February 15, 2006
Hey y'all! How was your Valentine's Day?
My V-Day was...well, a day :-P I prefer my own concoction of Happy Appreciation Week to this one, overly red day. HAW consists of doing something nice for multiple people during this particular week. My tendency is toward buying some chocolate chip cookie dough and baking cookies for groups of friends and acquaintances. This approach is both nice and homey (freshly baked cookies!) and kind on the wallet (cookie dough provides more happy bang for your buck than individually-wrapped confectionary).
The most significant thing I did yesterday was going to a lecture/town hall meeting held by Democratic Party hopeful Howard Dean. It was largely a standard hope-for-the-Democratic-Party event, without much in terms of innovation. I regret not asking Dean (during the town hall question session) when the Democratic Party is going to stop being the Republican Party's whipping post. I just do not care for the Democratic Party, which still fails to present a dichotomous world-view where it can show how it is a better alternative than the Republican Party.
Dean ended the talk on a note regarding Cain's reference (in the Abrahamic Bible's Genesis) to not being his brother's keeper, and how Cain's position reflects the Republican Party's way-of-thinking while the Democratic Party IS its "brother's" keeper. My sentiment on this: Eh, I get where you are going with it, but think you could do much better in selecting quotes from such as lengthy book. The quotation was part of Dean's effort toward linking Democratic Party values with US Evangelical Christian values, which he sees as crucial in assuring Democratic Party victories in the USA.
The most striking part of the event was actually being so physically close to a figure I have only seen on television thus far. It was surreal to be only a few yards away from someone who ran as a primary candidate for the US President. It made the idea of presidential candidates as being actual human beings (as opposed to being robots from the planet Xorgon) hit home in my cynical, jaded head.
I wanted to note a website that I have used these last few weeks that I think people here might enjoy. The site is Public Domain Torrents, which lists torrents (which I will briefly describe in a moment) for older movies that (according to the site) MAY be within the public domain (I would wager that they are not, yet that they are nonetheless inaccessible through the contemporary market). This site will likely appeal to both movie buffs out here on NG as well as casual movie watchers. The films also include old serial films, such as the Undersea Kingdom (which has lots of, possibly unintentional, gay innuendo in IMO). The URL is http://publicdomaintorrents.com
Briefly explained, a torrent is an information file that you can use with a Torrent program (such as BitTorrent or BitLord), which then sets up a peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading of the relevant files (in this case, a movie file). This means that as you are downloading the file(s) from peers, you are simultaneously uploading what you have of the file(s) to other peers. For a more in-depth description, you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent#Terminology or e-mail me. Keep in mind, because this is peer-to-peer downloading, you may be unable to get the file(s) you want; you are relying on there being someone out on the same program that is currently sharing the file ("seeding"). As such, it is polite to permit your program to upload to other peers and let others also enjoy the file(s).
I also recommend YouTube, which is a site where people share Flash versions of videoclips (which are publicly viewable). One of the my favorites is http://youtube.com/watch?v=pB2tdo0I7FQ&search=Urban%20Ninja . The URL for the general site is: http://youtube.com/
That's it for me for now! Hope everyone had a good yesterday and that you are taking care of yourselves and each other.
----------------------------------------
November 25, 2005
Weeeeeell, after a three-month absence in updating this profile (yet agonizing over my failure to do so during that time), I guess I'm here with a little blog/update.
In these past few months, I have gained some weight (some muscle as well...I think and hope! that weight training better count for something!) and learned some nifty pieces of information regarding the civil rights movement in the USA and interpretations of what is Beauty and what is Sublime (learning in the process that I am a bit of a exclusivist when it comes to both...a topic for another blog ;-) ). I have also established new friendships with nice people (largely through common interests for Dungeons & Dragons), and "missed" out on lots of TV :-D I also read Jarhead as a personal interest read, and found it a bit frightening in terms of human perspectives and of some of the people who represent the US abroad (if you, dear reader, consider yourself a jarhead and are intrigued/offended by this notion, please let me know and I will happily elaborate myself on this).
My current semester of Fall 2005 is coming to an end within the next three weeks, which means that final papers are getting due! The two major papers I have are: 1) uncovering my social location through analyzing the social locations of family members three generations prior to mine; and, 2) Terrorism and Beauty and the Sublime. I much prefer the latter paper, which is a more clear-cut research/thesis essay, while the former consists of actually writing down and contextualizing information I kind of know already (which I can gab about for hours, yet fail to write a word on in weeks). Yes, I do hope to discuss the current murders taking place in Iraq in the latter paper, particularly as a contrast (the way I see it) to the "Beauty" and the "Sublime" within terrorist rhetoric and "specialized" terrorist acts.
Reading about the numerous assaults and murders taking place in Iraq gets my blood boiling in a web of directions...again, something for a future blog.
That's it for me tonight. Hope y'all had a Happy Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it) and have a delightful pre-December weekend :-D
Regards,
Nick
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hey! I am back in Miami, observing Katrina (our local hurricane, a moist and windfull beast), and kicking my Operation Re-Organization and Sanity Re-Creation ;-) into gear. First off is tackling some e-mailing that I've neglected for the past year :-O and then starting on this semester's reading list. Currently, I am reading Justice in the Making: Feminist Social Ethics by Beverly Wildung Harrison for my Theology and Liberation Movements class. Yes, I am a feminist and love exploring feminist critiques and establishing my own feminist understanding of gender- and sex-relations :-D (as for the feminine-masculine issue, I consider myself androgynous)
My other classes are Beauty and the Sublime (for which I have possibly too high expectations; it's a topic I feel like I could explode over with ideas and thoughts), Qualitative Research Methods (being highly distrustful of statistics and their misuse, I want to get a better grasp of alternative "proving" methods that we use to establish our fictions as dominant fictions), and Weight Training (I will finally get into a regular work-out program!). In terms of my earlier parentheses comment on reality, I am currently working on the idea of reality as a series of fictions into my world-view :-) I am working toward a Liberal Studies Master's Degree, where I will combine women's studies, political science, and religious studies.
I have started blogging toward the end of the Comments section, after my list of turn-ons (!) :-)
Thanks for the ”I Likes”! :-D
LISTS:
I guess some lists are in order (particularly for those who like to write something the Comments section while searching)
I. Hobbies
- Roleplaying (Dungeons & Dragons)
- Videogames (most except sports games and overly realistic shooting games)
- Photography (nature and people)
- Reading
- Chatting with friends and new people
- Walking and biking (need to get a new bike though)
- Listening to music (particularly songs in languages I don’t fully understand; vocal chords achieve an instrumental quality when you are unable to disassemble and interpret the words and phrases)
II. Interests
- Politics (I currently identify myself a democratic socialist, though I consider myself a composite of different and sometimes seemingly contradictory positions)
- Religion (I consider myself an atheist)
- Gender and sexuality issues (I highly recommend Leila J. Rupp’s A Desired Past)
- Amateur philosophy and psychology
- Nature walks (through forests, plains, and on beaches)
- Non-Manichean (non-dualistic) viewpoints; one of my greatest regrets is growing up within and instinctualizing the basic two-sided viewpoint that creates trite phrases such as ”either/or” and ”on the other hand”; there are essentially infinite amounts of possible viewpoints (and viewpoint combinations) and none oppose any other, though they may conflict
III. Turn-ons
- Most guys; unfortunately I have not become as open-minded as to physically enjoy men who are overweight or men who have an (IMO) overwhelming flamboyancy. While I socialize with men who fit in as either, I am not physically (or mentally) attracted to them :-/
- I like guys who do not share my height and who are either taller or shorter than myself
- I like guys who run the gambit from slim to muscular
- Tattoos or piercings are powerful visual distractions to me and usually distract me from the guy :-(
- I enjoy having a conversation with other guys, before and after anything else that may come up ;-)
- I am single and enjoying it! I am NOT looking for an exclusive relationship (such as boyfriendhood), while also NOT wanting anonymous hook-ups; I want to forge friendships, preferably with mutual physical enjoyment of each other (depending on the distance and time concerns).
- I like to have conversations with the guys I meet, before and after any carnal activity, so that I can get a better sense and appreciation of the guy :-)
- Age is usually not an issue, though wrinkles and balding feel odd when touching them; in terms of a non-physical friendship, all ages apply :-)
- Men carrying men! I love to lift and carry guys and be lifted and carried by other guys :-)
- Baseball caps! I do not really know why as of yet, but I have found that guys wearing baseball caps significantly increase my sexual interest in them :-D
- Belching *buuuuurpppp*; as with the baseball caps, for a reason I do not know I am turned on by good-looking guys belching :-)
That is it for me now. Hope you enjoyed this little tidbit! Have a great day and enjoy your life!
Nick :-D
----------------------------------
Blog # 1 - August 27, 2005 - Reality and fiction
I am believer in the understanding that our realities are largely based on the fictions we interact with (I first really heard this phrased in my International Organizations class last Spring). When we interact with our bodies and everything "external" to our bodies, we use different fictions to describes ourselves and that which is "outside" of ourselves. Initial fictions (especially for the trusting), repeated fictions, and consistent fictions have the greatest opportunity of dominating any person's world-view, determining how they will interpret some aspect of being and relate it to their other aspects of being.
Beyond this fairly brief overview, I am currently working on how to incorporate a "real" reality into my developing world-view. At the moment, I think there is an external real reality "outside" of us that we interact with. This reality only exists however, and may only have value as we assert value to it. Reality does not know colors, mathematical values, or faith. Reality knows nothing; it is.
Sidenote on mathematics: I have heard several times from persons who have claimed that math is the one true, constant, and consistent language and that it is the closest we can get to truth (thus, statistics hold great proof-value within Greco-Roman Europe and North America); to me, mathematics works as such as consistent-constant language because it is false and artificial. One plus one ONLY equals two within a mathematical paradigm, as does one equals one. The mathematical language depends on reduction, reducing and separating elements into factors that fit into math equations and formulas. When EXISTENCE contains as many possibilities for mathematical values as it does, math's reductionism fails to uphold the ever-changing and all-influencing factors that affect and are affected by each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment