The longest most boring religion joke ever

after reading this story i could only conclude that this is the longest religion joke ever written. and for those of you that care this doesn't fit into my world-view because I don't view infinity as a loop.

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov © 1956

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.

For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.

"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."

"That's not forever."

"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Twenty billion years isn't forever."

"Will, it will last our time, won't it?"

"So would the coal and uranium."

"All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me."

"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."

"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up. "It did all right."

"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."

There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.

Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"

"I'm not thinking."

"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."

"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."

"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."

"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.

"The hell you do."

"I know as much as you do."

"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."

"All right. Who says they won't?"

"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'"

"It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.

"Never."

"Why not? Someday."

"Never."

"Ask Multivac."

"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."

"Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.

---

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.

"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've ----"

"Quiet, children," said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"

"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.

Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for "analog computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."

"Why for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded."

Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."

"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.

Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."

"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."

"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase."

"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.

"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"

"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"

"The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

"Now look what you've done, " whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back.

"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jarrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."

Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."

Jerrodine said, "and now children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

---

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?"

MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."

Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."

"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --"

VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."

"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"

"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"

"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we'll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?"

VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."

"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it's sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."

"Why not?"

"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, "See!"

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

---

Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity - but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"

"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"

"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"

"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."

"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

Zee Prime said, "On which one?"

"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."

"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.

"Most of it, " had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF."

"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME."

"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"

"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."

"They must all die. Why not?"

"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."

"It will take billions of years."

"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"

Dee sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

And the Universal AC answered. "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.

Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

---

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, "The Universe is dying."

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars build, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum."

Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

"Cosmic AC," said Man, "How many entropy be reversed?"

The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man said, "Collect additional data."

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT."

"Will there come a time," said Man, "when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."

Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."

Man said, "We shall wait."

---

"The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.

---

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light----

Sitting outside in the morning

Watching TV

earth action day, piss on a tree instead of hugging one!

inspired by this article: Human Urine is a good fertilizer!

Although urine has been used as fertilizer since ancient times, its use is rare today. However, it has gained attention in some areas as farmers increasingly embrace organic production methods and try to reduce use of synthetic fertilizers.

I am not saying go piss in public or purchase a special toilet or piss on your tomato plants. But there are so many ways to help the planet. Utilizing gray water and being mindful of the waste and byproducts of your daily habits is never a bad thing.

any mechanical turks out there?

I got this email for some new hits, and this one seemed really cool. there are six days left on it and i will just let you read part of the email i got. i am not a big mechanical turk participator, i beleive that my time is worth more than it is willing to pay (i think i have like 96 cents in my account). I have already downloaded google earth because of the new space feature and the flight sim easter egg so i am going to try it out, man that program is so cool.

-------

Subject: Help find Steve Fossett, missing aviator

Greetings from Amazon Mechanical Turk,

On Monday, September 3, 2007, Steve Fossett, the first person to fly a plane around the world without refueling and the first person to fly around the world in a balloon went missing in Nevada. An airplane he was flying failed to return. No one has any idea where he is. Click on the following link for the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett.

Through the generous efforts of individuals at several organizations, detailed satellite imagery has been made available for his last known whereabouts.

-----

they give you a kml file that updates the images in the area they want you to search and a list of coordinates to check out, you flag anything interesting and they might find this guy. this email is already a couple days old, I didn't open it right away because I was like, " great, a chance to make 25 cents per hour". I wish i would have opened it sooner, there are still a few days left so i am going for it.

ugh i hate computers

I had this idea for a cool web page but needed to learn PHP and SQL. No problem, I spent a few weeks reading PHP tutorials on the internet and got no where so i went out and bought a book. it seemed like a great book and had instructions for projects that were similar to what i wanted to do so i bought it. I had already signed up with a web host a year or so ago so all i had to do was read the book and i would be able to build my idea. so a few weeks goes by and i am at chapter seven, "please install this other thing" well shit, my web host didn't have this installed, so i checked some other hosting companies, nobody uses this package. well hell, i got pissed and started learning Microsoft programming and after a few weeks it was time to upload my project, only problem is that Microsoft hosting is like twice the price of regular hosting, and every host has crazy limits on access so none of my projects would work!

so i say fuck it and install a web server on my computer, oh wow now my computer is compromised. uninstall remove corrupt shit. install VMware, learn LINUX. it has now been 3 months and I still haven't learned any PHP because everything with computers is such a pain in the ass. the good news is is i am functional with Linux and am learning a ton of shit i should have learned a long time ago, not much longer until i can get back to programming.

merging the past and the present

The Egyptians had a concept of an afterlife, but not a concept of a virtual life.

I found an Egyptian hieroglyphics translator on slashdot today. So, I tried to translate my virtual identities in some stupid gesture to connect the ultra-modern with an ancient past. I was only a little surprised when they didn't have a word for moderation or DOT COM. So i got creative.


Moderationclub = "Restraint City"
Moderation club translated as restraint city. why did I choose restraint city? No superpower can emerge without it's citizenry adopting some concept of moderation I knew the ancient Egyptians had to have some concept of this word. a search for moderate or moderation turned up nothing. I had to break out a thesaurus and settle for what i consider to be a word on the cruel end of moderation, "restraint."
In ancient Egypt there was a total unity except for a caste system. the closest thing to a club that was documented by their religious caste (their historians) was the concept of a caste. I consider my blog to be a blog for all people so rather than choose a caste, I decided to translate club to city. It is a shame because archaeologists have found cuneiform graffiti. This could be clear evidence of gangs or clubs however no mention of them is made in the official written history of that era.



RobotRodeo = "Metal tool of life and power Contest"
This is a no brainer. what is a robot? a robot is a tool. Yes, i know robot can be made out of plastic. yes i know there is Jewish folk-tales of a clay gollum that was fed scrolls with written instructions and would carry out those instructions and might as well have been a robot. So why did i choose metal? because metal robots are what I identify with.
Life and power seemed like a reasonable translation of living machine.
What is a rodeo if it is not a contest? I don't know where the word rodeo even came from it probably is a gaucho word from Argentina. It is funny how contemporary cowboy culture downplays is roots in early Spanish colonial culture. In any case it does sound cooler than farm and ranch laborer skills contest.

When we are all floating around in cyberspace with vr headsets i will make another blog post about how similar this is to the concept of aboriginal afterlife they call "dreamtime".

lost in the blogoshpere (lost in the internet)

i haven't been updating much because i have been working on getting my local web server up and running so i can learn more stuff about computers.

also, i have been exploring the blogosphere. I signed up for a few more services such as pownce and twitter and have been busy seeing whats going on with those networks. rss feeds have renewed my interest in the blogosphere and yahoo pipes and google reader is helping me organize all the information.

hahah oh man i finaly gave in

I made a freaking myspace survey and posted it as a bulletin!!! hahaa

i got kind of upset because i found a mistake in it after posted it but oh well!

I can say that i know you but do I really know you?

would you donate an organ to save my life?
would you lend me 10 more dollars?
would you believe that i didn't do it?
would you let me crash on your couch?
would you avenge my death?

These are important questions that will be revealed when you answer this mystical exam! send it to your friends they might really be an enemy (you will find out if they take this test), you won't need an answer key because once you have their answers you will just know...because this is a mystical exam proctored by demons~

Do you have the guts to stare into the abyss and have the abyss stare right back...perhaps because it is...evil?!?!

I.) Tubers: this is how you feel most of the time
(choose one)
1.) Mash potatoes: skin or no skin
2.) French fries or tater tots or potato wedges?
3.) Hashbrowns: McDonalds, Burger King, or Homemade?
4.) baked potato: sour cream or butter or both?
(along with everything else you add to a baked potato)
(do not list everything you like on a baked potato)

II.) Booze dog: who you are
(choose one)
1.) Wine, beer, or liquor if you could only have one for the rest of your life
2.) martini: vodka, gin, or apple?
3.) mixer: club soda or tonic or sprite?
4.) favorite shot: (you fill this in)
5.) do you have a light (for this cigarette)? yes, no

III.) Who would win in a fight: family values
(not who you would want to win but who would really win)
(no rules, bare knuckle, no weapons)
1.) Mike Tyson 25 years ago or the entire heavy metal group Pantera 15 years ago all at once
2.) Hitler or Ronald Reagan (each in his physical prime)
3.) Amelia Earhart or tag team of Kelly Clarkson and Lindsay Lohan
4.) the year 2003 or 2001
(manifested in the form of two gorillas of equal size and reach)
(one might be smarter than the other)
5.) Batman 1 or Batman Begins
6.) SNL Cast of 1985 versus SNL Cast of 2006

IV.) Pizza: a little bit about sex
1.) lots of sauce, a little sauce
2.) extra cheese or normal cheese or no cheese
3.) pineapple on a pizza? "fucking never that is gross" or "sure why not" or "i am sick of that it got old"
4.) mushrooms or onions or both
(if no other toppings were available)
5.) oven fresh or leftovers

V.) color: ideals and goals
(fill in the blank with a color any color)
1.) shoes:___
2.) hair:___
3.) womens panties (non sexy):____
4.) dude briefs:____
5.) sunset sky: _____ and _____ and _____
6.) Barf (typical for you): ______
7.) Stools (most recent movement): _____
8.) A pretty flower:____ or _____

Chilling outside

Today i sat outside and listened to music and finished reading this wacky book

IRL hobbies

I have known for a while that it is time to get a Hobby IRL (in real life) .

I used to cook as a hobby but how much can a man eat?

Here are some other things that should have been fantastic hobbies but didn't pan out:

• going to the gym
  Ultimately I was doin' it for the babes. They have better things to do. Also the only people at the gym are people that are already in pretty good shape.
  

• golf
  This should have been perfect. Going out side, walking around, and hitting stuff. what went wrong? fees, pretentiousness, strange attitudes.
  

• baseball
  have you ever tried to get more than 2 of your friends to meet at the same place at the same time?

• camping
  used to not have the time now i don't have the money. Also, no air conditioning.
  

• walking
  boooring, also, how many places can i walk to?
  

• card sharping
  too dangerous, also, cheaters never prosper.
  

• photography
  fun for a few weeks then you run out of things to photograph.

• painting
  i have to really be in the mood for it. Also, to easy too fall into the mindset of a tortured artist.
  

• learn a musical instrument
  too frustrating, always end up listening to music anyway, so why not just drop the act and listen to music.
  

the one true spam from the big dick fairy

subj: Let the big dick fairy bless you
from: david@yahoo.com

Mega Size your unit with MegaDik. The only male-enhancement product featured in Maxim and FHM.
link replaced, i dont want to send them any business
the great dissemblers. Tacitus saith, Livia sorted well

this was the perfect spam for two reasons:

1. it made it into my inbox (first one this month)
2. it was totally inappropriate and crude
   

also it made me think, i had never heard of the big dick fairy so i had to do a image search, here are some possibilities of what the big dick fairy might look like so keep you eyes peeled all you insecure mother fuckers.

a small crisis in my tiny world

I am retiring my AOL screen name that I have had for years and years because somehow something on it got reset and now I can't change the password and there has been some silly shit going on with it and it is a small crisis in my tiny world. Also I cannot delete the screen name so I am going to just stop using it pretty soon. Hopefully will be auto deleted in 90 days like the aol terms of services says, but i doubt it. So, fuck them! I should just ditch the service totally but too many of you knuckle heads still use it so I am sticking with it.

This is just a notice for my friends that when i see you online i will let you know what i am changing my screen name to and to please add me. if i don't see you online within the next few days i will add your screen name myself. if you want to be on my new buddy list and are not on my old buddy list then just zap me a message.

I really hate having to change my screen name because my logins for most of my services are all based around that screen name which is based on an old nick name. I will try and change my login names on as many services as I can to fit in with the new theme but it probably won't happen so now my online identity is fractured what a big hooping deal!

Touching is Good

I was checking my old web hosting account and i found this classic. I entered a Nintendo contest a while ago. the contest was to make a film clip using a mannequin hand they mailed you. It was also the first practical thing I had used my Dremel tool for. This is what i came up with and it didn't win the contest. I didn't care because I had the coolest doorknob in town.



here are a few other touching is good contest submissions:

i rediscovered the 80's and 90's for a reason

Blame it on the RIAA or politics or greed or the war or what ever you want, but This decade has been real shitty for music in general. I have to admit that I haven't gotten mad about it until now because I honestly didn't have the time, and I guess nobody else has either! I feel like I have woken up from a coma and nothing has changed. Please somebody -anybody- please come up with something amazing before I ditch the iPod, the radio, and internet radio and start to whistle all my music like they used to do in the dark ages or when we were cavemen.

Experimental musicians I am talking to you: spending the last 20 years deconstructing melody and rythymn has got to be worth something by now. Poets, where are the ground breaking paradigms for expressing the human condition? No, it is not the 60's and no, eastern philosphy is not going to bail you out again.

Please don't tell me we have exhausted musical creativity and entered another dark ages. Doomed to reinterpret the classics through an endless procession of cover bands. Forced to suffer minor variations to already established traditions. Or, at best, every couple of years witness the miracle of some sensational cross genre hybrid heralded as something totally new and amazing for the rest of our lives!

You musicians have everything going for you right now. There are countless established niche markets with more showing up on the radar every day. To put it bluntly it is guaranteed that there is at least one group of knuckle heads out there that will hear you and like your style. A global distribution system on a scale never before seen at anytime in history is at your disposal! for free! Not to mention the largest music purchasing audience in history! Everyone ages three and up goes to concerts and probably owns at least one compact disc. Many people are even buying mp3's the minute they are uploaded to a download service; cutting out countless middle men, which means more profit for you, the artist(if money was what was holding you back). Things have never been so swell, there is no reason to hold back, get cracking we are depending on you!

Or maybe I am over reacting. Maybe I should just calm down. I should just enjoy good music as I hear it and take comfort in knowing exactly I am hearing and cherish singing along to familiar lyrics. After all who am I to say anything, so much music is being made that I can't listen to it all and somebody has already made something new and amazing and I am just not hip enough to have gotten a chance to hear it yet. who knows!

Until next time fellas, keep on rockin'

I snapped some pictures of my friends having a jam session during a rainy 4th of July afternoon.



Chris came to town and rehearsed with Josh and Neil. It rained all day on the 4th of July which should have been a bummer, instead we moved the jam session into Neil's room and let the beer cans pile up. The falling rain made a nice back drop to the soothing county-folk-blues rhythms these fellas produce.

We all went our separate ways after it was time to go for a beer run. It wasn't about the money or the beer, it is never about the money, it was just our time to part, we made some good music, shared some laughs. Sometimes, that is just how it goes for rock musicians knowing there is always another place they got to play.

Until next time fellas, keep on rockin'

this is just too cool

if you are vegetarian then what do you eat?

some great vegetarian meals i have collected from the internet that i will cook if i am in the mood for something besides burritos and pizza.

enjoy!

ugh! not another one of these posts!

As I settle into my 25th year more of my friends are getting married, owning homes, starting actual careers. I on the other hand have come full circle and am right about where i started when i was 17, some things are different some things are the same. i wouldn't call myself a failure but damned if i know what to do next.

goals, goals are very important in this glorious modern world. I currently do not really have any. Of course i am planning on making more money, moving into my own place, and traveling but when? i don't know. How? i don't know. I used to have goals, very definite goals. For today's blog i will reveal former goals and count what i have achieved and ponder what could still be achievable.

in chronological order of when goal was imagined:

1. drive a race car off of a ramp status: not yet
2. worldwide treasure hunt status: nope
3. master a deadly art status: nope
4. own airship status: not this lifetime
5. stop going to school status: nailed
6. make sandwich from scratch (i.e. grow and harvest grain, milk cow and make cheese from milk, grow tomatoes and lettuce and other vegetables, grow apples juice apples, ferment apples for vinegar, grow mustard seed mix with vinegar to make mustard etc...) status: not yet
7. download gigs and gigs from a t1 status: nailed
8. learn a foreign language status: no comprende

off the top of my head those are the goals i have had from a young age up about until some time around high school. i guess achieving some of my goals have been pretty cool. I don't go to school any more, although i might go back this fall. I used to work at an ISP and having access to a full t1 was just one of the perks, now fast Internet is 20 bucks a month so it isn't even a big deal anymore.

One day i might learn a foreign language or harvest enough grain for one loaf of bread, milk a cow for a few slices of cheese, grow a garden for a half of a tomato, a leaf of lettuce, a few slices of cucumber, grow an apple tree for a teaspoon of vinegar and grind mustard seeds to make a dollop of paste. some fool might let me peel out in a race car and go flying off a ramp. who knows!

who knows what the future holds. the future is a mystery. i don't even know if i want to do those things anymore anyway. i do however know what i don't want; I will save that list for another day. for now i will continue avoiding conflict, risky behavior, and poisonous characters. I might go make some new friends later on, but in the mean time I will continue to read and learn new skills.

so whats the deal, where is every tune in june?

my army of loyal readers might be all like "we, the loyal thousands, expected you to do what you were said you were going to do in this post . Why did you flake out on talking about music this month. Why can't you talk about one song or something every day in june? You haven't even really posted hardly anything this month."

Well, loyal thousands, the problem is that talking out of your ass isn't easy and i can't talk out of my ass about music on any kind of regular schedule. i sat down on june 1 and listened to music for a few hours and said to myself i says, "some of that music was pretty cool" and that was all i could say. then i got an idea...

just go to my pandora profile yeah there is still no cool little comment for my favorite song of the day or real life annecdote about where i first heard that song or what it means to me but oh well maybe i will do that someday~

half way done

1.) I was able to darken the cloud int he right side of the image thus erasing the seam.
2.) adjusting the hue and saturation to match the colors in each sky image left me with a big gray spot right here. i got rid of it with the pen painting with blue, white, pink and gray in various modes such as color dodge then burn, hue, and exclusion.
3.) you would think painting a blurry formless object like a cloud would be easy. it ain't. there must have been a time lapse in these images (time never stands still) because the clouds are not the same color or shape and i just kind of matched things up the best i could (i wasn't planning on combining anything when i took the pictures). Basically i had to redraw this cloud on top of another one. I don't think i am done with it yet.
4.) the waves on the right are bigger than the ones on the left. again probably because of a lapse in time and lack of planning but it might work out because of the perspective, maybe? anyway i matched up a big wave with another kind of big wave so it looks like one wave after some color correction it should be all set.

getting in on this because

and this is where it came from. ah yes, another internet cliche is born. will it be as big as dancing hamster? only you can decide.

new project

I am combining a few pictures of a lake to make one better picture. This is what i have come up with after about 10 steps. I am fixing the clouds and erasing the seams today and later I will have to make up my mind about what to do with the water. I have made tons of mistakes because this watered down photoshop software i am using is so frustrating. The curves tool is a slidebar and not a graph, it doesn't have lab mode, the masking is dumbed down and other things that I keep expecting to have are missing or dumb. After I finish this i might break down and try GIMP but I really don't want to suffer that photoshop 4 interface I remember it having. Photoshop 6 is the pinnacle of photoshop interfaces, at least until they figure out how to integrate illustrator properly.



It looks nice enough so far so I will not start over, that pinkining in the sky was a nice surprise. Even if I did start over I would just make different mistakes so why bother? The water has this cool fake look at this point. I am not sure what to do about it yet.

i have been bummin lately, here look at this

this is my favorite form of that anime dance song video. if you haven't seen this in some form you probably have dial-up internet, and that is ok.

gettin back into art

looking back on it after i started taking pictures it was only a matter of time before i picked up the pen. say hello to my first painting in 3 years. it took me about 10 minutes and is supposed to be a goldfish. it was fun to make i hope you enjoy it.

sunset on 5/20 the end of a nice weekend.

I hung out all night in New Orleans saturday and sunday just hung out and chilled with some friends. on my way home i snapped this shot of the sunset. a perfect end to another nice weekend.

another day in May: ficlets

I added to a ficlet, a story told a paragraph at a time by a bunch of different people.

Follow these links to read as much of the story as I did before i wrote this gem:

1. What They Don't...
2. too many
3. blurble
4. it invaded my b...
   I couldn’t believe this jelly pile of puke shit had spoken to me. I chalked it up as a fear induced hallucination before I directed the mop droid to dispose of it. The mop droid was initiating its vacuum compression sequence the bleeps and bloops indicating test patterns activating and sensors calibrating seemed to take forever to initiate. Each bleep was stretched out like a fog horn until time seemed to stop altogether. All around me a fog was developing and every breath lasted for hours. I was enchanted by the pleasant smelling aromas filling the chamber. The chamber became sweet and familiar, as I tried to identify that wonderful scent I was distracted by things that should have happened long ago. My whole body felt very warm and comfortable. I was drifting from memory to memory recalling every detail perfectly. I wanted to panic because that smell was becoming so thick it was hard to breathe and even my memories faded into hazy...

announcing "every tune in june"

i just can't seem to come up with some creative thing every day in May. I am annoucing "every tune in June". I will post the name of a song and the name of the artist that made the song on my blog and maybe a link to listen to a clip of the song or the music video in youtube or something.

how does that sound?

day 13: yesterday

you can't go to the beach with this much shit in your car!!!

I woke up yesterday morning with this burning desire to go to the beach. After I ate a cup of yogurt and a mini pizza I says to myself, i says, "well holy shit i still want to go to the beach!" this was strange because I spend at least several hours deciding what to do on saturdays. It was settled i began my preparations for a trip to the beach.

• Step one: music for the ride
  I updated my podcasts, made a play list, and loaded up my ipod.
• Step two: waffle
  I played some counterstrike and decided to clean out my car.
• Step three: preparation
  I cleaned out my car
• step four: action!
  I hit the road

I took off on the open road with some loose idea of arriving on some sandy shore with a fountain drink cup packed with ice; filled with equal parts of whiskey and coke. All the while getting a mild sun burn from soaking up the sun and listening to the wind and surf. My destination was a place I had been several years ago with people who are scattered all over the place. I remember it was a pretty beach and I kind of already knew where it was. I didn't arrive until late afternoon and knew I wouldn't have time to sober up before I got back on the road; I gritted my teeth and remained sober. I will go back soon, earlier in the day and better prepared.

you can hunt fish with a pole, or you can hunt fish with a net!

day 12

Day 11

I was quick with my camera phone and snapped a picture of this lizard watching me work

day ?...reset

ok, i stopped updating this everyday in may, but I was hungover all day sunday then monday was fukken killer and i am back on top. I know, excuses excuses, but it is hard to think about the cyber realm when my nose is to the grindstone and i am just barely getting enough sleep after working eating and playing a few rounds of counter strike getting my ass handed to me. but i am back on track.

also if you scroll to the bottom of my page you can leave me messages or if i am online you can have a real time chat with me. Donna, (she? left a message asking how i put that chat thing in there) to answer your question about that chat widget just go to meebo.com sign up for an account and paste the code they give you into your website. it is very easy and very fun.

day 5

day 4

day 3

nothing really picture worthy happened today. i kept my eyes on the road for my commutes. i stayed at my desk at job 1 and cell phones are not allowed at job 2. I just got home and wanted to try out cellsea.com photo editor. it is free and can do some trippy shit to photos but that is about it. i uploaded a picture i got from NASA and applied some filters and it looks pretty cool. enjoy my contribution to day 3.

Day 2

I had to make a few deliveries in the country lots of pretty scenery out there

EVeryday in May: day one

i started making rice after my post but i had to run errands before i went to work. so i was gonna grab some taco bell. i didn't grab any taco bell because it was hot outside and i like to give myself a couple hours to digest food before I labor.

When i got home i was expecting to get bitched at for making a huge pot of rice and just leaving it there. but my parents made food with it and i ate it. :)

that is it my contribution for today, May first. enjoy this glimpse into my private life.

Everyday In May

I will be blogging everyday in May. I was checking out the featured blog and there was a post about this. It is a simple concept. paint, draw, photograph, cook, do whatever, but feature something you did that day - every day - for the month of May, on your blog.

I plan to post at least something from my camera phone at least once a day. One day might feature scenery from a scenic commute to or from one of my jobs. another day may have a review of a song that I listened to. today i will post the reciepe for the lunch i am about to make.

Stay tuned it should be really BORING !!!!

look at this

i drank some sake and ate vegetable sushi and then I took this picture :) it was a nice way to end a weekend.

octopus versus shark

I was reading a news story i found on fark.com about an apparent over population of sharks and how the locals are fishing for sharks with porkchops from apartment windows and offf their back porches. Most of the comments were about how cool this situation is. Then somebody posted this video and said, "if you think sharks are scary check out this video."

Have you ever wondered what an octopus eats? Apparently they eat anything they can get their tentacles on!

Save internet radio

I sent a fax to my representatives, and you should too. Internet radio is a wonderful resource for musicians and consumers it is not fair that they will be charged more to play music than traditional radio stations.

Salamander

A lizard I found at work last week. i got this picture right before it ran off.

farting around with camera

More ultra widesreen. i forgot my artistic terms from art school but there is some kind of geometric harmony going on here.

published from my phone!