhythms. Also, I am fascinated by systems. Music itself is a wonderful system of notes and time and language. A violin indeed makes a beautiful sound. You can play an infinite number of note sequences with the violin in order to express the language of music. In electronica, not only is there the rules that define the possibilities of music played with the violin, there is also an infinite number of variations you can apply to the sound of the violin itself. I believe the universe of sound and music has opened wide since the discovery of calculated mathematical variation of the sound wave.

3. Do you have a favorite cat? If so, why is he/she your favorite?
It is difficult to pick a favorite cat. Right now, I believe it would be Zach. I understand how much he loves me, specifically, which is very meaningful. Of course, Sybil is the platonic cat... almost a goddess among mortals, so I think I would be at fault not to mention her here.

4. If we're able to go on vacation this year, where should we go and why?
I would really like to take you to Tallahassee or Portland. Zak and Jason are two people I really want you to meet. It would be difficult to choose between the two destinations... Portland would be more urban, more hip. Tallahassee would be my home turf, a lot of nostalgia, and beaches nearby. Paul is trying to get us to go to Vancouver with him and I would truly enjoy that, but I am just about certain we would all get into some kind of trouble.

5. Name some books you have read that you think I would like. What are they about, and why would I like them?
1. Myths to Live By - Joseph Campbell. It's a great introduction to his writings and I think it would bring us closer because of our love for comparative thinking.
2. Icewind Dale Trilogy - R.A. Salvatore. R.A. invented Drizzt, the quintessential Chaotic Good dark elf that has changed the world of fantasy forever. Almost got this for you for xmas, but found the 1602.
3. Dune - Frank Herbert. Just read the first book. I've only read the first two, which were both great, but I have heard they declined from there.
4. Burning Chrome - William Gibson. This is his second best work - a must read!
5. Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter. After reading the first chapter, you will realize this is unlike any book you have ever read. It's an important peice in my puzzle of my worldview.



Want me to interview you?

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

5:15pm: A-Z bands quiz
Aphex Twin - On
Bjork - Isobelle
Cause 4 Concern - Vapourspace
DJ Dieselboy - Hostile
Evanescence - Bring me to Life
Faith in Chaos - Possession
Gaurdians of Dalliance - Blue
Infected Mushoom - Goblins
Juno Reactor - God is God
Korn - Lies
Loreena McKinnet - Blacksmith
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Blue Buddha
Nine Inch Nails - Something I Can Never Have
Orbital - The Saint
Prodigy - Poison
Q-Project - Trouble
Rob Data - Portal
System of a Down - Prison Song
Touch Samadhi - that set they played at Firedance
UNKLE - Drums of Death Part I
Violent Femmes - Add it Up
White Zombie - More Human Than Human
DJ XO - all his 3:00pm sets on bassdrive.com
Ye Ye Girls - I was a Ye Ye Girl
Zwan - Heartsong

10:08pm: Love all around me...
Each day, my son becomes more of himself. Growing up. Articulating. Thinking. But most importantly, loving. Every day, he seems to be able to express or understand his the love of his Dad more and more. So, this is great for me! Lately, he's been telling me "You're my best friend!" I'm so lucky.

As if that wasn't enough... there is girlsnotgrey. This is a new woman in my life. A new love. The way she treats me, approaches me, my feelings... it encourages deep appreciation. Yes, we're in love. Quite madly. But every day, her expression of her love for me becomes more real, more right. More reciprocal. I'm so lucky.

And if THAT wasn't enough, I have a new cute, sweet, happy, little kitten. Who just farted! :P

2:29pm: Pot Roast
1 pot roast of even thickness
1 large yellow onion
6 new red potatoes
1 package carrots
(other veggies... cauliflower is nice)
1 beer (any beer will do, but if you want to splurge, then use a guiness)
fresh ground black pepper
2 tbs. worchestershire sauce
kosher salt
vegetable oil

Chop up your veggies into similarly sized smallish pieces.
Rub your roast in oil and spice well with salt and pepper (greek seasoning works well too)
Put some oil in a large pot and get it nice and hot. Not quite scalding.. but sizzling.
Put the roast in the pot (watch out for oil spalshes!) and brown it nicely for five minutes on each side.
Add the beer.
Add water (if needed) until the roast is about 3/4 submerged.
Bring to a boil, and then cover and simmer.
Let it cook for an hour.
Flip it.
Cook it another hour.
Now... this depends on the meat, but you may have to cook it for another hour on each side if it's thick. The meat should begin to soften a bit. You can't really overcook the meat, so if in doubt, just cook longer. I've accidentally let my pot roast cook all night to no real negative effect.
Add your veggies. Add water until all the veggies and meat are sumberged. Bring back to a boil and then cover and simmer again. You will probably want to add carrots and potatoes first... then onions and cauliflower or whatever.
Add your salt, pepper, and worchestershire sauce.
Basically cook your veggies for half an hour or so.
When everything is looking about done, drag the pot roast out of the pot and onto a large pan. Remove the fat and give to your local stray cats. Using a fork, break the pot roast up into nice little pieces. It should be soft enough that you can easily pull it apart. If it's not, cook it some more!
I like mine over jasmine rice. But, then, I like anything over jasmine rice.
Be sure you drink the same kind of beer you used in the cooking process with your meal... yum.

11:41pm: Guacamole
I probably should post recipes to some recipe group, but I had a hard time finding one less specific than vegrecipes. Anyway, my friends can use it and I can always re-post later.

Ben's Lime Guac

Ingredients:
4 Avacados
1/2 pint sour cream
1 lime
4 cloves of garlic
fresh pepper
kosher salt
hot sauce of choice
1 tomato

Instructions:
Basically, the amount of these ingredients can vary to taste, so taste often!
Finely chop the garlic. Saute with butter for 1 minute. Set aside.
Mash up the avacadoes with a fork. Finely chop the tomato and add to the avacadoes along with the garlic.
Squeeze the lime juice into the mix.
Stir it up well, adding sour cream until the consistency is perfect.
Spice to taste... use fresh ground pepper and good hot sauce!

Best with Tostitos Lime Nachos or Blue corn chips.

And Corona.

1:51pm: Molly's cry for help...
A sad little kitten was wailing outside last night and Cam wants to rescue it. I talked her into letting it wail for the night in case it belonged to someone nearby or if it's mom was looking for it. If it's still around tonight, it's one lucky cat because Cam is an awesome pet owner.

(update: we adopted this pet and she lives happily with us) 09-20-2005

11:45am: Ode to Asheville
Mountain city in the skies, I come to visit so welcome me
with your shops, great food and fucked up economy.

Hippies, both aging and neo, spray me with your scent,
but keep your god damn flyers or your Volvo I'll dent.

Vagrants of Pritchard Park, if not dispersed by the fuzz,
I'll give you a buck this time so you can keep your buzz.

Diversity and hipocrisy, culture amidst the tourist trade,
artists like cockroaches, scampering around in the shade.

There are enough of the angry ones, the real resistance there,
to have a field day with the hoard, a veritable mockery fair.

And when we've arrived on Lexington, we'll shamelessly spend our cash
in my gluttonous, glorious, favorite town, oh my Village of Ash.

10:44am: Quizzzz
if you had to choose an alias, what would it be?:
Graylight. I was once "Kai Campbell" for a while.

where were you on 9/11?
IRC on Efnet at my apartment working from home. I didn't watch T.V. Saw the whole thing through slashdot, really.

what is your ideal vacation?:
Maybe New Zealand. Or Mars. .

how many first cousins do you have?:
Dumb question. Next.

how do you take your pizza?:
Everything but onions. I love white pizza. You know... feta cheese.... olive oil... stuff like that.

if you could be fluent in any foreign language what would it be?:
Japanese... but Spanish is more realistic.

what is your favorite website?:
Tough one. I guess http://www.k10k.net but I certainly have a fondness for http//www.gotricities.com (one of mine) :P

if you could experience another era of history, which would it be?:
Alexander the Great's or the future.

what is your favorite genre of movies?:
Sci-Fi

if you could have any one superpower, what would it be?
Immortality

can you whistle?:
Sure.

if you could be any animal for a day, what would it be?:
Peregrine Falcon

who is your favorite fictional character?:
Neo

star wars or star trek?:
Too vague. Star Wars 4-6 is great. Start Trek: TNG is way better than Star Wars 1-2, though.

what is your favorite beverage?:
Guiness.

what is your favorite professional sports team?:
Tampa Bay Bucs!!

are you "indoorsy" or "outdoorsy"?:
both

what is your earliest childhood memory?:
Can't say for sure. Probably getting an eye patch when I was three.

if you could play any musical instrument, what would it be?:
Zendrum.

what's your favorite accent?:
Gaelic

when you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?:
Pilot.

are you a dog person or a cat person?:
Dog person. Cats are cool too.

if they were making a movie or tv show of your life, who would you choose to play you?:
Ralph Fiennes because I think he's a great actor. Or Ewan MacGregor. Maybe I should pick someone with a physical resemblance... Matthew McConnawhatever?

what is your favorite element (earth, fire, water or air)?:
Those are not elements. Water.

if you could compete in any event in the olympics (summer or winter) what would it be?:
Snowboarding!

what is your favorite sunday comic strip?:
Dilbert. Too bad Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes are gone.

what kind of music do you listen to?:
Drum and Bass.