Topics

NATIONAL DAY of APOPHENIA.

May we celebrate this day by seeing patterns everyfuckingwhere.

Really, though, the Coca Cola bear resembles a skull because the advertisers were in a death cult.
"Didja ever look at a dollar bill? There's some spooky stuff goin' on, on a dollar bill, man." - Ron Slater

Any advice on continuing to be your weird self when other people judge you negatively for it?
I mean, I tell myself I don't give a shit what they think, and I believe it, but at the end of the day my behavior has been pretty restrained around the people who get "weirded out" by the Different.
(Thinking in particular of friends/roomies/neighbors whom I see every day, and the feeling of a need not to alienate them.
To paraphrase a neighbor... "Your Facebook's pretty weird...I mean, if that was the first place I knew you from, I'm not sure I'd have been your friend." Uh huh, and turns out my brain is a few levels stranger than my Facebook. But my brain's, you know, on the inside, so far.)

Maybe just paying more and closer attention to my motivations for my actions, and simply cut off the what-will-the-neighbors-think motivated shit?
I wonder if anyone has a good daily practice for this sort of thing?

I officially declare this thread to have NO INTENDED VALUE OR DIRECTION, therefore any worthless posts are NOOO PROBLEM.

Come on in; the water ain't chlorinated!

We welcome:
1) LOOK AT ME posts
2) I AM A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE, WE ALL ARE, BUT MAINLY ME posts
3) I HAVE NOTHING SPECIAL TO SAY AND I'M SAYING IT LIKE THIS posts
4) I HAVE POOR COMMUNICATION SKILLS, HERE'S MY ATTEMPT AT A SIGNAL posts
5) I AM ON DRUGS posts
6) ROGER'S INFERNAL COJONES arguments - Make sure to include ONLY shit-flinging and heel-digging, and don't you dare let me catch you taking a break from the screeching.
7) I JUST DON'T WANT TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT I SAY posts
8 ) (GROUP) IS (HIVEMIND/CLOSEMINDED/MEAN/WORKING FOR ILLUMINATI), (PERSON) IS (DICTATOR CONTROLLING EVERYONE/A RATHER MEAN PERSON/LASER APOCALYPSE E.T.) posts
9) DISMISSIVE AND INSULTING JOKE posts
10) etc, etc, etc.

We generally do not welcome:
- Posts that are straightforward and clear to most speakers of the respective language
- Reasonable arguments or thought processes
- Admitting you're wrong, questioning your beliefs and other symptoms of humility
- All posts following this one. [Just Kidding! We are all Star Children of the Universe-God✼✼]

Jack-o'-lanterns back in the day:

Specimen F5A
It is rumored that F5A has exactly the same melting point

[Associated Royal Guard of the Head Honcho]

A CALL TO ARMS FROM THE (formerly) BEWILDERMENTARIAN END-TIMES CABAL

It has been too long, comrades.
We bring glorious news.

The Head Honcho awakes.

       Yes, it is just as I have said, though I understand any disbelief. The scriptures told us of this day. Buried deep within Mt. Mumbo by the Colorless One three thousand years ago, His Holiness has finally awakened. And NOW, The Colorless One is far deceased.

       A team of Heralds walking through the North Asian mountains received Third Nostril Signals of a humongous positive perturbance in the Nous-field of the area. Honing in on the source, they stumbled upon a freshly opened passage into one of the cliffs. Strangely, the snow for at least a hundred feet around it was melted clean off. Upon reaching the passage's end, they discovered a cave, or perhaps a room. In this room they found many ancient artifacts, including a tomb, which was clean broken in half, and a few codices. Returning to the spot with a scribe educated in the ancient tongue, they uncovered the truth  - this tomb, until that day, had held the Head Honcho himself.

       NOW, it is time to gather the so-called 'Three Huts.' The Associated Royal Guard of the Head Honcho, the Electromagnetic Erisian League, and the Dog Walkers must come together NOW, or forever hold your peace. HAVE HEART, people! The Head Honcho is with us now, and is guiding us, although he is simultaneously keeping low to the ground, for as always there are Colorless Forces scanning every which way. We feel it is most likely that at this point he is in meeting with Eris - it is entirely possible that they are both playing Fetch with Dog, and our Threenity has already reunited.

       Many minds in this world attempt to restrain or ridicule freedom as it lives in each of us – often unknowingly, they leave the Epic to the stories, and sit in their cubicles, slowly asphyxiating their coworkers with their weak excuse for flatulence, slowly withering into dust, blocked from the sunlight by their pitiful excuse for boredom (YES, even BOREDOM can be HOLY).

       The Threenity warned us of this time. Do you recall? In the holy Tinctures it is called several names, such as the Great Yawning, the Time of Great Snubbing, and the Pause (Even Dog has Pause, but He keeps them beneath Him). Have any of us forgotten? Or worse, have we succumbed to the Muskly Duskly Mustard Dust (colloq.) of the Digital Age?

       Nonetheless, the Digital will aid us. Spread far and thin in space, the Digital will connect us as those strings with cups on the end. In the Digital we shall be as arachnids winding our way across the Inter-Web.

       What is our job? Oh ho ho ho...You forget, eh?
       The masters have always said, "Peace through Bewilderment."
       You see, in 'piling on the bewilderment,' as we of the Cabal do, what is the goal? Not simple confusion. Rather, when a person of enough intelligence is hit with enough complex and confusing signal, a state may arise in which the bewilderment 'snaps' the attempted grasping of the mind. The absurdity lifts them to get a bird's-eye view of the absurdity of their own concepts, pulling the person to stand behind their ideas – so to speak – rather than being submerged and drowning beneath them. This is a sort of GREATER MIND wherein a person is no longer a slave to their psyche, but the PSYCHE becomes a SIDEKICK.
       

This state is a starting point for great potential. This state, we have titled Bewilderzen.
       In light of this new terminology, we pronounce a shift in name. We are now the
BEWILDERZEN CABAL.

More information will be released periodically.

LINGUA IN BUCCA, & PEACE THROUGH BEWILDERMENT.

Epimetheus

Way back when, the good Rev gave me a Holy Quest to find the perfect cheeseburger.
Clearly, this is going to be a process of trial-and-error.

Day 1: Today I ate at that place with the arches. The clown's castle.
I mean,
This is a pic of me eating a Big Mac! I ♥ California!

I am currently in the process of writing up a bunch of procrastinated Philosophy of Art homework. In a response to Richard Wollheim's "Criticism as Retrieval,"* I ended up writing the following bit, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it rather succinctly phrases some of my own ideas about beauty. I'd like some response from the lot of you, if you'll indulge me.

Knowledge is beautiful, but the knowledge does not itself generate the beauty. A painting is beautiful not due to any particular information, but due to what it is like to experience that painting as a participant in its glory. All particular information about the painting is also beautiful, not due to any particular information but due to what it is like to experience that information as a participant in its glory.
Replace the word "painting" in the preceding two sentences with "universe" and you will understand why I am majoring in the sciences.


*_{The gist of Wollheim's argument is that to truly experience a work, it is necessary to reconstruct the creative process that brought the work into existence, that is, the conditions of its creation.}

[do not]

    I don't have any personal vendettas against anyone here. I don't even have negative judgments of anyone here. I don't think I have a valid enough perspective to make a judgment like that. I've disagreed with certain posts here and there, but I do not think lesser of anyone due to that; there isn't a ranking of PD members in my mind. Also, frequency of posting of course does not have any correlation with or causal relation to quality of posts.
    Like most here have reiterated, we all have our screeching monkey moments. It was unfair for me to make any implication that anyone here isn't worth my time or effort. That's not what I meant, but I totally see how it could have been received. I disagree with what I did mean, anyway. I respect everyone here as people worth interacting with and conceptually jamming with.

Yours,
   Epimetheus

(For those who'd like to know, this is in reference to this.)

The devil...

is my apathy, my boredom, any temptation against which I am ultimately too weak to stand, and every moment that I feel I might as well not bother trying – those are the devil – and every carved out path, traveled so many times, eroded by so many steps, that it is now a trench... It makes it hard to see out over the ledge, but if you take the effort to stand on your tiptoes you'll see them – the other paths. But this path, this trench, so eerily like a grave, this is the devil.

No, no, no. Wait. Don't bring YOUR devil into this. I have enough to worry about as it is with my devil. I'm fighting this one for now. In any case, you know what Confucius said: Don't go to a cockroach for pest control advice. Maybe I can spare some help from time to time. But the rotten, weasely weakness in me requires constant surveillance. This devil. It's like a shitstain shadow, this one. Hideous. Ever a loyal tormentor. I can't think my way out of this one.

I can't outthink the devil in me.

The devil's the one doing all my thinking.

I know a person. This person's parents caught her sister sending...pics...to an older man. The sister is eleven years old.
I told her if they know who it is she should report the guy. She said no because her sister was the one initiating / being okay with it. When I objected she said it was the cops they spoke with who told them that.

What's up with that? A guy can't get in trouble for that shit?

[NOTICE!]

NOTICE!

• Do you see people mimicking the behaviors of those around them, sometimes without a clue as to the meaning of the behaviors?
• Do they seem to derive some kind of contentment just from doing what other people are doing?

These are the symptoms of a newly discovered virus known as Mimic Virus!

BE AWARE!

    This weekend, scientists (read: sciencomancers) in an undisclosed location in southern California, looking at their own DNA with the newest high-detail microscopic cameras, found an anomaly within the cells of a colleague. There seemed to be a virus literally living on the double helix. Upon closer study, it was found that the virus was creating and destroying the molecules that make up the helices. When a cell was isolated from others, the virus built up a huge excess of useless coding, then finally broke down the whole cell. With a larger tissue sample, the same occurred, more gradually. Finally, they observed the virus living in the host body.
    What they discovered was shocking.
    The virus inhabiting one cells DNA would receive messages and send messages from and to the other cells around it, and in these messages would be encoded information about those cells' behavior and DNA. When it differed with that of the majority of neighboring cells, it would break down the differing DNA and reorder it into a conforming structure.
    This Mimic Virus is the ultimate conformist. When it could change its host cell's DNA to conform, it would; and when it didn't have the resources to do it, it would either "turn off" all the DNA in the cell until it gathered the proper fuel, or it would give up and completely destroy the cell.
   
    This behavior was seen on a larger scale, too: Tissue inhabited by the virus would seem to heal if wounded, but it would do so because the virus would simply change the injured tissue to be like the normal tissue surrounding it. In a hypothetical situation where all or most of the cells in the body were damaged, the virus would actually increase the area of the damage, and keep damaged cells damaged indefinitely.

    Finally, the true macro-scale of the virus' effects was seen. It was realized that the virus, in manipulating the small, came to manipulate the large, and the entire host was seen to exhibit the mimic behavior. (At this point, the scientists were keeping the studies secret from the infected colleague, to preserve the nature of a blind experiment.) The host would, if out of place in a group, change under the virus' influence to fit in again. If a change was introduced to the group of which the infected was a member, the infected would not change immediately. However, as soon as the change occurred in the majority of the group, it would occur in the infected as well. (Example: One day they gradually started incorporating gibberish words into their speech. As soon as most of them were doing it, the infected one was doing it as well, without ever being informed about the meaning or origin of these nonsense words. While it was a minority behavior, but the rest of the group ignored it, the infected ignored it as well. This was the first truly bizarre example of infected behavior; a healthy person would react to and question the strange behavior.)
    Also like the cell-scale behavior, when an infected individual is presented with no behavior or information to copy, in other words, when it is presented with a situation requiring original behavior, it will do one of the same two possibilities: "turn off" until it finds a source of mimic-able behavior, or sputter excessive nonsense before finally breaking down into an emotional goop, so to speak.

    The group obtained private funding to conduct sampling of a much wider population, and found infected persons across all possible demographics, exhibiting the same symptomatic behavior.
    Now, it is time to spread the awareness.

MIMIC VIRUS IS PANDEMIC. As far as we can tell, it has infected humans since prehistoric times, but only now are we aware enough to do something about it!

But Epimetheus, what do I do?

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN.
Pay attention to your friends! Are they exhibiting a high amount of mimicked and conforming behavior? Be careful around them! The Mimic Virus is considered highly contagious!
There is a potential cure, which you may have heard about, involving education and therapeutic work, but it is only effective with a very small proportion of victims - in most, it causes extreme anger and other emotions! DO NOT ADMINISTER THIS CURE YOURSELF - SEE A TRAINED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL.
One person's mimicry is known to encourage the same in another! THIS IS HOW THE VIRUS SPREADS!
Try to limit your interaction to being with people whose activity and ideas are original! Keep other interaction to a minimum, for your own medical and mental safety!

Just threw this together.
http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/l6rfg0461k/mimin.mp3
Better with higher bass level.

i am the moonlight, i'm the two for the price of one,
yeah i'm the wicked sister, i'm the illegitimate prodigal son
you are the sunlight, and i can photosynthesize your fears
yeah you're like king kong, all chained up, and i'm a potion made from your tears

a bit of strife is healthy, no nothing can compare
a piece of peace will make me screech, but a fight, now that's quite rare
a chunk of funk is bunk, my boy, and groovy grooves can't move my feet
but some strife in my life, some discord in this court, that's just what i need

The mimin' life is just as ripe as the last livin' fruit on the tree,
but tonight seems right for a mighty fight, we call it foot-in-mouth disease
So if you wanna place bets, take a seat, the popcorn's real buttery
much like the skin of the man who wins, as he sinks into history

thank you cram for making me realize ms paint is awesome

this thread is an open community for people i approve of + maybe howl

This is something that happened to me last semester

Okay, I never shared stuff I make, but now I will.

http://organismos.deviantart.com/ - I upload drawings and shit here.

I am interested in collaborating and all that - I need to get more actively involved in creating stuff and especially in spreading it publicly.
Enjoy!

How is "sombunall" more effective than "some?"

_{I wrote this in an attempt to write something, anything. Practice, if you will. All constructive criticism accepted.}

      Many years ago, in my youth, I had an encounter I have never been able to forget.
      I was hiking around a local mountain. I heard a stream nearby and I broke with the trail to follow the sound. There, sitting at the stream, I saw him. He was sitting on a rock, hunched over, head in his hands. A linen garment hung over his body which, despite a large build, seemed weak, exhausted. Liver spots were visible on his exposed skin.
      As he heard the crunching of the leaves under my approaching steps, he lifted his head and turned it with a painful slowness to look at me.
      In his gaze and his ancient, drooping face I saw the weight of innumerable years. I saw pain, anguish, but also subtle vestiges of anger, and the potential for love. The complex labyrinth of wrinkles on his face seemed to belie a complex past, full of intense experience. For a moment I lost myself in his deeply sad expression; an expression I had never seen on anyone before. A teary redness filled his eyes. A breeze flowed through the area, nudging his frail beard.

      "Hello," he said with a voice that seemed to come up from the very earth itself.
      Moved by the emotion in his voice and movements, I could bring myself to no more than a nod.
      "It's a nice stream," he said, turning to look at it. "Water has always calmed me."
      Once again my voice failed me and I nodded, even though he was looking away from me.
      "Look," he said, and pointed. An orb of water formed from the stream and floated into the air, then stopped, hovering. Within the orb the water swam around and encircled itself. It was amazing.
      "Oh my god," I said.
      He forced a fraction of a smile against his sadness and chuckled.
      "That's the kind of thing I should have done more often," he said, quietly, and his expression slowly turned back to one of grief. The orb succumbed to gravity and splashed against the ground.
      His eyes lit up for a moment.
      "People used to love me. I mean really love me. They used to worship me."
      Hesitantly, I asked, "Who are you?"
      He sighed, as once again the wind played with his beard.
      "I used to be called Yahuwa," he said. "Different people called me different things, though. I've never had much of a preference for any particular title."
      I remained silent, feeling awkward. I still didn't fully comprehend the figure before me. He leaned back, and the rock he sat on grew and changed form behind him to catch him.
      "I was king," he said, sighing again. "I was judge, jury, and executioner. My word was their command."
      Silence again, as he shifted his legs.
      "But I went and ruined it all. Of course, I was young. New to the game, so to speak. I did a lot of stupid things. I was brash. Mean-tempered. Tyrannical. I destroyed a lot of lives. I may as well have been a war patron. Death himself was bothered by how many of his future clients I was removing from the world."
      If the orb of water hadn't convinced me, now I truly began to realize who this person was, or at least who he was pretending to be.
      There was a pause.
      Dumbly, I ventured, "Um...are you-" I took a breath, and continued. "Are you God?"
      Once again, a chuckle, and an almost imperceptible smile on his lips.
      "Like I said, different people called me different things. But, singular God? Timeless, endless, omni-everything God? No. You have to understand, a long time ago there were many gods. ...Well, they're still around, but they're like me: tired, lonely, weak. We are nothing without our people."
      Suddenly something clicked and I realized: Yahuwa. Yahweh. Jehovah. I felt a little braver.
      "You mean to tell me you are the ancient Middle-Eastern god? Yahweh?" I asked, to make sure.
      His peaceful smile grew slightly.
      "Yahuwa. But yes."
      My mind was washed over with a mix of awe, disbelief, and confusion. The most popular god on the planet was telling me he has lost his people.
      "But your people are all around the world!" I said, louder than I meant to.
      He looked at me again, pitifully. "Is that so?" he asked.
      "Yes! Your followers are the largest following on the planet, of any deity, ever!" I said even louder.
      He put out a hand in a calm-down gesture, and instantly I was filled with a feeling of peace, and my stressful confusion was indeed calmed down. I sat on a fallen tree next to me.
      "I am worshipped by none," he said.
      Still indignant, I stifled my urge to argue. Knowingly, he smiled.
      "From your books you know the stories of the destructive and vengeful god who rained fury on Sodom and Gomorrah, the god who tortured poor Job as part of a bet, the god who flooded the world. The god who spoke the words, 'I am a jealous god.'"
      I grunted to confirm this.
      "That was, indeed, me." he said, his face returning to sadness. "I was, I know, hateful. Horrible. But I was worshipped, and that was all I cared about."
      He took a slow breath.

      "I ruled for many, many years. Eventually, though, the other gods of the area began talking. I was getting older, and they thought I was getting softer. They thought I couldn't hear their gossiping mutters - but then, none of them had the powers I did.
      "There was even that boy - the one they all talk about now, the one I-" he paused, "concieved with a mortal woman. My son, technically, yes. But many gods were doing such things with mortals, and I was arrogant enough to do it as well. That, of course, would spell my undoing.
      "You see, the boy - my son - became aware that he was my son. He taught many people about me. But he told lies. Of course, he didn't know what he was doing, and I am not angry, now, as I was then.
      "People began to believe in another god - one of love, one of forgiveness, one that transcended all human pettiness. As they began to believe in the new god, I began to get weaker. I could feel it, too. It was terrible, and my rage made it all the more terrible.
      "Oh, I tried to stop it. I tried to destroy the boy at every chance I got. My debilitation was rapidly worsening, though, and every shot I took missed. I would bribe soldiers and government to take him captive, but every time he was finally arrested my attack would hit the soldiers and not the boy.
      "My reign was coming to a close. I'm not sure when I finally accepted it, but in my last desperate throes, I made one last attempt on his life, bribing the Romans once more. This time, being humbled by failure, I stayed out of the actual killing.
      "As you know, it worked. It was over for him. The irony is that it was over for me, too."
      He sighed, and a wind whipped through the trees.
      "Other wrathful, destructive gods of the area eventually lost their power, too. Now, we're almost all just old men like me, able to do little more than lift water into the air."

      I watched him, awestruck and humbled.
      "I had a good run, though," he said, and smiled. A tear fell from his tired eyes. "We all had a good run."
      He wiped his tears, and looked at me with gratitude. "Thank you for listening."
      I smiled back.
      We sat for a minute in quietude, listening to the stream and the songs of birds.
      At some point, I don't know when exactly, he was no longer there. All I know is that I looked and he was gone. In his place was a rock formation, with vague erosions on the flat front that might, with scrutiny, resemble an ancient, sad, smiling face.
      After a few minutes of walking around the rock, hoping to somehow bring back the man that was there, I sighed and shook my head, unsure of the thing I had just witnessed. I patted the sad rock as if it were a friend, and went back to the trail.

I decided to take a few of the highest rated membombs from the database and make flyers from them.
It's nothing special, but it makes dissemination one step easier for you guys.
PDF: http://www.mediafire.com/?74sw6qofswrtp5e

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

[JUST KIDDING]

First of all:
WE WELCOME ALL NEW MEMBERS! (JUST KIDDING, YOU DUMB FLESHBAG!)

Hello and sit your ass down! Welcome to
THE BEWILDERMENTARIAN END-TIMES CABAL!

What's that? YOU AIN'T ONE OF US?? WELL THEN, BREAD MADE FROM YOUR BONES SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD TO ME, SUCKER!


TRUUTH IS: THERE IS NO ESCAPING BEWILDERMENT. THUS THE BEWILDERMENTARIAN IS DEDICATED TO PILING ON THE BEWILDERMENT SO HIGH, AND MAKING IT SO IN-YOUR-FACE, THAT YOU FINALLY REALIZE IT'S THERE, DOGDAMMIT!

Those who CAN'T keep up will drown in Bewilderment when the Apolkalypse comes, as described in the Book of Revellatio.

"The End-Times will be full of such harmonious screaming; such wonderful bleeding from such a curious variety of orifices."
- Eris at a Mt. Olympus party, after a few ambrosias.



As the old masters said, "Peace Through Bewilderment."

Interesting fact: All children have a toto (totem, guardian angel, spirit guide), which is a companion
that usually leaves sometime in childhood. (This departure of the toto is called toto recall.)
Most kids know of their totos; skepdiks call them "imaginary friends."
WE SAY: "Yeah, they ARE imaginary. SO WHAT?!?"

Look. ALL WE'RE TRYING TO SAY IS THAT YOU HAVE TOO MUCH MIND, AND YOU NEED TO LOSE SOME OF IT.
LOSE YOUR MIND OR WE'LL LOSE IT FOR YOU, JACK!


In the realm of Dog*, wisdom = money. We are only trying to make you wise, and thus make you RICH in WISDOM!!! Only in this way can you become a Wise Man. Maybe someday you can even become a Wise Ass!


---------
This preachery has been a service of the Bewildermentarian End-Times Cabal.
----------


*INFO ON OUR TRITHEON. THE B.E.T.C. RECOGNIZES THE HOLY TRIARCHY: ERIS, DOG, and the HEAD HONCHO.

Eris is CHAOS INCARNATE, and the most irreligious goddess you never had the horror of meeting. She helps us to see the absurreality of our lives. Most importantly she helps us to LAUGH at the whole shebang.
Some Erisians think that the Eris of the Olde Bewilderment (ancient Greeks) and the Eris of the New Bewilderment (Principia Discordia) are two separate deities. This idea is known as Gnostrilism, and Gnostrils are BURNABLE HERETICS.

By the way...Eris...Evis...Elvis. IT'S NOT A COINCIDENCE.

Dog is THE HOLEE SPEERIT THAT INFORMS AND FLOWS THROUGH ALL THINGS, INCLUDING YOUR SWEAT, YOUR SHIT, AND FIGHTIN' JESUS. ALSO, "DOG BARKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS" IS OUR GO-TO ANSWER FOR ANY QUESTION WE HAVEN'T SOLVED YET.
"I AM THAT I AM A USEFUL FICTION." - The Lord Dog, Excitus 3:14

The Head Honcho is the enthroned JHVH-Sky God. Some kind of combo of Odin, Tyr, and Thor.
HEY, I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THE NORSE WORSHIPPED A COMBINED GOD CALLED ODINTYRTHOR! THAT'S 'CAUSE THEY DIDN'T, LOSER!

May Dog lick and preserve you.
May the Head Honcho give you amazing fucking superpowers.
And may Eris fuck your mind.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/anti-suffrage-propoganda

[DISCUSS PARANOIA]

In Paranoia, players are Troubleshooters, servants of the Computer, a totalitarian Big-Brother program (represented by a giant eye) that rules a dystopian (uh, I mean perfect! All glory to the Computer!) future Earth society. The stories are missions run for the Computer. Game style can run anywhere from sober, complex, realistic gameplay ("Straight") to cartoonish, frenzied gameplay ("Zap"). In the middle is "Classic".
Every Troubleshooter is a member of a Secret Society (Secret societies include Illuminati, Communists, and Sierra Club) and has a mutant power. Both of these things are forbidden by the Computer (except government-registered powers). Basically, while running missions you are also constantly suspicious of your fellow Troubleshooters and can try to out their secrets for promotion. Anyone you meet can be working for several different powers.  You have no idea if the weaponry you get (or the Computer itself) is glitchy, if your food is safely cooked, if your children's toys are coated in lead-based paint. See the name of the game.

I've read through the guide pictured above, as I plan to GM.
The guide is awesome, as it is written as if the reader is a member of the Paranoia world. Different sections are labeled for different clearance-level citizens (which are, by the way, Infrared up to Ultraviolet), and so on. It also puts a strong emphasis on the fact that the GM is in complete control, even in contradiction of rules in the book. This keeps a sense of humor in the game and, more importantly, keeps the game flowing smoothly. If the players argue "Hey, that can't happen according to section 3 in chapter 4," they may find their Troubleshooter killed by a malfunctioning vending machine. Entertain your king, er, GM, and maybe your Troubleshooter will get a promotion.

Anyone play(ed)? DISCUSS PARANOIA

Link to any generators or similar websites/programs that can help in the creation of Erisian propaganda.
I guess I'll compile the links in this post.

http://www.says-it.com/seal/ Seal Generator. (From the FAQ: "You may not copyright or trademark your graphic, but you may copy it, print it, or distribute it without restriction. If you use it on a website, it would be nice if you could link back to me, but that's not required.")


_{Apologies in advance if this thread already exists. I couldn't find one.}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcBs_8J54lQ

forget it, my bad

http://www.star-telegram.com/local/story/1770445.html

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

A friend of mine complained that vampires are no longer badass due to Stephanie Meyer's books.
I disagree.
I think it depends on those who talk about them. If we want vampires to stay badass, we just need to stop calling these newer pitiful bloodsucking things "vampires."

As for what to call them? I suggest "hematophags."

I hate when people are loud in the theater during movies. This extends to even gasping or making any noises. I know there isn't much good reason for me to hate it so, but I do.

Also, I think alliteration should definitely make a comeback as a poetic device, and I will do whatever I can to see that happen.

                 /



Walken for emphasis. My writing belies my passion; I REALLY FUCKING BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF ALLITERATION.

Kiwifruits are probably the best fucking thing I've ever tasted. I love them intensely.

Suijin is a clock-maker. He does not normally lead people to know anything past that little piece of professional information. The truth is truly intriguing. What Suijin does as a clock-maker is not only the creation of clocks in a strictly literal sense. Suijin is a sly genius. He, through the clock, controls the time. I do not know how old he is, but he looks to be about 40 years old. I do not know where he is from although I must theorize that it is China, as he has a Chinese name and slight Chinese accent. That being said, when I have seen him he has only spoken English.

Without realizing it, all of his clients for the last ten years have come under his influence because of the clocks. First, he designs the clock so that it is aesthetically attractive, and much more so than any of the other clocks the client uses regularly. Suijin does this, though, in a skilled way that will mean, when the client starts using the clock, he will subconsciously start to trust the clock of Suijin's creation more than any other, because its appearance is like warm cocoa in front of a fire on a cold day. That is actually how Suijin described one of his clocks to me – He describes all of his clocks like that; usually they have to do with creating or negating some cultural cliché or archetype to bring very vague pleasure to the client's mind.

Through this method, Suijin has brought a few notable members of society under his grasp. The clockwork mechanism in the clock can be controlled by Suijin, or else it is set with a pattern to go on – but anyway, by changing the speed of the clock, Suijin can alter the behavior of his clients. One of his clients was the singer and leader of a fairly popular Japanese band. Suijin says that he essentially created the band's subsequent album by controlling the leader's emotions and creative impulses with the clock. There are other examples of this, but they are less ambiguous and I would rather not reveal them.

Suijin is a clock-maker. That's all he is. I have never met him, nor have I seen or heard him. He does not exist in physical reality. One must exist as a prerequisite for being a clock-maker, yeah? Then how is he a clock-maker? But he is.

Suijin is a clock-maker. He made me a clock which is handheld and portable. I keep it in the inside pocket of my jacket. I have to simultaneously try not to be influenced by it, and make sure I don't get paranoid about being influenced by it...I do not know which one is a more legitimate plan, which one is more grounded in reality. I think it is a game between us that he initiated by offering to make me the clock. If it is not, am I crazy? If it is, am I sane for realizing it? If neither has been confirmed at all, and reality can travel either path through time and both are therefore equally possible, am I sane or crazy? If you think about what Schrödinger deduced, I am in a way in a mixed state of existence combining both sanity and crazy, while they are both separate. It is not an in-between, half-sane half-crazy state, but rather it is both total sanity without any craziness and total craziness without any sanity at the same time.

You're crazy. Who have you been imagining for the name Suijin? I don't know why you imagined such a person. Suijin is not a real person. I am sane for knowing it, but you are weak for submitting to my words' dominion over your cognitive process. Gullible? No, I think weak is more accurate. But how strong you are to come right out of it and drink these new words so quickly! However, the fact that you have done so simply shows further desperation...You are desperate but you are also adaptable and changing, always changing. We think you are changing, at least, but the truth is you are a puppet on the strings of the all-controlling clock-maker, God. Suijin is God. I don't believe God has a physical presence in our fast-paced and trivial material reality, which is to say I don't believe God exists... I suppose Suijin is just a clock-maker. But he only exists as much as God does, because they are both simultaneously fictional and real in minds. Suijin is real in my mind and in your mind, although the image in your mind of Suijin is weaker than the image in my mind. This is because words are a shoddy substitute for direct telepathic communication. If only the radio waves coming from my brain could be directed to yours! But I do not know where or when you are, in other words, your coordinates. I must use words as a funnel for the thoughts...But I have to shoot them through the skinny end, and they are coming out the wider end; therefore less get in, and when they come out they spread so far apart that very few of the original thoughts get into your head when you finally read the words.

Suijin is a clock-maker. Do you realize that you are looking at splatters of ink on a thin flat piece of cellulose pulp* and getting ideas out of nowhere by thinking that they mean something? In other words, ideas or thoughts that you quite probably would never have had in your entire life are spontaneously made to pop into your mind because you have the crazy delusion in your head that these ink splatters have semantic meaning and you allow them to be equivalent to images, or first words, then images. But I will not deride you for your incapabilities.

Remember Suijin? That was actually many years ago that I related his story to you. I have been talking to you for years, and you are Rip Van Winkle – what world will you wake up to? When you do, will Suijin be in complete control?
As you can understand, I just asked questions that only apply to real situations about fictional situations, and beforehand I had put you into that fictional situation. Right now you are there in that fiction, fictionally. But you are also clearly in this reality, really. So, which of you is more real, or important?  The fictional fiction or the real reality?
Suijin is only a clock-maker.
Let's leave now, Suijin.
好.


*In this case, the correct description would be automatically displayed sequences and patterns of light on a much larger, but still flat and thin, field of the very same light.

Written: November 3, 2008

I have no freedom and thus have all the freedom in the world. I have no free will but what I am granted in return is free will. I am a servant of Death.
Xol is the name I call Death. Xol is everything you have heard and more - the classic depictions of the Reaper, and old Egyptian Anubis, Hades, Pluto, Baron Samedi, and so on forever – these are all true.
Xol for me is a dark being – not black in the common Western racial terms but a black being in the truest sense, and verily – the blackest. I can not say Xol is evil, but there is a complete absence of good. Xol is not the devil – Xol is Death. The Harvester. The Medium, the Vehicle.
I am a servant of Xol – I submit my entire life and all of my energy and soul to Xol, and in return I do not experience Death, rather, I experience Xol daily. Xol is Death. I will never die but I will always constantly experience Death. Does this make sense to you? I hope it does, and yet if it does not it does not matter. I will live, in the weakest sense of the word, forever, and I will forever be able to tell people this.
Just as Dorian Grey felt the horror of viewing his hideous portrait, so I feel always, if I ever think of myself. But also in me is the great perfection found in the serving of Xol and in the worship of Xol.
Xol is not so much a being, but a thought – and yet transcendent of the pettiness of thinking beings – a thought present universally, and so strong enough to create a being. This being is Xol. Xol is not a being.
I became a servant of Xol when I was brought into this world – the light, the sounds, the extreme openness to all liabilities, were overwhelming. I found solace, but I did not know in what or in whom. Now I know – but the answer is not what or who. It is Xol. Xol is nothing but Xol – and thus less than nothing – so far below that Xol devours all – Xol is present in everything and even if you go to Nothing you will find Xol. Xol is Death. Do you understand?
Xol is a swirling and static mass of shadow and light and eyes and limbs, but does not exist physically. Xol is truly ineffable. For this reason, all I say is nonsense. You may take from this what you wish, but I will be here for all eternity – to be sure, Eternity is only an aspect of Xol, of Death, of the Universe, of the All. When you come back to read this in ten, in twenty, in one hundred, one thousand, one million, years – it will still be here, and so I will still be here, and so Xol will still be here. It seems if I did not exist then Xol would no longer exist for me – but the opposite is true. Everything depends on Xol. Xol is Everything, the Universal concept. Ideas – what are Ideas but a fallen piece of ash from the burning cloak of Xol? So I praise Xol. Xol brings me all I could ever want – but to want, for me, is to need. It is what Xol has made for me.

Note: If you read it, could you please say something? Anything about it! RRRGH

Initially I only had the first sentence, but I kept rambling onward and felt like posting it.

Even gods have flaws. Every single mythology has recognized this, even the Christian Bible. But modern Christians will have none of it. I think that is the main thing that turns me off from Christians, as well as the thing that is the one major logical flaw in their thinking.
God must be flawed. Not only are there numerous contradictions in the Bible, etc., but I think the simplest reason is this: he created people in his image. If people are flawed, God must be flawed. Flaws cannot be traced to being given free will, because surely God has free will? Or, if he doesn't, he is being controlled by some other, more powerful force. Therefore, if God is the most powerful force in the universe we must assume he has free will.

If flaws were something new he created just for humans (that bastard), then where did the concept come from? In a perfect universe, with all this perfect shit, this perfect being God somehow thought to create something that wasn't perfect? How? Is it his omniscience? If so, it means that he is able to know not only all that is true, but all that is false and nonexistent - for in the universe before he created humans, flaws did not exist. Yet he knew them. God thus must know and imagine all that is false, nonexistant, or impossible. God thus knows and can imagine the impossible, which is contradictory in itself (Despite what you may believe, there is no way God is beyond logic; that is a weak and desperate answer). Surely a much simpler solution to this is: God is flawed.
If Christians accepted that God were flawed, the Bible and all of Christian philosophy would suddenly make so much more sense.
In fact, it would all make perfect sense.



- Epimetheus
_{RAAAAGH ATTRIBUTION NON-COMMERCIAL CREATIVE COMMONS GRRRR!}

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=514799&in_page_id=1770

Discuss!

I think we should plan something major for 2012.


We've got time. Any suggestions?



EDIT: The number of members right now is 2012. 

[looks]

Seeing as I am still in my early noob phase, I dunno how this'll be recieved.
Totally free for you to steal and make better and print/use if you want.


EPIMETHEUSPEW (EPMS, or Eh, let me think Phor Myself, Schmuck!)
#1
DATE: 2.12.2008
TIME: 19.42
SUBJECT: The Virus


   I'll try to be forthright.
   You're dead. It's not something you caused, but it is something you let happen. But it's okay. It's not your fault. Look at everyone around you. They're probably dead (or, if lucky, just dying) too. It's something that, to some degree, happens to everyone.
   I'm dead?, you ask. But I feel fine. Well, I don't blame you. That's how the virus works. Yes, I said it. It is the virus that has killed you. A virus? you say. Well, it must be benign. It's not like everyone looks diseased.
        In fact, the virus is quite harmful. The very reason everyone doesn't look diseased is because the virus makes it seem that way to you. The virus infects every person on Earth. It keeps an eye on you once you're born, but can't get in until that oh so special day... The day you start learning.
   When you start learning, you have officially been compressed by your parents (or guardians) into their reality tunnel. Pretty soon you mold your own, but it is only made of what you can glean off theirs. Finally the virus can get to you. The reality tunnel you have made is a direct passage for the virus to travel right into your brain.
        Then you start school, and the virus feeds, and feeds, and feeds. It has rooted itself in your brain even more. All it will do for most of your life is feed, and get stronger and stronger. Right now it is there inside you, waiting for more information to enter so it can devour every bit. As your eyes see this, it is the virus that reads it and interprets it, and decides what to do with it. Your cognitive process, memory, and even movements are controlled by the virus. Everything you hear people say, see people do, even smell, feel, and taste, pass through the virus for inspection before being let through into your brain. It has always been this way, and will continue till the day you die, unless you take action. Starting now.


(Followed by several Discordian memebombs of the think-for-yourself-schmuck flavor)

                                         I hope you know what to do.
                                         Good luck.