This comes from the forward of a banned book entitled “Brave New World” by one, Aldous Huxley.

All things considered it looks as though Utopia were far closer to us than anyone, only fifteen years ago, could have imagined. Then, I projected it six hundred years into the future. Today it seems quite possible that the horror may be upon us within a single century. That is, if we refrain from blowing ourselves to smithereens in the interval. Indeed, unless we choose to decentralize and use applied science, not as the end to which human beings are to be made the means, but as the means to produceing a race of free individuals, we have only two alternatives to choose from: either a number of national, militarized totalitarianisms, having as their root the terror of the atomic bomb and as their consequence the destruction of civilization (or, if the warfare is limited, the perpetuation of militarism); or else one supra-national totalitarianism, called into existence by the social chaos resulting from rapid technological progress in general and the atomic revolution in particular, and developing, under the need for efficiency and stability, into the welfare-tyranny of Utopia.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

What he’s saying people is: get over each other, and get on with yourself. Take some responsibility in your own life, and quit trying to figure out who should take it for you.

Read the book, assholes.

I’ve reciently been captivated by the band [ATP]. Their siren’s song calls to me, reaching at me, clutching me, yelling “TAKE ME, CORN FED… MAKE ME YOUR LOVE SLAVE!!!!”.

Well, perhaps not… but it’s damn close.

I walked in traffic today. I strolled right across the street in front of a truck. It slowed down and stopped. I got to see eye to eye with the driver.

He didn’t even look pissed.

Why couldn’t he have just hit me and been done with it. He stopped, and seemed to understand why I was in the middle of the street.

I hate him for that. To the bottom of my being, I hate him for that.

/rant/
wow. i didn’t really care for my mom’s boyfriend before thanksgiving, and now i have to restrain myself from punching him in the nose every time i see him.

okay, here’s the quickie:
1) some time ago, my mom tells me she got a new laptop. my brother has been telling me he’s tired of constantly replacing computer parts for my mom/her boyfriend, because he knows that the boyfriend must be kicking the computer (either accidentally or purposefully, we don’t know).
2) my family has started a little “tradition” (for a whole year now) of reading something meaningful after a holiday dinner. i found a list of funny bumper stickers, but i forgot to print it out at work. while my mom is upstairs showering before all the guests arrive, i go into her computer room and voila, one new laptop, up and running. online, even.
3) my mom is not exactly the most computer savvy of people, so she has aol. it’s online. it’s updating to the latest brain-sucking version (about a 4 hour download). figuring just to bring up the web page and print out the list, i minimize the update progress and start to bring up the browser.
4) in walks the bf, and proceeds to say things like “what are you doing??”, “you’ll screw it up!!”, “just leave it alone!!” and so on. he literally yanks the mouse out of my hands and closes the laptop lid, emitting a muffled “goodbye!” from within the laptop. i was so pissed that i walked out of the room, or else i would have hit him.
5) i cooled off, and joined my girlfriend watching tv, not saying a word about the incident. about 10 minutes later, he comes out of the room and says “welp, that’s it. you made me lose about 2 hours of my download and i had to start it over.” i told him that i didn’t know it was his computer, and he said “well, even if it was your mother’s, you still shouldn’t have touched it without her permission.”
6) i thought about this for about a half a second and said “i guess that’s where we’re different, because my mother trusts me with her things and she knows my abilities. do you even know what i do for a living?” to which he answered “yeah, you fiddle with computers.”

okay, there’s a little more details to it than that, but that’s the backbone. was i wrong in assuming that my mom wouldn’t mind if i did something that i was absolutely 100% positive would not affect what the computer was doing, especially since i helped build EVERY computer she had used until that point? as far as i see it, the only thing i did was assume (quite understandably) that the new computer in the computer room was in fact the same one that my mother claimed to have purchased recently.

my question is this: does that false assumption give her asshole boyfriend the right to act like a child and be extremely rude to me, in my own mother’s house? this isn’t the first incident like this that has happened, and just like last time, my mom wasn’t around when he was a jerk to me. my brothers have also experienced this from him.

any comments or suggestions, please [let me know]. i have a lunch date set for this friday with my mom to discuss “the incident”, and i’ve already told her that i’m never going to be in the same room with that prick again. any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Do you know how many times over the past few days I’ve been asked the question “Did ya have a good Turkey day?”

You probably don’t. You probably don’t have any idea how much it irks me either. I’ve been a vegan for about 3 months now. Sure, I don’t have the worlds longest track record, but sweet Jesus, I didn’t eat any turkey.

Bah.

Me on the other hand, sometimes I just need to be [stopped].

I love looking at japanese pages. The pastels make me happy. Deep down something just feels right.

I never saw those shifting skies.

So here’s the word for the day. It’ll build your word power. It’ll make you ready to take on a Reader’s Digest. As some guy in a book said, “Brevity is … wit.”

Your word is [Thalassocracy] - Which is supremacy on the high seas.

Yarrrrrgh!

Ok, this has nothing to do with the previous posts by Mr. Shawn, but the weblog is looking rather sparse recently, so I thought I’d throw my two cents in.

Sometimes we make choices, thinking, of course, that they are the right things to do. Often times they are made on the fly, with little reflection. You think you are unhappy, and that choice will make you happy.

Later on, a little retrospect shows you that you may not have made the choice you should have, and staying rather than going might have been better.

I am currently a stranger in a very damn strange land, surrounded by apathy, discontent, and the threat of a massive re-organization. I have no backup, and stand alone to fight the fight (which may be very short lived).

*sigh*

On a closing note, I will convey to you, weblog reader, the following piece of savvy knowledge that my years of astute observation have given to me:

2 is less than 75 million.

I know, and knock it off with the apologies. That gets tired quickly, and others would agree.

I will do something about it, but I need time. There are other things to get right with. Just promise me that you won’t forget while I take care of them. Keep it in mind, maybe we can have a warmer talk when I get done.

Oh god. I’m sorry. I see what you’re talking about.

I’m working on it. You need to give me time. I know, our mortal enemy, Time. We don’t win too often when we go up against it. Really though, is it just a construct of our mind? We do go up against it, and fight with it. Then again I guess we have to look at the language we use it in. Perhaps the phrase, “Race against the Clock” comes to mind? Who are you racing? When that’s happening, I only see one car on the track.

I’m sorry… I’ve confused the issue.

Sex and religion… That’s what we were talking about. You know as well as I that I’ve bent on one of them. Is this going to be like a few months ago, when you went through that entire “Found the wheel - I’m the captain of my own soul” crap? I’m sorry, I know that stings, but frankly I wasn’t all that impressed.

Jesus Christ, the first thing you did was look for the manual. There isn’t one. I understand you feel yourself pretty profound, but unless you actually take that wheel and do anything with it, all you have done is spoken pretty words about nothing.

There’s no art in that. We need that. Deeds and action, thoughts and words. They’re two different things. If you want to pursue this, I’ll sign off on it, but do something.

You have this really bad habit of saying stuff, and I do think your heart is really in it, but you just never get around to doing anything. For fuck-sake, stand on the table and kick something. Draw a picture. I don’t care, but don’t just say something then sit on your ass and expect me to believe you.