blind blessings

i think the best part of being blind would be that you wouldn't have to be afraid of the dark, ever. although, i guess, if you were afraid of the dark, then you went blind, life could be pretty stressful.

either way, i'm still glad i'm not blind. i was just trying to look on the bright side of things for blind people, since they obviously can't very well look on the bright side themselves. i wonder if that idiom holds any meaning at all for a blind person. probably not one that was born blind.

just to clarify, i am not blind. and i'm not afraid of the dark.

cloud discrimination

something i think is somewhat interesting. we can look at clouds and say, "hey, that looks like a sheep! i see a sailboat (or a schooner)!see how the one cloud goes up and over like the sails and the other cloud wisps in below it. whoa, check it out, it's a dragon riding a giant bunny while juggling baby geese!" we can sit and stare at clouds for awhile and just enjoy thinking of what they look like. so how come no one ever looks at some random object and say, "whoa, look, it looks like a cloud! see, the fluff and the puff. spot on match!" it almost like we don't want to acknowledge the existence of clouds. we go through life trying to figure out what else they could be instead of simply recognize their being!

how can such a degrading, discriminatory act of prejudice continue to sustain itself in this the united states of america, land of the tolerant and home of the equal-opportunistic?! we waged a bloody war on our own soil to disallow the notion that some men are better than others, we allow foreign empires to launch missiles at us without taking action, we permit aliens to come into our country and work our jobs while not even speaking our native tongue! and yet, we cannot allow the simple clouds their easy-going existence without taking away their dignity and robbing them of their honor. not only do we steal the very beauty of their grace and form and attribute it to another creature or object, be we encourage our children to follow suit, without ever questioning the danger our deep-seated intolerance is posing to the very actions of the future. outrageous, i cry! a true atrocity that must garner immediate efforts towards reversal and reformation!

i hereby declare that i, for one, intend to do my part to rectify the situation, and the next time i see a unicorn on a dirtbike, i'm going to say, "wow, that looks just like a cloud!"

castleman address

one score and seven years ago my father brought forth on this continent a new person, conceived in lori, and dedicated to the proposition that all hard-working men are entitled to an occupation.

now i am engaged in a great job quest, testing whether this nation, or any nation, so struggling and yet dedicated, can long endure to withhold employment from me. i am met on a great battle-field of this crusade. i have come to dedicate a portion of my time, as a final endeavor for those who here forfeit their lives for not responding to my cold-call e-mails, that this nation might survive with me pursuing that career which i so desperately seek. it is altogether fitting and proper that i should do this.

but, in a larger sense, i can not dedicate...i can not consecrate...i can not hallow this pursuit. the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above my poor power to add or detract. the world will little note, nor long remember what i find here, but it can never forget what i searched for here. it is for me the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which needs more employees to accomplish. it is rather for me to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before me—that from these honored dead i take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that i here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new employee—and that capitalism: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

DEPCA will rule the world

something that has always made me curious is all those little bits of dry erase marker that are left behind after you erase it. at first it seems like you can completely erase a whiteboard, but upon closer inspection, you can see little specks of dry erase particles. what are they? why do they exist? where do they go?! i must know!

despite having studied the whiteboard closely and observing it for countless hours (4 minutes), i have concluded that it is very intelligent. i know this because it is very patient, remaining completely still until i was no longer around. i think that it all gathers together in some hidden location, banding together to form DEPCA (dry erase particle conglomerate army). i'm not entirely sure what their goal in this world is. assuming their goal is on this earth and not some insane space mission to colonize distant dry erase particle friendly planets.

my best guess is the obvious, that they are gathering their strength to strike against that which threatens them the most: chalk. based on that theory, i'm gonna assume that england will be its first target, with its famous cliffs at dover. if DEPCA can control that, then they will completely cut the supply lines to the CCF (chalk coalition forces), severely crippling them.

however, due to the large amount of chalk that has already infiltrated the entire planet, the war would be far from over. DEPCA would have to play a careful, strategic game of attrition from then on, keeping a careful eye on england and not letting it be recaptured.

or maybe gravity just pushes all the dry erase particles to the ground where they are unceremoniously swept into the trash can and never heard from or seen again...

unless that is exactly what we are supposed to believe!

the duality of grey matter

after much contemplation, i have decided that two consciousnesses exist within the same brain. this seems so obviously apparent to me simply because of my dreams, or dreams in general. yes, dreams are so crazy, and the majority of the time we can't even fathom what the deuce they mean, if anything. but the real proof is in the telling of the nonsensical story during our nocturnal unconsciousness. this is what most amazes me, that during my dreams, i can, and often am, surprised in some way. whether i am shocked at some scene before me, startled by some sudden event that i was unable to predict, or just so at a loss for what is going on during my dream itself.

if you think about it, it is pretty much impossible to surprise yourself when you're awake. try it. try to test your reflexes by dropping a pencil. hold it by the eraser end with the point pointing towards the floor. then with your other hand, position your index finger and thumb near the pencil to pinch it when it plummets. try as you may, you always know when you're going to release and it rarely travels far at all before you grab it. try it with someone else and i guarantee it will be much more difficult. so when such a simple task is so impossible insofar as your own brain being able to trick itself, how is it able to send itself through such surrealistic rollercoasters while dreaming? dreams can often have some pretty twisted outcomes and unexpected events, none of which you can predict at any time during the dream. or at least your dream-self can't figure it out.

the only logical answer to me is the existence of a second consciousness. it comes to life at night and preys upon the extremely relaxed and vulnerable state of the primary consciousness. similar to how one cat will wait for another cat to be comfortably asleep before it pounces full-force. or maybe also similar to how a vulture waits until its prey is too weak to resist. it presents all these twisted scenarios and ridiculous possibilities that your primary consciousness tries desperately to keep pace with within the realistic bounds that it is used to. but it is trying to sleep and recuperate at the same time, and is therefore not so sharp. that possibly explains why you can't run when you need to most, or why you make absolutely retarded choices in dreams. ok, well, i guess i can't speak for everyone, but that's how it happens in my dreams.

i think there are times when one consciousness barges in on the other without knocking. i don't know if everyone experiences this complete oddity, but sometimes in my dream, i will remind myself that i'm in a dream and it doesn't matter. or even another character in my dream will tell me the truth of the situation and my dream-self is like, 'oh...interesting.'

what exactly is the subconscious consciousness' day job? he does a very good job of laying low, that's for sure. but i totally picture him scampering about the shadows, picking up scraps, like a homeless man. he grabs one discarded thought, image, name, conversation, holds it up to the light, squints and examines it up close, shakes it a little bit close to his ear to see if there's possibly something to use in the night's romp through WTFville. satisfied that it might come in handy, he tucks it into his cart and moves along, following the primary consciousness at a respectable distance, making sure to vigilantly take note of the things dropped along the way. he totally is a homeless person. he would be nowhere without the primary consciousness to leech off of, but the primary consciousness can never be rid of him. not that i would want that to happen anyway.

actually maybe it's more like that cousin that never made anything of his life, but still has the best stories at family get-togethers.

rodents running rampant = total eclipse of the heart

i killed another mouse late last night.

i didn't want to. really, i didn't. i even tried a few times to capture it safe and soundly so i could put it in a box then take it far away and let it go to get into someone else's house. tragically this mouse's innate ability to dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge ultimately led to it's own untimely demise. how greek.

see, there's been a bit of a mouse problem in the house lately. this presents a rather unique dilemma and conflict inside my mind. one the one hand, i don't want mice scampering about, chewing up my stuff, defecating and urinating all over my stuff, smelling the place up worse than i do, and eventually luring in the natural predators that follow mice, namely snakes. i truly have no desire to dodge a rattlesnake on my way sleepily to the bathroom in the middle of the night. so it would appear to be pretty cut and dry as to what needs to be done: relentless eradication of every last one. however, on the other hand, i am an animal lover, to a fault. i have a special weakness for small, cute, furry little animals, probably because i had pet rodents most of my childhood and really loved them and played with them a lot. i have many cherished memories of me awesome gerbils. i had my pirate gerbil that would ride around on my shoulders, my extreme pilot gerbil that could deftly navigate our little house in one of those little plastic orbs at full-speed, etc. so when i see the cute fuzzy little bodies of mice scurrying around my room, my first thought is actually happiness. i want to play with them! i want to be their friend and have them talk to me.

alas, simple logic must win out, and i must rid the room and house of these vermin disguised as happiness. the other unfortunate thing is that the mouse traps which have been provided are probably the most inhumane way of catching a mouse possible. it is simply a index card size sticky pad, ultra sticky. one foot on it, and they're pretty much done. however, its not like a venus mouse trap, it doesn't eat them after it has captured them, it merely detains them until they starve to death, often in a rather unenjoyable position that they have managed to get themselves into due to a panic-driven struggle to escape. it is truly wicked in the sickest sense. i feel so bad when i see them, stuck in their own personal tar baby, pleading with their frenzied, horror filled eyes. its even worse when they squeak for their lives, its so pathetic and pitiful, the swan song of a mouse on death row.

because of my nature of staying up very late, i am usually awake when they rise and scamper joyfully about. ironically, this makes me the best suited to catch them, since i see where they're playing around, put a trap there, and, like clockwork, i will have captured a mouse within a minute or two.

i feel filthy, like a murderer must feel immediately afterwords. well, not a psychopathic, sadistic murderer, but an actual humane murderer who accidentally killed someone in a fit of rage or by not paying attention to the road. i had caught a few and had just thrown them away, but i could still hear them squeak. some strange, twisted version of the beating heart from poe's poem. the last one i put out of his misery before throwing him unceremoniously into the trash. i know it's just a mouse, but i still didn't like the knowledge that a few minutes before, the little bundle of lifeless fluff was once full of life and probably jovial at the prospect of a new day exploring my closet.

i guess i just say this as some weird some of therapy. until some imbalanced lunatic from peta reads this and tells me i should indeed let the animals consume my house. then this will switch from therapy to perturbed amusement tinged with mild disgust.

in the end, as much of a monster as i am, i don't think i ever would have been able to shoot old yeller.

as opposed to the wetter gnome . . .

what the deuce is up with the sock gnome in my drier?! you know of whom i speak, for i am sure you have had your own run in with him. he is the one that steals a single, solitary sock from the wash. unashamedly and remorselessly. and consistently. that devious little minion, what would he possibly want with all those socks of mine that he has stolen?!

a possible hypothesis is that the gnome (who shall be named, and henceforth referred to as, jared) is teasing me. obviously he wants me to know he is toying with my notion of control and awareness as pertains to my own laundry, and impishly imply that he is ultimately the one true sovereign authority in the realm of the laundry room. this notion seems so clear to me because, of all the items in a typical wash, he takes the one item that will be most noticeably missing, the only item that is paired with another, and is so blatantly at a loss without it's counterpart. jared could so easily take an entire shirt or some underwear, and i would forever wonder where i misplaced said article, if i even noticed its absence. yet he persists in taunting me with the conspicuous loss of one sock.

the reason he only deprives me of such a trivial item as a sock is because he can! he can easily get away with stealing socks, because of the very trivial nature of a sock. if you think about it, it's a brilliant item to steal for the sake of teasing. if it were anything more serious, it would undoubtedly attract actual attention, which would completely blow jared's cover. no gnome would actually want to be publicly discovered, accused and incarcerated, which is exactly what would happen if he started stealing cats, clarinets, cars, couches, or even designer jeans. but no, jared is very smart, and has successfully stayed under the radar for many many years by adhering to this simple ploy.

as far as the question of where does this massive stockpile of missing socks go, it is clear to me that jared eats them. he has to have something other than lints trap scraps and drier sheet cuisine to eat, especially since i don't ever run my leftover cheesy tuna casserole through the drier.

if i was smart, i'd soak an entire load of socks in anti-freeze and cyanide and toss that in the drier. but i don't know if it's worth the risk of possibly ruining all those socks.