So what if I'm an ePrick?? 
I always use eProp-hylactics!! 
Month: May 2001
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Who do?
Out there. I sense it. Evil PRIVATE posts. The hate emanates like dead skunk on a sun-burnt highway. Voodoo. Spells. Shame on your unblogged ancestors ePropping in their graves!
So what if Xanga, as part of Premium service, allowed the Primo subscribers to read other peoples' PRIVATE posts?? HA!
Or...Xangamanagement could establish a new category of SEMIPRIVATE posts. Let only subscribers read them. Or only let someone read them if they eProp them first-hahaha!
Or SEMIPRIVATE in the sense that only certain other designated bloggers could ever see...LOL...how evil is that!
And don't forget about the SUPER PRIVATE no-eyes category either. So private, in fact, that even you can't read them once they're posted...Oops, I guess we already have this--*my xTools just ate it when I hit Submit* !! Mwahahaha!!
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I guess the fact that Xanga now has ebay.com and other banner ads running on our pages means that Bianca finally earned her MBA and has started to put it to practical use. Actually, it signifies either that Xanga membership has reached a critical enough mass to appeal to advertisers or that Xanga has struck some kind of sweet deal with them that’s subscriptionally irrefusable.
Hey, I wonder if Xanga’s willing/going to sell members banner space on other members’ pages? O—what would my banner ad say?…*Xanga Bannering Sucks* or *notforprophet is the biggest damn jerk around* (hey, negativity is still publicity!)
Or, perhaps, soon, since the existing banner has just become a shitload more distasteful and unattractive, they’ll offer a Super Deluxe Premium Membership—everything else + *no banner at all* !!
O now I read the XangaTeam's post and this is exactly what they intend--Premium = no banner--soon.
What if we all in protest started depicting the code-script I’ve implemented on notfortesting (which site, by the way, in some other functional regards, I busted while testing!)?
Or what if we all just clicked through to Xanga’s advertisers and made Xanga a happy ever-after blogdom? = fair prince kisses spelled princess/frog and turns into a frog himself!
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All that I could be: my own army of one?
What I felt whenever I got off-duty was what Mel Gibson proclaimed as Wallace in the movie Braveheart:
FREEEEEEEE-DOMM!!!
Now you might think: Was I deluding myself? Pretending to be free from the gripping constraint of an organization to which I was conscripted simply because I was afforded time off, off-time which could be retracted anytime, off-time that could disappear forever in the crunch of an emergency?
Ha! I was free alright, but the freedom I was seeking wasn’t from duty but the freedom of being allowed to transcend duty. Indeed, I truly saw my free time as freedom to fulfill my destiny as a warrior beyond the constraints and piddlings of the Army’s bureaucratic organizational routines.
As I saw it, the Army wasn’t keeping me fit enough—it wanted to feed me and primp me, but I wanted to run. The Army wasn’t challenging me to embrace the world around me—it was encouraging me to work stated hours and then party and lounge, but I decided to push always the envelope of discovery well beyond that provided by the organization’s leveled horizon outlook. Essentially, my self-determined mission as a warrior in every way exceeded that organizationally proscribed for me. I needed my freedom because I was fashioning myself into a modern techno-ronin and the organization was serving de facto to keep me down. So I did what I had to “militarily” (as a “model” soldier, I got early promotions, positions of “honor”, and I always max-ed my physical training tests), and then stole away to complete the rest of my quest.
The core of this quest was tantamount to running like a fool (but pre-dating the example of Forrest Gump!), at least again, in outward appearance. So instead of eating lunch and bulking at the mid-section like many of my colleagues, I'd typically strip to my running shorts at noon in the 90 degree/100%-humidity clime and streak for the jungled peak of my little mountain refuge. Yet as I ran bodily-enthralled and unbounded, baptizing myself in the steam and mist and dripping humidity of the jungle, my mind held still. Though indulged by barracks life with months and months of incessant respiration of some of the best weed available in central America, I had come to master all my physicality—all action—as a heightened trip with attentive meditation. So as I ran, I also watched myself running. I watched myself flow and fuse with the jungle—becoming one with the huge blue butterflies wafting around my head, one with the poisonous snakes that I’d have to leap as they passed underfoot, one with the terror of torrential downpours that could suddenly ensue. I flowed, I fused, I hid, I merged. Then I re-emerged with all the secrets learned therein.
It is with this previous body/mindset that I left my completed CQ duty behind early on Saturday evening, took the rich Columbian gold that I had confiscated from the careless girl, and advanced upon my little jungle mountain scattering the weed in little handfuls like a faerie would scatter dreamdust while I was again yet running like a bat out of hell. Oh yes, I scattered the seeds, too—and some did grow. Did I waste the weed? Oh no—I simply did not greed the weed. I no longer needed it in that form. My organizationally-bestowed high and its predisposition for imminent psychic involvement was set. I wasn’t sure what awaited me, but I sensed, I seemed to know, that I was fulfilling my destiny. And as such, was good to go.
(...to be continued)
...End of Part III
Part I: What Kind of Holiday Was That?
Decoration Day (aka Memorial Day)--what kind of holiday was that?
What kind of holiday is it when the tiddy bar is closed? Yep. Got there and couldn't believe it. So I did something equally decrepit instead: I ran. Let's see: only about 24,985 miles left until I get back home... Great! I'm right on schedule for year 2017.
Do you think I’m making light of a holiday dedicated to remembering the war dead? Well, damn it, I celebrated by buying a new car! What could be more American and patriotic than that? Oops--didn't buy American...but bought in America and am paying gobs of sales taxes and future homegrown financing. Hell yes, that was a perfect consumptive celebration! But...
The dead. What about the dead?
I honor them. I am their brethren. I once joined the service for the explicit purpose of fighting a war, dealing with death, and possibly dying.
But I was denied.
Guns for hostages, drugs for guns, whatever you want to call the dark Contra political dealings of Reagan's initial administration as scapegoated by Col. Ollie North, an imminent conflict was averted. The Iran hostages came home, war plans faded into Central American irregular operations, and I was left…high and dry?
No—merely high. Though I wanted to fight and possibly die, the government instead just got me high. Literally. Sent to Panama, I found myself as a battleless warrior enwrapped in great oblivion: mindless, unending drug intoxication. And none of it was my volitional doing. Really not. No, I was, like Lancelot, at that time, indelibly pure. But I, nonetheless, sustained in my barracks daily massive exposure to seemingly incessant clouds of smoked cannabis. More than just a “contact high”, the interlacing haze of grass was the permanent atmosphere. Breathe in, breathe out—breath after breath, day after day, month after month, dope for a full two years. Seemed like nearly everybody else (25 of 27 troops on my floor) smoked and nobody, including officers, non-commissioned officers, and military intelligence—just two barracks over, gave a damn. Seemed like it was, in fact, an unspoken de facto plan. Seemed like indifference ruled. So much just seemed back then. So much just drifted and spiraled like wafting smoke to the heavens....
And higher and higher, by virtue alone of intense contact, did I ascend, remaining emboldened as a warrior, into a psychic realm—a realm of visionary realizations unveiled that provided me more critical intelligence about some things than that conventionally available to the military. For dope was never for me an escape or recreational substance, but always a magical herbal ally, a door to dream. And dream I did. Right out of time. But to observe me by exterior facade alone, I remained clearly one of the fittest and furious-looking hombres wearing jungle fatigues to be found. Clearly from a military perspective, I appeared most commendably soldierly, even as I hovered, while in, yet out of body and beyond the constraint of ground.
...End of Part I
Part III: All That I Could Be...
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Holding the Vision: Panama--The Setting
The First Sergeant was heading out and heading home for the weekend. Of course, he ruled the barracks of his 93rd Signal Company like a king, but didn’t live there. And he always ensured that his weekends in the paradise that can be Panama were enjoyable weekends, and thus, by his definition, barracks-free.
“OK, sergeant,” he said speaking to me, “let’s inspect the barracks before I turn them over to you.”
Yes, I had it and hated it: Charge of Quarters (CQ) for 24 hours beginning Friday night. Twenty-four hours when, as the charged non-commissioned officer, one was responsible for everything going on in and everybody going in/out of the barracks building.
But the traditional passing-of-the-baton inspection this particular Friday evening with the First Sergeant was a little later than usual, for the troops had mostly finished the workday and were already back in their rooms resuming the party which had been interrupted by work demands, but which otherwise really never would ever seem to end. And as we proceeded up the first flight of stairs to the 2nd floor, the First Sergeant stopping halfway up, sniffed most demonstrably three full times, then said, “Well, sergeant, I’m running a little behind…and whatever’s going on up there I don’t need to allow to ruin my weekend, so it’s all yours.”
Of course, the partying had already begun and it was intense. Music, attitude—what have you. Here was the seedier promise of paradise . And booze was the elixir and cannabis the incense. And I had just been charged with the bureaucratic authority and responsibility to bust it all up, shut it down, and break the whole thing wide open. Right. Like putting on a Superman costume and expecting it to confer upon me the ability to fly. Exactly. No, no, no. My intent was just to do good by the First Sergeant and make sure his building wasn’t burnt to the ground before he returned on Monday morning. Or actually, even more modest than that—make sure that it didn’t go up in flames on my watch. Beyond that, just like every other CQ, I wanted to make sure that the troops kept the building’s public areas clean. Otherwise, when I handed the watch over to the next CQ in 24 hours, upon failing his/her passing-of-the-baton inspection, I would probably have to clean the any mess created myself.
So the games had begun. And boys (2nd floor) were being boys. And girls (3rd floor) were being, well, ...bait! And my hourly tours through the barracks were only to insure that the doors to each room were kept closed and locked, that there was no excessive frolic in the halls or restrooms, and that no spies were creeping about. I only prayed it would all last intact for 24 hours, and then I could return off-duty to this very milieu myself only long enough to change and run. That’s right. Most of those burdened with the 24-duty, when they got off, would either go directly to the mess hall to eat or go right to sleep. But I’d run. I’d run for an hour up and down a small jungle mountain along an unimproved jeep trail seemingly my own since I nearly never saw anyone else upon it. I’d run because I’d rarely eat or only irregularly so. I’d run because I hated to sleep—I wanted to always to stay awake and open to all there was to know. I’d run because I was tripping, and the jungle when tripping, was a scene. I’d run to detoxify. I’d run to be me.
During this duty-day, however, smoothness hit a snag as early in the morning I encountered a troop with only her bra and panties on, her head sunk into a toilet bowl in the men’s latrine, and her body seemingly otherwise sprawled lifelessly there about. My first impression was a scene of murder-rape. My first reaction was to touch, which I did, and my heart flamed as she responded with an intoxicated stir. She was only sick, having turned the toilet bowl into a vomited kettle of quicksand. And her underwear was still intact and unfussed, so I assumed (big assumption) that even though intoxicated, she had kept control of her own private parts. But, alas, too, there next to here on the latrine floor lay a sandwich baggy much too overfilled with the best of Columbian gold. *Damn it! Now I’ll have to bust this bra-bursting bitch.* was my first inkling.
But on second thought, I came up with a better plan. I confiscated the dope, roused her to her feet, escorted her to bed, and finished off my round-the-clock charge without one word of what had transpired put into the barrack's official log. Then I was again free. And free in more ways than one.
...End of Part II
Part I: What Kind of Holiday Was That?
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Decoration Day (aka Memorial Day)--what kind of holiday was that?
What kind of holiday is it when the tiddy bar is closed? Yep. Got there and couldn't believe it. So I did something equally decrepit instead: I ran. Let's see: only about 24,985 miles left until I get back home... Great! I'm right on schedule for year 2017.
Do you think I’m making light of a holiday dedicated to remembering the war dead? Well, damn it, I celebrated by buying a new car! What could be more American and patriotic than that? Oops--didn't buy American...but bought in America and am paying gobs of sales taxes and future homegrown financing. Hell yes, that was a perfect consumptive celebration! But...
The dead. What about the dead?
I honor them. I am their brethren. I once joined the service for the explicit purpose of fighting a war, dealing with death, and possibly dying.
But I was denied.
Guns for hostages, drugs for guns, whatever you want to call the dark Contra political dealings of Reagan's initial administration as scapegoated by Col. Ollie North, an imminent conflict was averted. The Iran hostages came home, war plans faded into Central American irregular operations, and I was left…high and dry?
No—merely high. Though I wanted to fight and possibly die, the government instead just got me high. Literally. Sent to Panama, I found myself as a battleless warrior enwrapped in great oblivion: mindless, unending drug intoxication. And none of it was my volitional doing. Really not. No, I was, like Lancelot, at that time, indelibly pure. But I, nonetheless, sustained in my barracks daily massive exposure to seemingly incessant clouds of smoked cannabis. More than just a “contact high”, the interlacing haze of grass was the permanent atmosphere. Breathe in, breathe out—breath after breath, day after day, month after month, dope for a full two years. Seemed like nearly everybody else (25 of 27 troops on my floor) smoked and nobody, including officers, non-commissioned officers, and military intelligence—just two barracks over, gave a damn. Seemed like it was, in fact, an unspoken de facto plan. Seemed like indifference ruled. So much just seemed back then. So much just drifted and spiraled like wafting smoke to the heavens....
And higher and higher, by virtue alone of intense contact, did I ascend, remaining emboldened as a warrior, into a psychic realm—a realm of visionary realizations unveiled that provided me more critical intelligence about some things than that conventionally available to the military. For dope was never for me an escape or recreational substance, but always a magical herbal ally, a door to dream. And dream I did. Right out of time. But to observe me by exterior facade alone, I remained clearly one of the fittest and furious-looking hombres wearing jungle fatigues to be found. Clearly from a military perspective, I appeared most commendably soldierly, even as I hovered, while in, yet out of body and beyond the constraint of ground.
...End of Part I
Part III: All That I Could Be...
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a blog is a blog, of course, of course
and no one can transform a post, of course
unless that post is a classic toast
of agrochick78 and celeste.
A quiet evening of blogging...
transforms into friendly chatting...
*blah, blah, blah, blah*
erupts into real hamsters...
culminates in unintended acts of criminality...
Cleveland: Women are forbidden from wearing patent leather shoes, lest men see reflections of their underwear.
sublimates into absurd erotic visions...
resolves into a quiet morning of blogging...
transforms into…
*notforprophet looks on disinterestedly. he futilely attempts to remain dispassionate. he nonetheless begins a metamorphosis. he emerges inexorably as the Great Horned One. he's ready to pounce and frolic with the wood nymphs! O, now where have they gone??*
was it deevaa?
or déjà vu?
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Wake-up Call
Can I tell my secrets?
Would anyone believe?
Probably think I’m talking trashtalk
and rush quietly to leave...
I watched the skies as a child
and, likewise, they watched me:
every morning at seven a saucer
I grew accustomed to see.
Not alarmed, but wondrous I gazed on,
felt a message emanating my way,
and was assured that the world was much safer
and all would be fine on that day.
Then one day, the visitors left me
(only once later in life to return).
Is this world now no longer that safe place--
or was I taught what I needed to learn?
Can I utter this bright secret
and not incur your scorn?
I was taught that each and every new day
is a day when you're once again born. -
Thus spoke grandpaboy...
"I would like to thank all the faithful readers of this weblog. This was never meant to be a cathartic journal or a gallery for art or a showcase for writing.... It was nothing more than a provision of links to absurd websites, and without readers, it's existence would've been meaningless."
Faithful readers, indeed! He had clearly become the most popular entity in the past week, even eclipsing VeryModern who went private for a brief spell to catch her breath.
Nothing more than... indeed not. It was part of this pioneering form of community. And as such, was becoming a very cohesive element.
A provision of links to absurd websites... the key word is provision: pro: forward, vision: looking. Forward looking!
And so we look forward to the day grandpaboy returns!
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Loose, So Very Loose!!!...
I wish I was talking about the mores of this gorgeous girl I spotted in a bar last night...but I'm talking about my car. The steering is now so loose that w-ob-bl-e doesn't even begin to describe it. I mean, the steering is so everywhere that I feel like I'm driving an unruly 4 ton military equipment truck on unimproved trails in central america again. Or like I'm the pilot on the Titanic laggingly trying to steer clear of the menacing iceberg!!
This is the situation: If I want to steer into a turn, I now have to begin about 1/2 second before I normally would. Now that may not seem like much, but at 60 mph, that means that I must start a turn about 44 feet prior to actually entering it--or wait until I enter it, turn, and continue going straight for 44 feet before the car responds.
Of course, I opt for steering in the future. So everything I do in this time-co-opted matrix that this car has come to occupy is somewhere slightly in time ahead. Back to the future, indeed!
Now you may be wondering *what's up with this car?* So here's the short explanation: the steering shaft in the engine compartment beyond the firewall has broken loose of its double-fastened anchor to the firewall. The result is that the steering shaft is no longer immobile, but itself sails a bit left or right--until it hits some other obstructions--whenever I make those respective turns. And its "sailing" must finish (about 1/2 second)before the act of turning actually begins. I've learned to manage it--but sense and instinct-wise, it's a trip.
And no one wants to fix it! The welder claims he'd need a mechanic to pull the engine before he could pull the firewall out to weld it. And why not weld it in place? He claims it would start a fire in the dashboard--ah, no, let's discard that option! And the work that is envisioned costs more than the car is worth. So... So...
Is it time to restabilize my mobility? A new car, perhaps??
Damn, what a great opportunity to chuck it all and get a motorcycle again. Then I could pretend I'm Lawrence of Arabia on the highway two-tiring it across the American Interstate tar-covered sands! I can see it now: a one-tank trip to Akaba or any other point unannounced.
So maybe I'll go shopping this weekend. But I hate shopping so much !
Or maybe I'll just go out searching for that perfect beer to keep me on the cutting edge, one half second closer to the sands of eternity with a shifting drive shaft....
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Sparklers
During a "Guess the Gay" contest this morning, Howard Stern said it best: Real gays almost always have "that sparkle" in their eyes.
So true!
But, you know what? Almost all straight girls have "that sparkle", too!!
What is it that these, and other people with "that sparkle" see??
And...do I really want to know?
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Going...Big Time!
I fell asleep last night around midnight in the shower. Woke up in frigid water at about 3 AM. Stumbled to my laptop--still internet-connected--soaking wet with nothing more than a towel wrapped around my waist.
And...____________________________ (fill in the blank).
Anyway, I didn't get back to nap until 5:30 AM and had to wake up for work at 6:30!! But here's the most amazing thing. Just as I got up again at 6:30 (with my kitten pouncing on my head), the TV was on and I heard a Xanga commercial loud and clear!!
I swear I did!
"Xanga", "Xanga", "Xanga--subscribe for free" (they even pronounced it the way I don't, so I know it wasn't just a trick of my mind!)
Does anyone know a good psychotherapist?? Mine has no idea what I'm talking about anymore--mwahaahaha!!!
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Hiatus? Vacation? Summer Recess? Defection? Going Private? Ending the Addiction?
Yep. Lots of peeps out here doing lots of things to take them away from Xanga, wholly or partly, for an expanse of today until... whenever.
I scream: *Don't go!!* But it doesn't help.
Kind of like hoping all the cute babies, tots, and kids you know and love never grow up and grow apart. Almost like living in a college dorm, staying put, but watching all your buddies ship out to their homefronts for the summer. Or like being part of a jungle military unit where each member is sent out detached to survive and gather intelligence for a week or two only to reconvene weeks later to reassemble the big picture.
I scream: *Go ahead!!* And it doesn't hurt.
Energy cascades regardless. Xanga's like a huddling penguin pack constantly circulating members in and out from cold to warm to cold again. Or like a tide--high, low, high--periodic, not guided by the moon, but seasonal.
I had an idea of utilizing Xanga's Premium prospect of submitting blogs by e-mail. I would write pre-cast blogs, leave my PC on 24x7, and then schedule my e-mail program agent to submit a particular draft on a particular future date. That would be a nice way to even out my own personal ins and outs, highs and lows, so to speak. Hey, you'd never know I was gone!! Wow, could this post be my first such submission??!! Really, I could be at this magnificent but largely unknown resort on the Pacific coast in the interior of Panama (the one I'm thinking of is owned by a Russian expatriate whom I suspect is a spy), laying in the sun, drinking a daiquiri, and having my e-agents submit my pre-casts. Combine this setup somehow with having my HAL 10000 (see post 2 below) autogenerate text (only, of course, after enhancing its intelligence--it is still very rudimentary at this early stage) and who needs me??
Unneeded, extinct, I think, I'm free.... Now, was I once a boddhisattva and does nirvana yet now await me?? Oh shit, such issues still!! But while I'm figuring that out, ponder this: Only one of the green-font entries that follows was written by me.
The particle accelerator on top of an alien gives a shit for
a crispy subscriber.
A crazed weblog sleeping with a rant feels nagging remorse, and a satellite yearning for an ensemble barely makes cyberlove to some Recently
Updated from freebirdgonewild.
It takes a real rattlesnake to make cyberlove to VeryModern.
A warranty, a phony spider, and the internet
are what make Xanga great!
Truly inspired Xanganites sense remarkable rumblings while somewhere eProps accumulate wantonly.
Sometimes the flabby secret code feels nagging remorse, but a hardly pathetic love shack always satiates another mean-spirited anomaly!
Most Xanganites believe that the shabby subscriber waves appendages at an alias, but they need to remember how knowingly an eWhore over the roller coaster blogs.
A vaporized fairie is salty.
Most Xanganites believe that a requiem thoroughly reaches an understanding with a bohemian ms_chif4u, but they need to remember how almost Satan
on top of an eWhore prays.
Now and then, a rude eWhore hesitantly plays cyber with an umbrella of a lover.
A support group laughs and drinks all night with a subscriber. Furthermore, the treacherous fighter pilot wakes up, and a keyboard near toreibjo conquers Gudkarma.
Fuzzy Wuzzy never really was very fuzzy, was he??
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The Ultimate Male Prophylactic
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new polymer coating holds the promise of guarding against infections commonly spread by bacteria lurking on things like telephones and door knobs, researchers say.
"You could coat any type of surface with this material, and it would be there permanently," said Joerg Tilleer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It is chemically attached so that it cannot be washed away."
In a study appearing Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Tiller and his co-authors said laboratory tests show that the coating, called hexyl-PVP, was able to kill up to 99 percent of Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas and E. coli, all common disease-causing organisms.
No more shaggy lambskin or constraining latex for me! I'm getting my coating of PVP (PreVentable Penis) or is it (Penile Venereal Prevention)?? !!
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Confession of a Cyber-Plagiarist
I know I shouldn't have done it. But I'm hardly as brilliant as many have been led to think. And I had to turn to something for an edge. (It's your fault really--all of you out there blogging so gamely away, day after day, and making me feel like a blog-blocked idiot!!) So when I hit the blogging wall way back in January, I looked around for a fix. And with the help of a creative genius programming friend, we created the HAL 10000 Blog Synthesizer.
I confess: for the most part, I am wasted. It has been HAL 10000 (H+1=I, A+1=B, L+1=M) and his scintillating embellishments that must take the major credit for enlivening my posts. Creative snippets from HAL here, enticing xangisms there, and voila! a blog is born!
I know I could just go on and on to xangfinity perpetrating this hoax.... But no! The truth shall set us free. So without further deliberation, may I introduce you to the latest and most infallible of blogging cyber entities, HAL 10000 .
(p.s., hit reload often to observe HAL's amazing blogliness)
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Do I really have the time for Xanga?
Let me put this a different way: Do I really have the time to be creating the likes of Xangaman in Xangaland?
Yes and no. If it were merely a matter of utilizing my leisure time most abidingly and efficiently, then I'd do better, I believe, in just leisurely reading fiction or studying Chinese. Yes, the days are getting longer (due to the progression of summer and the fact that everyday lengthens by .002 seconds, regardless), but my quest for reclaiming time is still relentless. So what gives?
Well, the minor scripting jostling involved in preparing Xangaman did hone my html skills incrementally. And considering that at least one of my several professional concerns involves website construction, I can justify the time spent also as developmental learning.
Web development--am I kidding? Not really. Most of my professional skills (besides being the utmost in professional wallpapering--I believe I could wallpaper a basketball and make it look crisp!) are on an ever-renewing cusp, and so always developing. My first attempt at web design (index only now functional for this demo) was for a summer piano concert called Pianofest in the Hamptons. Paul Schenly, a pianist and the director, is a friend of mine and threw the challenge my way. This evolved into the more technically mature (as driven by the festival's interest) current site of www.pianofest.org -- yet I've always liked my graphical rendering of the first attempt better!
I've also established a site for another friend's business, www.foradora.com . This is still coming together stylistically as I've got to get the pics to load faster (various tricks) and I have yet to enhance the text fonts and text content somewhat. But it's some ongoing side work (translate: beer money), nonetheless.
I have also set up a site to enhance my teaching efforts. Some of you may have already visited my Stats class site . Once again, if you care to visit, I'd suggest checking out the Practice Tests!!
So the Xangaman series is, in part, a self-instructional programming experience of some marginal utility. But a chance to get to know the diverse Xanga milieu better, too!
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My 300th subscriber is...
erotica and goddessraven and warpedtheory !!
Yes, all three consecutively, as several previous wayfarers were apparently too daringly daunted (as I flexed my mind intrepidly over the weekend) and evaporated consecutively by unsubscription. Thank you three and thank you all who still hang.
In appreciation, I'm providing the Xangaman series (above) to hang high Xangaland. I have discovered the practical limit of this script is in accomodating about 50 names. So look for the hangable cast to expand considerably in subsequent games (Xangaman II, III, etc.)
(short instructions: provide single letters/numbers in the "guess" box and click "guess," or the full name in the "solve" box and click "solve". Case sensitive!!! Bloggers with underlines appear as two separate names. Sometimes you need to click twice for a "new Xanganite.")
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Looseness 0f Doom = Fruit of the Loom
What a day! Ran down to the beach in fine form. Took in the sun and gave passing glances to the girls sunning on the sand. Then ran back home and slaughtered weeds in my yard that were taller than me!!
I thought I was back in the herbal-breeding tropics momentarily--with these towering sun-worshipping earth grazers jolly-greening all around me. How did they get so secretly huge??!! Oh forgive me, wasn't it I who once lambasted the pitiful puniness of the "lawnmower men" in their mindless extermination of wildflowers and weeds??!! Now I am them, chop, chop, (oh where is my trusty machete??) and yes, the lawnmower (vroom) to finish them off. Well, to their credit, the weeds finished the lawnmower, too, as it lost a back wheel in that killing-field process and now rides like a gimpy trike!
Of course, weeding is just a metaphor for societal compliance to notions of orderliness and deconstructed beauty. However, it also provides me a cover for getting close to the earth and smearing myself with a personal coating of that fulsome, fungible grime which someday, quite imaginably, shall cover me more deeply and eternally beyond time. If the earth is my makeup, then eternity's reap is my lover.
But not tonight! I feel very much too much in love with life and have decided to take a luxuriant shower instead!!
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I was almost lost in a daydream
...until I realized that I had just completed running the equivalent of the circumference of the Earth. Roughly 25,000 miles (actually 24,901.55 miles at the equator), it probably took me, over 20 years, about 3333 hours or the equivalent of about 20 straight weeks. That's also comparable to running more than 3 1/2 times around the moon. So what's next? Drinking the equivalent of the Bay of Pigs in beer? Oh no, no no! But speaking of which...
I went to a bar after work last night for a couple of beers during happy hour. There, a girl who is a good friend of the girlfriend of a good buddy of mine, approached me rather spiritedly and directly. I offered to buy her a drink, she accepted and then she sat down for a chat. Or so I thought. Actually, within just a couple of minutes, she unloaded upon me the announcement that she had just left her brutalizing crack-smoking husband....and then, she asked me to go see Peter Frampton at a concert this summer, explaining to me that she had loge seats, and wanted my buddy, his girlfriend, and the two of us to go together.
Peter Frampton? Who's he? Should I go? Such thoughts besieged me as I considered running back around the equivalent of the world in the other direction so as to get back home. I must admit that this girl with her body oozing of passion and her avant-garde approach caught me, I think, just staring at her--and she laughed! Ah, the loosening of doom of my premonition in my previous post she must be. Now what did e.e.cummings say about all this? ...oh, yes, "You and I wear the dangerous looseness of doom and find it becoming. Life, for eternal us, is now; and now is much too busy being a little more than everything to seem anything, catastrophic included."
-
Coordinates Fixed?
The Looseness of Doom just seemed to get a lot looser. Could this be the weekend?? Is the knot tightening or slipping—and how to tell the difference? It seems like I've been blessed all my life with an uncanny sense of premonition about…let's say…the world around (no, you don't really have to take my word… I wouldn't, if I were merely reading it here! But how to be, other than I am??) . So I wonder, how would it feel (like Dylan's *how does it feel?*) if I were not looking out, but being looked upon??!! Hrm... It's almost as if I can feel the pressure of the eye of the tiger on the back of my head (to be more precise, impinging on my capsule of energy awareness). Almost as if there is an inimical entity slithering around like an asp preparing to strike. Should I cringe and flail about?
There's an old Romanian tale about surviving the wrath of reckless authority as a peasant by bowing your head when the malevolent prince comes around your town riding on his horse and slashing with his sword. Basically, bow to the prince and the sword swings without striking overhead. Am I about to take a lesson out of that book?? Fuck no! I'm feeling on the better side of health and ready to take you on tyger, tyger burning bright (Blake, Songs of Experience). Just remember, if you turn out to be a paper tiger (Mao, Little Red Book), it is you whom that burning eye is going to set afire.
Back later on the back of that tiger (if it is, indeed, lurking out there), …or, voraciously by the fault of jaws, I'll see you on the other side.
-
Pseudo-hydrophobia
So it seems our world conspires
to consign us to less vigorous expressions
today--but that's okay
lest the somebodies begin to think
the foam forming around our mouths
is a sign of animal rabidity
and not just the frothy overflow
from our thrusting tongues
churning to excess
in the love labor of birthing
exquisite blogging delectations. -
Continuing a Reflection...
*ouch*
I should be the happiest man alive, but, of course, I'm not. Too many 151s last night. I did the first one for "medicinal purposes," that is, to preempt the imminent onset of a flu-front (I do subscribe to a scientific suspicion that flu epidemics are borne on/induced by radical seasonally-varying weather such as experienced in my locale yesterday) and it seemed to work, numbing my lips in the process. But, in rapid succession, the second, third, and forth...aiiii! That's 604 proof! They should just crystallize the stuff for me to snort, as I struggle for mindlessness--*ouch*!
And, truthfully, I'm not even the happiest blogger on Xanga. I'm not even the happiest male blogger on Xanga--that's got to be James ! Thanks to agrochick78 for *snickering* me into this awareness! And while such awareness doesn't make me any more or less happy, it does empower, yeah! You see, it reminded me that I do know someone who knows the joy of fishes:
Chuang Tzu and Hui Tzu were crossing Hao river by the dam.
Chuang said, "See how free the fishes leap and dart. That is their happiness."
Hui replied, "Since you are not a fish, how do you know what makes fishes happy?"
Chuang said, "Since you are not I, how can you possibly know that I do not know what makes fishes happy?"
Hui argued, "If I, not being you, cannot know what you know. It follows that you not being a fish cannot know what they know."
Chuang said, "Wait a minute! Let us get back to the original question. What you asked me was 'How do you know what makes fishes happy?' From the terms of your question you evidently know I know what makes fishes happy."
Chuang continued, "I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river."
I know the joy (and pain), too, of fishes having put my brain in a fishbowl of 151 last night!!
-
Joint Semi-Posthumous Reflections
Reflection #1
Intellectual insights are paper ...for a mind that's sharp as a shredder.
Reflection #2
The moment we talk about it, the simplest thing becomes complex and incomprehensible. In other words, simplicity analyzed is a diatribe most self-trickingly contrived. In other words, although onomatopoeia would keep us true, onomastics generally rules. In other words…blah, blah, blah...
Reflection #3
Wisdom is incommunicable. Wisdom that a wise man tries to communicate always sounds like folly. Like folly? Two syllables, begins with…jolly, trolley, dolly, holly, volley??? Ah! The Hindu goddess of destruction, Kali!!
Reflection #4
No one is more vain, more intent on echo and approval than the thinker, and indeed he is bitterly in need of echo and approval …and eProps.
Reflection #5
To be able to throw oneself away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile—that is happiness. Hence, haha, I should be the happiest man alive!
Hermann Hesse, notforprophet
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Nympholepsy
...sometimes it sounds like you're a flat piece of skinny shale dreamily skipping over a calm gleaming mountain lake...touch...touch...touch... Don't stop until you get to the other side!
And look at it this way, even if you *flop*plunk in the middle of your hops ...imagine it's just this tranquil clear water high in the Rockies, and the water is not deep at all, and you can just get up and wade through it while breathing in the mountain air and dreaming upon the clouds passing overhead.
At such moments, you imagine yourself a mountain lake nymph arising from a cleansing dip. And the rippling water about you conveys an energetic message of your grace, and the boulders on the mountains around you vibrate deeply with harmonic welcomes for your presence, and the slight but warm wisp of a breeze that begins to swirl around you imagines itself dancing with your splendor. Serenity rules and you are its goddess. Need is no where, as all is fullness. And, as you ponder with ecstasy the wondrous timelessness of it all, you wish (I wish) you had a satellilte/internet-enabled pda to share the moment with your nympholeptic friend notforprophet....
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It Wouldn't Have Been Make-Believe...
It is after work and I've returned to my vehicle on the top floor of the parking garage at 12th near Lakeside. I always park the top floor because of the scenic view north over the downtown airport and the shores of Lake Erie itself. So it is nearly sunset and--no, I can't feel the sand, or hear the waves, or gather in the scent of raw water, or skip rocks. But I can sit in my truck and take in the impressionistic surcease of sun-light on the lake. Sitting watching the day pleasure away and the shadows dream themselves into reality.
Oh, yes…I'm writing offline on my laptop while doing a brew or two (yeah, sitting in the vehicle drinking, even though parked alone and just enjoying the scene, is probably formally DUI.... But if our president (GWB) boasts some similar episode amidst so many sparkling credentials, why not follow the lead??...anyways...)
So I was expecting a buddy to call me on my cell after work, but it looks like that isn't going to happen. Would have met at a bar and discoursed about all and such (shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings or merely babes barhopping heavenly about) and even more. But not tonight, it seems!
So now I've a decision to make: venture forth alone to drink and/or socialize or retire to some location and shroud myself in economics, statistics and academia. Sounds like any easy decision, right? ...academia! Sure...might as well make muddy dirt soup and use worms for noodles, the prospects for delectability and enjoyment that holds. But, I guess, the point is that it ain't meant as enjoyment at all, but has everything to do with accumulating capital, and battering at intellectual scarcity, and providing more intellectual and economic choice. Like a genie in a bottle that you have found along the way--informing you have three wishes. But you figure if you theorize, economize, amortize, but regardless all else, invest, you'll have more than three wishes since $wishe$ will already be drawing interest.
Well, then I'd blow my three wishes right now for sure! I'd wish: 1) that the genie would transform himself/herself into a mermaid so that I could behold such imagined mythic beauty, 2) that the mermaid would transform herself into a stunning ancient cleopatran princess so I could lament the inconsistency of time and fate that makes somethings in this world too early and other things too late, and 3) that the princess would transform herself back into the genie so as not to deny the genie his/her own due destiny. Yep, that blows the wishes…for SURE! Clearly, at the moment, I deem myself rebellious. Hence, academia sucks. Think I'll venture yonder instead...I can ride...yes, Willow, we can still ride !!!
-
...something, just something
no need to be tripping
as I sink inside:
bullets of awareness
as vagrant as cosmic rays
pierce my armored veil of ignorance
and I begin to die of enlightenment.
i never thought it would be this way:
one by one like noah’s ark sliced in half
each thought slipping in,
ticking, then slipping out again.
like the drip of a faucet on a sleepless night:
each moment resetting only to déjà vu again.
the sinister side of the lurid life
could never hold a candle, would never cast a shadow, they said,
on this limbering lucidity hard-won in embracing ‘the truth’.
so why do i, with my life now flashing before,
see only the dark hues of those most forbidden moments
when life truly invented itself? -
i just don't know what is coming over me
...i'm feeling like i want to sleep, sleep, sleep a thousand years. Just rest and forget and do nothing. call it lazy, i call it something i haven't felt for many, many years. it feels like my mind, my acuity, my sharpness is fuzzing away. and it is of no concern to me. or almost no concern. i know what i'm saying probably sounds commonplace and typical for most people; but the enjoyment of rest, the yearning for sleep, the dissing of the active mind is just so strange to me...and now all so compelling. i feel like the dreamworld is calling me, my dreamside recalling me. i've been away too long and missed too much...now sweet rest must balance the mania. i kinda had this inkling when we were working together the other day--i really fantasized just collapsing in a heap, letting you do the work, and having you nudge me out of the office after completing the job. that fantasy, that thought seemed at the time so outrageous, so demented and i fought it internally, with the fight itself exhausting me, and i struggled on bravely but with energy diminished. now i think i understand that i was coming down to this: relearning how to surrender to that rich pleasurable laziness called rest. remembering how to open myself to the amazing pleasure dome called dreams. discovering again how to dream other dreams and better ones.
-
It would seem...
...that anything written in the public view can be read by the public and interpreted by the public accordingly. Sometimes I've written for the public, sometimes just for myself, and sometimes for another, for you. If the response of a public plays with your mind, is that my game? What are the rules? Who wins? Does everybody lose?
If you think that I designed a game to fluster you, then I must be evil. Not naughty, not playful, evil. Or maybe blogging turns, transforms, tortures everything into a game or something seeming so. Maybe blogging is evil. Maybe it is time to go.
-
It is with a very heavy heart
that I confess that I had my kitten Hawk
new-terred
Actually, when I took him to the vets and the attendant asked me why I was bringing him in, I could barely even bring myself to squeak up the euphemism: "To have him slightly lightened." She said, "What??" I said, casting my eyes down towards my own private parts, "you know, light-ened." "I've never heard it put like that!", was her giggling response. But her mirth didn't raise my spirits.
Even cross-species, how could one male perpetrate such a devious deed upon another male animal?? Now he's fallow--and I'm fallen. Already I'm having visions of my fate after rebirth as a pet of some monster such as me....
-
Revamping
Hey, John Steinbeck, my author-hero!
Looking back over his novels, I remember reading one of my first and my favorite of his, Cannery Row, holed up in a hotel in Washington, D.C. years ago. It was weird, it was cool: I just traveled to D.C., got accommodations in a fairly expensive downtown hotel room for a few days, read several of his books, and then left town!!
Apparently, that experience, and the book Cannery Row in particular, left an indelible impression upon me that I have only now realized: I grew up to be a lot like the "Doc" of the Row! Yes, from a very young age I wanted to be a scientist--now fancy this blogger that!
But I know what you're thinking: *a scientist--nfp?--he's too surreal* *psychic mumbo* *tripped-out acid flashback attack* *get out of here! the man's whacked on words!*
But I did fulfill my dream...
"Sediment Mixing by Lampsilis radiata siliquoidea (Mollusca) from Western Lake Erie," with P.L. McCall and M.S. Tevesz. Journal of Great Lakes Research, V.5, pp. 105-111 (1979).
"Identification of Monosaccharides in Hydrolyzed Nautilus Shell Insoluble Matrix by Gas Chromotography/Mass Spectrometry," with M.S. Tevesz, B.A. Smith, D.G. Hehemann, R.W. Binkley, and J.G. Carter. The Veliger. V. 35, pp 381-183 (1992).
"Identification of Monosaccharides in Hydrolyzed Bivalve Shell Insoluble Matrix," with R.W. Binkley, M.S. Tevesz, T.E. Hionidou, P.L. McCall, and J.G. Carter. The Veliger. V. 37, pp 410-413 (1994)
"Organic Matrix Composition of Modern and 8.7K BP Mya truncata (Mollusca: Bivalvia) from Arctic Canada," with M.J. Risk, M.S. Tevesz, and C.D. Karr. Kirtlandia, No. 49, pp. 15-20 (1996).
"Seasonal Variation in Oxygen Isotopic Composition of Two Freshwater Bivalves: Sphaerium striatinum and Anodonta grandis," with M.S. Tevesz and E. Barrera. Journal of Great Lakes Research, 22(4):906-916. (1996).
...before blogging made me stupid again.
Yes, I am blaming Xanging
For my intellectual demise!
Yet like a phoenix I shall rise,
From burnt ashes
To take wing and soar.
So expect my tone to change:
I'll still blog--but as a fool--inverted?
Nevermore.
P.S. I added the word *inverted* above after first posting this, since in recalling my interpretation of the Tarot deck--as my memory was jogged by styxx374 and miss_tori in the Comments, this is what I truly meant!
The Fool upturned can admonish that a decision may be foolish, too profligate, and that there is a peril in taking chances too casually. So this card doesn’t mean 'do whatever, just as it arises'. Though such spontaneity might seem to lead to an entertaining life, eventually--most likely--it becomes unsustainable. Rather, it is about remaining available to one’s inner voice or as the taoist Chuang Tzu said “choosing this and letting go of that.”
-
And the Bonus Question on my Stats Final Test:
21. Bonus Question!!!
Xanga refers to:
a) a curvilinear spontaneity demonstrating no Pearson product moment correlation whatsoever.
b) a set of relationships which are rationally inaccessible.
c) an exemplification of fuzzy logic quite blogly defined.
d) a place where statistics has no life and cannot exist: the Dead Blogger's Society!
e) all of the above.
And I just now got all the tests back (I'm in class blogging by laptop and sattelite while the students take their tests) and... only one student missed this answer!
Brilliant are they! (Of course, the bonus question was verbatim from the practice test posted Sunday.)
Now schools out...till summer. Yeah, till! when it appears that I get to prof again.
-
So Selfish
This blog is for me, just me..*oh he's being selfish now.* Yes, you may say that. In fact, I demand that you do. And louder. And repeat. Repeat *after you*!!! Good. Now listen up: this blog, this blog reveals itself.
Was that a tiddy bar with carnalities amassed? Yes. Then whence and henceforth? The weekend was an aural epiphany with an unmistakable signature of caring and loving kindness! So to hell with the rest. I don't give a fuck about rest--I yearn to strive, to stay alive, to better my best.
So who was the grrl? You, grrl, of course. Always and forever you. And the moment was an improbability in eternity never waiting to happen. Which transpired like the first bloom of this alien entity called *flower* , nonetheless. And I bathed in our mutually-inventing playfulness.
And then I ran like Mercury this morning, ran and encountered Pat, freebirdgonewild's dad, and defied destiny with my ability to slither deathlessly between any cradle and grave. But before that, I retracted to 6.5 exact years of age. And heard the church powers morbidly daunting me to attain 7.0 exact and the contemnable *age of reason*. Yes, the Age of Reason with great calculations bureaucratically-pinholed, indeed! I saw it so relicly-proffered, and so decided instead to horde up on reason well before that blind date! A lifetime of reason pre-emptively sucked up in my unrationed prereasoned-aged precociousness. But that, that is but memory (no? yes!)...while this morning itself was entirely renewing and propitiously fresh. I was so free and young again! And remain so, to this very moment of witness, with contempt for all forms of true lifelessness!
Shall I disappear? Of course! Anything, everything written is not the culmination, but merely the concomitance of my adamance on this active side of infinity. Which means: I don't count my breaths! Yet breathe deeply, thus to avoid existential duress.
I have a vision of a twin-engine landing on an unbending stretch of highway between Tucson and Phoenix. So it's me and I flew treetop all the way from Costa Rica to homebase. Only the desert is my dust-devil witness. I did good, like Lindy, and cannot now care less.
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The Final Stretch
I spent a few hours yesterday preparing a practice test for the final tomorrow for my students in my Quantitative Reasoning graduate course. They have it pretty easy, I think, being largely unburdened with formula and complex calculations. If you'd like to tease and test yourself with it, check it out here.
This particular campus is located in Mentor, OH and yesterday, for the first time, the serendipity of being a *professor* in *mentor* struck. Yikes! Socrates, come help me, I'm stuck in Plato's cave.
Well, it's time to lead my students onward! I have this notion of starting a Dead Blogger's Society....now open to the Introduction about Terms of Use and rip the page out! Go ahead! Rip it out! -
I think Einstein's been checking out leadcrow's new profile pic!
Comment I left on Rebel's blog:
*as Xanga softly transforms into a porno site*
...amongst MaggieGirl and leadcrow and BlueMoo and Rebel and god knows who else whom!!! If this keeps up (please, please), I might just start to have a "Xanga's Top 10 Butts and Boobs of the Week" feature myself! -
Random Access Maneuvering
I've hidden the Sites I Read and henceforth will utilize notforSites, a randomized blog of my subscriptions, along with notforPeeps, a randomized blog of my subscribers, to mindlessly blog along!!
Occasionally, I will expand the envelope to include what's hot (Featured Content) and what's not or not yet (very New Subscribers and Most Recent) to stay abreast of the rest!
Freedom!
-
Death by fire or death by drowning??
Let's say you have a choice:
a) I do have a choice.
b) I don't have a choice.
Assuming that you have chosen a) above and decided to proceed, when it comes to that moment, do you:
a) go out in a blaze of glory (like a Vietnamese saphron-cloaked monk pouring gasoline upon himself/herself and lighting a match in protest of a hideotic war)???
or
b) submerge into the Deep (and allow yourself the endless permanence of fluid-filled sleep as if you born to someday embrace your fate as current-tossed, forever-drifting merman or mermaid)???
For those of you who don't particularly like dichotomies, I tender this hybrid variation:
c) death by fire-water??
Now choose of forever accept your fate!!
-
notforPeeps is my new portal on Xanga.
It is my entire subscriber base randomized for an ineluctable blogging tour.
I've never had a "Subscriber Day" or acknowledged my tremendous base of subscribers in any way in my posts. *Remiss! Boo! Hiss!* Okay, okay, I know! But when I began seriously contemplating some form of compensatory commemoration last month, I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer numbers I was up against (up against??!! these are your subscribers, foo!!)--approaching 300 now--and I went "WOW." What could I do that wouldn't be overkill--like listing everyone's name in a single massive post, or creating an unwieldy 15x20 spreadsheet matrix??? I didn't want to honor my subscribers just to have everyone lost in a crowd!
After toying with various presentation javascripts this past month, today I hit on it!! I could create a whole new blog dedicated only to my subscribers, which would not only honor them, but make them more available and visible to me on an everyday basis! So what I have devised is a redirect of my subscribers' blog, notforPeeps, to a randomized selection of my subscribers themselves!Try it out: click here and see notforPeeps take you to a random one of my subscribers. Then hit your Back button (not Refresh) and go randomly to yet another subscriber. Then again and again! This is great since every time now when I dialup the internet, I'll come upon one of my subscribers first (as my portal browser home), instead of my own site or the Xanga front end! And if I want to browse Xanga in a casual fashion without being steered by the Featured Content or the Newly Updated, notforPeeps once again!
Thank you all for being my subscribers, readers, and friends!P.S. I've been using this resource for the past half day and am really enjoying it. Of course, I'm finding that to keep it a truly living resource, I will need to weed it of "subscribers" who have formally forever left Xanga.
Naturally, too, the consideration for creating a number of other randomly redirected blogs comes to mind: Random access to notforSites (Sites I Read), notforFun (typically humorous sites), notforFriends (close friends--a subset of Sites I read) notforCreeps (creeps and potential enemies--not to support but merely watch out for!), noforChicks (ah! now that's a good one! oops...I let it out...I'd better stop here!)....Well, you get the idea. And then one could make hyperlink buttons and put them, let's say, in the header (banner area) or footer (site meter area) of one's home site and thus available for ready access OR (thanks to kittle for the notion) actually make these blogs your Sites I Read (replacing individual listings)!!!
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Waking Thoughts
Buddha was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
I smell the sun rising. I hear gravity churning....And I see the echoes of today about to hug my laughter! I'm potentially foul enough to be a lord of darkness, but would rather play with the butterflies!
What magic is coffee that brings such words to mind? Or is coffee just the nickel used to scratch the mind's instant lottery ticket? Rephrased: Or is coffee just the nickel bag? Is caffeine not illegal? If caffeine were not such a perfect adjunct to our work-a-day world, they would surely make it illeagal. An lleagal beagle!
*man is standing next to dog, another man approaches*
"Does your dog bite?"
"No."
*approaching man pets dog*
*dog bites*
*ouch! *
"I thought you said your dog doesn't bite!"
"Sir, that is not my dog. -
Prospects for Diminishing Headlines…
President Bush Launches Missile Defense Plan
President Bush Launches Missile Defense
Plan
President Bush Launches Missile
Defense Plan
President Bush Launches
Missile Defense Plan
PresidentBush LaunchesMissile Defense Plan
PresidentBushLaunches Missile Defense Plan
PresidentBuschLaunches Missile Defense Plan
PresidentBusch BeerLaunches Missile Defense Plan
PresidentEnjoy A Busch BeerLaunches Missile Defense Plan
…might as well
under the umbrella of a vision
of missiles raining
down from Hell.
"You can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!"
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