Why do I still have this thing?

Ah, yes.

The obligatory "Wow I almost never update this thing" post. I know you don't miss me, because anybody who has the slightest chance of reading this most likely sees my stuff elsewhere.

I rarely come up with any exciting news items or links, and I don't any have any audience to speak of, making distribution of links from other blogs pointless. Still, I think I'll keep this retarded little blog.

Oh, the coconut? The fern plant still lives, but the moss is nearly all dead. It seems I underestimated the power of the Hawaiian sun, even though I put it in a relatively shady spot. No doubt it's too full of bugs to bring inside. I'll probably have to give the thing up when I move :(

Disappearing from the Internet

Wow, that was weird.

For the past few weeks, I've been almost completely absent from the Series of Tubes. I know, I'm always absent from this blog (October and November? Pssh, who needs 'em?), but I'm talking about practically the whole Internet. Other than email, I have not visited most of my favorite websites in a long time, and even then only once every few days. Heck, I'm pretty much only talking to one person on email anyway, and they live within walking distance. It's like I'm intentionally cutting myself off from the world of electronic blips and buttons.

What have I been doing in this time? That's none of your stinking business, but I certainly haven't been watching television; I stopped doing that even before I took this Internet sabbatical. I've been trying to get my life moving mostly, and I've been trying to improve my relationship with the human beings on this planet. They've taken a liking to me, these hairless apes, and I rather enjoy the company of a few of them. I've been helping a friend to edit a book, and written a little bit of my own crap.

I'm not sure when I'll be coming back to the Interwebs. I've found that I can be quite satisfied with doing all the shit that piles up when I'm being lazy and mopey; it keeps me occupied. In fact, that's led me to believe that even if Hawaii were an island paradise (which it isn't, unless you're local or very rich... or both), I wouldn't enjoy it anyway. Paradise is an awfully boring idea, in my opinion. If everything is happy-go-lucky and there are no problems to fix then why am I alive? There needs to be a little grit in the environment, or else I'll go bonkers from ennui. Ennui: a problem experienced by the over-privileged, lazy, or occasionally the under-appreciated, in which a sense of worthlessness as a human being manifests itself in the act of being a worthless, apathetic, and frequently bitter twit.

In closing, stuff has been happening, but not pertaining to the Intertubes. My feelings on all of this? Completely neutral. I don't really care to do any more deep soul-searching at the moment. I've got things to do.

I Am A Traitor To Cabbages Everywhere

I've been a self-professed Discordian for almost a year now, and I recently came to wonder why I chose to follow a psychobabble-based philosophy. Or, more accurately, I came to ponder the irony of it.

I'm cut from the very mold that mid-level managers and executives are: conscientious, task-oriented (as opposed to goal-oriented), and I like having my work cut out for me. Creativity is an auxiliary function, a tool best used by the select few and always for a specific purpose. In other words, my character makes me more than the typical workplace drone, more than an obedient servant of "The System". No, I'm an enthusiastic servant of The System; the one who can be set to work like a machine, and desires nothing better than to see everyone else do the same. I am exactly who the Discordians, the SubGenii, and their ilk (i.e. those who associate with both but act all superior about being an 'outsider') chafe under: not the grand masterminds of The System, but their tool, their Elite Cabbage Guard.

Or I would be, if it weren't for the fact that I'm not any such thing. I'm merely suited to that position so well that it should give freethinkers and, in the words of Illuminatus!, neophiles a little shiver just thinking about it. Heck, I'm even an antiquarian, which I can prove by making use of words like 'antiquarian,' and I only liked the Principia Discordia and Illuminatus! because they smacked of something from an older generation than my own. It just so happened that their ideas were just old and obscure enough to seem fascinating to me, but loony enough to appeal to my sense of humor.

So why am I on your side? (Let's face it, you probably wouldn't be reading this if you weren't one of those types of people I just mentioned.) I don't really know, but let's all be glad that I turned down Their offer to be a wealthy, overworked, and soulless mind slave.

In other news, I have once again managed to update this blog in just under a month. Seems to be a cycle.

The Real Reason I Use A Mac

We've all heard the routine a million times: Mac users act like obnoxious loudmouths, praising their machines as infinitely superior to Window$. Windows users, though they grumble and complain about their computers amongst themselves, never fail to retaliate with arguments against the Mac.

Great graphics, say the former. Inflexible, reply the latter. Ease of use versus lack of games, and it goes on and on. All of this is, of course, total dreck. I've decided to tell you, in plain, non-bullshit terms, why I use Macintosh computers. The honesty may cause hemorrhaging in the part of some reader's brains that accounts for all this stupid sentimentality, so be warned.

Familiarity. I always use Macintosh computers because I'm familiar with them. I learned the basics on a Mac LC II, also known as a Performa 400, and I've owned Macs ever since. It costs more, sure, but it beats time lost trying to learn how to use a Windows machine. It's true that Macs are not as programmable as most Windows machines, but my personal reaction is "Why the hell would I want to reprogram it?" I'm no programmer; I'd just break the thing, and it works fine as it is, in my opinion. Opinion: that is, I know my reasons don't apply to everybody. I told you I was going to be honest, and the honest truth is that everything is relative. Deal with it.

Consumer Reports rates Apple highest in customer service, and I attribute this to the fact that the Mac is a custom-designed machine. The software guys and the hardware guys are all on the same page, and if you install a program or application that claims to work on your Mac, you can be damn sure that it'll be up and running within about two minutes. Flexibility exchanged for functionality: that's a bargain in my book. I want my computer to work, I don't want to make it work by dicking around with its programming.

So that's it. None of that "Mac is prettier and friendlier and easier and sexier and blah blah blah" nonsense. Familiarity, and the thing works, period.

Oh, and I'm not enslaved to the whims of Micro$oft. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

It has begun...

School! Yippee! Hooray, huzzah, what a fricking wonderful time of year!

I am so going to kick it this time around...

No, seriously, I'm sure it'll be fine. Better than last year, at least (not that that's saying much, but hey). I've been hooked into joining the yearbook staff, which ought to be awfully amusing. To give you an idea of just HOW amusing it's to be, let me give you some statistics: me, and 20 girls. I am the sole masculine influence on this yearbook. And I thought I would hate this school forever and ever...

I've been wondering what it'd be like to run a video blog. My guess is that with a really good start, it would be fun for about a month or two before I gave in to boredom and the fact that no one would watch. Also, I have no real means of making one anyway, so there's that problem solved.

I wish I had a topic that could tie this all together, or at least bring this post to a satisfying conclusion for you. Tough.

An update! How quaint.

Yes indeed, it is officially less than one month since I last posted, which makes this blog officially not dead. I've been on the road, spending most of my summer back in Goddess's Constitutional Monarchy on Earth (The Kingdom of God is an old and smelly neighborhood), also referred to as New York State. I'm currently staying in the best hotel yet on this trip for the lowest rate yet, which proves Disorder can be awesome.

It's nice here, 'cause I can go outside at high noon without needing to put on a protective radiation suit. Pretty much everything looks nicer here, what with the older buildings. Also, real estate is a fair bit cheaper (than Hawaii, I mean), and therefore I suspect that people here aren't as tempted to put value on the land they purchase as fast as possible, so they put a little more thought (and money) into making buildings not look like crap. The city of Honolulu, where real estate purchases will break the bank unless one can start making money fast, is a maze of concrete and steel, and the whole thing looks like the god of architecture inhaled burning tires and sneezed all over the island.

*Ahem* With that out of the way, I'd like to comment on... um...

One moment...

SiCKO! Yeah, there we go. I saw it a few weeks ago, and I rather liked it. Politics are an unavoidable part of the health care controversy in the U.S., but I was pleased that Micheal Moore avoided getting too political. It dealt mostly with the fact that America's system of "health insurance" as a business is completely contrary to the ideal of preventing misery and death on the part of people who go to see a doctor. As a capitalistic venture, health insurance companies have no interest in paying out for the medical needs of their valued customers, and since a national health plan would spell their financial death, they fight tooth and nail against any government measures in that direction.

It also doesn't help that so many Americans are complete nimrods when it comes to socialized medicine. Bring it up, and everyone will tell you that they've "heard about" the terrible health care system in Canada. Bullshit. They've never asked a Canadian, and never stop to consider the fact that there are other countries we might model our system after. Hell, our military has a sort of socialized health care system, and it works pretty damn well.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be a doctor, knowing that the person in your examining room needs medical help–which the hospital is perfectly capable of providing–but can't pay for it, and also knowing that if you treat that person without the approval of the insurance company you could lose your job for fulfilling the Hippocratic Oath. Like a proper, trust-your-life-with kind of doctor ought to. Yet doctors need to make a living (and get health insurance, ironically) just like the rest of us.

But all of this has been said before. Ignorance, wealthy lobbyists, and politics. Reason and compassion have no greater foes. America, this land of amber mountains and purple waves of grain, from sea to rising sea, seems to have gotten its head quite lost up its bum. Angry and cynical on the outside, weeping on the inside: that's me.

Maybe I'll move to Canada.

Finally, some honesty... sort of

This New York Times article describes the US Army Corps of Engineer's plan to survey the New Orleans area and determine which neighborhoods and blocks are at the greatest risk of flooding in the future. They've admitted that New Orleans is still at a big risk of flooding and could suffer substantial hurricane damage even after the levees have been rebuilt.

Basically, the Corps of Engineers is tactfully saying: "We're doing the best we can, so don't come bitching to us if Mother Nature decides she doesn't want people living on the Louisiana coast." I've always felt kind of sorry for those guys, seeing as they're charged with building coastal protection against things that no human being could ever hope to fully defend against.

I don't blame residents of New Orleans for wanting to rebuild and continue living there; it's human nature to resist displacement. Although I question the wisdom of a city planner who places stuff below sea level right next to an unprotected coast, that's up to the people who live there.

The people who really irritate me are real estate developers. I've got nothing against building homes, but it's downright dishonest to encourage people to live in an area that will most likely be destroyed within 50 years. I see it as long-term profiteering. People like the idea of ocean front property, since 99% of the time it's beautiful and a great place to live, but a developer only gets paid to build up an area once. If a single company develops areas all along the coast, then they're pretty much guaranteed a new contract for the same area every few years. And the government (i.e. taxpayers) have to pay to make the areas seem safe to the people who actually live and work in the developed areas.

Basically, development along the Gulf Coast is a drain on taxpayers and ultimately results in catastrophe every time a big hurricane shows up (which will be all the more frequent with global warming). Has anyone considered growing mangrove forests along the coasts, and putting limits on how close towns and cities can be built to the shore in certain areas? Our generation probably won't get much thanks for it, but the next major hurricane will kill fewer people if we do.

Hopefully this risk-evaluation project by the Corps of Engineers will at least sow the seeds of caution.

In other news: I'm flying back to New York for the summer! Five whole weeks in the state (yes, New York is also a state) I adore above all others. Once a Yankee, always a Yankee, and I don't even like baseball. I love it because I've lived there for almost my entire life, I have relatives and friends there, and also because of my totally overinflated opinion of the place and its greatness. Money, the biggest state park in the entire USA, one of the greatest cities of all time, money, bagels, real pizza, what's not to love?