Shake n Stomp

My obsessive following of the American presidential race late at night has given me some brilliant insights and ideas into the future of politics.

We're seeing women breaking ground on both sides of the spectrum and the first African-American to become a presidential candidate (for a major party). Early in the election I had also thought that another brilliant first was to be broken, the first Zombie presidential nominee. British media gives very little coverage to McCain, and it was only natural from what had been said to assume he was infact a zombie. Closer investigation dissapointingly revealed that he was just very old.

But a zombie president isn't far off. And I say excellent! If it wasn't for the whole two term thing I'd be definately pushing to see a zombie Lincoln run for office in 2012. Already zombies are breaking ground in all areas of political life. A recent poll has shown that over 20% of Americans believe that a zombie would be at least as articulate as Bush, and in Pittsburg zombies have held the mayorship since 1968 - rust belt Pennsylvania strongly relates to the decaying zombie candidates. Zombie politicians may upset many pro-lifers, but the millions of zombie veterans hold a strong appeal to the conservatives in America.

For a long time zombies have been seen as a threat to America. A potentialially dangerous element that could rise up at any time and feed on our delicious brains. But is this sterotype really reflective of the modern zombie? True zombie uprisings have become almost unheard of, viral outbreaks have lead to many believing that they are still common, but the infected in modern "zombie" attacks are infact not undead at all, and it is quite ignorant of media to portray these incidents as having anything to do with zombies.

It's true that zombies canniballistically eat the brains of the living, but what most people don't realise is that a single human brain can sustain a family of zombies for several days. The idea of insatiable hunger that would devour us all is complete fiction. Criticisms have also been leveled at zombies for being out of touch with mainstream society, more concerned with the obituaries than the headlines. However, zombies are representing a growing demographic in America.

Attitudes that zombies should stick to their graves and stay out of public affairs are becoming ever more challenged. A zombie president is only years away.

Karma I'm sure isn't as simple as my popular preconception of it. But for my purposes I am seeing it as good things come back to you.

I don't believe in this in any supernatural spiritual way. I do not think the universe or God or any force is making sure that my good and bad deeds are balanced out by good and bad consequences. However, I do believe that by simple logic good deeds will inherently have positive consequences and bad deeds will have negative consequences.

If goodwill needs a justification at a rational level this is it.

The success of any man in a free and just society will not be to the detriment of anther. However, his success is likely to have positive consequences. Loans are given out at interest on the assumption that they will be repaid through the success of the recipient. Both the lender and the reciever benefit. I would define goodwill as the charity of lending or giving without an agreement for repayment. However, there are two fold benefits to goodwill.

Firstly the we are all stakeholders in one anothers success. A man who produces beef for the market makes is available to me. Therefore even if all I got from helping start of cattle ranch was the possibility to buy beef it might be worth my effort. These types of reward suggest that to offer help that costs me very little in effort - for example being open with my knowledge or lending a hand with work when I would otherwise be idle - are worthwhile because in some small way I will reap some small part of the consequences. And hey, it didn't cost me anything.

The second benefit of goodwill is the recprication. Through goodwill we build up friendships, networks and community. We do not contractually agree to how and when we expect a friend to show us goodwill, or how and when we will show it. However, we do have an understanding that a good friend will help us out when we need it, and we will help them out when they need. The more we are willing to sacrafice for a friend, the more we would expect them to sacrafice for us if we were in need.

This may seem a very cynical view of friendship, but I don;t think it has to be. The fact that we understand the rational basis for friendship does not mean that we must disclude that we aproach them through a system of irrational compassion and mutual interest in each others wellbeing. Almost all case of apparent irrationality that are associated with love and happiness are infact rational in a roundabout way.

I believe another of my posts explains how the rational and irrational are reconsilable. This is one of those cases. Our irrational love and interest in another persons happiness and wellbeing allows friendships which actually lead to improvements in our own wellbeing. Goodwill could not exist without compassion and the need for company. It is these driving forces that make as confident that a friend will come through for us, and makes us come through for them. If we could not rely on compassion to drive us to goodwill then all relationships would have to be through enforced contract, which would vastly reduce and complicate the exchange of services and aid.

Curiosity killed the cat.

As a tenent to live by I think this is one of the worst you could choose. The exploration of reality, the inquisitive mind and the love of novelty are the foundations of all progress and survival.

Curiosity is, as the proverb suggests, a trait that is common to humans and animals. Why is it so important to living things? Because survival depends on it. Curiosity is required to collect knowledge about an animal's environment, and therefore allow it to opperate within that environment. Imagine a small child putting objects in it's mouth - this is how all animals learn to feed themselves. Exploration of the immediate environment reveals what can be eaten and where it can be found.

In this way curiosity allows animals to survive. However, for the human mind curiosity and the collection of knowledge has far greater potential because of our ability to transmit knowledge. In the animal world creatures must all go through the same learning process. Due to the process of language, which is unique to human beings (at least in the sense I use the word), we are able to transfer vast amounts of knowledge from generation to generation. Human advancement has in many ways been the advancement of both our knowledge and understanding of the world we live in, and our ability to transmit that knowledge to one another.

A rational mind is far more effective than the purely emperical trial and error style curiosity, however I stand by the notion that trial and error driven by an insatiable curiosity and love of novelty is a good thing, because sometimes the greatest discoveries are unexpected.

As a child of the 80s the decade has always had a certain appeal to me. This Wednesday I'm going on a 1980s riding social, and for the first time I am actually excited about dressing up for it!

At the end of the day I realise I want to go live in the 80s. As soon as I can get my hands on a time machine I think that will be my destination. I better start growing my hair - should I go with something Flock of Seagulls-esque or something a little more Bon Jovi style? I'm certainly looking forward to wearing my sunglasses at night and dancing all night with girls in leg warmers with huge hair. Oh yeah! There's nothing hotter than girls with huge 80s hair!

First goal is to hook up with Debbie Harry, hottest person to ever have walked the planet. I mean seriously who needs porn when you can get Blondie music videos on Youtube. One way or another I'd have her, and it would be Atomic ;-) Then next on the list of 80s sex icons would have to be Pheobe Caits. Yeah I'd have a good time in the 80s.

Rubik's cube, pac-man, space invaders... maybe we've moved on a bit in terms of entertainment. But fads are always fun. And who needs toys when you have a decade of the best films ever made: Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Terminator, Aliens, Die Hard, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Rambo, Rocky... I might just spend my whole time at the cinema.

Just let me go out and get some acid washed jeans and slap a "Baby on Board" sticker on my time machine and I'll be off. Anyone else up for visiting the Reagan era with all it's unbridled materialism? Make sure to pack your hairspray!

Today went down to the beach. We started to build this sandcastle - it was pretty impressive. It was a massive pyramid surrounded by towers. We added a little church and a sphinx and a druid stone ring (we're multicultural). We realised we needed to create some little fields for food production. Soon we had an entire little feudal society. I quickly drew up defence plans - luckily we were situated between some large rocks that provided a good natural defence.

I built rock walls barring all the valleys that lead to the castle making attack from any direction impossible. I built a few watchtowers, strategically placed, and one on the top of the largest rock with visability across the whole beach. My friends decided they wanted to test the defences by launching a full scale attack (throwing balls at the castle).

Here I account the heroic defense of the sand castle:

As expected the attack came from the North across the fields. The defences here consisted of a hastily constructed wall and a trench. However natural cover from the mountains was most lacking from this direction. The assault began with a few smaller attacks resulting in the destruction of one of the castle turrets. Although there were a few casualties this was only the beginning. Larger forces, and attacks from two armies at once quickly followed. Often while the defense was distracted by one attack another force would take the oppertunity to attack at another point. The defense held well, although the curch tower was destroyed as well as a couple of devestating attacks on the castle. Ben "the widow maker" Shaw destroying several of the outlying towers in vicious attacks.

A breach in one of the outer walls and the destruction of a watchtower led to a weakened defence. The hired soldiers were beginning to grow weary against the vastly superior force. The grain stores were also destroyed by a mutiny (although most of the grain had been moved to the castle) resulting in fears of starvation. Especially as warfare had torn up the Northern fields. More casualties including a direct hit on the castle (killing the heir apparent to the throne) led to a drop in moral.

I'm sorry to say the hired soldiers left the castle defenseless as they swapped sides. After a few more bombardments the opposing forces swarmed on the castle raping and pillaging. There were none left alive! (We smashed it up)

As we left the beach I was a little sad that the castle was gone - but I felt a bit better knowing at least we got to wreck it rather than some scummy little chav kid.

For your benefit I have calculated the cost-effectiveness of marriage.

For purposes of this exercise we are using the assumption that a wife costs 50% of after tax income. I am also making the assumption that a wife provides sex 3 times per week for aproximately half an hour.

Using Nevada prices averaging around $300 for a prostitute per 30 minute sexual encounter I calculate the cost of sex to be $46,800. Rounding this to $50,000 a year we can conclude that for anyone with an income below $100,000 a year a wife's sexual value alone makes marriage cost effective.

However, it also has to be taken into account that a wife provides either additional income, or domestic service to the household. Estimating the costs of a domestic worker a wife also provides at least $30,000 in the form of income or domestic work. ($10 wage rate x 8 hours a day 365 days a year = $29200).

Therefore for anyone earning an income below $160,000 a year marriage is probably cost effective.

For all others marriage is cost effective if:

(income - $100,000)/2 < wifes income

This is fairly positive for marriage. For example a man expecting to earn $250,000 per anum would be rational to marry any woman with an earning power of $75,000 of more per anum. So it is probably only those earning very large sums who would be ill advised to marry. For the majority (earning less than $160,000) marriage is likely to be cost effective.

It must be remembered that this is AFTER TAX income. So in actuality the before tax income would have to be closer to $250,000 for marriage to be uneconomical.

If, however, you are expecting to earn several hundred thousand a year, and believe marriage would be uneconomical, I would suggest Fernley Nevada, Lyon County as a good place to live.

As I reach the end of my visit I'm feeling the same kind of sadness leaving as I did before. But in many ways it's worse. Last semester was brilliant and as much as I hated to leave I could look back at a time well spent. This trip has been great too in so many ways - especially hanging out with Crow and Cody, but I also feel like as desperate as I was to see everyone and do everything I enjoy I couldn't fit it all in.

I would have liked to have seen more of Pat, I'm sad that Rodey and Ren are gone.... I feel like I've been more distant from Kaitlin since I got here than we were while I was in England. And when I leave this time I know what I come back to next time will be different again - Crow will have left, Cody won't be here if I come in fall, Kaitlin will have left. I feel sad I guess because that one brilliant semester is gone and really there is no return to it.

I hope that the future is bright, but I feel it's weight starting to come down on me. I think back to the only moment of my life where I was completely fulfilled - everything was perfect. I can believe one day I'll reach that point again, but not knowing where it is, or the path to get there makes me desperate to cling to something that has already passed.

An appropriate song for how I am feeling, even more appropriate since I just watched Armeggedon (and missed the end).

I've really loved being back, I had a great week with Sean and Will in Chicago. And hanging out at the house has been brilliant. However I am constantly aware that my time is short and it makes me anxious to see everyone I can, to make the most of every encounter and not to waste any time.

On the one hand I guess this is a good way to live life, seizing the day, but on the other hand it has got me into a lot of trouble. Right now the person I most want to see is mad at me, in part because I pressured her to spend time with me. I can understand that having to turn down invitations to come out and do things must be frustrating, sometimes I have the same problem choosing how to spend my time here. As much as I could justify my intentions through saying that she always hated to be left out and not invited, I know that I probably made her feel bad to have to keep turning me down.

Now I find myself even more frustrated that I allowed this to become an argument that means what precious little time we might have had together will be even less. The hardest things isn't saying sorry, it's giving the space required for the sorry to be meaningful.

Perhaps my expectations were to high. I expected everything to be perfect when I returned.

It's ironic that the lessons of patience have to be learned when I am in a position of feeling rushed.

Depending on how stupid I was when I was drunk this could be a very educational week. Perhaps thinking and trusting instead of listening to incendiary throw-away remarks might also be a good idea.

Sitting in Cody's room this song just came up. Being back in America does make me wonder if I feel more at home here than at home. Things aren't always smooth here. Last night wasn't the best. But I always feel like I belong. Hanging out with Cody and Anthony, joking around with Crow, playing beer pong, I missed all these things, and it feels really good to have them back.

People here actually were excited to see me, which sure beat some of the reactions I got when i returned to the UK - "Oh, you're back? I thought you were gone for a year"...

Things have changed to be sure, but I've found that I can accept the changes. There are things I miss, but other things I like. I like having new people around the house, I like the fact that Jamie is living right next to IHOP :) It's sad that Ren isn't here, but reality isn't always what we'd wish.

Perhaps it's just because of my earthquake encounter, the repeated viewings of Mad Max 2 or the studying of urban crisis and famine, but recently I've been thinking about my future and what it might entail. And it's become clearer and clearer that can only be one thing - absolute destruction of all civilization as we know it.

Whether it's chemical or viral created zombies, nuclear holocaust, uncontrollable mutating flu, astoroid impact, volcanic erruption, gasoline fueled war or simply moral breakdown due to video games like Halo 3 - one thing is for certain: Armageddon is just arround the corner. I for one plan to be prepared.

Some simple lessons I learnt from my time in the Madagascan bush with the village people (aproximatel three or four hours) taught me a lot about survival. But most of my practical lessons have come from B movies, which offer a wealth of information on possible scenarios for the extinction of mankind. Newer films such as "The Day After Tomorrow" or "I am Legend" aren't worth watching. Their flashy bugets have made them forget what is really important about surviving in a wasteland of a world: Leather, classic cars, improvised weapons and a bad ass attitude. These are the things that will get you through.

So my first point was to find suitable apparel. A bandana was a must, the keep the hair back (barbers will be the first to go) then sunglasses, because everywhere will be bunring desert and wasteland - or some other similar terrain suitable for filming low budget movies and looking desolate. The boots are a must - walking around on the remains of civilization is going to need hard footware - there might be like broken glass and stuff. Denim and leather finish things off nicely. If it makes you think of classic rock it's probably the right thing. Which reminds me, there's gonna need to be a playlist for while I'm driving around in my customised car (I'm thinking scythes on the wheels, some chains for hanging onto during a fight on moving vehicle and other spikey stuff).



I don't really need to worry about making friends. I'm better off starting as a loner and picking a few up along the way. But I will need a sawn off shotgun, or some kind of boomerang. Ammunition may be scarce after a while so it might be worth learning hand to hand. Training with all kinds of barbarian type weapons seems like a good idea, especially if I end up in some kind of gladatorial arena fighting for my life (people in post-apocalyptic worlds have violent tastes in entertainment).

Anyway, I better be going to fill up all available containers with gasoline and watch those cut scenes in Terminator where Michael Biehn is fighting cyborgs in the future. Once shit starts going down I'll keep updating this as long as possible - until the servers go down. After that, if you can make your way to Oxford look for the scrap metal fort and ask for the Plenipotentiary, if you're lucky and you've bought me tributes I might just let you join humities last outpost against the marauding gangs. Until then, good luck.

Unfortunately due to the size and colours it's hard to read the text. It says:

I <3 you, because you're 1,2, remember!

 

 We all know love can be written as <3, and if we assume having sex can also be written as "1/2ing 6" we can show the following:

1/2ing 6 = 3

Love = <3

Therefore having sex is not love.

However..

1/2ing 6 twice = 1.5

1.5 IS <3

Therefore having sex twice IS love!

Simple as that.

I had to supress a little laugh when I read Ren's wall post. Because that's how I really feel like I'm coming home. America was some of the best times I ever had, and the friends I made will remain with me forever. So I thought I'd take a moment to look back at some of my happiest memories from America.

Firstly perhaps the two absolute happiest times in America weren't at university at all. They were staying with Jamie and Cody repesctively. 

Staying with Jamie in Chicago was kind of like a dream. We watched films together and read books in bed. We went to Greek town and listened to Britney in the car. The best of all was going out to Denny's in the middle of the night. And the stir fry place we went to, which was an equally wonderful night. If I could imagine a perfect date, that would be it.

Staying with Cody was also a great time. I felt so welcomed into his home. His family were so kind to me, and there was a real warmth there which you couldn't help but feel like the place was saturated with love. Thanksgiving was a great day, even if Cody doesn't think I ate as much as him. Peoria may not be the world's most exciting place, but I have never felt so at home away from my own family.

Many of the rest of my favourite moments centre around IHOP. Studying there late with Jamie, going there with Michelle and her friends from Wisconsin, and with Ren and Kaitlin. IHOP made me feel like a kid again.

In a similar vein was Coldstone. Going there with Jen, Amy and Meghann was always great and I loved creating huge icecream concoctions.

Then there was all the great times at the house. The Sweethearts dinner, initiation, paintballing, films in Crow's room. Even trips to late night and meals with the guys were great moments. Especially when Felgenhauer came to meals with us, which just made everything hilarious.

And not requiring any moment in particular, the time I spent with Pat was always rewarding. Arguments over history, hungover rantings, dinner together at 4.45 on the dot everyday (we were almost always first into the hall). I miss having a best friend.

A lot of things have changed since I've been gone, the song that itunes skipped to is "What Do You Go Home To?" by Explosions in the Sky, nothing could be more appropriate. Jen's left, Rodey's left, Kaitlin and Jamie are work overloaded, Ren's half gone, there are new people at the house, Felgenhauer won't be around. I have no doubt I will have an amazing time, and there is a lot of changes that I anticipate with excitement - Pat and Kayla are old enough to come out to bars, there are new people around the house to meet, Crow has no work. I have a feeling that things will be different. I go back looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. But I go back with the knowledge that I'm not returning to what I left, things have changed and things will be different.

I look forward to being with borthers and sweethearts again, friends and family. Until then, I have an essay on the effects of religious migration on the Low Countries...

I don't know how comprehensible this post is going to be. I am trying to write about something personal, but rather than give all the details of my private thoughts and feelings I want to make this a more general reflection on the concept of illusions, or perhaps more accurately dellusions.

Throughout life we all to greater or lesser extents create illusions, I believe I have identified three main reasons for this.

Firstly, simplification. People are not black and white, the world is full of chades of grey. To accept reality as it is sometimes would require an exceptional analysis of people and events. Sometimes we have to simply create a simplified illusion of reality. This is fairly reasonable. It is the basis of sterotyping, generalising etc. It isn't necessarily a good thing if we take our illusions to be the absolute truth. But as long as we recognise that our illusions are more like impressionistic reprecentations of reality they can be useful.

Secondly, out of this process of illusions we shape our own imagined realities to our liking. We fill in the gaps with what we want to beleive often as much as what is most likely. We twist reality to fit into patterns, ideologies, romanticisations, that hold some basis in fact, but are ultimately our choices of where we call grey black and where we call it white.

The third kind of illusion is really an extension of the second. Where we selectively ignore facts we know and create fantasies that could hardly be true to create what we want to imagine. We believe that the people we are attracted to are somehow perfect. Everything they say and do we give special importance and anything which doesn't fit into our picture of them we dismiss or surpress. We extend these illusions to protect ourselves from hurt or disapointment.

We end up half believing in some romantic fantasy that we have never let ourselves rationally criticise. Or perhaps this is just me, I like to think of myself as an optomistic cynic in most matters. But when it comes to attraction I create the most fantastic illusions and fictions that hold no real basis in fact. I end up half believing them. Perhaps that's harmful, but I never gave much concious thought to what I was doing.

Then occasionally those illusions are shattered. Someone you pretended was a princess you realise is a complete bitch, and deserves your contempt far more than your adoration. Someone you fantasised was dying to be with you, and would be your perfect match, gets with someone else; the perfect future you imagined in order to help make it through the lonely present falls away. And you feel like an idiot for letting yourself get upset when nothing has happened, nothing has changed, you just see reality a little more realistically...

I think we all do it. How often do we hear friends say "What do you see in HIM?" or "Why do you like HER?". Perhaps we saw something once, something so bright that it blinded us for a while. Sometimes perhaps we want some kind of security. Perhaps sometimes we just like to take things out of the imperfect light of life and illuminate them in the beauty of our imaginations.

Ok, so this is looking like it's getting to be a rather girly entry so I think I'll leave it there.

It's not a mood option but if it were: Disillusioned.