Moszjeszjaszje

allofthem @ 2009-12-01T20:35:00

2009-12-02T02:35:47Z

I keep coming back to Burroughs, I don't know why. A friend (not a friend anymore) once told me it's because I was not a mature reader. I laugh off such suggestions; in the meantime, I eat cold pizza.

I remember the incessant pain
that froze the lymph in my glands
when the baneful words
seared my reeling brain...

I was a 30-year-old unemployed student.

Not so bad; not so bread, either.

allofthem @ 2009-11-18T11:56:00

2009-11-18T17:56:30Z

Went to an Industrial Advisory Board meeting the other day, met a dude who is possibly my hero... Mechanical engineer by training, branched out into studio design and now renders 3D models of car wrecks and platform collapses for the car and oil industry. In his spare time, he is revamping a motocross track and producing music and music videos.

Must be a nice life...

allofthem @ 2009-11-11T12:40:00

2009-11-11T18:45:41Z

Most of Brazil had a massive blackout last night. Many dipshit media types are reporting that this may be cause for concern about Rio de Janeiro hosting the olympics in 8 years. These same dipshits are probably the same ones who promoted New York City as a potential olympics host site, forgetting the comparably massive power outage that occurred just 5 years ago.

Rio is a beautiful city; had an absolute blast there during my honeymoon. Hang out on Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, walk around in Santa Teresa, and stay away from the ghettos... You'll be fine. But I guess that's just too goddamn practical for some people.

allofthem @ 2009-11-02T09:16:00

2009-11-02T15:18:18Z

Stayed up 'til 3:00 AM coding last night... Feel like someone scraped me across the asphalt this morning. The weather's absolutely beautiful, though, as it usually is in November... Can't really complain too much.

Today marks the beginning of a very difficult stretch in school... If I can get through this obscene noise, I can get through pretty much anything (I seem to be telling myself this every few months or so).

Hooray for Beatles Rock Band; I'm not sure I've ever had so much fun playing a video game before. Not only do I get to play old favorites like 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)' and 'Dear Prudence', but I'm also discovering tracks that I have shamefully ignored up until now, like 'Dig A Pony' and 'I Me Mine'... Too wonderful.

I also have new respect for Mr. McCartney... Holy shit, what fun, lovable, creative bass lines that guy conjured ('Can't Buy Me Love' has some of the slickest bass I've ever heard)! And I used to think he was just the band's mascot... Oh, the shame.

allofthem @ 2009-10-26T09:07:00

2009-10-26T14:18:09Z

I'm building a DJ mixer for my electronics design project... It's remarkably easy once you understand a thing or two about operational amplifiers. It won't have all the bells & whistles of a Rane or Pioneer mixer (e.g. BPM counters, samplers, effects knobs), but it'll be made with about $12 worth of components, so I can't feel too bad about that.

Last week was one of the more brutal weeks I've had in awhile. There was enough school work to keep me up 'til 2:00 AM (or later) every night (which wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't have to be up at 6:30 AM every morning). However, looking at my major's flowchart, this should be the last Hell semester I'll have to deal with before graduation.

Today it rains early and often and very, very hard.

allofthem @ 2009-10-14T10:32:00

2009-10-14T15:41:44Z

This guy from Jersey introduced me to a band called Japanther. Had never heard of them before, though I wouldn't beat myself over it, considering I'm not from Brooklyn.

Regardless, much love to that motherfucker; good stuff, great to listen to when trying to wake the fuck up on a hot, disgusting, early morning. I only wish they had some tracks on Rock Band, because those fucking drums in their songs make me want to bang on something. (Insert sex joke here).

Yesterday I grabbed a hammer and began mutilating my left hand... Began about 9:30PM last night with some slow, hard, bashes, and after downing a half liter of whiskey I went all drum&bass at 180 BPM until about 2:30AM. This morning there is a mass of dangling, bloody skin where my left hand used to be, but it was worth it just to see the look on my wife's face when she found hunks of bone and flesh lying all over her living room carpet. It was somewhere between "Why the fuck didn't you clean the carpet before the blood dried, you lazy fuck?!" and "You smashed up your hand without even consulting me first?!!" She then kicked me out of bed and made me go buy Resolve at the closest 24-hr Walgreens.

Married life, I tells ya'... Never a dull moment.

allofthem @ 2009-10-08T10:59:00

2009-10-08T16:07:31Z

Had a quiz in my electronics class today... Dr. Professor gave us a Bode plot, then we had to come up with an op-amp circuit that matched the corresponding frequency response. Luckily, it was a very simple plot, but it'll only get more difficult from here... I think November is going to be Hell to the nth power.

Tomorrow I code until my eyes bleed, possibly longer if I can find an efficient enough method to wipe away the blood.

Here is a picture of an owl in a box:

allofthem @ 2009-09-30T09:09:00

2009-09-30T14:16:02Z

First exam of the semester today... Good; the first is always the scariest, although I'm too old to be scared of tests these days. I have a nice calm going, like I sipped from a snifter of cognac this morning. This is the mindset I need; nothing is worth losing your composure over.

The exam will cover electromagnetic waves in dissipative media, or the way that waveforms are attenuated when traveling through materials with different physical characteristics. Not the most terrifying subject matter for me; I'm more scared of my Circuits & Systems final in two weeks, but I'll not think of that right now.

I'm gonna put on an iron shirt, and chase Satan out of Earth. I'm gonna put on an iron shirt, and chase the devil out of Earth.

The 250 GB cap on downloads/uploads we have on our Comcast broadband is a bit worrisome... That connection can fuckin' fly, downloads topping at over 2 MB/s (WTF?! I would have laughed if you told me I would have such a blazing fast connection just three years ago) and uploads topping 200 kB/s... 250 GB is a very easy threshold to break. My router, unfortunately, is not equipped to handle DD-WRT firmware (top-notch freeware for routers via the good folks at Linux), which can easily keep track of the data volume being passed over the cables. *sigh* Can't afford a $150 router right now.

allofthem @ 2009-09-28T15:58:00

2009-09-28T21:06:32Z

Things pile up... Standing still is not an option; one must constantly climb to keep from getting dumped on.

Today I received my first program back from my C Programming class, was shocked to be staring at a 60/100... Could not really understand what I did wrong, as output was correct and I peppered the code with inane comments as ordered to by the requisite megalomaniac professor. I was so upset as to barely be able to concentrate on a rather important lecture about variadic macros and preprocessor directives... But luckily, the professor looked over my assignment and realized that I was wrongly docked many, many points for no reason. Happy day.

My brain is melted right now, feels like two runny eggs slithering out my ears at 70 degrees Celsius... The week will be rainy and nasty according to Wii Weather... There is scarcely time to think about diversions... There is scarcely time to wander aimlessly... There is scarcely time for much at all but solemn meditation on my precarious academic life.

This is OK with me...

We're watching King of the Hill in order, starting from Season 1... We got to the episode with Willie Nelson.

Hank says to Willie, "The boy has no goals." (Paraphrase)

Willie says to Hank, "Take it easy on the boy, he's only 12."

I say, "Yeah, Hank, I didn't have any clear goals until I was 28."

allofthem @ 2009-09-14T09:09:00

2009-09-14T14:12:16Z

Yesterday, had the house to myself for the whole day... Spent about 4 hours finishing my C project for programming, spent about 2 hours weeding & mowing, and then another 5 hours working on my EM Waves homework (Laplace operators, Maxwell's Equations, vector fields, dogs & cats living together... Mass hysteria)... This morning I am exhausted, but another spate of homework is due tomorrow. No rest for the weary.

Football! American football! Helmets crashing, runners juking, passes soaring... Bless the Fall.

The Houston Texans still suck, though. Some things never change.

allofthem @ 2009-09-09T09:11:00

2009-09-09T14:21:24Z

There is a tendency in one's early thirties to give up on the childish bullshit embraced during the early twenties and understand that there are forces in this world that transcend optimism, hope, and positivity. The early thirties seems to be the time that Westerners tend to take a long shift toward centrist, practical perspectives that aren't so flagrantly anti-authoritarian.

It is difficult to predict what will happen in the near term, much less the long term (globally speaking)... Thus, it is important to prepare for the unknown. Being that the unknown is a highly veiled enterprise, there is not a lot of consensus on what to prepare for. Bottled water? Canned food? A lifeboat? The unknown can be scary, but why let it be?

Remember: everything happens for a reason. Or, more appropriately, as Vollmann says, "Always respect the inertia of the situation into which you've injected yourself."

allofthem @ 2009-09-03T11:25:00

2009-09-03T16:34:06Z

While listening to my profs drone on about complex power and transfer functions, I have this terrific fantasy where I walk to the front of the class during the lecture, pull down my pants, take a huge shit on the floor (or the desk, or the overhead), wipe my ass with my lecture notes, then quietly pull up my pants and sit back down. I imagine the chaos that may ensue, the screams of agony from my fellow classmates, the look of aghast horror on the prof's face...

Such wonderful impressions that bodily secretions leave on your fellow human being! There's a very basic instinct that causes us to be absolutely repulsed by a fellow human's shit, urine, cum, and saliva, even if odor was not a factor. It's all very interesting, really; I've never really mustered up the courage (is that the word I'm looking for here? probably "madness" is more like it) to shit, piss, cum, and spit in the same container, just for the sheer thrill of combining the most repulsive of bodily expulsions. It certainly would be... Something.

Perhaps this obsession with bowel movement stems from the time I saw my ex-roommate passed out, face down, half-naked in a puddle of urine and vomit, with asshole, scrotum, and perenium on proud display for all to see. Certainly left a lasting impression on me.

allofthem @ 2009-09-01T12:26:00

2009-09-01T17:38:59Z

I was taking the elevator to the 8th floor of the MD Anderson Library, when I noticed that someone had tagged the top of the elevator door. Most graffiti is rather obnoxious, usually fluffy, meaningless tripe like "Kaoss" or "AnarKee" or some other grossly misspelled drivel, or at best some semi-attractive artwork.

This particular tag was a very crude drawing of a man hanging off the edge of a cliff by his hands, with the caption "Let Go" stenciled above him.

A rather beautiful idea! So much summed up so simply. "Let Go", perhaps a command from the powers that be forcing folks in pitiable situations to fall to their deaths, perhaps a simple resignation that when all is hopeless in your life the only thing left to do is end it... Or perhaps something inspiring, a call for a courageous vault into the great unknown, a fleeting hope that what will happen when you fall from your present turmoil is a landing someplace safe, a better spot from which to begin your ascent, a place that may not exist, yet you dare to think that you can get there if you bravely left behind the firm earth that you are barely able to survive from today...

I like the latter interpretation.

allofthem @ 2009-08-06T20:55:00

2009-08-07T01:59:42Z

Finally made some friends in DC, even if it was in the last week of my time here. The couple next door totally kick ass, and they've cooked dinner for me a couple of times now... Great stuff: lentils the first time, pizza the second time. Goddamn wonderful. To make it up to them, I cooked them migas and refried black beans for breakfast a few days ago.

People are alright... Some people. I wish I had met them earlier, then my summer here wouldn't have been so isolating.

In the meantime, time to get back to my real life... This DC kick was rather frustrating. Weird thing is, when I was preparing my exit report for my supervisor, I managed to put together a long list of complex projects I worked on in the time I spent here. I shook my head and wondered how that could have possibly happened, considering I spent most of my time researching ways to break into my neighbors' networks. Perhaps I'm just good at exaggerating.

allofthem @ 2009-08-05T16:25:00

2009-08-05T20:25:53Z

Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski.

allofthem @ 2009-08-05T13:07:00

2009-08-05T17:09:31Z

Goddamn, how does Earthbound, an 8-bit Super NES game, kick so much ass? I've played dozens of newer games that aren't half as compelling as this one is.

The music is absolutely lovely, as well... I especially love it when the composers went for the Ambient sound during more peaceful parts of the game.

Friday is my last day in DC. I'll be very happy to get back home.

allofthem @ 2009-07-31T13:38:00

2009-07-31T17:39:17Z

allofthem @ 2009-07-27T14:10:00

2009-07-27T18:16:02Z

Old, sephia-toned film is indescribably eerie, which is probably what makes this Mogwai video so oddly creepy (that and the potato fetus). There is a "movie" called Decasia that is nothing but a 90-minute montage of discarded, partly-decayed film footage from the early 20th century set to eerie, droning music. Oddly compelling, but quite overlong. At the same time, in small doses, a strange, new space is created from the combination of discarded, inconsistent images and drones, something "new", if you will, from something very, very old.

Flew to Houston this weekend, then drove to San Antonio for a wedding. Back in DC this morning with a tie around my neck. At least the weekend was fun...

Stared at our account balances, yanked at my hair wondering what to do... Money in banks is not what we want in an era of extreme economic hell, nor do we want useless merchandise that we'd throw away after a year. Inflationary pressures look really ugly; we are living in the era of Bush-dollars, and hell knows what the era of Obama-dollars will look like after he finishes his spending spree. Interests rates are incredibly low, our credit score is high, we don't need another car, and house prices are falling... There is one thing to do.

I almost feel sorry for AT&T... They messed with the wrong people.

allofthem @ 2009-07-23T13:52:00

2009-07-23T17:53:50Z

A 9 oz. bag of spinach in my fridge was a day or two from going bad, so I forced myself to eat the whole damn thing at work today. That may not sound like a lot, but considering it's nothing but leaves, it's a pretty substantial amount of spinach.

allofthem @ 2009-07-20T20:57:00

2009-07-21T02:18:48Z

Reading (or at least trying to read) Infinite Jest is very therapeutic, entertaining, and frustrating. I might be done by October at this rate, although that will probably turn into June as soon as fall semester starts. Not a whole lot of room for dense, postmodern literature when studying Fourier Series and C Programming.

The reading's been good this summer... Read several books I'd been meaning to get around to: Stephen King's The Long Walk, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, William Vollmann's Riding Toward Everywhere, Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five... Also read a book on Information Theory by John Pierce.

The actual internship in DC has been a profound disappointment, although I have learned quite a bit about how to compromise networks (it's amazing how much easier it is to destroy than to build)... Not a whole lot of engineering experience, though, which was the point of this damn summer in this damn city. The pay is OK, though, but being far from wife & home is hard.

I think about my brother, who has it harder than anyone I know... Somewhere submerged in the Pacific, probably near Korea, nukes in tow, wife and children 5000 miles away.

allofthem @ 2009-07-16T17:15:00

2009-07-16T22:22:56Z

Maryland is a very charming state. The absolutely lovely city of Frederick is situated on a stretch of land that reminds me very much of the hill country in Texas, though a little more developed (I think I'll cry if they ever pave over the Texas Hill Country). Hard to believe that a festering shithole like Washington, DC, could be just a short hour away.

Out of boredom, went to a federal government career fair today, with 75 agencies attending. It was a goddamn madhouse, with possibly every unemployed person within 500 miles in attendance. And all to be told that they're not accepting resumes and that you need to apply at a website!

That's the fed for you... Got me out of the office early, though.

allofthem @ 2009-07-08T13:17:00

2009-07-08T17:41:13Z

Who is man? Is he a rational animal? If he is, then the goals can ultimately be achieved. If he is not, then there is little point in making the effort. All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal but with a near infinite capacity for folly. His history seems largely a halting, but persistent, effort to raise his reason above his animality. He draws blueprints for utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand: his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed, but part-glorious nature.

-Robert McNamara, 1966

And so Robert Strange McNamara is dead, having died of old age on July 6th.

He will forever be the scapegoat for the Vietnam War, whether justified or not... Rumblings from the last 15 years of his life point to a man who was extremely tortured over his role in that war's buildup, particularly his interviews in Errol Morris' amazing 2003 documentary, The Fog of War, as well as his 1995 autobiography.

He is, of course, a target for many critics, but also has many, if not all, of the qualities that those same people would want in a Secretary of Defense: well-educated, rational, articulate, capable of abstract thought... Very much the poster child of the liberal, Ivy-League-educated elite. It is difficult to say that he was unqualified for the job based solely on his intelligence.

Obviously, intelligence is not the only thing that matters here.

How much say did this man really have in the Vietnam War? How much responsibility did he bear? Was he really the "architect" of the Vietnam War, as he is referred to in any one of thousands of press clippings that mention him? Would policy in Vietnam have changed if he had been replaced with, say, an orangutan? Or was he simply there to put a face, a warm body, an articulate speaker, in front of the podium to answer questions? And is he simply there for blame when things go wrong?

How much power does a politician have over war, anyhow?

But at long last, he is dead. These are questions that will no longer plague the man, who in his old age looked like he had endured more than enough grief and guilt to last several lifetimes.

allofthem @ 2009-06-22T21:35:00

2009-06-23T02:51:36Z

"On an average, 324000 new babies are born into the world every day. During that same day, 10000 persons, on an average, will have starved to death or died from malnutrition. So it goes. In addition, 123000 persons will die for other reasons. So it goes. This leaves a net gain of about 191000 each day in the world. The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7000000000 before the year 2000."

"I suppose they will all want dignity," I said.

"I suppose," said O'Hare.

-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

In the end, there will be the resources, and the ventricles that take those resources to the places that need them. If there is no way to get resources to the things that need them, those things will shrivel and die. It is as simple as that.

There are a lot of people who would laugh at the suggestion that 7000000000 persons could be properly provided for... I'm not sure that I'm not one of them. The alternative is to watch them die.

There are a lot of problems in the world today, and it makes my head and heart ache. I get high, and I realize that the institution that helps me to rebel in this way is the very one that could incarcerate the suppliers for months on end, probably along economic and racial lines. I listen to an mp3 player, and I realize that the energy and work that went into its production could have been used to provide adequate heating to a shivering family in Chechnya. I laugh at religion, and I realize that these silly superstitions may be the only thing giving hope to a wretched village in the slums of Caracas.

Everything I do is a choice, and every choice I make has consequences. It's a horrible, twisted way to live, to trade amusement for myself for the neglect of others... It's a reality, and it's cruel, and there's no getting around it. In the end, there is only myself, my choices, and my guilt.

We are the greatest nation on earth... For ourselves, anyway. Never forget that.

allofthem @ 2009-06-10T19:58:00

2009-06-11T01:06:06Z

And so the sham continues, the feds laughing as they promise to heal our pain, families tearing each other apart in a fit and dogs biting their owners... Many people jogging down the road, keeping fit like Tony Little, Elvis impersonators screaming from the windows of strip clubs and millionaires buying people to hunt and kill for fun.

There was never a time like this one, when people were so obviously exploited and beaten, smashed pitiably into the ground and forced into servitude, yet docile as cows we all are... Got the 52" television bought with a 33% interest payday loan, the bottle of cheap tequila, and possibly a fuckbuddy who is otherwise disinterested in anything else going on in your life. What a wonderful world! There is poetry in every dilapidated crackhouse, a song in the hearts of every methhead waiting to crack your skull with a lead pipe so he can steal your last $4 to buy a bottle of tussin.

We have truly evolved as a society, because now we have express elevators that can take us to the top of crumbling, roach-infested buildings twice as fast as they could in 1986, and now our jobs force us to smile so we don't offend the nice customers who are spending borrowed money. Long ago we knew how to build, but building is for someone else these days... Today we just smile and hope nothing bad happens.

In the future, I will spend my worthless money on cinder blocks to keep my semi-operable refrigerator from tipping over, and I will try to keep my dogshit Pentium IV alive for a few more years so I can remember what "Float On" sounds like. These are truly the blessed days, and the last days, and when the burning consumes us, the pain will intensify for only a few more seconds, and then release....

allofthem @ 2009-06-06T22:19:00

2009-06-07T03:24:11Z

Bell's Two-Hearted Ale is one of the finest beers I've ever tasted, and it is lamentably not found in Texas... Must enjoy it as much as I can this summer, then.