I did this while starting from a stop on my bike yesterday. Amazingly the chain stayed on the ring for three whole revolutions to get me across the large intersection at Lake and Park Presidio. Simple as that, just muscle-starting on the large chainring and the second-smallest-of-9 gears on the back, and rrriinnnnkkkk I feel metal bending, look down and see this mess. Stopped on the sidewalk, thought for a moment, and switched to the small ring and been riding on that since (now I have to pedal faster to keep my usual speed, sigggghhh). I did bend the ring back a bit with a wrench so that the teeth are not sticking straight out (I feared for the skin of my leg) and ride with my pant leg tucked into my sock for skin-insurance instead of rolling it up.
Can't find any good reason why this happened on a 6-month old professionally-installed crank set. One thread from 2006 wrote of a local bike shop that said it could happen from hard pedaling and 6 other people spoke up and said it was pure BS. Every other instance of a bent chainring is from accidents or hitting something. Since I've not been in an accident or hit anything, I can only assume it was the half-a-link's width deviation (spread over half of the ring) that's been there for 4 months (don't know how that happened either) and finally gave way under the daily stress my monstrous quadriceps subject it to.
I'm trying to speak to someone at the company about a warranty, but they're 2 hours ahead of me in Illinois and I'm in school most of the day and haven't connected yet (I wonder how we will connect with classes ending, finals coming, and me leaving town in a week).
This is the old abandoned hospital I ride by everyday on the way to and from school. It's just over the hill from our apartment and is at the top of 15th Avenue just inside the Presidio grounds, almost all by itself, surrounded by trees and undeveloped land. At nighttime, especially when it's foggy, it's crazy creepy. During the summer, there were always hired security guys sitting in their cars at the main entrances. I had to try a few times, but got one of them to tell me about the place. It's haunted and they're there to keep the ghosts inside. Not really. They've been there since it was decided that the place would be remodeled (the non-original wings torn down) and made into condos and a bunch of stores on the bottom. A few weeks ago, crews started cleaning out the tremendous amounts of garbage inside and 3 days ago knocked off the corner of the west wing. Too bad, the place looks majestic with those huge wings on the front.
As for the grass, it showed up a few weeks ago on its own all over the area. Apparently, among all the alternative lifestyles known to San Francisco, among them is the idea of having Winter in the Summer and Spring in the Fall. I'm curious to see if the rest of the year will follow such Southern Hemispherical pursuits.
Also, mad props to the ninja taggers who got the "Good As" (already demolished) and "Dead!!" murals on the top floors of the wings without anything to stand on. The skull is also a sweet touch and I think it should be left there.
Since the Proposition 8 issue is dying down just enough to enjoy a peaceful Sunday but the topic is still a large part of daily conversation among friends and peers, I thought I'd try writing my thoughts down since I've got lots of them, but they rarely stay coherent long enough to get it onto paper.
Here's a video a member of our congregation took last week during the anti prop 8 rally against our Mormon chapel in San Francisco. It's a bit long and there's not much that happens, just a lot of shouting. Oddly enough, the messages on their signs are a lot of the messages we hear from the pulpit and teachers every week in church (but without the yelling). If only they knew and would just attend the meeting taking place a few feet away from them. The description of the video on Youtube's website is an excellent defense of our church's stance on the issue.
It peaked at about 100 people or so in between the second and third hours of our meetings while we switched from Priesthood/Relief Society into Sacrament meeting, and while the Bay Ward congregation members were leaving their meetings. By the time our last meeting was over, there were 20-30 people still out there.
I'm no psychological expert, or even a biologics expert, but in looking at my own life and my own experiences I feel I can relate to these people to a small degree, at the least.
In a physiology class I took during undergraduate studies, a quote was read to us by a prominent historical biologist (I can't remember who), that the most powerful forces in nature are the need to eat and the need to reproduce. Makes sense since that is the inherent function of every living creature on the planet: aquire nutrients enough to pass on your genetic code to a next generation.
The need to reproduce is an ever-present part of our brain function from the time we hit puberty until we die or until our reproductive organs quit working (even then, I'm not so sure we lose the desire). Men are ever ready to pass on their genes, and women are periodically ready to do so. This manifests itself in either gender's amount of time fixated on sex. Women tend to desire it the most while they are ovulating. Men tend to have to deal with it constantly. These are tendencies, not true to everybody, I know.
This is a complex issue. Every nerve in your brain receives inhibitory and excitatory/activating responses from other neurons, whether the next nerve fires depends on which signals dominate, the inhibitory or the excitatory. These gas pedals and brakes are huge complex issues involving a few billion neurons each, and noone understands them but they are the integral part of our every-second thought process. A guest instructor a few weeks ago explained it to me that there is this constant "static" always buzzing around the brain. I asked him if -with his expert knowledge of neuroscience- he believed we have the ability to choose for ourselves our own thoughts or whether our thoughts are enormously complex artifacts of our environment and past experiences. He told me that no one knows. There is just too much "noise" in brain function to determine that.
I like to think that I choose for myself what I am doing at every moment, or, that I have the ability to choose what I am doing at every moment, including the next step my thoughts will take. Most of the time, we don't consciously choose what we are doing. We act on habits, genetically inherited predispositions, or hormone levels. But when I decide I'm going to type the letter "K" for no reason than to type it, I am choosing to type the letter "K."
But, an enormous part of our conscious thought is influenced by our environment and by our hormones. We create "ruts" in our brain just like ruts in a dirt road, literally. The nerves that are used most will continuously use themselves more often and will call for reinforcing neurons to solidify that pattern of thought. This is a physical process that has been seen. Continuously fixating on a train of thought causes that rut to get bigger and bigger and harder to get out of or change. It also becomes more powerful in its ability to garner resources from the other departments of the mind to achieve its end.
This sets the stage for those individuals overly consumed with sexuality. An already tremendously ingrained part of our biological makeup does not need help by perpetuating thoughts on the topic, but that is what is out there constantly. When we see it in every billboard, tv show, magazine, activity, game, book, or web site, we further entrench our minds into a fixation on sexuality. Add onto this the reward of endorphins and dopamine hormones in our brains that make us feel great when sexually gratified or even just sexually enticed and there is a potential for huge disaster if improperly handled.
Pavlov was a scientist made famous for his experiments on dogs. He would ring a bell and give the dog food. If he did this long enough, the dog's brain would associate bells with food and begin salivating just at the sound of the bell. If a sound can activate the physical processes of digestion, how much more can feelings of sexual gratification be activated when engaged in behaviors using reproductive organs? Especially if those behaviors have so few immediate consequences that inhibitory signals in the brain are a mere whisper compared to the activating signals.
Now consider the number of ways that our society has created to achieve sexual gratification without actually participating in biological reproduction and it becomes a black hole of brain power and thoughts. No reason to stop the thoughts and every reason to promote them. Unfortunately our brains are not very capable of creating strong inhibitory signals if the consequences are not immediate. They take huge efforts to overcome.
I believe strongly that certain sexual fetishes (and there are many more than just homosexuality) can be present at early ages due to genetic predispositions or early exposures to certain behaviors, but they are weak impulses until acted on, encouraged, and sought out. If the environment imposes those impulses onto such a mind, the disposition flares up like a can of gasoline and a lit match. If we as a society encourage the pursuit of sexual gratification merely for gratification's sake, we risk exposing the innocent members of our society to it before their minds are capable of handling the overwhelming complexities of it in a rational manner and they become enslaved to their thoughts before they are strong enough to escape the temptations.
Pornography is an enormous problem because it exploits those already ever-present predispositions in every human mind and creates Pavlovian associations with non-sexual behaviors. Instead of bells, we become activated by clothing, everyday items, and members of the same gender. It sucks victims in by turning the world around the viewer into one sexually enticing festival of innuendos, suggestions, and intimations. This is overwhelming, not just to young minds, but to adult and mature minds.
In the flotsam and wreckage of this tsunami, the self-esteems of spouses are demolished. The self-esteem of the participant is destroyed. Marriages and families fall apart. Those without families further lose their ability to build healthy relationships that are not based on sexuality. All thoughts in their mind can become preoccupied and tainted with obtaining gratification. In their spare moments they seek out ways to satisfy this desire, similar to a substance addict. They resort to the gathering places of those afflicted with their same situation, almost like lepers: congregating with each other for company and shunned by many of their neighbors and society. Unfortunately, these crowds are not often the remorseful kind and seek out ways to afflict others since misery does love company and there is the feeling of safety in numbers. As they do, they gain strength and encouragement and convince themselves that perhaps they are not afflicted, but proudly chose this way of life.
Choose it they did. But not through any great effort on their part. Their choice warrants no merit, nor deserves any reward of perseverence. They allowed themselves to succomb to the most base desires of biology and then allowed their entire world to become polluted with this desire and in the process lose some ability for rational thought. It seems the two emotions that are the easiest to become ensared in are hatred (either of self or others) and hormonal addiction (substance abuse is an addiction of hormones as well). Often, the two emotions go together (an example is the video above). I'm sure there is an underlying biological factor connecting the two together, but that's for another time.
It is a sad story, and one that has always existed and will always exist while we live on this earth. The only way to end the story happily or to end it with any hope, is to never hate anybody, but hate the act only. If we know a better way, we should promote it. If we know someone who puts up a defensive wall, we should attempt to show them their way around it. Perhaps they always wanted a way over the wall, but never had the means. If given the means they will get over it when they want to. Often it seems when others defend their actions with a rationalization, it is a roadblock they themselves ran into at some point and never got over themselves (not that they didn't try).
Alienation of the person is a terrible thing. However, alienation of the act can only be brought on internally by overcrowding of better things and by long, arduous retraining of those nerve pathways that have so innately paved themselves through the highway system of the brain. They must teach the brain itself to break apart those associations and physical connections that have been made. Just like a leak in a bucket, trying to stop the leak while full of water is extremely difficult, and though it may hold for a time, it will always be a weakness that could open up if not consistently reinforced.
For many, it will be a lifelong, painful, and embarassing battle full of minor victories and overwhelming defeats. But the strength of self gained by continually fighting the internal fight will overflow into all aspects of life and improve the quality of each individual world using the skills gained from the fight itself. It excercises the brain and body in a way very few things can, and the defeats mean nothing in the long run despite how overwhelming they are at present. The intellectual insights and enhanced brain function gained can be worth it.
That's actually a title to an LCD Soundsystem song that I happen to enjoy. As a kid I ended up with a copy of the soundtrack to "The Saint" and on it is a Daft Punk song. Listened to it a lot. With my Columbia House membership I had at the time, I bought the album it came from. Wasn't so into the House music scene at the time (or ever, really) but thoroughly liked a few of the songs, much to the dismay of my family members. Last year a friend introduced me to LCD Soundsystem and their song which shares the title of this post.
When my brother left on his mission, his friend ended up with a bunch of his DVDs. When she left, I ended up with them. One is a Spike Jonze collection of his weird music videos, two of them being the very Daft Punk songs I used to listen to a lot. (here's another great one)
So, pushed into it by the planets (with so many flashbacks in the past year, I had to obey the fates) I looked up Daft Punk. They're still happening and quirky and kinda weird/sorta cool. For one of their albums from earlier this decade they created an animated movie in the late-70's/early-80's vintage style animation with the album as the sole soundtrack. No dialogue, just electronic/techno/house music. It's pretty awesome but does take a couple sittings to get through it (don't try it all at once). Known as Interstella 5555.
Synopsis: On another planet, a rock group is abducted by some bad guy, taken to earth, disguised as humans and placed under mind control and become the Earth's greatest musical group. A distress call goes out to intergalactic hero, Shep, who follows them to earth in his shiny silver guitar-shaped-spaceship and crashes (he also apparently had a thing with the female bass player). He rescues them and the story develops. Not gonna spoil this one. But here's a sample video introducing the audience to Shep who reminds me of my cousin Ben, but with blue skin.
Tonight I spent an hour and a half tinkering with the brakes on my bike (they weren't working hardly at all and the ride to school this morning was kinda hairy...) and had Daft Punk playing the whole time. Good times.
This brings me to another gem of popular internet creativity: Daft Bodies and Daft Hands. Set to "Harder Better Faster Stronger" words are written on fingers or body parts and displayed with the repetitive music resulting in cool patterns/movements/dance moves. (Daft Bodies may be considered PG-13 for the immodest display of skin, but the dance is really cool, especially starting at 1:30 in the video).
Part of my brain is always occupied with the idea of tinkering. If I had a shop and the toys and tools and materials, I think I'd tinker a lot. But I get bored with things that don't work quickly, so that would make me a terrible inventor.
I fantasize about having a house someday that is entirely self-sustaining using simple and readily present technologies. I have it all figured out in my head, just don't have the wherewithal to do it (or a house). Covering the roof with solar panels, collecting every bit of rainwater (I figured once that it would take .8 acres of land receiving 10-12 inches of average rainfall to sustain a family of five using average amounts of water; certainly a conserving-minded family could do better than that), keep or collect certain refuse and garbage that can be used to make fuels to power cars and other large machinery, efficient hydroponics to grow plants and food in small spaces, etc.
One of my favorite sites that will occasionally suck me in is Instructables.com. They've got anything and everything, from how to make your own Weighted Companion Cube from the Portal game, or an Iron Man chest arc generator. Find instructions for mischief or construction. One guy made instructions on building your own rainwater-yard sprinkler system that automatically turns on or off the collection of rainwater depending on rainfall.
Not just on this site, but elsewhere there are lots of instructions for building your own hydrogen gas generators for cars. A pair of guys in Tennessee offer classes in building one. They put one in a Nissan Altima's trunk and boost the horsepower and fuel efficiency using PVC piping, stainless steel plates, water, and lye with various other hardware store parts. And no hydrogen is stored in the car, it only makes it as needed when the car is on. Cars can increase fuel efficiency from 25-50% using the battery's current and lye-water. (Lye can be made at home using soaked wood ashes). Pretty ingenious. Not effective for running a car entirely off of it, but effective in boosting power and efficiency.
Lye (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide) can also be used to make your own soap and biodiesel from oils and fats in a saponification reaction (maybe I'll write about it next). Add aluminum to lye-water and huge amounts of hydrogen gas will be given off with it's own potential (but dangerous) uses. I can imagine people collecting ashes and scrap metal from industrial sites just for the purpose of making it cheap and dirty.
Maybe someday, when the apocolypse has come and gone, I'll have my house nestled back in a canyon somewhere, fully sustainable, and I'll house my own collection of servers and wireless broadcasters (all powered by solar or wind generators) and reinstate a semi-internet for those out there with their own connections and we'll rebuild the internet piece by piece. Ha Ha (*Victorious laugh*)
For now, the closest I can get to inventing/building/tinkering is playing Fantastic Contraption during Biochemistry. 2 of us introduced it to our class and got about 20 people hooked on it for a week. It's a blast. The machines can get as complex as you like, but for the quickest, simplest run through, check out this guy's speed run.
Found this one on Digg, took it, and scored in the 41-49 point range. True, I haven't done many of the things on the list, but feel fully confident I could. There are about 8 that are out of my reach.
I laughed. The description of the score level doesn't suit me well, but I did turn my PSP into a full-out retro gaming machine. It was way better for playing Super Nintendo on than actually buying games for.
I actually thought for a while that it would be fun to turn this school computer into a Hackintosh, but it would probably void the warranty.
Here's some another internet meme that's from a few years ago. Known as the "Dramatic Prairie Dog.
I got this article from a good friend, and I have to admit that I really enjoyed it, even if I'm not sure what to make of his strong language. It's long, but makes for excellent reading. At the end he does speak VERY plainly against one of the presidential candidates. Take it for what you will, but it's still great reading that sparks much thought. I recommend you read it in its entirety.
I'm curious about others' thoughts on it. Is his reasoning flawed? Solid? Too strong? I've got too much else to think about at this moment to dwell on it, but give me a few days and I'll reread it a few more times and add my thoughts to the comments.
Brainiac seems like it'd be a great show. Too bad they don't play it here in the states. Too bad I don't have TV to watch it even if they did. Here's just some stuff in slow motion. My favorites are the balloon to the face and the slaps, punches, karate chops.
Spent most of yesterday studying at school and practicing on some teeth. Left in the evening and since I didn't have time for a long bike ride, I tackled a few of the more notable hills in this end of town. I went up and down the steep and crooked part of Lombard at the top of Russian Hill and then climbed up to Coit Tower at the top of Telegraph Hill. While on the way home I could see behind me some familiar masts sticking above the pier buildings. Hmmmm.
The fog rolled in last night and the fog horns started at it around 8 or so. As I sat on the couch studying until midnight I could hear the surf, LOUDLY. Laying in bed, it sounded terrifying and I started kicking myself for not having ridden over to the ocean to see it on my bike ride. There was more of it today, but it wasn't so impressive at Ocean Beach, 8-10 feet maybe but nobody was out in it to watch or compare the size to and it was far out and foggy and really windy. Not fun. Rode downtown (out of the fog and into the sun) and down Market Street to the Ferry Building and searched for those masts. The Maltese Falcon is berthed right near the east end of Fisherman's Wharf for the time being. Pretty cool.
On the way home, checked out Fort Point and there was some excellent surf and surfing going on. Watched it for a long time, talked to a couple people. Got really cold standing there. This is only the 2nd or 3rd time it's fired up like this since I got here in July and the first time I've seen it. It was hard to leave. The wind on the way home along Crissy Field was brutal and along Lincoln Blvd, the fog was blowing so fast and thick you could see it billow in front of the oncoming traffic along the pavement. I took lots of pictures and put the best ones up on Flickr. Here's a sample I took from above Fort Mason.
There's various web pages out there that allow users to create Motivational Posters or Demotivational Posters. Insert picture, add title and caption and you've got a neat looking poster.
Instead of making them de-/motivational, most seem to use it as an easy way to make a cool picture with a neat title font, caption, and black border. Here's some favorites.
Shoot, everyone who knows my family knows we don't really go out of our way for attention, but we seem to get it anyways. A few days ago, Political Watch Central Coast, posts an article after they discovered that someone in the Lassen family (apparently Dave Lassen, whoever he is, head of the Lassen's "corporation," which doesn't exist) donated a sizable sum of money to the Proposition 8 campaign. It wasn't me and I don't know who did it and I'm not even sure if the amount is correct although commenters seemed to confirm the accuracy. Commenters also began to comment on boycotting the stores and perhaps picketing them. That would be a sight to see indeed. Especially the smaller ones. I'd probably come down just to watch such a silly act. Fortunately someone in our family has a few friends and they stuck up for us and told us about the development. This started a large discussion, of which I involved myself heavily.
Over the course of the past two days of this debate, the writer also discovered the active involvement of the Mormon church in this matter and wrote another article exposing such diabolical scheming and hatemongering. So I involved myself in this debate as well.
In some ways I'm glad that the blog isn't read more, and other ways I'm sad because no one will read such excellent arguments made in favor of Proposition 8. But sadly, I get more comments on this blog than Political Watch does (with the exception of the two controversial posts) on theirs, and that's not a lot. So, I'm going to do a favor and recommend the few of you who read my ramblings head on over and at least drive the traffic to their site up more than normal for the next couple days. That way they can feel better about themselves.
P.S. I wasn't posting under Lassensurf because I was having gimpy problems registering with Wordpress. How embarassing....
Dr. Horrible is an aspiring evil villain and hosts his own video blog about his exploits. He has a crush on Penny from the laundromat and his arch nemesis is Captain Hammer.
Joss Whedon and his brothers wrote this movie and music during last year's writer's strike funding it himself and releasing it online for free. It's been out since spring and already has a cult following as determined by the soundtrack's Top 40 Albums status on iTunes last month. The movie was made without any corporate or executive restrictions whatsoever and is only 43 minutes long as one of the by-products of the freedom allowed in its making. You can watch it for free several places online, buy it from iTunes, and a DVD is coming out soon.
Joss is best known for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Angel TV shows and related movies. Read his wikipedia entry. He sounds like a pretty interesting guy. If Dr. Horrible looks familiar, that's cuz he's Doogie Howser, MD. Captain Hammer is Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly and the OB/GYN from Waitress.
As a family friendly writer, I must warn that the movie, if rated, would probably receive a mild PG-13 rating for a few comments regarding intimate human behavior from Captain Hammer, revealing a smarmy side to his character. Other than that, it is definitely G. Instead of thinking it like poo in a brownie, rationalize it as the High Fructose Corn Syrup tainting your ABC Vegan Cookies. (My family owns and regularly watches movies worse than this --as far as innapropriate dialogue goes-- so no hate mail from the siblings, please).
To sellabrate the first day of the second quarter of school and to console my recently returned loneliness after a week with my family, I went for a bike ride this evening. The fog was rolling in and I'd heard reports of monstrous surf on Baker Beach and at Fort Point over the weekend. Wanting to watch the leftovers I headed to Fort Point first. No surf, but the fog was doing it's cool clear-under-the-bridge-foggy-from-the-deck-up business. From the fort I could see all the way across the bay and see the sun shining on Angel Island, but the deck of the bridge was a dark hazy stripe and the towers above it were non-existent. Awesome.
I booked it back up to the bridge and muscled up to Hawk Hill in the Marin headlands to enjoy the view wondering what surprises the fog would present me with. The ride across the bridge was dark (even though the sun hadn't set yet) and visibility was down to 200 feet or so. The ride up also was exciting as 20 mph winds blew billows of mist in the opposite direction I was going around the bends.
From the top, the air was the clearest I've ever seen it. I could see all the way across the bay and even the taller hills far beyond Oakland. The Golden Gate and everything south of the headlands was a sea of gray with 100-foot-tall-mile-long rolling swells coming from the west. Giant splashes of fog erupted around the headland's jagged coast where sea meets land. Only the very tips of the bridge's towers and Sutro tower were at all visible over the top of it. The wave-front was just approaching Yerba Buena island and hadn't wrapped around to engulf downtown. It was like watching a giant tsunami 700 feet tall moving in slow motion pour in through the gate and bury the city under thick gray sea water. After staring at it for twenty minutes and visiting with some other awe-struck viewers I hopped back onto my two-wheeled submarine and plunged back into the dark depths below. All along the road were other inspired folk, most just staring motionless at the scene, a few with cameras.
It was a fast and exciting ride home at the bottom of the sea-above-the-sea as water rained off of the bridge's invisible cables above, currents of wind tried to push me sideways, and other cyclists would appear and disappear like ghosts in front and behind me.
Now, I get to make dinner listening to the lonely fog horns sing their slow, deep songs to each other from each side of the gate like migrating whales.
I've received some personal requests for the funny stuff, the pictures and videos I find during my rambles and wanderings across the vast internets. I'ma gonna start with some old school:
The original Numa Numa
Here's the original Star Wars Kid:
Both of these were parodied immeasurably all over the world wide web and even on TV. Arrested Development parodied the Star Wars kid many many times using George Michael and the family video camera. It became a long running gag. Both videos are at the top of "most viewed" videos on Youtube. Both caused the stars to get more-than-wanted attention. The numa numa guy posted his video intentionally while the star wars kid didn't. That became a scandal. Oh well.
Here's a few other singly popular fellows, made famous by their unique-ness and foibles:
Afro-Ninja and Tay Zonday with Chocolate Rain
Things like this that become inside-jokes of the internet are known as "memes" ( weird version of phenomenon). People are always trying to start their own memes intentionally, but these are prime examples of the fact that you'll never know what will get the mob's attention.
I scanned the radio stations this morning. I couldn't get my favorite one on my little alarm clock. 105.3 KITS. So I scanned to a classical station and listened to half of one of Haydn's London Symphonies, played by the London Orchestra. Afterwards the station played "Ricordi di Napoli (Recollections of Naples)" by Antonio Pasculli, played by Christoph Hartmann and the Ensemble Berlin. I never knew fingers on an oboe could move so fast or that an oboe could sound that amazing. If I could find a sample to play for you I would, but if you want to hear it yourself, you'll have to buy a CD I think. Sorry, this was just a teaser.
The game Portal is part of the Orange Box package that includes Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and others. It was just meant to be a side game but became one of the better known parts of the package. I'm totally spoiling the story, but you wake up in some testing facility for a futuristic tech company and a computer voice instructs you through the various challenges. Along the way you get a gun that creates portals interconnected to each other. So, say if one is on a lower
floor and the other is on the wall. Jump into the lower one and your momentum through it will launch you out the other one sideways (or which ever direction it's pointed). As the game progresses, the computer, GLaDos, gets creepier and you'll notice strange things about her and the facility (marks and writings on the walls in blood helping you with more difficult areas) all the while she's promising cake for you at the end of the challenge (with blood-writing scrawled on the wall "The Cake is a Lie!!!!!"). Turns out she tries to kill you by dumping you into a fire, but you escape and make it through the back halls and utility rooms of the facility all the way to GLaDos herself. In attempting to kill you again, a piece falls off of her and you throw it into a furnace. A few more of these pieces knocked off and dumped into the furnace and she blows up and you escape into the outside world.
Before the video fades black, a dark room of the facility is shown with shelves full of GLaDos parts that start lighting up surrounding a table with a chocolate cake sitting on it. A robotic arm then puts out the candle on the cake and it goes black.
The game is crazy cool enough that it's spawned a cult following and jokes about it jumped all over the internet within a few weeks of its release. It's not a long game, get it done in a solid afternoon if you want to, and then play again later just for the ambience of it. One of the greatest parts of the game are the machine gun Turrets and their catchy phrases. Your heart starts pounding when you hear their really cutey voices "I see you... There you are...I don't hate you....Dispensing product.." especially if you don't see them first. When you hear them talking, they see you and bullets will soon be flying (despite GlaDos's reassurances that any signs of danger are only there to enhance the testing experience and that a taste of blood is a normal part of the experience).
After "destroying" GLaDOS and escaping this song plays with the text and various computer data being typed out. Some creative guy on the interwebs put this typography video of the song out there and it rose to the front page of Digg (since most digg readers are the same kind of internet geeks that get into games like Portal).
As a further testament of my geek score, I used to play this song at least once a day. I even put together a file of various turret phrases and put it on my phone as the ring tone, which I put in the music player above- along with a few other clips floating around the playlist.com website.
I played this at school for about 5 minutes (during a very boring lecture, and the sound was off, I mostly just wanted to show it to a friend, it was okay) and three other guys who'd been sitting somewhere behind me recognized it and came up to me later, "Were you playing Portal?!"
My parents were visiting last week and I had fun showing them the city while doing some exploring myself. They even took me home with them for a niece's baptism and 20 hours after arriving, I was on the Amtrak Surfliner heading back north (only to Santa Barbara, an Amtrak bus took me the rest of the way, 8 hours).
After a stressful week, it is now Sunday and I have an afternoon to chill. Yesterday I spent 2 hours buying groceries. It took that long because the car I borrowed wouldn't start when I tried to go home. The owners came to rescue me at the grocery store and we figured out why it wouldn't start and I got home fine. Studied. Watched part of the BYU-UCLA game (59-0 Go Cougs!) and studied a bit with some classmates out here. Spent 2 hours tuning up my bike (the wheels are so straight and true now it's awesome, but my brand new front brake pads squeal loud enough to be heard 5 blocks away, it echoes off of buildings) and went for a 20 mile ride through the San Francisco nightlife. I saw a re-creation of a 1902 Buffalo Bill Cody photo taken on Ocean Beach that an artist had set up, about 40 bonfires further down the beach, lots of people hanging around on sidewalks and waiting outside restaurants, a small streetside photo shoot, and a couple of shopping neighborhoods I didn't even know were there. At night-time just ride around and look for lights down the side streets. It's pretty neat what you'll find. Through the Haight-Ashbury, Market Street, Chinatown, Union Square, Japantown, Clement Street and home. I had my first bike crash. I rode down to the Baker Beach parking lot just to see what it's like at night and ran my bike into some deep sand and bailed. It was a very soft landing, but now I'm sure I've got sand all inside the moving parts of my bike..... but the Golden Gate Bridge looks really cool from down there at night.
As for dental school, things are really busy but lots of fun. On Mondays we're learning about the clinical side of things, how to do various exams, take health histories, do periodontal probing, head and neck exams, interpret x-rays, etc. Tuesdays we have dental anatomy where we make teeth out of wax and then get graded on how accurate and ideal they look based on all the fine specific anatomy of each tooth. It's really relaxing but the grading is so subjective you'd think they're just randomly picking numbers to make some sort of nice looking bell curve that only has a little to do with the quality of the work. Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings is anatomy lab where we dissect cadavers and learn about the structures and organs of the body. I love it and think it's really neat. You don't really think of the cadavers as people, they're far enough removed from living-ness that it's not as weird as you'd think. I got to remove the heart from ours. We've also completely removed the digestive system, opened kidneys, picked apart the spinal cord, separated individual muscles, nerves, and blood vessels. The only part I don't like is how stinky my hands get (even through the gloves!!) from the phenol/preservative and Fridays it's the worst because then you have to eat lunch shortly afterward.
Wednesdays are learning about restorative dentistry like crowns, making models, taking impressions, casting metals and various other materials. It's like arts and crafts. They even give some fun assignments like making a piece of jewelry out of silver to learn the casting process and making Halloween teeth to learn about making prosthetic mouth pieces from acrylic.
Thursdays all day is Operative dentistry practicing drilling teeth and filling preparations. It's alright but the tests are killer right now and working in the mirror for the upper jaw is still super awkward. But I am getting better (or at least I was until this week. It's like I reverted or something, so frustrating).
Sprinkled through the week are biochemistry and anatomy/physiology/histology lectures. We've covered more in the past 8 weeks than I ever covered in a full 14 week semester at BYU. I'm extremely glad that most of it is review from all the classes I took at BYU. Trying to learn this for the first time now would be devastating.
We have one week left for this quarter and then a week of finals. Weird to think that the first quarter is almost over already. It flew. For anyone that comes to visit, I'll be glad to give a tour of the school and show you around. My parents seemed to enjoy it, I think they were even impressed by the cadavers despite having some reservations initially.
I'll take this as a chance to brag about how cool this school is. Many schools haven't started, most only barely so. I even just got an official notice from USC that I sadly wasn't accepted into their program. It's official. Shoot and I was so hoping to go.....(LOL)
Soon, I'll have to write about all the cool stuff I get to do at school. Maybe next time. For now, this is my second ride of the Labor Day Weekend. Pictures links below.
I did the Marin Headlands Loop (voted best bike ride in the San Francisco Area) The Profile is only the first half. I was too lazy to finish it. I'm already putting off my anatomy studying. A great ride. On the 600 ft climb to the top of the Marin Headlands, a guy on a single speed passed me about 1/3 the way up. Not to let this happen, I kept up just behind him almost the rest of the way up in a similar gear as he had. The last half-mile or so he gained some distance on me. I talked to him at the top. Been riding the SS for 3 years. Rides a fixie around town, but it's harder on his knees he says.
Lots of old military posts, artillery stations, and batteries scattered ALL OVER the headlands. Some of the guns had ranges of 26 miles (WOOF).There's even a restored Nike Missile Silo with missiles on display. They're cool looking but I didn't get a picture. I did get some other pictures here. It's really quiet back there. Really quiet. So nice. It really reminds me of the Santa Monica Mountains. Very similar terrain. Greener and with Black Sand Beaches. I definitely have to go do that ride again. Again, in case you missed it, my own pictures are HERE.
Also discovered from a classmate The Bike Kitchen, a non-profit bike shop where you can purchase a year's membership or pay by day for use of the shop and get advice from the mechanics on bike care and help. You can even volunteer as a mechanic to earn credits towards your own bike. That'd be cool. Work a couple evenings and Saturday afternoons and build myself a fixie! We'll have to see about that.
Congratulations to Kirsten Kent for guessing the theme of the titles!!! A gift certificate for a Free Pint of Baskin Robbins is forthcoming.
Here's some pictures for those of you who check this site for pictures (there's also a link below for more pictures) That's the path of my bike ride last night. All morning I cleaned and organized and put away stuff that's been sitting out since we moved here. It's finally all taken care of (visiting parents were some motivation). The fog cleared up by noon so I went down to the Beach from 2-3:30. I explored the rocks down at the end, but had to pass the nudists on the way. They're kinda a strange bunch. Nearly all overweight middle-aged or older men. A few younger and a few thinner, and maybe two women, but I'm not sure about one, I wasn't trying to scan the crowd or anything. The one I'm sure of was a topless woman who decided to run right in front of me with a big tattoo on the left side of her back. It's funny, because private parts are not very attractive, especially man-parts. I'd much rather see swimsuits over those parts (girls or guys). Esthetically, it's much more pleasing to the eye (let alone for any other reason). I also think there's a certain amount of exhibitionist in it too (like bloggers, we're vain enough to think people might not mind us exposing ourselves to the world). I know there's the whole "being free and one with nature, feeling the wind on your skin all over your body" but it was pretty breezy and chilly at that end of the beach. I put my shirt back on just because I was cold (if I'm cold, that's saying a LOT. Actually, maybe not, I'm kinda skinny and they've all got some natural insulation).
I took a few pictures from the rocks of the scenery. Went home for a bit, and planned out my bike ride for the evening. I don't know what inspired me to ride that far, just that I knew I could. I didn't have a water bottle but promised myself I'd stop at a Safeway along Ocean Beach, but once I got there, I didn't want to stop. I never did get thirsty, but I did eat most of my snacks I brought.
I crested the top of Lincoln Blvd (just a half mile or so from my place) at about 9:00. I stopped at the vista parking lot there and turned off my lights, sat at the edge of the pavement and ate the rest of my food while overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in the dark. The bushes sheltered me from the wind withouth blocking my view. It was really nice just sitting there in the dark for a moment with such great scenery.
It was mostly an exploration/scout trip to see the sights briefly. I'll come back and revisit some of them later more thoroughly. I left at 5:00 pm and got home just after 9. I was probably riding for about 3 of the hours. Maybe not that long. Oh, and the spiky bit on the profile to the right of the mountain was me riding around downtown and Chinatown. I think the buildings throw off the terrain or something, because it was just one kinda-long semi-gradual hill up and down to Chinatown.
And don't tell anyone, but as I passed by the trailhead to the north end of Baker Beach, there were a bunch of cars parked on the street. I found a couple people there and coaxed them into telling me what was going on. Apparently there was a mini Burning Man festival going on (3ft tall) for those stuck in San Francisco. I was tempted to go watch, but opted out of it, went home, and went to bed not long after.
This is the last title in the series (which is why it makes even less sense than all the others, I had to just use it). If you still want to take a stab in figuring the theme, I've got a gift certificate for a pint of Baskin Robbins for whoever figures it out (and I don't mean a bunch of in-laws on the beach-- ba-dum ching!) Serious, there's a gift certificate on my floor right now I got for donating blood (and then riding my bike home, but they didn't approve of or even know about that) and the nearest Baskin Robbins is a good ways away.
I watched a commercial by Let California Ring (.org). Of course it's to promote same sex marriage, but it displays a heterosexual couple getting married, and I guess the idea was to show various obstacles getting in the bride's way as she tried to get to the ceremony. It wasn't very clear and the point was pretty vague. No one was stopping her from getting to her hubby. Heaven forbid you have to step over cracks in the cement as you walk across the street! That's a low blow, sorry. It's just really a strange commercial and the point isn't very well made. Actually, it's not made at all. Eventually, the bride gives up right there on the isle, frustrated by tiny little quirks in a wedding. Weird. If losing your veil to a vined arch is stopping you from getting married, you really shouldn't be getting married. We wouldn't want to pass on the genes that predispose such futilistic behaviors (survival of the fittest! Darwin did have a lot of things going for him). I don't see the commercial gaining the movement much ground. Whoever made it, really doesn't understand love (despite what they've convinced themselves of). *That one was a kidney-shot.
Wanna see another low blow? If two people want to PRETEND they're starting their own family, they can just get a couple dogs in place of kids and raise dogs for several decades. Social circles are built around them at the local parks here. Some friends walked a neighbor's dog one time and locals at the park accused them of stealing so-and-so's dog! They are dressed up for Halloween (today I saw a picture of an awesome dog-Yoda costume. I'd have a dog if he dressed like that everyday!). They love you and are affectionate, are easily trained, there's no bratty teenagers, and you're not obligated to spend your money spoiling grandchildren either. And if you don't like your dog, just give it back to the pound or sell it. No guilt! No commitment! If you do feel guilty, just wait 10 years until it dies of old age (or put it down when you can convince yourself that it's in enough pain it doesn't want to live anymore either). That's much better than dealing with kids at home for 20+ years, and then having to solve all their adult-related problems interrupting your retirement.
Dogs are great pets. If we have a decent yard, we might get one or two. But, unfortunately, to a lot of people (it seems like amazingly more people lately), they are long term replacements of raising kids. I've seen "families" go through more years of dog ownership than parenting, 3 times over. It's really sad that there's no continuation. It's like an insult to your parents to not raise children who will raise children who will perpetuate family traditions and characteristics. If your parents really were awful and you're afraid of repeating their mistakes, give the ultimate blow to your progenitors and have kids, but learn how to raise them RIGHT. (Hah! Take that, Dead-beat Dad and Absent Mom! I'm a GOOD parent!).
That's my twenty dollars and fifty-six cents for the day. Now onto the excitement:
Adventure Stories Headlines from San Francisco!!!! (email editor for details)
Cyclist hits dog on way to church!
Dental student with backpack, dress clothes paces two professional cyclists during informal race up hill! Doesn't break sweat! Scared cyclists quickly leave vicinity looking over shoulders for fear!
Half-crazed early-bird swims in cold waters of bay over weekend! Returned tonight! No wetsuits dampened in process! Uncontrollable shaking!!
Vampire forced to live under menacing gaze of sun for 3 days! Prays for more fog! Longest drought of new residence by 48 hours over previous droughts!
Personal records bested! Original school ride: 20 minutes door to door. Today: 14 minutes! Higher gears used non-stop!
Bachelor touts Whole Foods as best place to spend grocery budget for family of 3! Delicious deli delites inside! Ordinary Housewives are envious!
Initial D preferred entertainment for lonely evenings!
Californian nursing student prefers Utah for LDS Primary Children's Hospital! Desires to work there for life! Child Oncology reinforced as future emphasis!
Toddler takes up waterpainting! Occupied for hours! Dollhouses come second!
Well, my long-winded thoughts on marriage are nothing compared to the excellently written and thought out statement from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I recommend you read theirs and know it well (just in case anyone asks you about the issue).
There are some interesting comments at the end of the second article that should make you stop and think. If you can figure out why some of those comments (made by both sides) don't or do hold water, you're on your way to effectively and properly discussing the issue with friends, neighbors, and anyone else who'll talk to you about it.
Good luck and may God aid us in the pursuit to save our society.
There's a pure sweetness to feeling heartache. Like a hot knife into your heart, you just want to lose consciousness to escape the pain. Sleep is the only comfort while suffering it's weight. And yet, not feeling it when a loved one is gone is almost worse. You start to wonder why you don't feel it. Is your love not deep? Is your heart hard? Maybe you're too secure in your relationship. A little time passes and you go about your new lifestyle alone. Then when least expected, a searing hole rips through your chest and you are both euphoric and tortured at once. "Aha, there's the soft spot in my heart!" you think to yourself as you cry into your pillow for the ones you're missing.
The title of this entry breaks from my usual pattern (which is soon to be ended anyway). The number 8 is significant in an incredible number of ways from culture to culture around the world. Maybe it is just a coincidence that it is a proposition of enough importance to get The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints stirred up enough to take an official stance. Here's the letter from the First Presidency read to all congregations at the end of June: "Preserving Traditional Marriage and Strengthening Families
In March 2000 California voters overwhelmingly approved a state law providing that "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The California Supreme Court recently reversed this vote of the people. On November 4, 2008, Californians will vote on a proposed amendment to the California state constitution that will now restore the March 2000 definition of marriage approved by the voters.
The Church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God, and the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan for His children. Children are entitled to be born within this bond of marriage.
A broad-based coalition of churches and other organizations placed the proposed amendment on the ballot. The Church will participate with this coalition in seeking its passage. Local Church leaders will provide information about how you may become involved in this important cause.
We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman. Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage."
"The sacred institution of marriage" is what they call it. Marriage is foremost a religious institution, it is secondly a civil institution, and I would argue that the developement of the civil version arose as an imitation or substitute for those less-religiously inclined persons. This issue is a moral issue (in reality, aren't all laws based off of morals at some level or another?). Ideally, laws and morals are made for the sustainability of the human population. They regulate our interactions with each other to promote cooperation and progress, they protect each other from mal-intentioned persons, or even to prevent innocent mistakes made by fellow members of society. I want to talk about marriage from a biological stance.
From a biological standpoint, all successful life forms are those who are able to strengthen an individual enough to allow it to propagate it's own species and pass on their own DNA and genetic structure. Any species that cannot propagate it's own kind in the face of adversity dwindles and becomes extinct. Most life is pretty simple. Aquire nutrition, grow, and procreate. This is the schedule of life that all organic lifeforms on this planet adhere to. Some species form slightly more complex groups or societies that aid in acquiring nutrition or aid in procreating, maybe both. Still, in the animal kingdom, this is as about as complicated as it gets. Even interactions between family units within species is to preserve the ability to aquire nutrition or procreative ability so that the family's own DNA can be passed on. This is THE driving force in allother lifeforms on this planet.
Why are we as a human species so complicated that we start missing out and destroying these basics of survival. I'm not talking about individual defects that get in the way of propagation, I am talking about the societal movements and cultures that destroy and impede such progress and discourage it in others. Why are we so complicated that we allow personal gratification to get in the way? Why are there significant portions of our populations that are okay with demoting our abilities and threatening our progression? Promotion of a species isn't a matter of choie, but a result of the environment and innate genetic programming. We have the ability to overcome our genetic programming and choose our own fates to a much larger extent than anything else on this planet, especially now with knowledge and technology so freely available. We have the potential and freedom to become so much more than simple biological creatures. So what are movements within society doing? They are taking advantage of that freedom by removing those morals and anchors that separate us from all other life. They are trying to promote lifestyles more in line with base hormonal creatures, than promote those institutions that provide an environment for maximum upward growth.
The institutions that move society in a progressive direction are healthy marriages. Healthy marriages tend to produce healthy stable families where healthy stable people are grown to promote the advancement of our species. Anything that degrades this institution will drag the human species backwards into just another biological species concerned with nothing but aquiring nutrition and obeying hormones. No better than lions on the savannah or gorillas in the jungles (except with maybe a few tools and shelters for our benefit).
As members of society promote alternative family units or companionships antagonistic to healthy families, they influence others to follow suit, if not in lifestyle then in priorities of selfishness. As families are degraded and disregarded, more families and potentially stalwart future members of society are destroyed. The knowledge of the value of the family is lost, even if for simple ignorance of its potential.
Anything that disvalues the importance of healthy families is based on selfishness. Cohabitation is based on erasing loneliness, sexual gratification, and financial gain. There might be some altruism in there by service to others or donations of time and money to worthwhile organizations, but the key is still missing. We are not passing on those unselfish habits to the most impactable part of society, our own children. Even if a couple intimately changes the life of a child or youth for the better, think of the good that could have been accomplished if you raised your own children in an altruistic fashion PLUS that one changed life. Likely, those children will go on to change countless lives themselves in an exponential fashion, reaching many more people and doing much more good than two people sharing resources could do themselves. Unfortunately, selfishness is much more contagious than unselfishness. Why should we encourage it by permitting selfish lifestyles and erasing the outward distinctions of such? Why are so many hetersexual couples avoiding and devaluing marriage as just a piece of paper, while so many homosexual couples are working so hard to get it? Are heterosexuals just taking for granted what a wonderful opportunity they have available to them, while homosexuals are doing everything they can to obtain a shallow imitation of the same thing?
Families are the gateway by which our species has arrived at this point. Unfortunately, having a family doesn't seem to be genetically ingrained into our brains. Our hormones are still there, driving women men and women to have children and gratify sexual desires, but having a healthy family is not instictive to us. We need to be shown how to do it. Find a healthy and (at least) mostly happy family and ask them how to do it if you don't know or if you want ideas. Even better, develop a deeply spiritual relationship with something incredibly better than yourself and live your life after that. Not everyone will get to have a family for various reasons. They still should keep themselves in a position to build up other's families, not set precedents and examples of what one can get by serving their own needs.
The importance of families and marriage is crucial to the progression and survival of humanity. It ties the whole world together in a vast meshwork of relation and background that allows us to progress in a way that can be healthy for all. It takes two families and two individuals with sometimes great differences and teaches them to be tolerant of non-destructive habits (or unusual but beneficial habits) and levels out each other's imbalances. In this way, the waves of the storm of culture are absorbed and smoothed over, bringing people together and combining talents to develop well-meaning children with a broader and more properly focused view of the world and all that is in it.
I'm not about to infringe on anybody's civil benefits (which are pretty equal across the board). People will do behind their closed doors what they'll do. But when it becomes public and when it is destructive to society and our species, limits must be set and lines must be drawn. Creating homosexual relationship institutions will not aid our situation any more than allowing unlimited speed limits on our streets would aid transportation. There may be excellent couples who could love each other as well as the happiest husband and wife. There may be couples who could raise children well and balanced, but there will be far more wrecks than it is worth. We should be focusing on helping everyone be a part of a healthy family to prevent the vast problems brought about by broken and incomplete ones. Giving marriage opportunities to everyone will not help this effort. I do wish everyone could enjoy the texture and detail of a happy family life and appreciate the variety of tastes possible by participating in one in an appropriate style.
