Category: Uncategorized

Found from

suicidefood which I found through Boing Boing is a site that has some wonderful pictures all about food that ‘wants’ to be eaten.

I’ve come across this iconography before and personally adore it. The author describes it thusly:

What is Suicide Food? Suicide Food is any depiction of animals that act as though they wish to be consumed. Suicide Food actively participates in or celebrates its own demise. Suicide Food identifies with the oppressor. Suicide Food is a bellwether of our decadent society.Suicide Food says, “Hey! Come on! Eating meat is without any ethical ramifications! See, Mr. Greenjeans? The animals aren’t complaining! So what’s your problem?” Suicide Food is not funny.

Oh, on the contrary: It’s hilarious. I know the poster must be serious, but the copy also reads as a satire against the whole “meat is murder” argument, so I can’t really tell. I’m enjoying it more thinking it must be an act. It’s just that outrageous.

I’m loving the pictures and chortling warmly at the asinine copy. Win-win, I say. Reminds me: I need to cook some ribs this weekend. Happy ribs that want to be eaten.

Picked it up at lunch today.

Oh Yeah.

Shut the fuck up about gun control.

Bad things happen – that’s how life goes. Statistically, these ocurrances are insignificant. I know you’re all in the bargaining stages of grief and can’t get out of “Only if…!”

Skip to acceptance, and re-focus on the REAL issues. Like how all our rights are being infringed, and how our country is going down the shitter. Please don’t be distracted by the shiny. Please refrain from alienating our brethern who may focus on the 2nd ammendment rather than the others. They are our friends against the authoritarians.

Really. SHUT UP ABOUT GUNS AND GUN CONTROL. It’s not a big fucking deal. We’re doing well against the fascists currently. DON’T FUCK IT UP!

Jeezus! Stop thinking with your empathy and emotions when it comes to public policy. We don’t like it when the “pro-life” retards do it, we don’t like it when the “islamo-fascist” loonies do it. Let’s not let the “gun ‘fraidy-cats” do it either.

Am I the only one who can keep his fucking head screwed on any more? God-damn reactive, frightened lizard-brains. JUST SHUT UP.

but I couldn’t stop myself:

a little story (yes I made it up myself)

—

I was waiting with the improvised knife as he walked by; I could smell the stink of ignorance and arrogance on him. His back was turned! It was time.
And yet, I failed! I could not stab the offender. Alas, It was true: I could not shiv a git.

OK, we all know that common human behaviour is to discount experimental data over a set belief – that is, given a piece of data that would tend to destabilize a belief structure, the data is eschewed in favor of the structure.

I describe this as “when reality objects to my model, I’ll reject reality rather than rethink my model.”

Where the rubber hits the road (as an example; not the point of this post:)
Person 1: “Marijuana Users are lazy lay-abouts who contribute nothing to society.”
Person 2: “Here is a list of great contributors to society who, as it turns out, were Marijuana Users. Also, you admire me. I smoke Marijuana.”
Person 1: “I am shocked, I’ve lost respect for you: You’ve become someone I don’t like, etc”
Alternate Person 1: “Well, obviously those cases are special; It doesn’t change anything.”

replace MJ with (Atheist, Mormon, Scientologist, Democrat, Republican, Black, White, straight, gay, etc.)

———

So where is this going?

We must make conclusions about data we receive to be able to ‘understand’ the data – as mammals, we find patterns and try to reason/understand them, yes? Yes.
How do you judge a person’s character? Where to you start? What tools did you learn to use to judge character? Who are amongst the first “stranger” characters you meet in your life (before you socialize outside)?

The answer to my begging question is that the first ideas about ‘others’ and the learning of other people happens first in stories. We start our kids out with simple stories and simple characters or Archetypes really.

We create characters in our minds; We think we ‘know’ them, or at least ‘understand’ them and who they are (and how they play in the story). We feel ‘betrayed’ when characters are shown to have hidden designs that we find distasteful (and are good plot devices for mystery authors).

So how does this apply? We meet people and we know them, we create them in our minds as characters in our own story: we look for villains and heroes. The creations of people in our mind don’t exist: They are our fantasies. You don’t love your partner, rather you love who you believe your partner to be in your head (unless you are like myself or David I suppose who think about crazy things like reality, perception, etc.).

Only few people know the full me that I choose to expose; others see specific pieces in me: my work self, my friend self, etc. These people make decisions and judgments on me based on these limited exposures. It *is* who I am to them.

If someone who you’ve written up in your head acts against what you believe (for yourself as well as who you thought they were) — they “change” they have a break; they disappoint (or perhaps pleasantly surprise) you: The reality? You made a bad decision based on incomplete evidence.

This came in stark focus concerning TV series, especially LOST: Characters act “out of character.” The immediate thought? The writers are bad/in trouble. They can’t write a “believable character.” Arguments I’ve heard from friend and foe alike concerning characters that show new facets of personality. This isn’t to say writers have changed characters merely to suit a plot line and that these things can’t happen due to lazy or bad writing (I’m looking at you, X files).
(As an aside, LOST goes further by purposely showing you brief glimpses to encourage you to make snap incorrect judgments, which I enjoy).

But the human behaviour to take incomplete data and have firm judgment in the face of an increased data set that would upend said judgment causes great trauma to relationships, happiness (I believe happiness comes from successful prediction of future), and countries (I’m looking at you, neo-cons).

I’m going to stop there because I could go on and on and off the track into other platitudes and trite sayings – there’s some meat here to chew on – I don’t really know if there is a point (rather I suppose a pattern? Ah, The tautological joy of it all).

I really can’t be that smart, can I? I look for other signs of intellect on the internet, some spark, some comment…

It’s a desert of original thought. The solipsist in me is saying “I told you so.” If it were not for a few wonderful people who speak volumes in between their sentences, I may go mad and become intolerable.

In other wor[l]ds, I totally called the BSG cliffhanger, and I think I’ve got a handle on the overall plot lines (or rather, I have a good/great plot line that the writers seem to be following). I told heather, but now I wish I would have posted it when I thought of it so I could say some “I told you so”s of my own, but the end result is I don’t know to whom I’d really be proving myself. I’m just happy that in shows like LOST and BSG I don’t feel insulted (except by fans whom I read who report being insulted because they aren’t smart enough to realize they aren’t smart enough to understand big-picture plot lines).

For instance, in LOST, (which is softer in this aspect now-a-days and is telegraphing for the slow) people continue (as in real life – and I mean LOST fans people) to miss aspects of plot lines, make immature decisions (and even believe thats where the story *is* going), then get disappointed when their ideas of what is happening is shown to be false (as it always was).

People, when shown how reality destroys/ruins their model of reality will find fault with reality rather than throw away their precious model

Now if you didn’t understand that last sentence, I’ll be happy to explain to you (though not in this comment, I will start another discussion). Those who do understand (and I think I know who you are) — I love you. Thanks for making taking the next breath worth it.

I had a nice little thought-game / reality-model going through my head the other day that tied in human behaviour, psychology, storytelling & character development, perception, etc. It tied in people’s reactions to serial fiction and how it exposes their avenue of reality perception. Perhaps if there are enough existential pseudo-solipsists about, I could get all navel-gazery with them.

It’s just I’m up here and so many of you are down here. No judgment or anything, but it gets lonely amongst those who grok. You told Brandt on the phone, he told me. Yes, yes. I’m already ahead of you.

And I hate machines. They are my lifeblood and I use them like any other yocal. However I have a deep-seated mistrust of any device intended to be “labor saving,” which really isn’t true, just like the idea of a “paperless” office isn’t true.

Now, this isn’t to say I don’t love technology as well; I can keep both opinions in my head at the same time and still drink a glass of water, thank you very much.

But I realise in the depths of my moral and logical brain that machines are the devil. Rather, machines are short-cuts. And those who use short-cuts should understand the long way-round before they can use a short-cut.

What’s the point? What am I saying? I really don’t know for sure. But, there it is, anyway.

I heard Frank Miller actually based 300 off this Onion Column. That’s just what I heard.

I fell in love with this drink at a wonderful place called “Zig Zag” in Seattle:

The Last Word
—————–
¾ oz. Gin
¾ oz. Green Chartreuse
¾ oz. Maraschino Liqueur
¾ oz. Lime Juice

Stir with ice in mixing glass, strain into cocktail glass.