One for the Record, Part 2

Since my car doors don't lock, I shoved the movies in my cargo pockets and headed off down the sidewalk toward main street. On my way to the junction, I passed a jogger and some creepy guy standing beside a tree in front of an abandoned office building. After taking a left at the intersection I attempted to buy an icecream sundae in McDonald's drive-through. Unfortunately I was denied service because I wasn't in a car :( A little further down main street I stopped in a gas station and decided to try one of their new energy drinks. I picked a grape flavored one with a skull on the front of the can; I don't remember the brand it was. I continued drinking while I walked. About a quarter mile down from McDonalds I came to a an underpass. Being covered in shadow, I was slightly hesitant in walking though to the other side but continued anyway. About halfway through I glanced up at the slanted walls on either side that led up to the base of the bridge and saw nothing there. A second after I turned my head back to where I was walking, I blinked. The moment my eyes closed, a violent scene shot through my head. I imagined a dark figure descend from where I just looked, stab me the stomach with a dagger of some sort, and run off into the distance with my wallet. I slouched to the ground clutching my stomach and with blood trickling out of my mouth I just lay there helpless as my vision blurred into nothingness. I stopped dead in my tracks and opened my eyes as goosebumps trailed down my back. I quickly looked around again, straightened up, took a deep breath, and continued my long walk home.

One for the Record, Part I

So tonight had to be one of the strangest nights of my life. Side note* I just recently moved back to the town I went to high school in to live with my grandparents for a semester. It all started at about 9:30 when I decided to go rent some movies at blockbuster. Dunkin' Donuts is on the way so I decided to go visit my sister at work before they closed the lobby. The visit lasted about 10 minutes or so, and then I was off to the video store. In the half mile or so before I got there, I noticed a cop who started to follow me. I didn't think anything of it at first, but then he followed me into the parking lot. After I parked I casually got out of my car with the dvds I was returning, and before I could take a second step he shined his flashlight in my face and said, "Excuse me, I noticed your exhaust is a bit loud." I turned to him and quickly explained that something small had fallen off the underskirts of my car a few days ago and that I hadn't been able to get it looked at yet. He then proceeded to ask for my license, registration, and proof of insurance. Unfortunately I had only one of three. I was surprised that I didn't have the updated insurance card, but even more surprised to hear that my license was suspended. After taking twenty minutes or so to fill out his little report in his car, he came back to my window and handed me a sheet of my offences and a court date. I don't think that there was a ticket, but I could be wrong; that's the last thing I need right now. He briefly described the court date and that I could be arrested if I was caught driving again. He said he needed to keep my drivers license, and then left me stranded there. After he pulled away, I sat there for a second, picked up the movies, and walked into blockbuster as if nothing happened. I had just been there the previous night so I already knew what I wanted, but I decided to walk around the perimeter anyway to pick out movies for next time. After checking out I walked back into the parking lot and laid my hands on top of my car for a couple minutes while scanning the parking lot and surrounding area. I must have seen three or four cops in and out of the lot, so I decided it was a bad idea to risk driving back myself. I put my movies in the trunk since my car doors don't lock (yes, my car is that amazing) and headed to stop & shop to use one of their payphones. After wasting a buck trying to get a hold of my sister, I sat down on a ledge near the carriages outside of the grocery store and pondered some more, not only about my current situation but my life. If I smoked, this would have been the perfect time to pull out a cigarette. After a bit of thought I figured it couldn't hurt to just walk back since it's only a couple of miles or so. Getting stopped by the policeman only set the tone for what was yet to come.

Do you belive in time travel?

What better time to watch Donnie Darko then at 3:00 a.m. when I am rolling around my bed reminiscing and unable to put myself to sleep. The music that plays during the ending credits reminded me of some of Danny Elfman's works, so I'm currently listening to the Edward Scissor Hands soundtrack, another great movie. I must admit I'm quite at ease now, although still unable to fall asleep.

It's a coincidence how my previous entry related to certain aspects of Donnie Darko, Jim Cunningham's unfounded teachings in particular.

To answer the question I asked in the blog title, yes I do, but only in forward time travel. Physics explains that if you can travel fast enough, time will pass more slowly than it does here on earth. I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and I don't recall him talking about traveling back in time, but he does mention a lot about dimensions and portals. I could be wrong, it's been a little while since I finished it.

And finally, as Elfman's soothing sounds fill my ears, and take over my mind... I am finally able to sleep.

Practice Makes Pefect?

It's been a while my old friend. I'm not quite sure how to explain the gaps in my entries, as there are limitless things to talk about. I suppose it's because it takes me some time to compile a set of similar ideas to formulate a narrow topic. Recently I haven't been able to manage my time wisely, as so the separation of thoughts has been quite difficult. Also, I've been reading a book called Bag of Bones by Stephen King. The main character, a novelist by the name of Mike Noonan has been stricken with a case of writer's block. Every time he sits down to write, his body involuntarily rejects any attempt to write a single word. I suppose to a certain degree, I've been infected by the same thing Mike has. Although in my situation it is created by my own fear that what I write will make no sense, a failed attempt in communication if you will. Since this is my strongest way of communication, as well as a way of expressing myself, you can see how such a failure can be devastating. Hence practice I suppose.

This is what I hope to accomplish in the coming months. Will it pay off? I hope so.

Foundation of Belief

This is an excerpt from an after thought from a conversation I had the other night. It turned out to be quite the rant. Here it is:

"I still have tonights conversation circulating in my mind so before any of it escapes I want to amend the various pieces of it that I feel didn't quite get through to you the way I would have hoped. As I probably told you before, it is very rare that I talk that much in one day. I'm going guess that I might have talked more today than I have in weeks. It has been like this my whole life; I've never been verbally articulate. In addition to this, it is very difficult for me to convey my thoughts without first writing them down, especially since I now have many more thoughts flowing than ever before. Not to mention how hard it is to define the bases for who I am, for it is something I struggle with every day. This daily struggle is what every scientist or philosopher deals with (or for that matter, any free thinking or rational human being). Like Einstien put it, "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.". I am constantly questioning. From the time I roll out of bed in the morning, till the time I drift into my sanctuary of dreams, I am in a state of observance, questioning, and confirming and/or redefining. Now, from a scientific perspective, if a theory is proven wrong by another theory, it is replaced; this occurs much more often than you might think. Much like a theory, my beliefs are constantly being molded. It is not so cut and dry when it comes to what is true and what isn't. Tonight you might have caught me at a time this was actually happening, and so I didn't quite have a grasp on the redefined belief. Of course there could have been one or many, so you can imagine how these new beliefs can conflict with other ones, and so the redefining begins all over again. As you can see, I'm not one to believe something unless it makes sense to me and I have ample evidence.

So why the hell did I turn out like this? Who knows, I just did. The reason why I looked depressed tonight is because every time I drink and actually have a gap of time where I'm doing nothing but thinking, I revert back to the time I came to realization that I might never have a real strong connection with another person. Now I do realize that relationships take work, and as I said before, compromise. Everyone has a foundation of belief. They base all of their actions upon this foundation. Other beliefs form off of this foundation, and much like a tower of building blocks, if a belief in that original foundation is proven false, most of that tower comes toppling down. Imagine finding several holes, missing and/or cracked blocks, or just a tower made completely of imaginary play-doh in the multiple towers of belief a person might have. Now imagine looking around every single day and seeing there isn't a single person even close to having a strong foundation of blocks. As I said before, I am always changing my beliefs. All of these cracks and holes are the very theories that are proven false, and so they are replaced in my mind. So what I'm trying to say is that I find so many faults in the foundations of belief of so many people, I find it hard to relate to anyone. It is the foundation in which I need to relate to in order for that deep connection to exist. I'm not saying that two people can't be compatible if their foundations don't match up, because I know that it is very near impossible. What I'm saying is that my foundation looks like an orange nerf ball when compared with the average person's foundation which would look like a wooden cube, as to say they are very very different. You might be thinking, "how do you know that?". Well, sometimes I can tell right off the bat. For example when someone casually throws around the terms right and wrong; or even more instant when someone refers to god. I know automatically from just those few words that our foundations differ completely. To be more specific, when someone uses those words in a sincere way, their foundation is based on some sort of religion. I didn't label myself before, but I am what is called an atheist, which means a lack of belief in a deity.

It may not seem like it, but I am living the best life I can. If I were to make friends just for the sake of having friends, I wouldn't be any happier than I am now because I wouldn't agree with them on many things. Some of these things bother me so much, I can't even stand being around them.....which is why I tend to avoid most people."

So that's the bulk of it. It may seem like I am 100% sure that I am correct in my beliefs and there's no way I could be wrong, but that is not the case. I definitely could be wrong; I could be dead wrong. As I said, I'm sure part of my foundation of belief will be proven to be wrong, and at that time, it will be altered yet again. From all of the evidence and my understanding of that evidence, this is me and this is what I believe.

What it seems like to me is that most people have an unwaivering foundation of belief. They continue to learn new things, but these new things are only just plopped on top of their foundation, and they feel as if there is no reason for them to have any correlation whatsoever. Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

P.S. Being an excerpt, this rant may not make complete sense because it is a piece of a response that branched off a discussion. I'll probably give more specifics in future blogs.

Youtube Addiction

Most of my online activity is basically limited to about five websites. There's yahoo for email, myspace for keeping in contact with family and "friends" not to mention my hopes of meeting decent people(yes I know I'm pathetic), bbc for the news, lifehacker for neat and random reviews, and most recent: youtube. In a previous blog I brought up a topic addressed by Brett Keane on youtube. From here on I'll probably be doing a lot more of that.

For those of you who don't know, there's a lot going on at youtube. It's filled with much more than just random idiotically entertaining videos. Believe it or not, it's quite a political and philosophical hotspot. But for some reason youtube doesn't allow text comments longer than about 100 characters, which is really strange; text doesn't require much storage at all. So I either have to start making videos or write about them here. Since I'm a bit deficient in the oral articulation department, I'll stick with text blogging for now. Youtube seems like the most popular medium for communication right now so I should probably start practicing.

Tsuda Masami

"Tsuda is a person who does everything slowly. From getting up to dusk, he will just sit there and veg out. He not only works very slowly, but also loves to sleep, so he can't catch up. In the world there are people who travel, go to concerts, and do other things. It's incredible."

- Tsuda Masami

Just a side quote from a manga I've been reading called Kareshi Kanojo or Kare Kano for short. Actually I've been reading the manga and watching the anime simultaneously. It's decent, I enjoy it, but it's clearly geared for the younger audience as it's about high school love, something I've never known.