Ode to LCDs

Can anything outshine a large LCD screen? 14 inches is cute, 15.4 inches is readable, but 17 inches, what a delight. Laptop, how your glossy face dazzles the eyes, and envelopes the senses! Full sized LCD, may your descendants grow in stature beyond the 30in limit! Child's hands adjusted my first cathode ray tube. A teenager's touch graced his first flat screen monitor. And now two man hands desire a infinite LED plane. 

Why such a large monitor? First reason, because I can buy one. Second reason; is a bachelor pad beautiful? Does it demand praise? A single man's apartment demands at most, a sneeze, if not a fart. With such drab decor plaguing the walls, a digital landscape soothes the soul. 6 Different chat windows, 3 word processing panels, an army of spreadsheet cells; is there any disadvantage?

Are video games an enveloping experience? Electronic entertainment, addicting? Only portrayed on larger-than-life screens. Only idiots succumb to small weenie windows. So why lob your gaze on small portions of the digital age, when you can jump in!

I'm choking in a sea of anglo-saxon sarcasm. Maybe higher education breeds them. Maybe little custom cafes attract them. Maybe all the glitz and glamour of hollywood magnetizes the school, but rich people candor abounds here in UCLA.

Different mannerisms construct most of my childhood. Conversations were funny and clever because they sounded amusing. Unlike my bubble gum days, college humor is funny because the content is hilarious.

For instance:

"You talk to me?" - uttered in a high squeal, or a burly man voice, this little phrase is an instant classic. Used around UCLA, this earns quizzlical looks, and questions about active drug participation. Looking for jokes is a black room with no lights, and a spiked carpet. Ouch, but many times over. So what IS funny in my demographic?

Sarcasm. Sarcasm isn't the whole story. Wit is a cousin; cleverness its ally. Perhaps some examples would help. Keep in mind, these phrases are intended to be absent of tone, excitability, and any resemblance to cartoon characters.

"Why is it that everytime you're single, all you are see are couples? And then why is it everytime you're in a couple, all you see are hookers?"

A dreamcatcher works, if your dream is to be gay.
-- Demetri Martin

Every fight is a food fight when you’re a cannibal.
-- Demetri Martin

Make crime pay - become a lawyer.
-- Will Rogers

At close examination, my head hurts. My chinese american genes begin to throb. How do I craft sentences or phrases in the same vein? Can I? Chinese Americans have absent history in comedy. I indict my shortcomings. Even reading the sentences now, a mist clouds my eyes. I KNOW these humor people.

It's almost as if I need to plan what I am going to say. Planned words? Sounds smartish, another quality which is lacking. Well thought out speech is similar to reading comprehension; it doesn't happen.

Summary: Maybe they were right after all, reading does help?

Hear-say

A majority of my knowledge is fake. Through the scientific method, knowledge accumulates from study, observation, hypothesizing, and formulation. Experiments that Tim has done? Zero. Information stuffed in my head? Lots. 

I've heard "Objectivity" tossed around. The center of this "objectivity" is unbiased information. The great thing about that term is "unbiased" is the criteria. How does one really define unbiased? 

Can you have a bias for being unbiased? We assume that the emotionless recording of events and interactions is objectivity. But wait, we forgot to record emotions, is that not necessary? Ok, so if we continue and record emotions, wait, who can record them? Can we the external scientist record them? Or does the person themselves have to write and express them? And what is true, what is spoken by the subject, or what is perceived by listeners?

Before the knot gets any tighter, the point is, we live in a mess of knowledge. Minds of the people desperately search for some solid ground, only to see that the foundational rock is upheld by something even more mysterious. Questions lead to questions, an unending dance of searching and desire.

The human mind is amazing in that it can picture itself. Is it all the better for it though? The animals suffer for the same genetic animalistic behaviors over and over again, but do we really gain all that much from being cognitive? More questions to lead to other questions.

All this to say, I have much information, but know very very few things. God tells me much. The bible becomes my fill, my substance. For those of you who claim textbooks, research papers, long dead philosophers, may your eyes be lifted, and see you stand on a floating platform, and you have not hte ability or vision to see the supports.

Writer's block

I plugged up my creative hole. The two villains are World of Warcraft and Movies. Recently, I think i've taken in so much media, my brain is topping out. When did I become such a media fiend? My snout continually enlarges as I camp out in a vacated university library. Wallowing in my pool of horrid apparel, I bounce through the internet. "Internet" is not the correct description, but "torrent of advertising" seems to fit. My brave laptop mines this world wide web of crap for some hope of a new frontier. The results: lots of igneous crap, lacking the gold.
Searching for "free" digital delights leads me down the rabbit holes to mordor, with the promise a secret treasure, only to leave me with a haunting hunger.

How much stuff is on this "internets"? Many a lonesome author has made web display of all the sites he devours, but yet posts no new text, no new images; no he is a mirror, and a dim and broken one at that. A humble common search for material will often bring up more hits than McDonalds has burgers, but the real content behind it would fit in a children's book. Link to link to link to link, to come back to the original place you started. A mobius life this has become; searching for elusive pleasures on the internet, link by link, hopes revving up and down, tires pressed to the floor with each click, only to find that highway to freedom never appears.

This is my net experience

Opposite

I often wonder what Opposite Tim would do. Regular Tim penny pinches and eats sandwiches contemptible by refugee standards. Regular Tim reads books to fight that darned Alzheimer's disease. (Gotta stay agile in the brain sonny!)

Opposite Tim would worship Blizzard, the video game company. The rituals would not be complete without playing excessive amounts of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, and StarCraft two. Opposite Tim also likes himself. A lot. too much. Opinions would be ignored, warnings met with water balloons, and rebukes met with puke. Life is too good to be bothered with obstacles, much less ugly annoying people.

I think that our alternate opposite egos represent desires that never see daylight. The desire the pump shotgun shells into annoying administrative assistants should not be exercised. No one would receive their paychecks, or enjoy the pleasure of screened phone calls. Likewise the curiosity towards one's capacity for oreos does not add to the homo-sapien legacy. Still, these secret cravings lurk beneath the skin.

Are they us, or aren't they? Maybe Batman's Harvey dent lived freer than batman. No cowl. No cape. Only the both sides of his nature in clear view.

Summary: Luckily opposite Tim would have made a terrible criminal.