Ultimate Post
This is the ultimate post because of it’s high level of randomness. First, let’s start with music. Howie Day’s latest is solid, I need more Jimmy Eat World, and I should get a hold of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Dashboard’s newest is growing on me. I still declare that Dido’s “White Flag” is an excellent song. I like some parts of the lyrics and other parts I don’t like. Either way, the tune is excellent. The song I am getting to here is by Evanescence. You may know them because they got big’ly huge with their song from the Spiderman soundtrack. Regardless, their latest is much more mellow - and it doesn’t have that huge shot of ultra low bass that “Bring Me to Life” has at the beginning. I’ll be right back, I have to go find the lyrics. Found them. Interesting - good thing Amy has such a recognizable voice or my search for this song might have been a lot longer. I will only give you an excerpt - if you are that curious why I like the song then go buy it - yes that’s the new tough love motto here at tumbledry.
These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase
I’m reading the Silmarillion - a great gift from Nils. What a fantastic book. The ironic thing is, when I started my Theology class, the bible (Genesis) reads just like parts of the Simarillion; so I need to adjust to what is part of the class and what is part of that book. After all, I can’t afford to get God mixed up with one of the Noldor, the Valar, etc. Nevertheless, I bet I will end up answering a question on one of the quizzes with “Fingon King of the Calaquendi, son of Fingolfin, who was killed in the 5th great battle for the Silmarils: Nirnaeth Arnoediad.” That would be embarrassing.
The side of my water reads as follows: “wake up. take shower. get dressed. eat cereal. brush teeth. kiss dog. pet wife. wait - stop. reverse that. o.k., continue. read paper. drive to work. sit in traffic. sit in meetings. kiss butt. eat lunch. sit in more meetings. kiss more butt. drive home. sit in traffic. kiss wife. pet dog. watch favorite reality TV show. sleep. what does this all mean, you ask? well, if this sounds like your day the last thing you need is the same old water. so, enjoy, o.k.?” This is tangerine-pineapple-guava flavor. Smells very good, tastes very little. Then again, if the flavor was more intense it’d be Gatorade - so I am not complaining. It’s called smartwater. Try it, and visit their website.
Why did Britney Spears get married to a childhood friend and this annul the wedding hours later? Well, a common viewpoint would be she simply is an irresponsible celebrity. I disagree and put this action on the same plane as her “let’s kiss Madonna” stunt. Publicity. Free publicity. Lot’s of free publicity. These execs at Jive aren’t stupid - they understand that a large part of their wealth lies in the staying power of their stars and starlets in the eyes of the public. Ridiculous. I realized it’s not really her music I like - it’s the unbelievable skill with which the stuff is produced and engineered by the people behind the scenes. In the end, it doesn’t really matter who is singing flimsy lyrics about teen love - it’s the catchy, skillful, and engaging methods and style with which the music is assembled that gives the music it’s power to hook a person in the first 30 seconds and keep them there for the next 2 minutes 30 seconds. I would love to see these awesome people work with real artists - and they do - it’s just hard to follow them because albums aren’t usually advertised as “Produced by” or “Engineered by.” There’s lurking talent in the music industry - it’s just our job to find it.
Back to the Silmarillion. Quote time! “and I would take what joy is here left, untroubled by memory. And maybe there is woe enough yet to come, though still hope may seem bright.” page 127, Second Edition. “And however that might be, Idril loved Maeglin not at all; and knowing his thought of her she loved him the less.” page 138, Second Edition. Second one is taken out of context. I should watch out for more quotes - the writing style is historical, epic, and poetic.
I was sitting (actually, driving) in the car listening to music and started thinking (as that is my usual activity). As I frequently have mentioned here, I like all kinds of music. Some music is more fatiguing for me than other types (I can listen to solo piano longer than Metallica), but I still like them both and respect them for the level of musicality which they both display. I realized I don’t mind country sometimes. It is fatiguing in a different way than Metallica (in one I just want the distortion to clear sometimes and in the other I just want the slide guitar to take a break sometimes) but I still enjoy some songs a lot. Obviously, I am making stereotypical generalizations, but like I said - I still like some songs from these genres a lot - but making overarching conclusions dictates that I make some generalized statements. But anyway, I really didn’t understand and it struck me as odd as I, for the first time in a while, flipped on K102 and listened to a song. I sat there and wondered, “Why am I enjoying this,” and then decided “I better write about this.” And so, here we are. If I enjoyed it, why question the reasons? “Ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to do or die.”
In Theology, (my 2 credit J-Term class of Fun) we have assigned readings. Whilst intellectually buried in the midst of one of these, I started thinking. Let’s assume God created the Earth. Fine. What was around before God then? Nothing? Isn’t nothing outside of the universe? But doesn’t nothing come from nothing? Regardless of that problem, let’s go to present day and get inside the universe and start traveling in a direction, will we come to an edge where past that is the outside/nothing? It would seem that we wouldn’t come to an edge, which perhaps indicates the universe is circular - so - like the Earth - we begin driving at one point and as long as we keep driving straight sooner or later (in the case of the universe much, much, much later) we will end up where we started. But still, we would be left with the sphere of the universe - what would be outside of this? Oh, and time. Does that loop too? Does any of this matter? Yes, I believe it does. Why? Because of this: if there is no God and hence no spiritual world, we are forced into some conclusions, namely free will becomes hard to argue for. What if we don’t have free will, stemming from a spirit (as only free will can - because our minds have been found to be a large series of chemical reactions governed by the same rules of any other chemical reaction), and our bodies (more importantly minds) are directed by the rules of science (like everything else that we have studied up until now). Religion makes provisions to avoid this problem and gives us “answers” to very frightening questions. Without religion the materialistic philosophy (which I don’t believe in, but I have been outlining above) triumphs and our lives become chemical reactions governed and pre-determined just as the laws of physics govern and pre-determine the way in which a dropped object falls. Nobody wants to be the bullet from a gun, shot out with it’s plan laid out for it. Lift your left index finger. Did you? Did you not? What if, regardless of if you thought you had a choice, that everything in the universe has led up to this instant and that you never had a choice and whatever you just did had already been decided? What if free will is an illusion?
This is why my homework can take some time.
To shift gears to a much simpler observation, I have noticed that the ClearType feature on WindowsXP (mentioned here previously in equally glowing terms) is a Microsoft feature that is a.) Not annoying, b.) Stable, and c.) Never gives me the blue screen of death. I have found that, when writing papers, it does actually reduce the strain on my eyes by smoothing out the edges of characters. Features like this are what we need. We need bigger displays with higher resolutions and more lifelike color - not another GUI with bells and whistles in the icons and sounds.
My mind was wandering in Theology. Here would be a good way to ask someone out: ensure that you and person of Interest attend the same party. Write message on bottom of shoes. Make sure person of Interest is sitting opposite you. Place feet strategically on table surface. Await response. I can assure you, I won’t be trying this. But if I do convince some poor bloke to give it a try, I will share the results (I promise to change names for privacy).
I just earned 9 out of 10 on Josh’s quiz. On a tangential but unrelated note, I am happy because I am currently quoted in three (3) profiles at once. I’d reveal what I said in these profiles, but that is unnecessary disclosure of private conversations, not something that I condone. Ladies and gentleman, it has been fun, and as they say, “Lord willing n’ if the creek don’t rise” I will see you next time.