Three black belts and white mage

What a sunday. Ok I spent a lot of time playing final fantasy. More than I'm going to admit, not all day but ok I would say if I had any idea how long. i'm talking about the original final fantasy for Nes. I have quite the bachelor pad now that my roommates moved out and I have the entire house to myself for a month. So I hooked up the nintendo and most games wouldnt draw me in for long periods of time but this one can. I was playing it for awhile today with a fairly basic team of the fighter, black belt, red mage, white mage. But I thought it was too boring and I wanted a team that was totally different from anything I played as a kid. And so I started over and now I'm using three black belts and a white mage. Its pretty hard so far because I dont have any attack magic at all and my black belts are using their hands to fight. I'm going to be pushing the A button a LOT and keep fighting sharks and wolves to boost up my levels. I just considered that my behavior is slightly pathetic but I'm not going to worry about it. I never do. On the other hand there are far better things to do with my time that I used to enjoy, like reading, but now I cant do it without thinking about my black belts!! Its like that harry potter book number six. I couldnt stop reading it for like three days any spare moment I had I was sucked in until I finished it. Oh well thats my life. Back to school tomorrow thankfully. I need a good project to become obsessed with. The closest thing I have is my one note sheet front and back of physics equations to use for my test on thursday. Its kind of like killing sharks and wolves but its harder because you have to think and not just press the A button to pick "fight" a bunch of times.

This weekend

Right now i'm one of the few people in my mom's extended family not in Wisconsin for a weekend of extended family gathering. Instead I'm at my desk writing a blog that has no point at all. But if I'm going to blog regularly its going to have to be about nothing. The only plans I have for friday night (ie tonight) are to go to the grocery store, buy a bunch of hopefully ripe mangoes, and juice them. I'll also probably read about magnetic fields but there is no guarantee on that. Only I'd say about a 75-80% chance. The mangoes are guaranteed. The ripeness of the mangoes is not guaranteed which means that the juice is not really guaranteed. The grocery store, then, is really the only part of my night that is guaranteed. Although, regardless of whether or not the mangoes are ripe, I am going to buy them anyway and they will either have to sit in my kitchen for a few days or they won't. If the mangoes at the store are not ripe, I think I should buy some backup fruit or vegetable to juice. Ok, after thinking for a few minutes I've come up with cantaloupe as a backup. Both mangoes and cantaloupes sound like very good things to drink tonight. My blog about nothing really did turn out to be about something. And it was pretty useful. I cant wait for my trip to the grocery store.

I love google but I need a new computer

As much as I think the hipster-favorite weekly Portland Mercury is not worth reading because every article is written by one of the same sarcastic, obnoxious 20-somethings with nothing useful or productive to say, I actually found something I can use in it today. Well I can almost use it. I would need a new computer. We have multiple copies of the Mercury lying around our house right now because my roommate is using them to pack things in boxes since she is moving out soon. Actually we all are but thats not the story I'm interested in telling. I was cooking some dinner (in other words throwing a frozen pizza in the oven) and I decided while I was waiting for it I would flip through one of the Mercurys lying on the floor. I found a little blurb about "Google Earth" and how cool it is and I decided I had to check it out. I really like maps and Google Earth is basically the ultimate map. You might notice that I have a link to Google Maps to the side of this blog but really, compared to Google Earth, Google Maps is nothing.

Honestly though, I dont really even feel like talking about Google Earth now because I've spent so much of my blog energy leading up to it. Basically it is software that you download and run from your PC that uses satellite imagery and 3D rendering to give you the most kickass 3D maps of anywhere in the world. I can see myself spending a LOT of time using Google Earth to fly myself all over the world from the comfort and safety of my desk. But, alas, my computer is not powerful enough to run it. I have neither a 3D capable graphics card nor a processor that is faster than 500 mHz. These are not incredibly demanding or rare features on computers these days but mine is over five years old. Oh well. Plus, maybe by the time I actually get around to buying a new computer they'll have a version of Google Earth that runs on Linux so I wouldn't have to re-boot to Windows every time I want to use it.

Until then I'll have to keep taking my own pictures and putting them on my blog. And settling for Google Maps. At least it isn't Yahoo...

earth.google.com

The good that I'm talking about

I found an article today about how this non-profit based out of Portland called Green Empowerment helped design a solar power structure and train the community of Candelaria, Nicaragua to maintain it. The panels that the community installed give power to a water pump allowing clean water to flow into the village instead of having the women and children walk for hours three times a day to find it while the men are away working picking coffee. I totally stole these pictures straight from the magazine article because they are so inspiring to me. Using simple transportation methods like the donkey to carry the new solar panels requires no fuel but care for that living creature. The power of the community coming together to solve a problem, start a committee to keep the solution functional and economically feasible is awesome to me. Just like the awesome power provided by the sun and channelled through the solar panels to operate their water pump.



The villagers pay the equivalent of $2 per household per month to maintain their pump. The success of the project has inspired the community to keep making progress by building latrines and learning about proper hygeine now that they have clean water. This is the future, where communities come together for a common cause and create jobs in an environmentally responsible way. Our cities filled with disenchanted intellectuals discussing political philosophy over the coffee the Nicaraguans provide are the past and not only because they will need to work in coffee fields less and less as more and more communities start improving themselves with help from organizations like Green Empowerment. This is the good in the world that I'm talking about focusing on. It just takes a little effort to find because it isn't on the surface that all of us see in our day to day lives. It is little wonder that so many of us aren't happy with our lives and opt to get that small sliver of satisfaction from mocking those around us who seem to be not as cool as we are. I'm not saying we should feel guilty and bad about ourselves. We already do. I'm saying we should be happy that changes like these are taking place and then we can start effecting small change is our larger communities. The theme for the day is that disillusionment is immature and counterproductive. And that solar power is fucking badass. I'm not studying electrical engineering to build bigger and faster cell phones and computers, I'm doing it to take advantage of the education I can get in the United States and help transition to this future that I apparently am not the only one envisioning. Thats really good for me to know.

www.greenempowerment.org
Images copyright 2005 Elsevier Ltd. taken from ReFocus magazine

On the other hand...

I just wanted to point out that the blog I wrote right before this (under this) is incredibly hypocritical. I'm talking about how its uncool to complain about the stupidity of other people but thats exactly what I'm doing by writing that blog. I'm saying that I will focus on the good but I'm focusing on exactly the opposite. So whatever, there is truth in both blogs for today and I'm not going to get too worried about it. Maybe what I really should be focusing on is whats immediately relevant to my life like homework or updating my resume. Blog on, bloggers. But, yeah, mine is still better than yours.

Popular blogs

I've just spent a little time reading some blogs (which I'm not going to name) written by people in New York that are apparently insanely popular. I really don't like New York. I swear it must be filled with people who think they are better looking, more important, and smarter than everyone else especially those who don't also live in New York. Don't get me wrong, I also think I'm better looking and smarter than a lot of people but at least I don't hate myself at the same time. These people who write blogs are just like me when I'm drunk. I, at least, don't constantly use big words in an effort to appear brilliant while mocking the rest of the world that they think is so beneath them. Sure you're probably smart and sure you're probably even hot. And, yes, bored people that also hate themselves will read your blog and share your sneering laugh for a few minutes because they aren't happy with their lives and they need someone to laugh at. I promise not to make my blog a boring, overdone criticism on how stupid the other people around me are. And if, for whatever reason, I start some pathetic self-loathing charade, I promise to remind myself that I'm not living in New York and I don't need to keep up appearances of disgust and condemnation of my surroundings. From here on out I'm going to focus on whats good about the world and myself and everyone else. Then after about a year or so of doing that maybe I'll find something good to say about New York too.

My hideous handsome face

Yep. My poor face. I banged it up again, this time by riding my bike like a dumbass, tipping over and landing pretty much directly on the left side of it. Like I said, its not the first time something like this has happened. Its not my first bike wreck but this is the first time a bike wreck has affected my pretty face. Let's see though, I think the last black eye I had was given to me by asshole frat boys after I made obnoxious comments about their "crotch rockets" right in front of their house on my way home from a bar a couple years ago. They invited me to "come in and see their house" and like the drunken idiot I was I thought it sounded like a great idea. When I got inside they proceeded to get me on the stairs and start punching the shit out of me. Luckily the guy I was walking with realized something was not right so he came into the house after me and dragged me out. Don't worry though, even as he was dragging me away from the house and the frat guys were chasing after us still punching me when they could, I had both my middle fingers up in the air, yelling obsenities at them and laughing at how much cooler I thought I was then them even though I had just had my ass kicked. But that time I really just got a black eye and a few miscellaneous scrapes (mostly from the street as I was being dragged away). My face has looked really similar to this before though. I dont remember exactly how it happened but I'm pretty sure I just walked straight into some hard metal object walking home from a party. I remember coming home, just like last night, with blood dripping from my face, so numb from alcohol that my overwhelming emotions were really just that of frustration and annoyance. But I cleaned up with some gracious help from roommates and just like that time, this will heal. I'll be good-looking again. Really that is my primary concern. But I'll be sure to enjoy all the pity and attention I get from everyone until then. I'll even enjoy the disgusted reactions of those who just think its my own damn fault and feel I got what was coming to me. Obviously for all of these injuries there is one recurring theme of excessive drunkenness. Its really not as cool as I'm trying to make it out to be. I'm glad the drunkenness is extremely rare these days and getting rarer by the year until eventually it will be extinct. My personality when I'm drunk is about as attractive as the left side of my face right now. Super arrogant, extremely proud, and very willing to make funny but evil comments about whoever or whatever crosses my path. I was just thinking yesterday afternoon about being drunk and how if I actually had to talk to myself when I'm drunk with eyes glazed over and swaying back and forth how much less appealing I would be to myself as a person. Anyway the real moral of this story is not to ride your bike when you're wasted beyond belief. And as I was taking a nap today I was dreaming and I think I figured out that I was actually swerving back and forth along the road last night as I rode. And then I leaned the bike too far to the left and BAM. I remember just being like "Fuck." as I laid there with my bike on top of me, face pressed up against the concrete definitely feeling like a huge idiot. And there is no question that crashing your bike because you're riding stupidly and drunk is an idiot move. Maybe this time I'll learn my lesson.

Wtf is qalephd?

This is the letter Aleph. It is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Something that I like to do in my spare time is read the Bible. Not because I want to tell people how to live their lives, but because whatever your opinion is of the book itself, it is undeniable that it has had a tremendous effect on the mass mind of humanity for the last two thousand or whatever years. My opinion is that most people don't have any idea what the Bible is really about at its deepest level and one of my goals is to figure it out.

Anyway, the Old Testament, or approximately the first 75% of the Bible was originally written in Hebrew. "Aleph" means Ox, as in the animal used to draw plows and whatnot in the old days. Aside from meanings associated directly with this animal, the English spelling of "Ox" has its own relevance to me tied to Aleph in the following way. I AM making this up from the way I see it but "O" looks a lot like the number 0 which stands for "nothing" or the unknown. "x" is also used more often than not to represent the unknown in mathematical equations. So Aleph, or the "Ox" is the ultimate unknown power in the universe that you may or may not like to think of as God. And I'm not saying that by using it in my little web pseudonym that I somehow equate myself with that power, I'm just saying I'd like to associate myself with it. If you want to do the same, be my guest. If not, I have no problem with that either.

As far as the "q" and "d" go, imagine these characters spinning vertically around a horizontal axis (how else would they spin vertically?) through the middle of their hoop-like sections. Then think of them as orbiting (I see it as a counter clock wise rotation but whatever) around the word Aleph tracing the path of an ellipse just like the earth around the Sun. This is also the "0" that I was just talking about. The q and the d are really one body orbiting the "sun" of Aleph and those are its positions directly to the left and right of it. So thats my fairly complete explanation of "Qalephd". I realize that using a capital Q changes the word as I've just explained it but maybe we can think about what THAT means later. In fact, none of this really has to MEAN anything but people have asked me what qalephd is and this is my answer.

Lastly, maybe you're wondering about "kalephd", my aim screen name, so I'm going to call that the slightly confused cousin to qalephd. It means the same thing but its hidden better. If you want, it can also mean that I like to eat or drink kale so much that you might call me the "Kale PhD". But thats also kind of like saying that Adam and Eve were real people created by some really powerful personified God along with the rest of our world in a few literal days. Its doesn't make a whole lot of sense (a PhD in kale?). But I guess thats one more reason the name works so well in reference to the Bible. There you have it.

Three and a half weeks of physics

I just finished taking my final exam for my first Physics course since high school. We covered about 12 chapters of a standard introductory physics text in only three and a half weeks. Its a compressed summer course. But now I dont know what to do with myself for the rest of the day because I don't have any homework. Actually, the next course in the sequence begins tomorrow and continues essentially from the point where we left off so I could read the next chapter and start off on the right foot that way. We'll see, there is still plenty of day left.

I'm aware that this probably isn't very interesting to random internet readers. I can't imagine giving a shit about someone else's musings about what they should do after taking a final exam. But that reminds me of something I saw on the wall at one of my school toilets yesterday. I thought it was very insightful. Maybe you've seen it on a toilet near you?

Most of the talk on the stall wall were comments back and forth about whether it is really conservatives or liberals who are insane/can spell/should be allowed to live. These arguments were written alongside other comments about animal liberation, starting revolutions and riots...you've seen it all before. But thats where the master of toilet wisdom steps in and says "Hey! I'm here to take a shit, not give a shit." True THAT!

Blogger random questions

Ok, the question blogger asked my profile was "What is the best kind of tape to use for making a sculpture?". But then it changed the question so my answer to that question was under a totally unrelated question. PLus it only lets you have 150 characters for a reply. I'm not a 150 characters kind of person.

I've never created a sculpture so I'm not sure. As far as I'm concerned a sculpture has no practical value to my life and so I have no reason to create one. But I love the fact that blogger is asking random questions. I said on my myspace profile that this should be done and little did I know people were already doing it in cooler places. The only tape I ever use is scotch tape to paste things in notebooks or duct tape sometimes. I prefer superglue.

There is no more beer

I wanted to have some beer in our "kegerator" for when Mary and Chas come visit tomorrow but the keg is dry. We get our beer from this guy who brews his beer at home and then charges us a few dollars to take one of his kegs every so often and put it in our living room in a refrigerator with a tap on it that he is loaning us while we patronize him. Its great beer too. I don't really like to think a lot when I came up with adjectives to describe things. Many things are "good" or "great" to me. I bet you are excited to continue reading my blog now that you know it will be filled with such colorful descriptions.