Michael fails international charades, learns about McDoanld's menu.

A short Hispanic man with a horses mane mohawk came into work holding a wad of cash. He timidly approached the counter and I, out of habit, said "How are you doing tonight?" although I say it more as an obligatory statement than an actual question symbolizing an interest in someone's life.
He nodded and stated his mission: "et pis chicken".
"I'm sorry. What?" I said.
"Et pis chicken" he persisted, this time gesturing with his hands.
"I...uh. I don't know what you're saying."
"Chicken"
"Yes, right. Chicken. I get that. You want chicken wra...er, sandwich?" I ask, uselessly trying to use my hands to symbolize a wrap.
"No! Chicken. Et pis chicken. Chicken breast." he retorts, gesturing to his chest area and seeming quite agitated.
"Um, sir, we don't have chicken breast. We make sandwiches."
"Turkey?"
"Yes, we have turkey."
"Okay. Turkey."
I was finally feeling like progress was being made until he gestured the shape of a whole turkey, dinner sized.
"We don't do that. We have sandwiches. Wraps. No big turkey."
"Oohhhh. Ohh. Okay. Give me number five."
"Uhh..err. We don't..."
"Number five," motioning to the menu board.
"Sir, we do not serve numbered combination meals at this eating establishment. I cannot help you. There is not number five.
-a blank stare-
"Uhhh... Okay then. Sorry then. Good bye."

My coworker later informed me that a number five is some kind of chicken meal at McDonald's .
Also later it dawned on me that "et pis" was supposed to be "eight piece" and the poor man just wanted a fried chicken dinner. Not like I could have given him one anyway though.

Moral of the story: learn to say no and act condescendingly when you have no idea what someone wants. They will (hopefully) just walk away frustrated.

Just Registration, No Title

Motivation is derived from a motive. Motive is the drive behind an action that dictates a choice. Choice is relative to the perceived options and the real options. The given solution set does not always contain the real solution.

Motive dictates the options that are presented.

Motive dictates the decision that must be made in dealing with given solutions and real solutions.

Motive vs. Motive
Agenda vs. Agenda
Will vs. Will

My agenda is what motivates me. Whatever the agenda may be, good or bad (in your perception, that is), it is what compels me into action. This is also known as ambition.

Ambition, as we all know, can be a very effective tool in achieving goals, but it can quickly go sour. Always keep ambitions in check; always know your goals, check the motive. If it offends or harms another, if it violates the natural laws of life, love, and being, ambition has become selfish. If someone else must be suppressed or cut down, chances are it is a selfish means to a corrupt end.

As soon as the means becomes subjective to the end, when self becomes the only goal, the only focus, it must be stopped. When ambition leads to a disregard of others or society, it is corrupt through and through.

Liberal Economics

Remember, I do not align myself with any party or candidate, but this just makes sense.

Obama's Economical Reforms

I am very impressed.

Anticlimax.

We plummet. We plummet soundlessly through the cold silence that is the void of space.

We know this is it. We are the remainder of humanity and we are plunging toward death rapidly.

One of us could be sacrificed to save the other, or we both can face the end together. Even if one was saved, life could not go on. There is no one else, nothing else.

In the final moments, what is important? What actually matters when death is visibly approaching, coming nearer and nearer each second? Enjoying the moment, enjoying each other and every second of precious life becomes the only priority. When you are looking at the end, only the moments leading up to it have any significance.

Seeing fate's approach is liberation.

And so, the world ends, not with an explosion or collision on a planetary level, but with a pitiful plummet down to the surface, effectively extinguishing life in a burst of flame and wreckage.

Which reality?

I demand to know, who is living my life for me? How have I become trapped in this sub-existence that I have been fighting so hard to stay out of? Someone has stolen my life from me. I can feel it winding on, playing through in my subconscious, keeping me barely aware of my failed aspirations.

I dream inside of a second life. A life much more satisfying, yet oddly troubling, awaits me every day. It waits for me to lend my mind, my experiences, to it as I sleep. It is a construct reality that is sucking me dry during my ever-so vital REM cycle. While I sleep, it feeds. My brain has become the target of a mental parasite.

When I sleep I go places. I meet people, I achieve goals, I explore. I have objectives. I cannot read in the dream-reality. I tried to read once and it felt like trying to lift an immovable object; imagine trying to pick up a car. No particulars are given to me. There are no distinguishable faces. I enter, do whatever is needed, devote mental processing and valuable rest time, then receive a few precious hours of deep rest before waking.

The dream-reality has carried over into my daytime life. I rely heavily on stimulants to stay focused on reality and the present. If stimulants are not utilized, my entire focus may become immersed in the second life. Most times I am living in both simultaneously, not devoting full attention to either, but working a balance of my facilities. It is obvious why I must focus on reality, this reality, but why do I need to maintain the other as well? What is it within the invisible realm that I feel the need to preserve contact with? What is going on in there that is important?

Welcome to my mind. Here you will find a constant struggle of multi-tasking and mash-ups of every task and thought that may need to be entertained at any given time. I feel as though I have a cloud to work with. Sometimes I find a piece of something useful, and it just happens to be floating by when I need it. More often though I cannot find what I need (focus on a specific process or devote a thought sequence) or I constantly find things that are not practical in the current situation.

The logical action to take is to find a way to sift through my thoughts and gain focus on a specific idea on demand. The problem with this is all creativity is then taken away. If I want to maintain creativity, I need to always be in an open situation where I can entertain whatever comes my way. Life must be an open book, a blank canvas, on which I can write or paint whatever happens to inspire me or strike my fancy.

I lack the ability to focus. All I can willfully muster are "fringe thoughts". I can see the outer limits of thoughts and ideas and theories, but I cannot focus on them to bring them to light. I feel like I am scrambling in the darkness, trying to reveal dim shapes, but doing so with a dying flashlight. Shadows are all I uncover.

Recent Reflections

Someone, please. Make skins for Google Chrome. please. It is so ugly.

I need to register to vote, although I doubt I will actually vote. I am not very impressed with McCain or Obama. I could always go Nader…
People keep telling me, "There are more than two candidates. Vote for one of the others." And until recently I thought, seriously, what are the chances of one of them actually getting elected? The Republican/Democrat juggernaut has a monopoly on the entire political system, not only through the media, but also through laws that they have passed giving them special priority and power to defend their position. I brought this up with my government class professor, Dr. Shelton, and he made me realize why it really is important. He used Ross Perot as an example: Perot’s big issue was getting a hold on government spending. Perot did not win, did not have the support of the majority, but the issue of government spending became an issue that politicians had to address because Perot had brought it to the attention of the populace. In order to steal that attention back and keep the focus on themselves, they were forced to address national spending.

Dr. Shelton told me that although some may call him naïve, he believes that every vote sends a message, and I tend to agree. Even if I don’t get my way by my favored candidate being elected, if people see that a third party candidate received support, they will take notice. If the politicians see that a third party candidate is “stealing” their votes, they will take notice. Again, this may not be everything that I wanted, which in my case is the integration of more parties into the political process and a decrease in the R/D monopoly, but it is a start. I’m starting to realize that I can’t have my cake, eat it too and then go eat someone else’s cake. There is a line where my agenda meets another’s and both must be considered thoroughly before action is taken.

My point is, don’t be pressured into voting for a candidate that you don’t agree with because of a lack of alternatives. Dr. Shelton told me voters, essentially, get discouraged at the power the two main parties hold in the government and therefore feel powerless, as I did, but that doesn’t mean that we are.

Also, as of right now, Bob Barr has my stamp of approval as the Libertarian candidate. But that could change.

This is pretty old, and I can't quite remember what sparked it or where I was going with it, but I would like some thoughts and input. I probably don't completely agree with it now, and I don't like to reread and reprocess old thoughts, so I want outside opinions.

In a large enough collection of randomly arranged points, an infinite sea of chance, chaos, and free will, patterns emerge. In any collection of randomness there will be patterns, because of the finite nature of existence. The reason infinity seems so likely is we do not exist on a large enough plane to accurately observe the emergence of patterns in a plane that is larger than that of our own existence.

π- 3.14159265358979323846…

In this particular string of numbers, the ever elusive circumference of a perfect circle, no pattern has ever been found. Even when subjected to the rigorous and non-stop calculations of the most advanced super-computers, no results are unearthed. Why is our scope not large enough to perceive the repetitions that nature dictates must exist. Why is the circle, a simple shape, so enigmatic? How does infinity exist when our entire universe is on a preprogrammed plummet ending in it's total destruction? Infinity is not in the code, it cannot be, as time itself cannot even run indefinitely.

Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart. We all falter, everything crumbles, deteriorates, grinds to it's most basic form and then takes the path of a supernova, dividing upon itself until nothing is left, dividing the basic parts, and dividing them, and so on... infinitely? Is there a small enough subdivision with which nothing can possibly cease to exist? It is said that matter cannot be destroyed, but why not? How is matter infinitely divisible upon itself?

College Food

Onions+hotdogs+leftover mashed potatoes+extreme hunger(not to mention plenty of garlic salt)= not as bad as you might think.

the wisdom of the night

It is settled. I have decided. I have conceived the greatest plan of my life. The idea of ideas. I am building a log cabin and living in it for as long as I need. While living in the cabin, I will develop my writing, finish the grand opus that I know is floating around in my skull, and live off of fresh fish and tree bark. And berries, I like berries. You are most certainly thinking, "Michael, how is this the greatest plan ever?" Or even, "Michael, we have a nice white jacket and padded room waiting for you buddy." Well, to that I say, no. Because it's my life [I'm trying to remember those Bon Jovi lyrics, but they elude me.]
I know that isn't a great answer or response. I know. But seriously, think about it. By building a cabin I will grow strong and burly and have all of my clothes magically turned to plaid and blue jeans. We all know that living in a cabin away from civilization automatically makes you a good writer, it's just the way of the universe, like the magic plaid. And by living off of fish and trees and poisonous fruit [the plaid makes me immune], I will gain impossibly sage-like wisdom and knowledge, and people will want to hear my advice. It is so perfect. A little sacrifice now, unlimited book sales later. Seriously, this is amazing.

I am so very unsure about my life right now.
Sometimes I want to write, but I don't want to devote my life to writing or developing a style. Also, I don't like rules, and apparently they are very important in literature.
Sometimes I want to make music, but I don't know what kind.
Sometimes I want to travel and just work odd jobs for a couple days before moving on to a new place.
Sometimes I want to do humanitarian stuff. Like the Peace Corps.
Maybe I should be a media critic. I like giving my opinion on everything.

I am very inspired by Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves and anything by Chuck Palahniuk. And Sufjan Stevens, Manchester Orchestra, Harvey Milk, and Boris.
Post-modern author / experimental sludge-folk musician? I don't quite see it.

You all have problems

With the election(s) coming soon and the ever present issues of privacy and freedom always being rethought and redefined, I've started to contemplate these things myself. I've always felt that a true societal change cannot come about from changes in the establishment or new laws and restrictions. "A reformed society will not reform men, but reformed men will totally reforge society. Change comes from those living, not their living conditions." I can't remember if I stole that from Thoreau, or it was inspired by something he said, but I think that about sums it up. People seem to be convinced that taking away certain freedoms or choices will make a change, but it is obviously not going to work. Look at the situation with drug use among Americans. Outlawing something does not insure its extinction. Look at the Prohibition when people would just bootleg alcohol to get around the laws against it.
Anyway, back to my main point. I actually started thinking about all of this when reading the foreword to Brave New World. In one section there is a quote from Huxley regarding liberty that I thought fit beautifully with some things that have been happening in our country recently. "But liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government." Why did Bush decide to start peeping in on our phone conversations, tapping our lines and checking our mailboxes? Because of the war, the eminent threat of terrorism and the insurance of national security. Why should we worry about such things? Back to the starting point: the need to reform society. If our morality wasn't so screwed up, and not just as a country, but as all of humanity, we wouldn't have such problems.
So then, the grand paradox presents itself finally. How do we change something that does not want to be changed? How do we get people to realize what their selfishness in doing to the world? How do we, on an individual level, deny ourselves each and every day, doing what we know is best for everyone? I think we all know the answer.