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It's funny how the position for boot-licking is so close to the one used for curb-stomping.

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Topics - Cainad (dec.)

#51
The little gear bit that goes on the turning peg thingy:



One on this guitar is missing. What is called, so I may acquire a new one? Or do I have to buy a whole new thingamabobber 'cause you can't get new whatsits for this kind of doohicky?

Please help. It's the only way to alleviate the 12-inch Horrorstache that's suddenly sprouted on my face.
#52
Fruit is fucking awesome. It's all growing on trees and shrubs and shit, and you can totally just leave a fruit-bearing plant in your backyard, never do any work (except the initial planting if you don't already have one), and BAM it'll give you a bunch of awesome fruit FOR FREE.

HOW COOL IS THAT?

If you're really hardcore, you can grow shit like cantaloupes and watermelon in a garden but that's work so screw that.



MANGOES FUCK YEAH

Eat these sweet bitches straight (gotta slice 'em up though 'cause the skin and seed are some nasty shit) or make a delicious-as-fuck mango chutney to smear all over your boring-ass chicken, and possibly you or your significant other's tits if you're into that.
#53
Or Kill Me / Someone turn down the damn noise
June 17, 2010, 05:19:35 PM
I can't do it. I can't bloody do it.

Maybe I'm too dumb, too illiterate, or both. Maybe I should have taken the full-semester course rather than the short summer course. Maybe I would do better if we were reading the novels; The Stranger and The Seducer's Diary and whatnot.

All I know for sure is that trying to read Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Camus fills me with a deep, unrelenting loathing that makes me feel nauseous and makes me want to hurl the book across the room, preferably into a fire. And based on this I'm pretty sure Sartre and Hiedegger will make me feel the same way.

The study drug doesn't help. All it does is give me the ability to peruse multiple pages of nonsense before giving up in disgust, rather than a single paragraph. Even the lectures, which used to be my only way of understanding anything, are failing to penetrate my thick skull. All I see is page after page of shit, horrible bullshit that means nothing to me and is worth even less. It's so much fucking noise, and only Nietzsche comes close to being tolerable because at least he seemed to have a notion of what a joke the whole venture is.

What truly burns me though is the knowledge that by taking this class and paying tuition, I am supporting an institution which exists for precisely one purpose. That purpose is allowing airheaded rhetoriticians to make a living by writing 200-page treatises on subjcts of exponentially increaing irrelevance using poorly defined terms and inexcusably vague generalities, and babble on with other such airheads on these subjects in a neverending game of trying to prove to each other how clever they are while drinking coffee in the morning, liquor in the afternoon, and smoking cigarettes.

Like I said: probably just too stupid or too unprepared for the class.
#54
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRbcl4zG3LQ

I make a vow, right here, right now, that I will watch the next ten videos posted ITT all the way through (one video per poster!).

Your fucking worst. Do it.
#55
Or Kill Me / Gone Dull
May 29, 2010, 11:26:40 AM
I've lost my edge. I used to have a knack for writing, and now it's gone. Words would just flow from my fingertips onto the screen; neat little ideas spun into verbal abstractions that other people could pick up and experience if they liked. And not to brag, but they did like, even if I never thought they were worth much. I've had friends and teachers who mistakenly thought I would pursue a career as a writer. Even though I never cared for what I wrote, I'd give a lot to be able to do it again.

It all disappeared when I stopped taking brain pills. Adderall, the awful stuff. On it, I was an efficient, angry, and productive machine. Ideas crystallized rapidly and beautifully inside my head, and I had to let them out lest they crack my skull from the inside. I almost never had to draft, and barely even had to proofread. The thoughts would form with such clarity and precision that no real process came between my brain and the blank page except for that of my fingers moving to touch the keys or move the pen. Some of my best crap took less than an hour to write.

I was angry, intense, and someone very close to me didn't care for it. After a while, neither did I. Everything could be going perfectly well, and I'd still be angry. I'd force a smile to put others at ease and try to remind myself that everything was just peachy (because it usually was), but within a few moments I'd return to a scowl and terse language. Adderall put a sharp, clear focus on everything–too sharp. I started taking it less and less for the sake of, ironically, my mental health.

Now it's all gone, no more. Everything's all soft and muddy, and sometimes I'm even able to reach a state one might call "calm" on a semi-regular basis. Ideas and thoughts in my head are softer and squishier than they were, and have a habit of oozing out on their own without needing me to write them out of my head. But I can't write anymore, and soon I will be in a situation where I'll be surrounded by very few friends and I will have need of a sharp mind that is efficient to the point of viciousness. Looks like the Old Me might be making a comeback to PD.
#56
http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=269571&town=Southampton&n=STONY%20BROOK%20UNIVERSITY%20WILL%20ANNOUNCE%20DRASTIC%20CUTS%20TO%20STONY%20BROOK%20SOUTHAMPTON

:lulz: :lulz:

STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY WILL ANNOUNCE DRASTIC CUTS TO STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON
QuoteStony Brook University officials are proposing to slash spending on Stony Brook Southampton, effectively reducing operations at the 81-acre Shinnecock Hills campus to two buildings and pulling the plug on most of the programs offered there, in order to save money, according to local politicians.

The proposal comes just four years after Stony Brook University purchased the campus for $35 million from Long Island University, and invested tens of millions of dollars in an effort to transform it into a center for sustainability and environmental studies.

In a closed meeting at the Stony Brook University's main campus on Tuesday afternoon, Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. discussed the proposal with New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and U.S. Representative Tim Bishop, according to Mr. Thiele and Mr. LaValle.

Mr. Thiele, who along with Mr. LaValle was instrumental in convincing the state to provide the money to acquire the college, described Stony Brook University's expected announcement as a "breach of faith." In the same press release issued Tuesday evening, Mr. Thiele said Stony Book University officials "are taking the substantial goodwill created by Stony Brook on the East End in the last five years and flushing it down the toilet."

As per the proposal, the Shinnecock Hills campus will remain open, but will no longer house students starting this fall, and the academic programs offered there would be reduced to marine sciences and a graduate degree in writing, according to Mr. Thiele. The campus currently offers nine undergraduate majors, along with the graduate degree in writing.

The 500 students who currently attend the satellite campus, which is operated as a quasi-seperate entity from the main campus, would probably be absorbed into the main campus, according to Mr. Thiele.

Mr, Thiele also said that most of the facilities at the campus, including the library, student center and dormitories, would be shuttered under the current plan.

Immediately after the meeting, Mr. Thiele said he expected Stony Brook University officials to announce that their decision is final within the next 24 to 48 hours.

"I was left with no indication that they intended to consider other alternatives," Mr. Thiele said.

Representatives from Stony Brook University, as well as Mary Pearl, the dean and administrative vice president of Stony Brook Southampton, could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday evening.

Stony Brook University underwent a change of leadership this summer, when Dr. Stanley, formerly the vice chancellor for research and a professor of molecular microbiology at Washington University in St. Louis, took the reins from Shirley Strum Kenny, who retired after 15 years of service. Stony Brook Southampton was purchased under Dr. Kenny's leadership.

In the last 18 months, New York State has handed down more than $500 million in cuts to the State University of New York System, $33 million of which have been passed on to Stony Brook University, according to Mr. LaValle, who also spoke out against the proposal to make drastic cuts at Stony Brook Southampton.

Mr. Thiele said that Stony Brook University estimates it will save $6 million per year by cutting back programs offered at Stony Brook Southampton.

Five years ago, Long Island University, the original owners of the campus, were proposing to close the college and sell the land to developers. An outcry from the community, and the help of local politicians, thwarted that sale and set the stage for Stony Brook's acquisition of the campus.

#57
They told us we needed to save American lives. They told us there were people in that place over there who did bad things to us and we needed to go over there and punish them, and it was true, for the most part.

But the Bad People weren't enough, so they told us about more bad people being over in that other place. It wasn't really true but it was for the good of the Empire, so it was worth it. Now they've spent all the money on fighting those wars, spent all the soldiers too. So they made it up to all the kids by giving them an extra weekend day as a way of saying "Sorry we ruined your future."

So now these kids can grow up learning about the Great American Freedom Campaign in that part of the world that they can't find on a map because they cut Fridays and lopped off the 12th grade so they could get out and join the party sooner.
#58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk2vR8w2sjc


I've seen worse things on the internet. Far, far worse.

But this is pretty damn bad. Watch all the way to the end; they saved the absolute best part for last.
#59
Discordians, especially PD.com-flavored Discordians, are notorious for disagreeing with each other about pretty much everything, up to and including the details of the pseudoreligion that they are nominally all members of (in some sense). Whether Discordians should stick apart or organize for greater hilarity, whether or not Eris should be thought of as an actual deity, or whether or not to pray to Her, and all sorts of things that the PD itself likes to be ambiguous about (and even when it's not ambiguous, a Discordian is supposedly forbidden from believing what he reads, so...); all this and more are up for grabs in a theoLOLgical Discordian discussion.


But one thing that I have never seen challenged in my time here is the notion that Everything (capital "E") is Chaos (capital "C"), and that Order and Disorder are illusions created by our own pattern-seeking minds.

When I first read the PD, this seemed self-evident. But I am no longer in that headspace, and now I wonder why we never argue this point. It's often used to back up another argument, and frequently used to clear up ambiguity about when something should be described as "chaos" or as "disorder," since the two are often used interchangeably among people who don't share our fucked-up worldview.

Not sure where I was going with this, but it's something that's been squatting in my brain for a while and it won't go away. I guess I'm just not comfortable knowing that there's something Discordians have yet to argue about; gotta poke it with a stick, you know?
#60
Relevant posts from the Today I Learned thread (starting with this post):

Quote from: Darth Cupcake on January 05, 2010, 05:02:29 PM
Quote from: Cainad on January 05, 2010, 04:40:17 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 05, 2010, 02:04:01 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on January 05, 2010, 08:11:17 AM
Today I learned

Or re-learned

That I am very tired of being a novelty.

How are you a novelty?

- "look guys what a funny novel friend I made last week, she's small cute looks a bit like an angry eskimo and has a nose ring"
- "OOOOOOOOOOoooooooooO000Ooo can I feed her?"
- "well ... okay, but NEVER feed her kalamara olives after midnight!"

:?

I think that may be closer to the mark than you think, if I understand Nigel correctly. Sometimes people who act like they want to be your friend are secretly Normals with a desire to spend a little bit of time with a novelty Weirdo before going back to what's "safe."

Yeah. That's how a lot of my dating life used to go, when I still bothered with the damn thing.

"Oh hey, she's cute. And really different from what I'm used to. That's fun! And hey, she's comfortable with her sexuality. That's really neat! Oh man, she's exposing me to all these weird new experiences and ideas! She's so quirky and unique!" But then after a little while, they get bored of quirky and unique and new experiences and want to settle back down into normal. Except that this IS normal. They want THEIR idea of normal. So then you end up getting ditched. It goes from REALLY HOT (newness exciting shiny etc) to fleeing pretty quickly, sometimes.

I would hypothesize that is what Nigel means, and if so, she probably has it to a greater extent than I do, because I think she's more quirky and unique and artistic and whatnot than I am, so she probably gets it more intensely.

It's like the cliche in all those indie films about the Manic Sexy Pixie Savior thing whatever. Where some "crazy" girl comes in and saves the introspective, emotionally fragile male main character and brings life back into his, well, life (usually through sex and all her CRAAAAAAAAAAZY antics!) but then their relationship is doomed and she dies or leaves him or turns out to be a psychotic or something, and he moves on with his normal life, but feels re-energized thanks to her quirky ways. He is now a more interesting person, whereas she is a discarded freak, an objet d'art from the extreme of the spectrum, who has no place in his nice normal world. She was a learning experience, if you will.

This sounds so much angrier and more bitter than I intend for it to. I'm honestly just amused by that trope, not angry about it, so apologies if this comes off the wrong way.

That said... Nigel, anyone who sees you as a novelty should be punched in the face with a railroad spike.

Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on January 06, 2010, 04:49:05 AM
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 05, 2010, 02:04:01 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on January 05, 2010, 08:11:17 AM
Today I learned

Or re-learned

That I am very tired of being a novelty.

How are you a novelty?

- "look guys what a funny novel friend I made last week, she's small cute looks a bit like an angry eskimo and has a nose ring"
- "OOOOOOOOOOoooooooooO000Ooo can I feed her?"
- "well ... okay, but NEVER feed her kalamara olives after midnight!"

:?

Basically something like that. Straight guys or girls like my ex, who think they're "edgy" or "alternative" because they wear funny clothes and/or like the art/music scene and/or open relationships and/or dick meet me and think "oooh, cute eccentric girl! Look how funny she is, with her quirks and cones and lard and her thing about some obscure Greek goddess! This will make my life fun and exotic and cool." But they don't actually GET anything, and since actually at the end of the day they want to go home to Tami with an i and not really be challenged and gradually start to realize that it's 24/7 and not just a new kind of hipster, I start to grate on them. Because I'm still awake making something that's not even serious in Photoshop, and I am seriously going to leave those fucking cones on my roof FOREVER. And maybe, just maybe, I really am going to wear a moustache to a party, and fuck, how embarrassing is that? Plus the weird shit on my walls. It's funny at first, but it's so cluttery, and am I really going to leave that up for the dinner party?

They're like TGRR's perverts... just because they're perverts doesn't make them freaks. They just think freaks are so cool, you know, so they want a pocket one to take to parties. For a while. Or, sometimes, they have a whole STABLE of them they rotate through and invite to parties. You gotta check this chick out, man; she's such a trip.

But I'm starting to recognize it in advance, and learning how to cut it off at the pass. I will not be collected. Like a goddamn Beanie Baby.

For the record, neither Pinecone nor Mario ever treated me like a novelty. Because they are both also freaks. They get it. You get it. I just need to stick to my people. I'm lucky to have some.


This seems to be a common theme in the lives of several of us, and I put it here in Or Kill Me because I think it's something worth ranting about.

We like to talk, and complain, about the Normals, the Machine, the cabbages, and the Greyfaces... but honestly, true Greyfaces are rare in my experience. Even the dullest twerp I've met needs at least a little tiny bit of the weird and novel in his or her life. Just enough to keep them alive and feeling like a warm body. That's what we're here for, at least in their estimation. Weirdos are for keeping in neat little boxes, to be taken out and played with for a little while and do tricks before going back in the box so we don't dirty up the nice new couch.

Or so they think.

The Weird do not take well to being contained. The Normals, the cabbages think they can have us piecemeal because we are easily ignored. This is untrue; we just tend to leave them alone because they bore the everloving shit out of us most of the time. They take us for granted, and when they find out the hard way that we don't have an "Off" switch, they freak out. It bothers them and makes them uncomfortable to know that we don't ever STOP being so weird, that our tricks and quirks and funny little ways of doing things are not just for amusing people at parties, but rather that we actually live that way, and we like it.

This is why I love the friends I have, and don't bother with people who flake. I'm friends with people who give me a run for my money when it comes to weirdness, people who see reality in such bizarre and shifting ways I can't help but be enchanted by them and call them my kin. Where the Normals laugh nervously and pull back, I tear up with joy and seek to embrace the weirdness in front of me. And it's only going to get stranger as the years go by, I'm sure of it.
#61
...and I thought I'd share a brief version of one of the stories she relayed to us from there:

Quick background: My mom is a medical doctor in the US Army

She was invited to spend a day at a girl's orphanage by the director/doctor of the orphanage, since it is much easier for a female doctor to give a proper examination and treatment to girls and young women in their culture. She went wearing a white headscarf and without a weapon, since firearms frighten the children.

She realized that in addition to the gender issue, the real reason the director of the orphanage wanted my mom there was to show "his girls" what a woman can grow up to be in this day and age. It's a great concern, especially for the older girls, whether or not higher education made one unfit for marriage and motherhood; my mom was there to show them it didn't as much as she was there to treat them. She showed them that she had two sons who were both "this tall," and they laughed; "taller even than you, Doctoress?"

As she left, she was told that at least three of the girls were eagerly talking about becoming "doctoresses" or nurses.


I really, really enjoy being related to the people in my family.
#62
Or Kill Me / The Worms and Their Little Blue Pills
November 08, 2009, 08:09:03 PM
There are worms in my brain. I don't know when exactly they got in there, but they've been there for quite some time now. My thoughts flow through the tunnels the worms have burrowed through my gray matter, and they themselves sometimes carry my thoughts around. But these worms are not very efficient for my purposes, partly because they squirm around randomly and partly because they have no goal in mind towards which to work efficiently.

Of course they have nothing in mind, they're worms, damn it! They are what's in my mind; pay attention to the metaphor!

Anyway, the workings of the worms are not conducive to getting things done. Trying to direct them so that my thoughts flow smoothly and directly towards a certain goal is like, well, it's like trying to herd a bunch of damn worms. They don't pay attention to anything but wriggling and burrowing. But that's what the pills are for, these little blue pills.

The pills do something I've never been able to do: they force the worms to line up in neat little rows and march in time to the tune of whatever goals I set. How worms can be made to march without feet I don't know, but they're marching all right. In spit-shined jackboots, no less. With the pills controlling the worms, I become a machine. A powerful, efficient machine that runs smoothly as a dream on lubricated bearings. The pounding march of the worms makes sure the trains of my thought all run on time, and the jackboots stamp out errant or unwanted thoughts with hardly a sound. For a few hours, everything runs better than ever before, better than it should. For a few hours, I am effective. Then the pills wear off.

When the pills start to wear off, I can't keep the worms in line anymore. But the damning thing is that they keep on marching around in jackboots. With no more rhyme or reason guiding them they stomp all around my brain, trampling everything and my trains of thought go flying off the tracks. I become the machine with half of its bearings taken out, rattling and screeching, performing its tasks with grinding, noisy hesitancy. Everything inside and outside my head becomes a disordered mess and I know that at any moment I might truly begin to laugh and laugh and laugh until I realize I'm screaming.

Finally, the jackbooted feet the worms never had in the first place wear off and they go back to wriggling and burrowing. I am no longer the machine, and I can rest until I need to be effective again.
#63
You know who I miss the most? Calvin. I grew up with Calvin; he was always six years old but he was always older than me. He was a child sage, and I didn't always understand him but we had lots of fun together, Calvin, Hobbes, and I. He knew from the very beginning that school was there to beat his mind into shape, and he rebelled not only by outright refusal to be contained, but by shaping parts of his mind before those parts could be squeezed into public school molds. He knew, like all children know, what it means to have a good time, but he knew it consciously at such a young age. What's more, he laughed in the face of anyone who tried to tell him differently, right before dropping a water balloon on their head. Calvin knew the TV was there to satisfy the sweet tooth of the mind, and he let it work its glittering magic on him every once in a while, but it never really got to him. Partly, this was because he knew what exactly it was doing, and partly because of Hobbes.

I miss Hobbes too. Hobbes knew what fun was just as well as Calvin did; sometimes he knew it better. He was a voice of reason, but never too much reason. Just enough to keep Calvin from riding that wagon over too high of a cliff, just enough to make sure that chucking water balloons and snowballs was always more fun than the TV. Hobbes was there to put a jolt of Life back into Calvin's existence at the end of the daily public school slog.

But Calvin's gone now. I don't know where he went or what he does now, but I think he may have grown up. He probably didn't mean for it to happen; it probably snuck up on him when he wasn't looking. Once he grew up, he stopped really being Calvin, you know? And the worst part is, growing up was the only thing Hobbes couldn't save him from. Without the real Calvin, Hobbes is just a stuffed tiger, and without the real Hobbes, Calvin can't be the real Calvin we all knew. It took both of them to survive in this world, and if we had them here today they'd know how to deal with the ever-growing weirdness and sickness of our society and they'd show us all how it's done.

But one cannot exist without the other, and now they're both gone. Maybe if we could find them they'd tell us how to find Curly.

I sure do miss them.
#64
Last night, my friend decided that my dozing off on the common area couch was not acceptable, seeing as the night was still very young. She retreated into her room and returned with a small chocolate-coated candy that contained the same amount of caffeine as two normal cups of coffee. Now, normally I'm not dumb enough to let my self-destructive impulses direct me to consume caffeine in the evening when I have class the next morning, but something about this friend brings out the worst in me.

Within fifteen minutes, I had bolted out of the building and climbed into a tree, jittering in quiet reflection of what an incredibly bad idea it was to eat that stupid candy. When they finally found me, she directed me to eat not one, not two, but THREE more of these infernal caffeine bombs. I don't recall a time when I have ever consumed more than four cups of coffee in a day, and now I've just had twice that much in the span of half an hour.

I spend the next hour or so jumping about the common area, providing entertainment as the drugged chimpanzee for my awful friends. After climbing on the pipes that line the ceiling ceased to be sufficient distraction, I attempted to hide in my armoire, insisting that there were leprechauns out there who wanted to eat my spleen. Of course I didn't really think that, so much as I was trying to convince them that I was in no fit state to interact with my fellow humans and should be allowed to twitch in peace. I was dragged out against my will and told to go bother a friend of mine across the hall who was trying to do a project for his biology class. I attempted to resist, but repeated insistence overcame what paltry defense I had against bad ideas. Also, it seemed like a funny thing to do at the time.

Now, my friend across the hall very quickly picked up on the fact that I was in a bad way, and placated me for a full five mintues by playing "The Sinister Minister" on YouTube on his computer while he spoke with my caffeine-pushing friend about what the fuck she had done to me. Once these five mintutes had passed, something snapped. I removed my shirt, took off my shoes and put them on my hands. I then burst out of the room into the common area, my bare torso and arms covered in bright red welts from the previous day's paintball antics, screaming "WHERE IS YOUR RELIGION NOW?! I AM YOUR GOD, AND THE WORLD IS MY CHURCH!" I graced their sinful, filthy beings with the cleansing touch of my divinely imbued hand-shoes before curling up in the fetal position on the floor, contented with my work.

When I finally was able to rise and walk about again, the friend I had come to disturb from his work said to the caffiene pusher, "Now is an appropriate time." The caffeine pusher nodded, looked me in the face, and she told me there was no caffeine in those candies.

I have never been so happy in my entire life.
#65
The real world is disappearing underneath our feet and right before our eyes. In modern times the spectacle has replaced the real; the image, the perception of things is all that matters anymore. Nothing we do matters unless you buy the t-shirt and update your Facebook status and take some crappy pictures and text everyone to let them know you bought a t-shirt, updated Facebook and put up some crappy pictures on it.

Personal experiences is no longer enough, We rely on a constant stream of inane babble  to validate our existence. Communication has become so easy and so cheap that there is no longer any real information contained in what we say. For every one message that relates to a real physical happening, there are thousands more that amount to nothing beyond "I'm here. Are you there?"

As social animals it is natural for us to derive pleasure from interacting and communicating with each other. But we've made this communication so freely available--in fact you're usually considered something of a social pariah if you don't partake in this modern Soma--that we've become thoroughly dependent on it even as it becomes less and less satisfying. All this endless chatter is like a shower that never gets quite hot enough, so you twist and turn to get as much of yourself under the lukewarm communication as possible. The air chills your skin and you stay in longer and longer because you keep hoping that eventually the water will heat up and you'll finally feel satisfied and clean and be willing to step out into the chilly air. But there's no external power, no reality heating the water; it's just the heat of thousands of other tepid bodies, everyone showering with each other's runoff so it never gets above body temperature and we never get clean.

My generation has destroyed information. The world ends not in fire or in ice, it ends not with a bang or a whimper...

But with a Tweet.
#66
Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Discordians Anonymous
October 01, 2009, 03:20:59 AM
My name is Cainad... and I'm a Discordian.

I don't really know how I got wrapped up in all of this. There was a time when I was just another bored kid, a bored Army brat to be precise, who would read anything for an intellectual kick. Fiction, occult literature, pseudo-occult literature that's dumbed down for typical teenagers and other soft-headed types, and eventually the nigh infinite supply of jokes and weird crap known as the Internet.

When all your friends are "new friends" and you know they'll be gone in a few years at most, you start to get desperate, you know? Without the craziness of hanging out with buddies to satisfy your need for novelty and excitement, you look to other sources... and I found them. Internet humor sites, mainly, but somewhere deep in the underbelly of the Weird, I found something different. Something called Discordianism.

"A joke disguised as a religion, or a religion disguised as a joke" was the soundbite description I got. "Perfect!" I thought. I'm not religious, and the guys who wrote this silly holy book, the Principia Discordia, seem to have a sense of humor that parallels mine, so why not mess around by pretending to be a Discordian?

Here's the thing, though: pretending to be a Discordian and actually being a Discordian are not all that different. Some would probably tell you that there's no difference there at all. That's how it draws you in, see. First you think that you're just part of a ridiculous joke, and then you get so into the joke it seems real, but then it's a joke again, and then Reality is the joke and you forget where the hell you were going with this nonsense in the first place.

Once I found that there were active Discordian communities online, I started hanging out with them. Swapped a few jokes and ideas, listened more than I spoke (or rather, read more than I wrote), and the rest, as they say, is the future.
#67

Welcome to the First Church of the Wrath of Baby Jesus, where we respect the old-fashioned ways, even if we think they weren't quite old-fashioned enough for our tastes. Here the fear of God is still top dog, on account of all the other dogs being complete pussies.

Baby Jesus doesn't put up with your shit. If weekly fire and brimstone sermons don't get you to shamefully hide your sins from society like a normal human being, then by God, once the Wrath is done with you, you won't be able to tell your ass from your elbow. What's more, you'll like it that way and be grateful for it.

The Church of the Wrath tells only Truth. We're not gonna bullshit you and tell you everything's okay when it's not. In fact, we'll probably start screaming before you even know there's anything wrong. Join now and get in on our limited-time offer to become part of our Canned Goods and Bullets Drive. How does it work? Donate thirty dollars a month to the Church for our stockpile of canned food and ammunition, and then when civilization goes to Hell in a handbasket and the world begins to burn, we promise we'll skip over your house when we begin trawling through the neighborhood for food and supplies.

Come to the First Church of the Wrath of Baby Jesus: We're not weird like the others!





(inspired by that freaky Baby Jesus doll in the pic, and PD.com)
#68
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / TODAY IS THE DAY...
September 28, 2009, 02:04:39 PM
I SHALL PARTAKE IN THE GREAT EXPERIMENT, ONE PERFORMED BY MANY A GREATER SPAG THAN I


Today, I am going to plop myself down in front of television news for no less than 3 hours. Results will be posted.
#70
I USED OPERA BECAUSE THEY TOLD ME THE FIRST ONE'S FREE, AND NOW I LIVE ON THE STREETS

COINCIDENCE?
#71
From the USA Today outside my hotel room:

Quote from: http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Poll%3A+Health+care+views+take+sympathetic+tilt+-+USATODAY.com&expire=&urlID=408522157&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fwashington%2F2009-08-12-poll-12_N.htm&partnerID=1660By Susan Page, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The raucous protests at congressional town-hall-style meetings have succeeded in fueling opposition to proposed health care bills among some Americans, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds — particularly among the independents who tend to be at the center of political debates.

In a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say demonstrations at the hometown sessions have made them more sympathetic to the protesters' views; 21% say they are less sympathetic.

Independents by 2-to-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now.

The findings are unwelcome news for President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders, who have scrambled to respond to the protests and in some cases even to be heard. From Pennsylvania to Texas, those who oppose plans to overhaul the health care system have asked aggressive questions and staged noisy demonstrations.

The forums have grabbed public attention: Seven in 10 respondents are following the news closely.

"No one condones the actions of those who disrupt public events," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in an op-ed article published in today's USA TODAY. "But those in Washington who dismiss the frustration of the American people and call it 'manufactured' do so at their own peril."

White House adviser David Axelrod questioned the USA TODAY survey's methodology, saying those who report being more sympathetic to the protesters now were likely to have been on that side from the start. "There is a media fetish about these things," Axelrod said of the protests, "but I don't think this has changed much" when it comes to public opinion.

A study by the non-partisan Pew Research Center concluded that 59% of the airtime last week on 13 cable TV and radio talk shows were devoted to the health care debate.

In the USA TODAY Poll:

• A 57% majority of those surveyed, including six in 10 independents, say a major factor behind the protests are concerns that average citizens had well before the meetings took place; 48% say efforts by activists to create organized opposition to the health care bills are a major factor.

• There's some tolerance for loud voices: 51% say individuals making "angry attacks" on a health care bill are an example of "democracy in action" rather than "abuse of democracy."

• Some actions are seen as going too far. Six in 10 say shouting down supporters of a bill is an abuse of democracy. On that question, unlike most others, there isn't much of a partisan divide: 69% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans agree.

In Hagerstown, Md., Wednesday, nearly 1,000 people turned out for a forum held by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin; only 440 could fit in the community-college theater. The crowd often interrupted the senator, but was generally respectful.

In State College, Pa., Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter was jeered at a forum at a Penn State conference center. The 90-minute meeting at times became a shouting match between bill backers and foes.

Contributing: The Associated Press

let me be among the first to say: FUCK :crankey:


Alright, so this is proof positive that people are swayed by blatant, sensationalist lies shouted in an angry voice.
#72
http://ifile.it/zs0wybu

This is a pdf sheet of address label-sized stickers (Avery 8660). Half of them say "Most men secretly hate women, and most women secretly think they deserve it" and the other half say "Most women secretly hate men, and most men secretly think they deserve it."


Print these out, and put them up all over the goddamn place. Then report back with stories of how being exposed to this idea has caused men to devolve into women-haters.
#73
Okay, take this situation:
1) My aunt and uncle, "T" and "R" live in my grandparents' house because they are both out of work and the grandparents are old enough to need someone in the house to care for them.

2) "T" cannot work a regular job because she is mentally disabled from a head injury, and "R" is trying to recover from a massive retinal tear that requires a lot of time and rest to heal. Sustained high blood pressure is enough to prevent it from healing properly, in which case he will be permanently blind in that eye. Oh, and his other eye is forming a cataract.

3) My grandfather is aged and ailing, and my grandmother is even more so. She may be on her way out.

4) Two of my aunt's sisters, my aunts D1 and D2, are both healthy, employed, married to husbands who are healthy and employed, and own homes.

Now, given these circumstances, consider that D1 and D2 have "found" some evidence of computer misconduct (on a computer which D1 stole from her job) by T and R. D1 and D2 have pressed upon my grandfather, who is ancient and preoccupied with the poor condition of my grandmother, his wife of 50 years, to have T and R thrown out of the house.

T and R own nothing but the clothes on their backs and a car. They have done nothing but help my grandparents in their old age. They are unable to work, and putting R in a stressful situation and preventing him from resting will cause him to go blind in one of his eyes.



So my question for the PD.com ethics committee... this is not okay, ever, right? This is the sort of thing you disown relatives over, yes?
#74
Quote from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104045.html"We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country," Obama said. "But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."

The idea is that some people can't be prosecuted for anything, but they still seem like dangerous or shady characters, so we'd better keep them locked up. Of course, with the planned closing of Guantanamo Bay, no one will know where any of these people are being kept.

Of course, as defenders of the president's idea will remind you, no one ever said anything about applying this policy to future detainees.

Ha. Ha. Ha.
Funny.

Mr. President knows how the law works, and so should you. There's this little thing called "precedent," and in this case it basically means that if no one in power stomps on this idea and calls it out for what it is, it essentially becomes accepted practice. That means the USA will have accepted that it's okay for the government to detain someone for as long as they feel like, without trial, for no reason other than that they suspect the person might maybe possibly be dangerous. And they'll laugh at the poor sucker if he dares suggest that he's entitled to something silly and stupid like due process of law.

Once we, the people, let government have that power (and believe me, we will, being the simpering security-worshiping government kiss-ups we have become), do you really believe that they'll ever give it up?

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Not funny anymore.

If "indefinite preventive detention" doesn't make you spitting angry, then you'd better cancel your membership to the "I Like Freedom and Civilization" Club right about now.

At least the terrorists aren't pretending to be my friends and protectors. At least they're supposed to be my enemy. I'd rather be killed by an enemy than betrayed by my government under the pretense of protecting me.
#75
Yes that's right folks, I came up with a dumb idea for a theme, and I'm requesting your help in making yet another issue possible!

One of the issues that often comes up in this community is the difference between what I will call "cheerful" and "angry" Discordianism, for lack of better terms. The distinction between the Black Iron Prison and the Golden Sphere of Possibility is one facet of this: they address the same subject from different angles.

Basically, what I'm envisioning is an issue where we juxtapose angry, in-your-face Discordian rants and essays with silly, funny, and light-hearted pieces. This theme will be complemented by putting Darker And Edgier images on one page and lighter, brighter images on the next page (possibly mixing up the angry rants with the cheerful pictures and vice-versa on some pages).

To give some examples of what I mean:
Compare the piece on page 7 of the BIP (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/bip/7.php) with the one on page 25 (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/bip/25.php). The first one isn't necessarily "angry," but it is much more SRS BIZNIS than an interview with a computer program that is apparently the true Queen of England, running on a Commodore 64.

Bitter cynicism and Glorious Hate contrasted with playfulness and/or optimism. That sort of thing.

I will commence digging for essays. If you have written or can recall any essays that had either a distinctly angry or bitter tone or a distinctly cheerful or positive tone, post them here.


ALSO, ATTN OTHER INTERMITTENS EDITORS: Please check this thread from time to time to make sure I'm not stepping on your toes. I will be posting lists of what works I plan to include, and I'll do my best to make sure I don't use anything already reserved for another issue (which I've already done once :oops:), but ONLY YUO can prevent my dumb mistakes.
#76
Or Kill Me / Get Out!
May 02, 2009, 06:54:41 PM
Don't you know what you're getting in to?

You're coming dangerously close to becoming one of the fringe loonies. You laugh at their weird jokes, ponder their quirky sayings, and maybe you've even read some of their bizarre essays and publications. Maybe you've even thought, once or twice, that there just might be something worthwhile amidst all their crackpot buffoonery.

For crying out loud, get out while you still can.

They might have some novelty value, but ultimately they're nothing but a modern mental circus act. A freak show of ideas. A little playing around with one's imagination is all well and good, but that's all it is: playing around. At the end of the day, we all need to come back down to the kind of thinking that keeps our society running smoothly. How are you supposed to get any real work done if you're off in La-La Land, questioning your motives and the motives of others?

We do what we do in our everyday lives because that's what we need. It's what you need, and it's what society needs. The fringe loonies like to make up fairy tales and science fiction stories about what's "really" going on inside our heads. There's nothing substantial about what they say. You know as well as we do that you're a completely rational person, and there's always a good reason for what you do, even if you can't remember exactly what it is at any given moment.

So quit listening to their ridiculous ranting sermons, quit reading their obnoxious psychobabble, and go back to reputable sources of ideas. Television, mainstream news; stuff like that keeps society happily humming along like it is.

I mean, you don't want things to start changing, do you?
#77
GASM Command / ZalgoGASM
April 10, 2009, 03:07:01 AM
So far, I've only seen one explanation for the origin of this "Zalgo" nonsense: hxxp://knowyourmeme.com/forums/1-general/topics/35-zalgo

Quote

I'm leaving this because it is officially over.

Zalgo was originally created in 1998 as a Super Hoax/get rich quick scheme titled "Bawaji" by now defunct short-film studio Zeke and Ralph Productions (ZNR) in Portland, OR. The proprietors of ZNR, Robb and Nolan (last names witheld- Im sure you'll understand why) had originally decided on a UFO hoax but, later deciding UFO's were real, thought a more plausible hoax would be something leading to the end of the world hysteria surrounding 2000 and the Y2K. We were going to create and sell a product that "offered nothing, did nothing, promised everything and cost a fortune". Thus Bawaji was born. Unfortunately no one could spell it right so we had to change the name.

What we needed was a product that sold exclusively from word of mouth and had nothing to do with elegant code, shiny finishes, solid workmanship or quality merchandise- we needed mass praise for having done nothing and we needed referrals. We used to define the referral process as "That hive-minded zombie algorithm that sensible people have deep embedded in their psyche which allows them to abandon research and logic for the ease of simply taking someone else's word for it".

Then we got jobs and raises and promotions at our real places of business and Bawaji/ZAlgo got put on the back burner.

Until late 2003, 2004.

As the internet became an entity more closely resembling what it is today we started working on Bawaji/ZAlgo as a hoax simply to mess with people more than anything else. There was no longer the Get Rich Quick angle because we couldn't imagine how to actually do that without going to jail. We decided that religious cults are always fun and had set out to play at starting one based around the internet as an living entity and some darker overtones.

Our original idea was to found a cult based on Christian principles but later deduced that most Christianity-based cults go horribly wrong and usually end up with the leaders dead or in jail so we figured why not start with a doomsday cult and expect that it will go horribly right?

What we really needed, however, was more time and a clear deadline. Our original plans for Bawaji only gave us less than two years between the day we had the idea and 01.01.2000, not nearly enough time. What we figured- using Jim Jones, David Koresh and Heavens Gate as templates- was about a decade and the then-obscure Mayan Baktun calendar year 2012 was close enough as anything was going to get.

We decided on the date 4.04.2012 for three reasons- 12.21.2012 was taken, 2012 was as good a year as any and 404 was a popular number on the internet and the numerologist conspiracy theory nutjobs would have a field day with it.

Now all we needed was a deity. Originally going back to the intended marks as being "hive-minded zombie alorythm" types we decided a good deity name would be ZAlgo. (The "hive-minded zombie algorithm" was shortened to ZAlgo, as you may have seen it on the 'net.) We used a lot of typical "He Who Waits Behind the Wall" (referring to the mythical locked gate in Jerusalem that, when breached, will begin the End Of Days juxtaposed against Stephen Kings He who Walks Between The Rows from Children of the Corn) and "will sing the last song at the dying of the earth" which was inevitably shortened to "sings the last song of earth" which was plucked from Norse mythology. Those guys sang of EVERYTHING. Believe it or not some of the other stuff surrounding Zalgo we had nothing to do with at all. It did pick up a certain amount of its own steam for a while.

But to sell it all we had to do was say H.P. Lovecraft had written of ZAlgo.

Of course he hadnt. Ever. In none of his works has Lovecraft ever referenced anything named ZAlgo. We expected to get called out on that first and had even considered spreading internet rumors about a lost Lovecraft short story or letter or something but then "it must be true- I read it on the internet" took over so we just didnt pursue that.

Thus ZAlgo was born (admittedly without the capitalized "A") and he was to be the Bringer Of Chaos- neither good nor bad. He just WAS. Or was NOT as it evolved.

The first logical dropping off point for Zalgo was the internet bulletin boards because those kids will buy into anything. We expanded on ideas by Marilyn Manson of bringing hopeless disillusioned nobodies into the mix because they have an infinite amount of collective income and no common sense to spend it on but more so because they are an un-leadable group starving for a leader. Add to it the Anonymous freedom provided by the web and the kids like you find on 4chan's /b/tards rosters and you get an army of pliable minds wiling to disrupt and spam and create repetitive chaos simply because they have little else to do with their time.

ZAlgo was a forced meme before we even knew what a forced meme was.

Its important to point out that ZAlgo never originally was intended to be a "he" at all. ZAlgo just was, or was not, hence the black tendrils. I originally defined ZAlgo as "simply encroaching darkness" and had mentioned that if it could be seen then it would look kinda like Spiderman's nemesis Venom and had drawn a quick representation on the funnies page during a rather dull sales meeting with a black Pilot G-2 gel-roller pen. Basically it was Venom kiling Ziggy... damn I hate Ziggy. I still have that cutout from a paper in 2003.

The rest is history, I suppose. The cult never even got close to getting started, the meme as it would be called today is dying out and the /b/tards are tired of the reference. Even Wikipedia wont carry the page anymore and google searches are all but nonexistent.

And we never made a dime from it.

/ZAlgo

Now, I don't know if this story is bullshit, and I don't care. However, I do think that this is prime territory for us to MAKE more bullshit, and spread the air of confusion. Anyone who googles Zalgo gets little more than 'it's a weird thing that appeared on the internet' and a few dozen of the signature Zalgo-shoops of popular comics. As far as I know, "Zalgo" appeared out of practically nowhere.

So I suggest that we create a handful of alternative origin stories for the Zalgo phenomenon. They should clearly differ from the story quoted above, and from each other. The stories will then be spread around, with the intent of generating confusion and disagreement.

Discuss, and start writing!
#78
Or Kill Me / Concerning The Immediate Future
March 09, 2009, 02:40:15 AM
There is no 'solution.' This crisis will not be 'fixed.' A few of its symptoms will be alleviated, a little bit. Maybe. For some people.

An uncaring and uncontrolled juggernaut of changes will run its course across the fields of humanity, leaving ruin, death, poverty, and confusion in its wake. No, it is running its course as I write this. It cannot be stopped, slowed, or hastened to its destination. It will have its way with us before the survivors are left to build yet another empire from the rubble.

And we shall make up a story or two explaining why it all happened, what we did wrong, and how to avoid such things in the future. But it won't make a lick of difference because it's too late and we're fucking hopeless when it comes to finding out where the next juggernaut is coming from.

This is not the end of days, nor even the end of civilization. Do not be so optimistic. Humanity has prophesied its own demise a thousand times in the hopes that the next big catastrophic clusterfuck will be the last one we have to struggle through. The doomsayers are the hopeful ones; once humanity is destroyed or reduced to barbarism it won't have to live with memories of the disasters it can't believe it didn't see coming, and the torturous knowledge that it will happen again. And again, and again.

But humanity is big, dumb, and resilient. It cannot be destroyed, not even by its own hands. It shall lumber along as it always has, clumsily and nearly-blind, crawling and drooling its way into the future.

There will be another huge fucking disaster; a maelstrom of blood, anger, and misery. And when the dust settles we'll have lots and lots of dead people and still no answers.

It's what we do.
#79
Or Kill Me / The Truth About The "Octomom"
March 04, 2009, 06:00:45 PM
Just like Terri Schiavo, the Octomom story is a media circus. It's nothing more or less than a cash cow for the TV and newspapers, and frankly it's (yet another) wretched disgrace to journalism.

Why do they do it? Why do they keep sending people out to dredge up every last damn detail about this woman's life and her fourteen children?

Because it's a "human interest" story, where in this case the humans are interested in flinging their shit, er, excuse, me, opinions (we aren't monkeys, of course!) at a pointless and insignificant spectacle because everyone is too chickenshit to fling their opinions at the people around them, or at the issues that actually matter. I'd bet my left testicle that 99% of the people who gleefully share their "strong opinions" about Nadya Suleman wouldn't make so much as a peep if they lived next door to her.

The media has put this woman on a stage, under the limelight, with a nice big sign that says "JUDGE THIS" because we humans absolutely love to pass shit, um, pardon me, judgment on other people, but most of us are too damn cowardly to do it to the people near us, or too lazy to do it to the issues that might actually influence their own lives.

And NOW look what you made me do; now I'm flinging shit right along with everybody else. Bob fucking damn it.
#80
Or Kill Me / Fear
February 21, 2009, 05:35:58 PM
So here I am, in the college world. A million opportunities in the form of both education and people to network with. An incubator world full of booze and weed and hope and the feeling of being able to do anything, given enough time and effort.

The ship is beginning to rock, ever so slightly.

All the most rational predictions tell me I'm in a good field. Environmental science is gonna be an even bigger deal than it is now as the Green Movement comes to a head and as people aren't able to afford petroleum anymore.

Tuition went up this semester. The state is feeling the ache.

I don't know what to do. I'm gripping the railings on this ship, staring white-knuckled into the choppy waters. Nobody's really talking about it; at most there's a light clap on the shoulder and a muttered word of advice to stay on board, not to worry too much. The truth is we're all hoping the waters will calm down soon and we'll be able to get off comfortably when graduation day comes. Now, I don't know much about the world and maybe I'm just a scared little rat on board this collegiate ship... but the skies look dark, the wind is blowing, and the waves don't look like they're going to settle down any time soon.

I'm seeing the world from this little realm of safety, and I what I see looks unfriendly. Things aren't going well for a lot of people out there, and soon I will have to be one of those people. How long can I safely stay here? I can barely focus on my studies because I'm keeping one eye on the conditions outside the incubator, hoping dearly that I'll be able to jump ship at the right moment if I need to.

At this point I can barely think beyond financial security. I hear talk of accomplishing great things and doing anything I want given enough time and effort, but it all sounds like static. I've tuned my brain to hear only weather forecasts and advice on how to stay afloat in the event of disaster. Other than that, I putter along in the academics and engage in goofy shenanigans to keep my mind working on something besides paranoia.

The ship is rocking, and I'm looking desperately for the lifeboats. They put lifeboats on this thing, right?
#81
What if we're actually wrong about all this? This whole "Discordian" thing: the Reality Grids, the Black Iron Prison, the Shrapnel.

What if there really, truly is an Absolute Truth out there that has been figured out and distilled by wiser spags than us? Somewhere, one of those more serious religions has genuinely figured it out and is waiting patiently (or impatiently, as the case may be) for us to realize the error of our ways.

I wonder if the real truth of the matter is that we're all fucking nuts. We've all bought into this common delusion and taken the whole concept of subjective reality way too fucking far. By some common mental fault that has yet to be recognized in the psychiatric community, our diseased minds can't hold on to any one worldview long enough for it to sink in, and as a result the Real Truth just slipped through along with all the other ideas.

We're all going to hell. Or we're going to be reincarnated and forced to live through yet another life until we Figure It Out. Or we've just fucked up ourselves, and in the meantime built a movement around fucking with other people and trying get them to buy into our madness. We're sinners, or suckers, or a plague upon humanity. Maybe all three.



And then, I think about it some more and realize something. Crazy talk or not, Discordia--whatever the hell it is--is the only thing that makes sense to me anymore, and I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing because dwelling on the "what-if"s will kill me faster than I'm ready to deal with.

Hail Eris.
#82
Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Cainad's Discordia
November 19, 2008, 10:10:27 PM
Fucking shitty week.

Nothing worked out. Nothing. Everything went completely fucking WRONG.

Flunked a test. Realized that I'm physically weaker than I was only a few years ago. Missed a meeting for not one, but two clubs that I was really excited to be a part of. Then, while I'm tallying up these failures in my head, I get reminded that I missed an important meeting that night. I laugh it off to the person who said it, then slink back to my room. I sit down and suddenly one more thing pops into my head: I have two assignments due, and I cannot possibly finish both. Holy fucking shit.
You know the kind of week I'm talking about. You've had 'em.

If you're anything like me (you poor soul), it really kills your whole evening. There's no alcohol or tobacco to be had, so you go to bed with a clear head to contemplate how pissed off you are. The darkness and the quiet will give your mind space to think about everything; to absorb and digest every little failure in all its hideous glory. And when you're this full of anger and frustration, bed starts to look pretty good really fast. This shit tires you out. So I think I'll go to bed, let the bile stew, and see how I feel tomorrow. It's worked in the past.

Wait.

No.

If you're like me, it hasn't worked in the past. Not once in the countless number of times that I've been this pissed has "sleeping it off" worked.

If you're like me, you might recognize this as the early stages of depression. Bad depression. The kind where you hate everything but you hate yourself just as much (or more) because you know it's partly, if not mostly, your own damn fault.

My own damn fault.

Okay. I've done this before, I think to myself. A relatively intelligent man once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. I've been through this before. I remember that mulling over my own frustration and misery until I pass out was what I did last time. I remember the vicious cycle: self-loathing and apathy lead to more self-loathing and apathy.

The cycle.

Repetition. Doing the same thing again, expecting things to turn out better. Or just falling into the same bottomless pit and not giving a shit how far down I go.
I may be a bit screwed up in the head and I may be weird by many people's standards, but I'm not insane. Not by that definition.

So I try something different. I go for a walk, even though it's starting to get chilly outside. I remember that worked once, even though it was a different situation. Walking helps. Once I get outside, I'm not tired anymore. The blood rushes back into my body, presumably away from the part of my brain that focuses on how much I hate everything and myself.

Now comes the painful part. This is where I contemplate how fucking pathetic it is that one shitty week will leave me horribly depressed for a month.

"But at least you know you can survive it, right? It's happened before. The people who love you will shield you from the worst the world has to offer, and once you've spent some time with the shrink and taken your pills you'll be back on your feet and you can start again."

"Yeah, but that plan kinda sucks. I can't ask my parents to keep being my safety net. I mean, shit, I have to grow up pretty damn soon, if not right now. On the other hand, if I try to tough it out, things might just get worse and I don't know if I can handle all that failure."

Hey, what the hell?

That's weird. I never noticed this dialogue before from a third perspective. Looks like the competing parts of my mind are both focusing on failure. Well, shit, no wonder this kind of thing never worked out well in the past!

I think back to the Black Iron Prison. I feel around the bars and notice a few that seem particularly foreboding. Frighteningly strong. These are the bars of my failures. Or rather, they are my preoccupation with failure and inadequacy. These are the bars of my depression. In an effort to prevent more devastating failure and misery, I've hidden behind these bars and let them keep me from venturing out into the world and trying again.

I recognize now that it doesn't work. It never worked. Yet I've done it many times before, and it terrifies me to think of going out into that cruel world that will put me to many tests that I will no doubt fail. I am afraid to change the way my mind works, to let go of my past losses and seek opportunities to make amends. I am torn in an internal struggle.

Strife. Discord. Change.

The Black Iron Bars. They're strong, but... I made them. Now that I can see that, I can tear them out.

Don't think that it was easy, or that it was fun. Sometimes, tearing out those prison bars, forcibly changing the pathways of your mind, hurts. A lot. But I did it anyway. No more focus on failures. I decide not to even think any more about this horrible fucking week. Then, I finally let myself go to bed, my mind suitably blank.

The next day, I don't feel too bad. It's still sort of a crummy day, but still I focus on not focusing on the previous several days. The day after that isn't all that great either, but I keep it up. Sure, the memories intrude, but the important thing is that I don't dwell on them. Let the thoughts come, and let them pass. In other words, I'm okay.

On the third day, something cool happens. I'm lucky enough to get a ride to an event that I thought I was going to have to miss because I was stupid and forgot to arrange transportation. I realize what just happened: I snagged an opportunity that I would not have if I'd let the misery overtake me. Depression would have kept me in my room and I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of that one guy who was going to the same place and was late. One less failure that would have happened if I'd stuck to my old habits.

It worked. I'm okay.

Not many things in this world feel better than feeling "okay," and right now I owe that feeling to Discordianism. My Discordia.
#83
So I was browsing through the recent archives of "Or Kill Me," and happened upon the following idea.

Many of the people here who submit their own original rants or essays have probably taken heat at one point or another, specifically because their piece was interpreted in a way they did not intend. What would it look like to create an entire Intermittens issue comprised of such works? I honestly have no idea what would come of this. Let's find out!

That's where you come in: Dig through your old rants, essays, etc. and post links to the ones that, for whatever reason, pissed people off and you spent the rest of the thread desperately trying to prove, "No, I didn't mean THAT, what I meant was <your original point>."
#84
This thread is for sharing the worst fucking jokes you know. I'll start.



So there's this fish in a stream, right? And he sees this fly hovering above the water, just out of reach, and he thinks, "man, if that fly would drop just a few inches I could get it."

And then there's this bear next to the stream, looking at the fish, but he can't get it from where he is. He thinks, "Man, if that fly would just drop a few inches, the fish would go for it and I could get the fish!"

Now, there's this hunter hiding in the trees on the other side of the river, and he wants to get the bear, but he can't get a good shot on it. He thinks, "Hey, if that fly drops a few inches, that fish will go for it, the bear will go for the fish, and then the bear will be in a perfect spot for me to hit it!"

And there's this mouse hiding behind the hunter, eyeing the sandwich in his pocket. He thinks, "If that fly drops a few inches, the fish will go for the fly, the bear will go grab the fish, the hunter will move to shoot the bear, and then the sandwich will fall out of the hunter's pocket, where I can get it."

But there's this cat with his eye on the mouse, see. He knows the mouse will dart into its hole if he goes for it now, but then he sees what's going on and thinks, "Woah, if that fly drops a few inches, the fish will go for the fly, the bear will go for the fish, the hunter will drop his sandwich as he moves to shoot the bear, the mouse will go grab the sandwich, and then I'll have it cornered!"

Then it happens! The fly drops a few inches, the fish jumps to get the fly, the bear moves to snatch the fish, the hunter shoots the bear and drops his sandwich, the mouse goes to get the sandwich, and the cat springs to get the mouse. But the cat misses and goes tumbling headfirst into the river, getting completely soaked.


The moral of the story?






It takes a little more than a fly dropping four inches to get a pussy wet.




There's this middle-aged guy who's gone impotent. He decides he wants a permanent fix, rather than taking a pill every time he wants to get it on, so he undergoes this really weird experimental surgery that involves grafting the muscles from the trunk of a baby elephant onto his junk.

After healing up from the surgery, he takes his wife out to a romantic dinner at an expensive restaurant. The waiter takes their drink orders and leaves a basket of dinner rolls on the table.

All of a sudden, the guy feels this really strange sensation "down there." Since the place is dark and no one's around but his wife, he unzips his fly and tries to see what the hell is going on. His dick snakes out of his pants, grabs a roll, and pulls it back in to his pants. His wife gives him a sly look and says, "Could you do that again?"

He replies, "Probably, but I really don't want another dinner roll shoved up my ass."




Two muffins are baking in an oven. The first muffin turns to the other and says, "Wow, it sure is hot in here, isn't it?"
The second muffin says, "Holy shit, a talking muffin!"




What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?
Finding half a worm in your apple!

What's worse than finding half a worm in your apple?
The Holocaust.




A wife turns to her husband and asks, "Why don't we fly to Hawaii this summer?"

He replies, "Because you're a cunt."




Q: What do you call an Arab who flies a plane?



A: A pilot, you fucking racist.




Why do elephants paint their balls red?

So they can hide in cherry trees.




What is the loudest noise in the jungle?

A giraffe eating cherries.




A rather toadish businessman has a wife who is frankly far better looking than he deserves, which consumes him with perpetual jealousy.  However, he must go on a weeklong trip for work and leave her to her own devices.  To test her fidelity, he leaves a jar of cream under the center of their bed.  Right above it under the mattress, he suspends a spoon.  He figures it will have cream on it if she has too much fun while he's away.

A week later he returns home from his trip.  His wife runs up to him in her apron, joyfully embracing and kissing him.  Filled with suspicion he scornfully turns her aside.

"I'll see just how faithful you've been, woman," and rushes to their bedroom.  He reaches under the bed and pulls out the jar.  It's filled with butter.
#85
For posterity, here are two submissions. One from Cramulus and the other from my own diminutive, warped mind. These will (hopefully) be used as a regular column in the Intermittens publication.
The general format is to copypasta some excerpt of text and replace the significant character with "the lulz."


Quote from: Cramulus on November 14, 2008, 02:59:01 PM
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for Lulz! I am looking for Lulz!"
  As many of those who did not believe in Lulz were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

  "Where has Lulz gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed them - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to crap up the whole internet? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire web? What did we do when we unchained the forum from its URL? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all forums? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying Lulz? Do we not smell anything yet of Lulz's decomposition? Lulzs too decompose. Lulz is dead. Lulz remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become Lulzs simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

Quote from: Cainad on November 14, 2008, 05:07:34 PM
Again I say, I do not know what has become of the lulz, though I think--almost hope--that it is in peaceful oblivion, if there be anywhere so blessed a thing. It is true that I have for five years been its closest friend, and a partial sharer of its terrible jokes about the unknown. I will not deny, though my memory is uncertain and indistinct, that this witness of yours may have seen us together as he says, on the Gainsville pike, walking toward Big Cypress Swamp, at half past 11 on that awful night. That we bore electric lanterns, spades, and a curious coil of wire with attached instruments, I will even affirm; for these things all played a part in the single hideous scene which remains burned into my shaken recollection. But of what followed, and of the reason I was found alone and dazed on the edge of the swamp next morning, I must insist that I know nothing save what I have told you over and over again. You say to me that there is nothing in the swamp or near it which could form the setting of that frightful episode. I reply that I knew nothing beyond what I saw. Vision or nightmare it may have been--vision or nightmare I fervently hope it was--yet it is all that my mind retains of what took place in those shocking hours after we left the sight of men. And why the lulz did not return, it or its shade--or some nameless thing I cannot describe--alone can tell.


And now for some new crap:

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened --there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind --the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight --my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder --there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters --and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "HOUSE OF LULZ."



Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;–vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow–sorrow for the lost Lulz-
For the rare and radiant joy whom the angels name Lulz-
Nameless here for evermore.



What it is, only God knows. In terms of matter I suppose the thing Ammi described would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed the laws that are not of our cosmos. This was no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This was no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It was just the lulz out of space - a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.



When the Years had carries away Yonath, and Yonath was dead, there was no longer a prophet among men.

And still men sought to know.

Therefore they said unto the lulz: "Be thou our prophet, and know all things, and tell us concerning the wherefore of It All."

    And the lulz said: "I know all things." And men were pleased.

And the lulz said of the Beginning that it was in the lulz's own garden, and of the End that it was in the sight of the lulz.

And men forgot the lulz.

One day the lulz saw Mung behind the hills making the sign of Mung. And the lulz was the lulz no more.

(^Dunsany was a weird fucker)
#86
After some months of occasionally raving about how great I think this book is, I've finally decided to do the right thing. That is, I will procrastinate on my schoolwork to bring you spags some choice quotes-n-notes from this book.

This will probably be tl;dr for many people. I'm okay with that.

AND SO IT BEGINS

Introduction:

QuoteWhy a religious case against belief?

In the current and quite popular assessment of religion, there is one thing conspicuously missing: religion itself. It has long been a fashion, and even more so now, to frame arguments against religion in largely scientific language. From the perspective critics are right to expose the inherent falsehood of much that believers claim to be true. The popular argument states that those who believe in God, or Allah, have fallen "under a spell" worked on them by clever but fraudulent thinkers. Or that religious belief was once useful to the evolution of human culture but is now an impediment to mature societal advance. What is more, believers are not just wrong; they are also dangerous. Here, too, critics have abundant material to target. So-called true believers–those so convinced of the rectitude of their convictions they are eager to die, or to kill, for them–have brought once inconceivable havoc to the human community. Even a cursory glance at the present conflicts across the globe, executed in the name of religion, seems to justify a twist on the traditional Islamic exclamation, asserting that God is not good.

For all of their righteous passion, however, what these critics are attacking is not religion, but a hasty caricature of it. Religion has presented itself in so broad an array of disconnected and unique manifestations across the span of human history that no generalization can conceivably apply to the full variety of its expression. Although the critics are for the most part accomplished students of both science and modern society, their interest in the subject of religion seems to have been exhausted by a few initial glances at the actions of several selected groups of avid believers. This is a misfortune. Considering the extent of the chaos attributable to it, a reflective and religiously literate critique of belief is necessary.

Offering a religious case against belief obviously implies that religion is not strictly a matter of belief. It may come as a surprise that a thoughtful survey of the history of religion provides scant evidence for an extended overlap of the two. Quite simply, being a believer does not in itself make one religious; being religious does not require that one be a believer. This improbable distinction has been hidden by the tenacious notion that religion is chiefly a collection of beliefs. By this account, Hindus have a certain catalogue of assertions to which one must assent in order to take the name for oneself, Jews another. This leads to the absurd perception that one could, for example, come to a full understanding of what it means to be a Jew by carefully listing everything Jews are thought to "believe."

But if a religion is not strictly a matter of believing, what is it? Take note first of the irreconcilable differences between the historic religions. Although Islam and Christianity have been close neighbors for fourteen centuries, it is unthinkable that Muslims might occasionally mistake themselves for Christians. There is something in each tradition that definitively sets it off from the other. But what? It might seem reasonable at this point to consult Christians to learn what their religion is at its core, then turn to Muslims with the same request. After the first few inquiries, we would discover that there is little within Christianity and within Islam as to how the core of each faith is to be articulated. Indeed, this is such an open question that both traditions largely consist in the struggle over what it means to be a Muslim or a Christian. At the center of each, in other words, is a mystery they cannot fully comprehend; neither can they cease attempting to comprehend it. They may give this mystery the name "God" or "Brahman" or "Tao," but when we ask for more complete clarification, agreement among them scatters. How then can we say what the Christian religion is when Christians themselves have never been able to do so?

Yes, an inclusive definition of religion is out of reach, but to acknowledge that is not to terminate meaningful discussion of the issue. Instead, we must integrate the factor of unknowability into each of our conceptions of religion. This can have a strong effect on our thinking in general: reflecting on the remarkable way the great religions seem to develop an awareness of the unknown keen enough to hold its most ardent followers in a state of wonder, we may begin to acquire to art of seeing the unknown everywhere, especially at the heart of our most emphatic certainties. This is not just to develop a new intellectual talent, but to enter a new mode of being, a "higher ignorance." Through higher ignorance, an open-ended dialogue becomes possible. It is the goal of this book to reach beyond the phenomenon of belief not merely to defend the religions but to discover how higher ignorance can inform our most ordinary experience. Far from being a critical failure of religion, valued in this way higher ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.

Why a religious case against belief?

In one respect, it is not a mistake to associate religion with belief. Mystery is difficult to live with, and for some even terrifying. It can often be a source of great comfort to hide our unknowing behind the veil of a well-articulated belief system. For this reason, the historic religions seem to be a particularly fertile source for absolutisms. But when "true" believers claim that their convictions have been validated by a given religion, they are patently unaware that in doing so they have just rejected it. The certainties that led Christians to the Crusades, or Hindus to the universal imposition of the caste system, or Muslims to truck bombs all constitute a repression of the tradition they claim as their own. What is more, belief systems or ideologies that originate elsewhere–Nazism, Maoism, Serbian nationalism, American triumphalism–present themselves as the equivalent of religion, often taking on its presumed trappings: Nazi ritual, Mao's Little Red Book, the demarcation of sacred soil, the mission of democracy to enlighten a corrupted world.

This should be enough to indicate that the act of belief is highly complicated and richly nuanced behavior. That it consists of an avowed commitment to a set of truth-claims is the least part of it. On closer analysis in the following chapters, we will find that, among other features, belief thrives on conflict, depends on the clarity and restricting power of its surrounding boundaries, has a one-dimensional understanding of authority, possesses a kind of atemporality that denies the possibility of of an open history, an builds on a sever form of self-rejection. These are characteristics of belief rarely cited in the general discussion. They appear in sharp profile only when we consider their inherent hostility to religion.

In sum, to counterpoise religion and belief is to make possible a deeper insight into both. Given the violence that originates in the absolutism of belief systems, it is urgent that we come to a more incisive grasp of what it at stake. It is proper to hold belief systems to the most stringent canons of knowledge in all its forms. In the process, however, we must take care not to pitch knowledge against religion, as though one is the violation of the other, for in truth they are in essential harmony. The challenge is not to make religion intelligible but to use knowledge religiously. Aristotle wrote that knowledge begins in wonder. By thoughtfully assessing the unmatched vitality of the great religions, we can begin to see that knowledge also ends in wonder.


Emphasis mine. Moar later.
#87
Or Kill Me / Allow Me To Be Perfectly Frank...
October 23, 2008, 02:24:30 AM
I do not understand the motivation behind most spiritual inquiry.

Countless theologians, philosophers, and lay thinkers have been and continue to be obsessed with what is often considered the ultimate question: "Why are we here?"
Alternate forms of the question include, "What is our purpose?", "Why are things the way they are?", and "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

I admit that I spend a great deal of time reading about and trying to understand the nature of religion and belief (which are not the same thing, and I would highly recommend The Religious Case Against Belief by James P. Carse to anyone who wants to know what the hell I mean by that), but the nature of that question eludes me. In my mind, the ultimate question is not "Why are we here?", instead it's "What the hell kind of a question is that?"

What do people mean when they ask this question? From my perspective, it has no relevance or bearing on anything; it is inanity at it's highest. Yet many people will spend their lives looking for the "answer" to this meaningless question, and many will spend their lives touting that they have found it. However, the answers that people come up with are so many and varied that it becomes readily apparent that the original question is flawed.

Seriously, did no one but me get the joke about "The Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything" in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? They built the most advanced supercomputer ever to give them the answer to this question, and the supposed "true" answer was 42. Then they had to build another, bigger supercomputer to give them the actual question, so that the answer would make sense. Get it? It's funny because the people looking for the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything didn't know what the hell they were actually asking for! Just like in real life!

People often talk about "purpose" and "meaning." They talk about needing a purpose, or that life would be meaningless without God or whatever spiritual entity they are concerned with. I don't get it. If there ever was a "fall from grace," it was the loss of our ability to have the nerve to face life with some sense of personal dignity and authority over ourselves. Why do people need to have a purpose assigned to them, and how can one be so asinine as to think that a dream, an epiphany, or simply a moment of mania is a message from a Greater Power™ telling them what to do with their lives? That kind of thinking is for people who took The Alchemist seriously.

If you can't assign a purpose to yourself, or just LIVE and be happy doing whatever the fuck you feel like at any given time, then you are dragging your knuckles. Walk upright and be a human being, damn it all. Have enough self-respect and courage to face life and say "Whatever I do in life, I do under my own will and by my own authority."

Please. You people are so terribly confounding and annoying when you blather on about "purpose" and "meaning" and "Why," and then look down on people like me who, quite frankly, don't see why those things are of such concern to you. Maybe you'd start being more satisfied with yourself if you started asking different questions, rather than beating your head against the imaginary brick wall that is "Why are we here?"
#88
Literate Chaotic / Cainad writes moar fictional crap
October 21, 2008, 01:40:40 AM
By far one of my favorite pastimes is to write little scenes that people tell me could be turned into interesting novels, and then just leave them as-is and never develop the story any further.


Stuck in a Thick Plot

"No. This is too stupid."

Richard tossed the door key onto the ground and stormed away, stopping at the sidewalk corner to stare up into the street light and sigh.

"Richard, come on. I know this shit is dumb, but if we don't do it something else will just come up. Every time we give up, we get sucked into something else. Let's try and see this one through." Erin picked up the key and put it in her pocket.

"No, Erin. I'm sick of this crap. I don't think it's ever supposed to stop. I think that this stupid... whatever the hell it is... will just keep going on forever, and then when we finally give up on it something new will start. At least these moronic little plots are interesting at first glance; why bother running them into the ground? It's like a cheesy fiction series that goes on for twenty novels that started out okay but got run into the ground by greed and a childish enthusiasm for hearing the same story repeated over and over again, only with minor variations so the reader can pretend they're getting something new."

There was a sick, unhappy little pause. Richard's description was all too apt. For almost a year now, their lives had followed a bizarre and only barely coherent path that no one could take seriously, not even they who were living it. A year of meaningless adventures and pointless escapades had worn them down into rather bitter and cynical characters who went into every new venture fully expecting it to be nowhere near as exciting, important, or serious as it first appeared. Worse still, they no longer knew who to trust in the world, besides each other. People came into their lives all of a sudden and disappeared just as fast, seeming only to exist for as long as they had anything to do with them. Recently, a certain Gerald Mannington had remained fairly consistent, and appeared to be experiencing the same weirdness they were. Still, they kept him at arm's length, half-expecting him to disappear and never pick up his phone again if they should choose to drop out of the chain of events they were currently engaged in.





This next one is the result of my school's creative writing club; we were prompted to write about what we would find behind a door with the sign "Lost & Found of Your Life" on it.

Behind the oaken door lay a hallway lined with small, intricate wooden cabinets. I checked the piece of paper in my hand: underneath my name was written the number of my cabinet, J-2312. I walked down the hall to the little door with a brass plaque that bore the same number. As I raised my hand to the handle of this little door that supposedly held everything I had ever lost in my life, I wondered foolishly to myself if I would find in there the ball cap I had lost when I was 13 that I had liked so much. I opened the cabinet door.

Not quite what I had expected. The single largest item in there was a thick, plain, leatherbound book. I took hold of it, noting the lack of a title or any markings whatsoever. I was bemused; when had I lost such a thing? I could not remember, and I cracked open the fresh cover.

Inside were dated entries, scores and scores of them starting from the time I was about three years old. Each entry was a lost thought, a moment of inspiration, or epiphany that I had forgotten. Pages upon pages of ideas I had meant to act on, both good and bad.
#89
Or Kill Me / To the undecided voters
October 18, 2008, 11:56:30 PM
This is one of those spaggy rants that's directed at the general Amurrican public, not necessarily Discordians.

Dear Undecided Voter:

Welcome to November 2008. It's been a long eight years, hasn't it? Some people will try to tell you that voting Republican this year is dumb because the disastrous war in Iraq and the current economic mess that Wall Street has made of itself have happened under a Republican administration. Well, I'm not going to tell you that.

Truth is, we're in the mess we're in because all this shit has happened under an Idiot Party administration. These aren't the benign, lovable sort of idiots that George W. Bush pretends to be; these are greedy and self-righteous idiots who are very good at one thing, and that is getting ahold of power so that they can play their idiotic games with a post-9/11 world. Even the Democrats who sat back and let this crap happen because they were afraid of being called names are members of the Idiot Party's agenda. But this is all old news.

People from both sides will screw you over if they get the chance. Republicans and Democrats are all politicians, and all those "third parties" are jokes from a strategic standpoint. You shouldn't vote based merely on political party affiliation, and if you're undecided, then you are either planning to flip a coin or are waiting for something to push you in one direction or the other. How about this:

Obama says that you'll get no new taxes if your family income is less than $250,000 a year. Let me guess, you probably fall into that bracket, don't you? Yeah, you do, and chances are you aren't going to be climbing above that quarter-million mark any time too soon.

The obvious rebuttal to this plan is the accusation that it punishes people for being successful, and it only makes sense that those above-$250,000 a year people are pushing this line of thought. Okay, maybe. In America, we're all supposed to get an equal chance. But for the past eight years, a Republican-dominated government has been giving tax breaks to the rich folks and the corporations, who just happen to be the ones helping to finance their campaigns (those slick ads don't pay for themselves, you know). The wealthy work to influence the political system in their favor. That's how it's always been. It's not a new thing and it's not going to change.

But why should the rich be the only ones pushing the politicians around? You've got a vote too, goddammit. Why are you spewing their propaganda for them? Do you think they're gonna be grateful and give you some of their money if you help elect a president who'll give them more tax breaks? HA HA! Here's an idea: let's pretend that we still live in a representative democracy where people vote for the candidate who best represents their own interests. The wealthy will be voting for their best interests, and you should vote for yours. And if you make less than $250,000 a year, then Obama probably represents you in that regard. If he falls back on his promise then kick him out in 2012.

Or don't. Vote McCain, and watch as the wealthy corporations are given more tax breaks and the executives prepare their multi-million dollar golden parachutes for when the economy collapses again (it happens, folks, all the freaking time), while you live in fear of being laid off and losing your house and the price of food and gas continue to become more pressing so you have to dip into those college savings. BUT AT LEAST YOU DIDN'T VOTE TO MAKE THOSE SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE PAY MORE, RIGHT? THIS IS AMERICA, AFTER ALL!

Oh, and did I mention that if you don't vote, you've got no right to complain if the next president sucks? Yeah. Life's a bitch, ain't it?
#90
Or Kill Me / Knock It Off
October 10, 2008, 12:15:20 AM
Find something else to do. You degenerate little fuckshits are a disgrace to our already pathetic generation. Seriously, there are woods nearby to go do this shit in. Why are you baking your brains out in the goddamn room where people have called the cops on you twice already? Do you not realize that they put us on "The List" after the first time you got in trouble?

Apologizing in advance doesn't get me back those lost hours of sleep, nor does it safeguard your dignity. You may receive the blessing of blackouts, but I see you all with sober eyes. I see your stupidity with eyes clearer than the vodka you pump down your stomachs every third night. I remember the shit that goes down.

I fell asleep with the words "Beer pong" and "Captain Morgan" in my ears. I awoke a few hours later to the sounds of our already ridiculously fractious social network breaking asunder. A thunderstorm of drunken rants, freakouts, and hurt feelings swept through here last night, the likes of which I have never seen. Granted, I am inexperienced in these matters, but if this is what it's like when you don't have class the next day during nice weather, what will winter be like?

No, seriously, what will it be like? When there's nothing to do, you will turn to the bottle, the blunt, and the bong. We'll all be stir-crazy, sick of each other, and restless. If this madness can happen when the weather's still nice, I shudder to think what will happen in the coming months.

But I shudder with laughter. Mad, unrestrained laughter. Behold the one true Divine Comedy; the self-destruction of Tomorrow's Leaders! The setup will go on and on, and my guts shall bleed with the chuckles as I anticipate the grotesque punchline.

Then someone will die. Though I've felt like killing some of you in the delerious haze of sleeplessness, it will not be me who puts an end to that poor soul's life. It seems like half of you have drunk yourselves nearly to alcohol poisoning; I have no reason to believe that you will stop or begin to regulate yourselves. Someone will die.

And no one will laugh. In retrospect, I will think, it wasn't a very funny joke at all.

Oh well.
#91
GASM Command / SUNY Southampton? POSTERED!
September 18, 2008, 05:46:42 PM
With two newly acquired minions fellow mischief-makers, I set out to make the evening of Sunday, September 14 as awesome as I could.





Success was had. Click for exactly 23 photos of the exploits of Lost Socks, Yonose, and myself: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29689394@N03/sets/72157607361646101/


Also, yesterday I recruited another skinny white guy with facial hairs who thinks this is cool shit. He's a commuter with friends at SUNY Stony Brook, where one could expect a rather larger audience...
#92
GASM Command / TicketGASM
August 19, 2008, 04:48:53 PM


We've all seen or heard of joke parking tickets, but this promises to be completely different. Why? Because these are Discordian™ joke parking tickets. This particular rant by TGRR, as laid out by Netaungrot, is the example used in this picture. For TicketGASM, more rants, short essays, and memebombs should be laid out in a format that can be easily stuck behind a windshield wiper and will look more or less like a parking ticket from a distance.

Credit for this idea goes entirely to Valerie LeFurston, who also suggested sticking such fake tickets inside real parking tickets for extra lulz.
#93
Bring and Brag / Mandelthought
July 18, 2008, 01:00:09 PM
And we find the signal to be lost in the noise; we lose the recognition of pattern because the pattern was too new, too different.

Struggling in the haze, trying to sculpt the fog of thoughts. Which are the old and which are the new? Was it inspiration or mental masturbation? The old thoughts are fractal, building upon themselves unto infinity and yet becoming less and less significant with each iteration.

Was there ever a signal? Did we experience a new thought at all? Or was it merely a hiccup in the endless downward, inward spiral of old ideas breeding with each other? The noise of entropic decay drowns out our efforts to listen... we have traveled so far down this path that to pull back and see the whole once again becomes a titanic effort. From where we stand now every path seems to lead somewhere we've been before, and while we may amuse ourselves with new variations, we see that it's all really the same.

The thinking has become ingrown, the vines are tangled and no longer bear fruit; some of them have even begun to wither. We fear that the rot will spread to the roots, if we do not take care to prune the excess, the overgrown. But through the tangle, who can see which to cut and which to keep?
#94
Author's note: I wrote this just now, in the span of maybe an hour. It's probably rambling and disjointed, but I hope I'm getting my idea across. The thoughts presented here may not apply to everyone, but it seemed significant to me. I demand criticism (please). Have me rewrite the whole damn thing, if you think it's necessary.



Refresher Course on Enlightenment

So here you are. Right now you're probably feeling like you're on the right track, philosophically speaking. You read something new every once in a while, maybe an expansion on something you read before, or perhaps something new entirely.

If you've gotten anywhere at all, think about that feeling. You've figured out some important truths, are now open and receptive to new thoughts and ideas, and other good stuff. What do you think is next?

Yep, you guessed it: go back and re-enlighten yourself. You've forgotten half the stuff that set you on this path in the first place, and yet it still affects you in one way or another. Fact is, you might be close to making the same mistake that lots of people make: you don't know where your thoughts are coming from. You've probably changed up your Black Iron Prison a lot during your life, but eventually you have to let it settle and allow your mind to reorganize itself. Enlightenment can be exhausting.

When was the last time you tried–really seriously tried–to grasp the concept of infinity? It's a thrill the first couple times, but eventually you need to calm down and start thinking about more down-to-earth things. However, the experience won't stay fresh in your mind, and when an experience like that gets buried too deep you can forget that it's influencing your decisions. When the Shrapnel penetrates really far, you can forget that it's there. There are some pieces you've probably chosen to keep, but if they're really big it might be important to keep them close to the surface.

Incidentally, this is probably why most of the "real" religions (ha ha!) have prayers and rituals and all manner of things to inspire religious experiences. Every time they pray or chant or meditate, they're taking a refresher course in the Shrapnel of their particular faith. We (and I use the term so lightly it's ridiculous) don't have it quite so easy, because for us it usually isn't about keeping old Shrapnel or strengthening the bars of the BIP, but changing them. That's rather more difficult, because it can't be ritualized or made routine without losing its essential purpose. So we have to take a different approach.

Remember that you are a distinct, separate entity, and no matter how deep the Shrapnel gets, it's still Shrapnel and not part of you. You are not made up of parts, because you are singular being that experiences life, with its Shrapnel and Black Iron Prisons, not a jumble of those things all mixed together. Those things shape your personality, but they are not you.

You will, and probably should, choose to keep certain pieces of Shrapnel. If you spend all your time rearranging it you won't get anywhere, you'll just become neurotic about having the right Shrapnel. But try to remind yourself from time to time  that even the bits you chose to keep were chosen for a reason. Try to remember that reason every once in a while, and if you can't, well, ditch it. You may find that you don't agree with your reasoning from years ago.

This isn't about living in the past. This is about cleaning your metaphorical closet every once in a while. It's about looking at the old photo album of your life, remembering what you've experienced and keeping yourself consciously aware of what you're doing, rather than letting the stuff build up and leaving you back where you started before you came down this path: loaded down with Shrapnel, trapped in the BIP.
#95
Author's notes:

There are no new ideas in this piece. It's essentially just a rehashing of the BIP (as I understand/understood it) that I wrote a long time ago and have gotten a lot of positive response from people who have read it. I'm posting it here because I won't feel complete until somebody tells me it sucks and what's wrong with it.




Do you know where you are?
These four walls, this ceiling, this floor?
This is your life. This is your cell.
Welcome to your Black Iron Prison.

Don't panic, you're not here to be punished.
You were born here.
This is your cell. This is your life. This is all you know.

Beneath you, you can see the floor made by your parents and teachers.
To your left and right, society, media, and your peers make two walls.
Above you, there is a ceiling just barely too high to touch: these are your dreams.
Behind you, the darkest shadows are cast on the third wall, the wall made by your fears.
The light shines through the bars in front of you, through the fourth wall.
But this wall is not a wall. The bars are different, somehow.

These six sides hold you in, safe within a tiny cell of truth.
Take hold of the bars; feel the cold, Black Iron.
What are these bars? Why are they different from the other five sides?

You made these bars.
The light shines through them, but still they hold you in as surely as a solid wall.
They are your beliefs, your thoughts, your identity.
Every time you tell yourself, "I am this, I am that, I am not these other things," you create
another bar.
The stronger your beliefs, the stronger the bars become.

You can break some of those bars, if you choose.
If you are not afraid.
Or you can build more bars, making them thicker and closer together.
It doesn't matter which beliefs make the bars; they all block the light.
#96
Or Kill Me / The Iconoclast's Manifesto
May 17, 2008, 11:03:03 PM
Author's notes:

This is a work in progress; I fully encourage criticism and suggestions for changes. I fully acknowledge the irony in writing a manifesto for iconoclasts. In fact, it might be lulzy to try and ruin iconoclasm for everyone by turning it into a meme and duping people into accepting the dogma of challenging dogma.



The Iconoclast's Manifesto

   We reserve the right to hold heretical viewpoints that you find abominable. We hold true that anyone who feels justified in attacking an individual because they have an unpopular opinion can fuck off and die.

   We identify ourselves by our willingness to challenge the accepted dogma, theory, doctrine, or paradigm regardless of the consequences to our social status. We acknowledge that the positions we take may result in our being subjected to more intolerance than conventional wisdom would suggest is wise, but we find ourselves refuting conventional wisdom remarkably often.

   While we generally try to take positions that are based on reasoned arguments, empirical evidence, historical precedents, or any combination thereof, we reserve the right to play devil's advocate just to piss you off and destroy any notion you might have that your ideas are universally applicable.

   We acknowledge that the original use of the term iconoclast specifically refers to the destruction of religious icons, but we may choose to attack cherished beliefs relating to anything, including but not limited to politics, art, religion, philosophy, and identity.

   We reserve the right to change or violate the terms of this manifesto as the individual iconoclast deems fit.

   We reserve rights, period.
#97
Bring and Brag / Double writing-poomp.
April 11, 2008, 08:18:47 AM
Don't listen to people like me. I'm a crank, that's why. My mind is part of the lunatic fringe, and I'll tell you weird things until your ears fall off. People like me, we're dangerous. We've got nutty ideas and are always trying to rope you normal, healthy people into our bizarre schemes and world-views. Sometimes, it even sounds like we may be right about the strange things we say, but really, it's not worth all the babble.

Why am I telling you this? I don't know, I really don't. I'm a lunatic crank, a madman, and every day I think about the sort of things that you only think about in your deepest dreams, those odd, funky things that you can never quite remember when you wake up but sure seemed interesting at the time. And whatever forces occupy this lunatic fringe are telling me to tell you that you ought to stay away. The chaos of the crazy world produces nutcases of all kinds, and this particular nutcase is telling you to stay sane. Don't do anything too crazy, keep most of your ideas to yourself, don't read too many books, watch plenty of tv, and plug your ears and hum when people like me start talking.

Everything will be fine.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Stratify,
The individuals compressed
Smooth, pleasant, consistent
Boring
Detestable
Too large, the structure warps
Bent,
The creases fatigue
Break
Shards scatter
Scintillating, sharp
Beauty
They settle to the bottom
And stratify.
#98
Bring and Brag / Untitled
March 06, 2008, 02:31:25 AM
He dug through the rocky soil on which he knelt, scraping away with hands that were callused despite the thick and worn canvas gloves that protected them. The wet dirt soaked the gloves, chilling his hands.

"See," he thought to himself, "never thought you'd love a simple pair of gloves, eh? Useless for keeping out the cold, but these hands would be bloodied up without 'em, no doubt." He grinned, and pushed away some more dirt to reveal the prize he sought: a humble potato, grown in the land he had claimed and planted by his own hands. The gloves, the dirt, the potato (and the several dozen like it in the field), and his own rough, cold hands... he loved all these things, and his grin grew wider at the thought of all the love there was in his life now. Since the incident twelve years ago, he'd learned to love the hard, gritty, dirty things that kept him alive. Other people were so morbid and unhappy about what had been lost those twelve years ago, but really, he thought, hadn't there been enough time to get over it? No matter; he loved those people who complained anyway, because they helped keep him alive as well, and he them. Still, he wished they could face up to reality a little better.

"After all," he said aloud to no one in particular, "you can't really be miserable when your life's as good as it could possibly be." That's how it was: since the incident, a life sustained by digging up potatoes and sleeping in a crude stone hut was about as good a life as one could get. And happiness was all about living the good life.

He had laughed those twelve years ago, when everything had collapsed and the United States of America was essentially bought by its creditors. He still laughed sometimes, to himself, but he knew it disturbed the others so he tried to only do it when no one else was around. However, just last week one of the others had seen him leaning against the wall of his hut--the first one he'd helped build--giggling uncontrollably.

"Damn you, stop laughing!" She barked at him with the tone of one who is sick of hearing a joke she doesn't get, "What is wrong with you? Do you like the state the world is in? Because if you do, you're sick!"

He stifled his laughter and wiped his eyes clear. "I know you don't think it's funny but try to understand... I saw it coming all along, and the look of shock on everyone's faces was precious. I'm sorry you can't appreciate it; it's kept me in tears of laughter for twelve years. The old world could never do that for me."

"You and Roger are two of the most twisted people I have ever met. I'll never understand any of you crackpots," and she walked off, shaking her head.

Roger was like him. He had seen it coming, he had laughed when it happened, and he still laughed. The traveling merchants talked about other people who were like that. In fact, many of the travelers themselves cracked a strange smile whenever the incident was mentioned. In the survivor communes to the south, they said, people like that were actually called Laughingmen. The world he lived in needed Laughingmen like himself and Roger. For years, they had been the only ones who could smile. Their mad laughter kept everyone alive, and he loved it.
#99
Or Kill Me / It was me. I did it.
February 23, 2008, 04:52:52 AM
It was me. I did it.

All of humanity's problems, it's crimes, its sins, its stupidity, all of the evil and ugly things produced by human action: it's all my fault. I am the source of these terrible things that make people hate one another, all the little wrongs done and revenged upon everyone.

Hatred, grief, guilt, murder, and pain. All of these and more are my doing, and everything wrong with society can be traced back to me somehow.

I have a million names: Satan, sin, human nature, the Devil, godlessness, blind faith, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Pagans, capitalism, communism, hubris, and ignorance, to name a handful. Ever since humanity first appeared on this Earth it has tried to name me. But a thing cannot be killed by attacking a name given to it, so I persist in what I do, my action amplified a thousand times when humanity lashes out at another one of my labels.

They have never found me, they have never come close to destroying me. Whenever I am sought out, those unfortunates who are in the path of my pursuers see me standing right behind them who would destroy me, guiding them. When they try to flee from me and my influence, they find me standing right in their way. I can do all of this because of one simple fact.

I don't exist.
#100
Techmology and Scientism / Steampunk?
February 10, 2008, 06:02:36 AM
I can't tell if this thing is steampunk, or just frickin' weird and awesome-looking at the same time:
http://www.officemuseum.com/typewriters_hansen_writing_ball.htm



A "writing ball." Discuss.