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Hey everyone!

It's been a long time since I've posted here. I've been busy with school and work - doing both at the same time leaves little time for fun stuff, and unfortunately Reddit sneakily took the place of my go-to site.

I'm stopping by to link you guys to something I just put up on my blog - an idea I've been tinkering with for awhile and finally decided to do something about. It's about agnosticism, atheism, and belief. I think it's pretty cool and the diagram I put with it has been pretty useful for me in discussions about these kind of subjects.

So, here is is: http://chicagobelgium.blogspot.com/2012/02/proposition-of-new-terminology.html

I'd love to head what you guys think.

I used to not like Christmas. I've never like my dad, and I always had to go to his house on Christmas (parents divorced at 6), which I never liked because it meant spending time with people I didn't like.

Now it's a whole other ball game. I HATE Christmas.

Two years ago I worked 70+ hours a week at 3 shitty jobs to be able to move to Belgium, so that I could be with my girlfriend. Many of you know that story, she came to the states on exchange, we were apart for a year and 10 days, she came to visit, and then I moved there. I worked my ass off to come here. I worked my ass off to stay here, working 8 hours without a break at illegal jobs cos they said they would get me a work permit. I was, at the same time, working my ass off to learn French fast enough to stay here on a student visa.

So now I'm studying here, French is no problem, but money, of course, still is. My mom is a pastor who hates her job and wants nothing more than to retire, and my stepdad is on disability, because he has a neuro-degenerative disease that prevents him from walking/standing for long periods of time. In short, they're not rich. So while I'm here studying (in a foreign language none the less), I'm also working my ass off teaching English so that I can have enough money to eat.

My girlfriend does not have those problems. Her parents are rich and she has plenty of money without working at all.

So, as you can imagine, money can be an issue. At Christmas, it's hell. I have to get presents for everyone in her family, which stresses me like crazy. I would be so, so, SO much happier if none of them gave me gifts, and I gave none of them gifts. I don't need things to be happy. I need to not worry about if I'll be able to pay the rent to be happy. THEN, my girlfriend's friend invites us to spend a week in Switzerland with them. Which means, of course, spending a lot of money that I don't have. I told her that I absolutely couldn't afford to do the skiing and all that, which would have been hundreds of euros, but after her begging me I agreed to go without the skiing part. That still leaves me with about 80€ I'm going to have to spend, plus a week that I won't be able to work. She knows that it really stresses me, and at some point she offered to pay for my part, but it was hesitant and didn't sound sincere.

Then there's the shopping! She really wanted a new hat for Christmas, so we went to the mall in our town so I could get her one as her present. This mall is a terrible, terrible building. It's like they actually consciously tried to take every commercial aspect of American Christmas and concentrate it under one roof. So we spend an hour and a half there, at the end of which I was understandably in agony, though trying not to show it. She understood though and then got mad at me.

I know it sounds cliché, but I really just want a Christmas where I can spend time with people, no shopping, no stressing over money, just good food and people. But that's not how they do it in my girlfriend's family, and she already thinks I don't like her family enough.

I hate Christmas so fucking much.

I just need to get that out. Or kill me.

So, as we often see here on this board, many people find the Principia, read it, and then swear by it. While reading some stuff on Wittgenstein lately, I came across something he wrote at the end of this Tractacus that seemed quite relevant to this situation. It was his belief that his, and any other, philosophy, should be considered as a ladder. You climb the ladder to get a better view of your surroundings, but then you don't stay up there, you get down and get on with your life. My personal addition to this concept is that each philosophy is a ladder that will show you a different secion of the landscape, and so you can climd as many as you wish in order to get varied views, and then remember what you've seen, but move on.

Andre Compte-Sponville, in his books L'Amour, la Solitude, referenced a slightly different version of this, which apparently comes from the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha, arriving at a river, building himself a raft to cross it. Once built, the raft serves its purpose of bringing him to the other side. However, having crossed the river, the Buddha would not continue to carry the raft on his back, which would only weigh him down.


So yeah, once the Principia has served its purpose, the pineal crap should be left behind. Not saying I don't still get a laugh out of the pentabarf, but come on.

[Savory French toast squares with spinach-curry creme sauce]

Lately I've been playing round with savory French toast, and I've got two recipes I'd like to share.

The first is ridiculously good, but takes a bit of time.


Savory French toast squares with spinach-curry creme sauce
Ingredients:
-old (or fresh) bread, cut into small squares [the French word for French toast is pain perdu, 'lost bread', because it was a way to use bred that had turned]. Personally, I keep the heels of all the bread I eat for things like this.

Egg mixture:
-eggs
-creme
-mustard (dark, with seeds in it)
-paprika
-garlic (powdered or paste)
-salt

mix all that shit together, let the bread soak for awhile if it's old, cook the pieces as you would a regular sweet French toast

Sauce:
So yeah at the same time, start working on a sauce that you'll pour over the pieces. You need:
-frozen chopped spinache
-creme
-milk
-butter
-flour
-curry
-salt
-garlic (if you're as addicted to garlic as I am)
-fresh ground black pepper

First melt the spinach, then do with the butter and flour as you would for a regular white sauce. The advantage of putting in the chopped spinach first is that you really don't need to worry about clumps forming, it's the easier white sauce you'll ever make. It's best to whisk it while adding in milk/cream, but really you could just mix it well with a spatula spreader and you'd get by. I like this sauce to be pretty thick, but that's up to you. Throw in the curry and salt.

Place the squares on a plate, smother in the spinach garlic curry sauce, throw a sprig of cilantro on top to make it look nice, et voilà.


French toast cheese:
This one is super simple. I just made it up 40 minutes ago, it took 10 minutes, and it's all sorts of wonderful. You make pretty much the same egg mixture as with the first recipe, but I always threw in some curry for this one. This time you need fresh bread, 2 slices per sandwich (seriously goddamn revolutionary, I know). Dip one side of a slice of bread in the mixture for 3-5 seconds, then throw it in the pan, no oil, no butter, no nothing. Put some cheese on top (I used double crème, which is kinda like camembert), then cover the pan with a lid so that the cheese melts a little better. Dip one side of the second slice, throw it on top, flip it over, you know the drill.

It's basically a grilled cheese, but with so many added benefits. The bread now has a ton of flavor, and a slightly different texture. Also, you don't use any oil/butter, which makes the whole thing less greasy, while not taking away from the deliciousness of the toast.



[yeah, today I went out and bought a whole bunch of those Paix-Dieu that I'd had last night]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/the-pope/8148899/Pope-approves-use-of-condoms-in-fight-against-Aids.html

[...] may be [...] a male prostitute uses a condom [...] to redevelop the understanding that [...] everything is permitted

aka
Catholicism takes back the easiest thing to point at when discussing the problems of organized religion.

Not sure how I feel about this. I don't really know how much influence the pope has when he says "don't use a condom", so I feel like this switch won't change much. This does make the Church look slightly less douchy though, which [very] slightly lessens the justification of my contempt for it. I don't feel any differently, but that was always a great line to throw out when discussing/arguing about organized vs disorganized religion with my girlfriend, which happens often enough.

Thoughts?

You know those people who ask for donations in the street for Red Cross, Oxfam, or other things like that? Well, I respect them, kindof. Enough to not walk by without brushing them off. I always stop(unless I'm in a real hurry, and then I apologize), and at least hear them out before telling them I have no money to give. They're out there doing something they believe in (I guess) in the hot sun, and I like strangers, so I'll always have the decency to stop.

But today I finally gave in, I agreed to give 5 euros from my bank account, because it shows that they have support and helps them with subsidies and whatnot. Anyway I finally caved. I can't afford to do that!

I think it's worth brainstorming on funny/interesting things to say to them. Like that, you don't just brush them off, and you make the encounter a nice experience for both of you.

Today, the Red Cross girl started towards me from 5 meters, and right when she got next to me I jumped back and said "Ah! I don't like needles!" as if she were about to stab me with one. I continued to make jokes throughout the conversation, which made the whole thing very fun. Yeah I gave 5 euros I can barely afford to give, but it was worth the nice encounter with a stranger. Things like:

her: and we try to get child soldiers out of armies, which as you can imagine isn't easy
me: yeah I know! I tried once, I got three kids but then I had to run away, they kept shooting at me


SO. Ideas for ways to make these street encounters fun? I guess there'd be some approaches that work specifically for certain types of organisations(like the needle thing), and some that work for all sorts. I know a bunch of things to do for telemarketers(sooo much fun), which is similar but still a very different approach. People on the street are often there because they really support the cause, and the face-to-face  interaction provides new limitations and opportunities.

I'll start:

-ask them how they are, pretending they're a long lost friend, and that's they reason why they walked up to you
-ask questions as if you thought they were a sort of cult(are there any initiation rites? do I have to pledge my allegiance to the Kool-Aid Man?)
-just start telling an unrelated story(this could be a little rude, depending on where you go with it).

your turn!

Edit: maybe this goes in OM? I never really think about where I post things..

Ok I'm going to write this up quick because I should be studying, but I keep forgetting to make this topic.

I study philosophy, and occasionally I come across something that shares some ideas found in the Principia. Last year I gave a speech about the part in the Principia about "psycho-metaphysics", but I didn't have any other established arguments to lean on, and they're certainly not explicated in the Principia, so I got torn up when I had to defend my presentation. It wasn't for a class, thankfully, just a philosophy student group, but now when I see links to that section in the works of philosophers such as Kant or Nietzsche, I take care to note them.

Nietzsche is easy. He's even quoted in the principia, his think about needing chaos to be a dancing star. But even further than that, his anthropology deals with chaos pretty often. When he talks about human perception and life, he often links it back to chaos. He criticized metaphysicians and hailed artists, saying that they both took the chaos that is existence, and while the metaphysicians tried to make it fit neat and orderly into boxes, the artist simply interpreted it. He went as far as to say that to live is to interpret.

Kant deserves mention just because he's so goddamn famous(albeit annoying as hell). His 12 categories correspond slightly to the section on psycho-metaphysics and grids and windows. But not as much as this guy:

Richard Rorty - I wonder if the section on psycho-metaphysics was not completely based on his work. His concepts on the "linguistic community"'s affect on the individual's perception of reality corresponds directly to this section of the principia. However, in the principia, the 'material' of the grids is not specified, whereas Rorty clearly defines it as the language, in the broadest sense of the term, and he bases this work on the "language game" work of Wittgenstein. I haven't had the chance to read Wittgenstein yet, I've only read about him, but I imagine his work could be related to Discordian ideals in some ways as well.

Rorty is still very controversial, so it's not as "established" as the others, but he is super famous, before he died in 2007 he was probably 1 or the 2 most influential living philosophers(with Habermas). But his relative epistemology is pretty much the exact same thing as this part of the principia, explained differently.


There is also of course the eastern aspects of Zen, especially with the koans found in the Principia, but in the western world, those hold less weight.

Are there any other links, direct or otherwise, that you guys see between Discordian works and "established" philosophers?

This is so cool! Fake English!

If you're a native English speaker it gives you a weird feeling that you should understand but you don't. Depending on your level of Enlgish if you're not a native speaker, it either gives you the same unsettling feeling or makes you feel bad for not understanding!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZXcRqFmFa8

So much fun!

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844, presumably with no mustache. As he grew older, he developed his thoughts, and as his philosophy grew, so did his mustache. And, as we all know, his insanity. By the time he died in 1900, his mustache was as great as the pain in his eyes.


Nietzsche at age 16



Age 20, a strapping young man

He had just started to study theology, but quit after a semester, denouncing his Christian faith.


An undated photo that I would place around age 25, he's fairly handsome with that controlled mustache.



Nietzsche, a 31 year old philology professor

His mustache is at this point considerable, but not necessarily excessive. His stare is fixed but we don't yet see the pain.


Friedrich Nietzsche went insane in 1989, at the young age of 45. He is said to have collapsed on the street after throwing his arms around a horse to protect it from being whipped. This undated portrait shows a man with an enormous mustache and a stare that is haunting if you've seen a similar stare in the mirror.



Nietzsche at 54, a year before his death


He would suffer a stroke that year and another the next, leaving him unable to speak or walk.


I present you this short piece with a mixture of humoristic appreciation and melancholy. I have a deep respect for the work of Nietzsche, and I have an insatiable interest in the role that insanity plays in the world of philosophy.

This also is slightly personal, as there was a short, painful, yet positively transformative period of my life where my mustache was touching my bottom lip.

RIP Nietzsche, je vous remercie pour tout ce que vous nous avez donné.


Edit: shit, I meant to put this in Bring and Brag, can someone move it for me? thanks

Anyone else here use Ubuntu? I just downloaded the new version which came out today, and I'm about to install it. I'm pretty excited, I've heard this version is the one that's going to make it more mainstream, laptop companies are supposed to start selling laptops with it pre-installed this summer. It'll have a 5 year support plan and it's free(as always), and from what I've heard it just functions wonderfully. And apparently they got the boot time down even lower, though it's already super fast with 9.10.

I'm not super linux nerdy or anything, but honestly Ubuntu runs so much better than windows or mac OS's. I keep vista on this laptop and dual boot(for those who don't know, that means I get to choose which operating system I want to run on startup), but it's really only for Age of Empires III, which I play maybe once a week, and itunes, even though there are linux replacements. Otherwise I only use Ubuntu, it's so much faster and nicer.

www.ubuntu.com for more info.

There's a woman who works in my faculty who looks very much like you. I haven't seen a picture of you in while, admittedly, but from what I remember she's the spitting image minus 1 nose ring. Lately she's been looking pretty stressed, and I noticed just today that I've been unconsciously superimposing everything I've read on this site from you on to her. I don't read everything on here, but alot more than I respond to, and I've unconsciously(though now that I noticed it, it's conscious) attributed all of that to her. When I see her upset, I always read into it. Today I saw her at the lake, and she looked in bad shape, and I really wanted to talk to her to see what was wrong and see if there was anything I could do to help. I usually have this instinct around strangers but it was every more so here because I felt like I already knew what was wrong.

Then I remembered I was just crazy, so I just smiled at her as she passed. I don't know if she even knows I'm in her faculty, I've never spoken to her. I hope the smiled helped a little bit though.

I want your best spicy recipes. Preferably vegetarian, but I can modify things to make them as such. My nose has been clogged often lately, and today it's just horrible. I just ate half of a raw onion covered in tabasco sauce in an attempt to open up my nostrils. It helped a little, but I'd like a little variety.

So a bunch(tens and tens of thousands) of Thai protesters are having their blood drawn and then put into little plastic bags so that they can throw blood at government buildings. Apparently they don't like the prime minister/dictator-as-they-call-him dude.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g3j-vAVG1fg3kEfnogTiH8_4EXvwD9EGD4980

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/thailand.protests/

What do you guys think? I'm fascinated. And if so many people are doing this, there's probably something amiss. They say they're drawing around 1000 liters a day. That's enough to feed an average vampire family for a year!

BITCHES

DON'T

KNOW



'bout my 'stache

beWARE my facial HAIR




also the bunny, he'll fuck you up

(I wrote this for myself, but now I think I want to share it. I'll add translations for the French words, though the original words are written in French for a reason, the words are better. Union de l'âme et du corps = the union of the body and the soul)


I'm 20, and though I enjoy going out and drinking and dancing sometimes, I feel a growing nausea rising when I see people my age. I find dégueulasse [disgusting] the type of girl who just goes out and fucks n'importe qui [anyone], but I don't think this is forcement [necessarily] uncommon. I find infantile the head-butting and absurd attempt at seriousness that goes on between guys. The insecurity hangs so thick in the air, and the farce of projecting it on everyone else begins. Chest-puffing thumb-suckers.

I like to consider myself as above them all, seeing as I see the farce that's being played and I laugh at it. But I don't say shit. And worse, I don't avoid these people at all costs. In fact ils me manquent [I miss them] sometimes. I've learned my lesson years ago, but sometimes need to be reminded of it. Once I'm reminded I get that bad taste in my mouth, and I recognize the taste from that one time I got food-for-thought poisoning. I distance myself, I said I distance myself and go back to my safe haven, my comfort which I had begun to take for granted.

This is a clear instability. My point of view follows the oval whip of a moon around my world. Is this a bad thing? Pas forcement [Not necessarily]. Shit, the Greeks thought the moon was perfect because it had "trouvé son lieu" [found it's place] and thus no longer had a reason to move. But they also never got around to inventing cool stuff like color photography and Dreamcast. Kahlil Gibran, on the other hand, had some decent shit going on between his ears. Like that without getting good then bad then good tastes shit would just be bland. I don't feel like bland is a great way to taste the rainbow, it feels like a waste of color vision. Of course who am I to say

words. Anyway I digress. I rest unrepentant in my oval orbit. Si je me trompe et c'est débile, tout ce que je raconte, bah alors tant pis. [If I'm wrong and everything I'm saying is stupid, well, oh well.]

So

I finally got internet back today! After months of no intertubes flowing to my place, they're back. So instead of checking the pics thread on school computers before going to class, I can finally participate here again.

Also today is the state of the union address, which I think starts in like 40 minutes(midnight, my time). So I've been preparing by drinking for the last couple hours and watching south park and daily show and other niceties I usually don't get here.

So, thoughts on.. shit? I dunno. I guess maybe someone has some ideas on what obama's going to say. It's hard to follow the news closely without internet, but I read a little every day. But I have no idea what's going on in America anymore, except for what I read from my friends on facebook.

So yeah, I'll be hanging out watching the state of the union with this handy drinking game posted by the huffington post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/state-of-the-union-drinki_n_436932.html

I have no hard alcohol, but lots of delicious belgian beer. woo!

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

shitty sound quality but I wanted to start getting some of my work onto the intertubes

So I'm writing a paper about chaos, and I need references n shit. Any articles, books, anything really, about the idea of chaos(preferable from a philosophical point of view, as opposed to a mathematical one), in either English or French.

I know you guys have to know of some stuff, so help a brother out and let me know about them

There was "very strong feeling" among the council's members over Prof Nutt's sacking, Dr King said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8336635.stm


ahh

Hey guys

so I've been without internet for awhile, but I wanted to share this with you guys. It's a speech I gave last night. We were given a quote to write about, and then had to speak for about 10 minutes. I wrote it in French, so I'll just post it like that for those who can read French, and I'll see if I have the time to translate it by the end of the day.

(btw there are a couple tiny errors)

Mon visage, avant ma naissance, était la chaos. Désormais, ma gueule est un masque.

On discutera ici de l'idée de sens, et les concepts en faisant partie. Je considère, dans le contexte de ce discours, le sens comme un masque ou une fenêtre, et ma vraie identité comme mon visage. On va, alors, parler des différences entre le deux, les effets du masque, et les conséquences d'examiner le masque de trop près.

Afin de mieux expliquer ce masque qui couvre mon visage et entoure mon corps, je vais d'abord vous présenter les concepts de « fenêtres » et « grilles », qui viennent de l'école de pensée Discordian. La Discordianism est une philosophie fondée à San Fransisco dans les années 60 et 70, et qui est basée sur le Bouddhisme, le chaos, et l'absurdité. Les concepts de « fenêtres » et « grilles » chez les Discordians parlent de l'esprit comme un appareil qui nous fait voir la réalité à travers des 'préjugés-de-réalité'. C'est comme si vous aviez un écran d'un télévision qui ne montre que les parasites, et donc vous comprenez rien. Puis, vous êtes donnés des marqueurs, et avec ces marqueurs vous dessinez des lignes, des formes, ect, et tout à coup vous voyez des patterns dans les parasites qui n'existaient pas avant. Vous pouvez penser que vous avez trouvé des patterns pré-existants, mais en fait vous les avez crées. Ces 'préjugés-de-réalité', ces marqueurs,  sont donnés par nos cultures respectives, et donc, chez les Discordians, une culture n'est qu'une groupe des personnes qui ont des fenêtres semblables. C'est au cause de ça, je pense, que je me sens plus à l'aise ici qu'aux États-Unis. La 'cadre de vie', les grilles dessinées sur les fenêtres de beaucoup de monde ici ressemblent la mien plus fort que la majorité de grilles chez moi. Tout le monde dessine sur la fenêtre, mais là-bas on voit un taureau tandis qu'ici on voit un mouton. C'est aussi au cause de ce concept, selon les Discordians, que ceux qui ne se rendent pas compte que de cette idée sont désespérément perplexes que les peuples des autres cultures ont une notion très diffèrent de la « réalité » qu'eux. Mais en fait la réalité ne change pas du tout, ces sont des 'préjugés-de-réalité' qui sont diffèrent.

Donc tout le monde a sa grille qui décode la réalité. Mais selon cette philosophie, et je suis d'accord, tout l'ordre, et donc tout sens, qu'on trouve dans le monde est mis-en-place par nos grilles. Il n'y a pas des patterns en réalité, c'est nous qui les inventons, ce n'est pas nous qui les trouvons. Il n'y a pas d'ordre dans réalité, c'est nous qui l'avons mis, afin que nous puissions avoir le confort des motifs et l'illusion de la régularité. On se sent, généralement, plus à l'aise quand on peut prédire, dans une certaine mesure, ce qui arrivera. Il y en a certaines qui préfère des niveaux différents de certitude, mais sans aucune idée de ce qui peut se passer à n'importe quel moment, personne ne peut se sentir confortable.

Il y a plein d'autres idées à propos de nos visions de la réalité dans cette philosophie, mais je ne vais vous en citer qu'une. C'est le constat que bien qu'il y ait des grilles plus belles, plus agréables, ou mieux équipées pour certains choses, il n'y en a aucune qui est plus Vrai(v majuscule) que les autres. Par exemple, la grille d'un artiste n'est pas bien équipé, normalement, à gérer une société de 10,000 employés, car il voit le monde comme un paysage plein de couleurs et contours, il n'envisage pas le monde comme chiffres et dates limites. Et le président de cette société n'aurait pas, j'imagine, autant imagination pour dessiner quoi que ce soit d'autre qu'un graphique. Mais quand même, ni l'une ni l'autre de ces visions n'est  'mieux' ou 'plus Vrai'.

Tout ça fait une partie d'une position philosophique avec laquelle je suis d'accord à bien des égards. Mais ce qui n'est pas discuté chez les Discordians, dans tout ce que j'ai lu, est l'idée d'un miroir qui nous montre nos masques. Ce miroir se présente quand on se demande des questions à propos de son existence, comme: Qui suis-je? Où suis-je? Qu'est-ce qui fait que la bouteille qui est sur ma table est faite de verre, et que je le donne des attributs comme « brune » ou « vide »? Personnellement, je crois que le miroir n'est pas présent pour tout le monde, mais seulement pour ceux qui le cherchent, ceux qui veut avoir un mieux coup d'œil à leur visage. Ceux qui ne se demandent pas des questions d'eux-mêmes n'ont pas la lumière de ce reflet, mais à mon avis, il n'y a personne ici ce soir qui ne voit pas ce miroir.

Et donc qu'est-ce on voit quand on regarde ce miroir de près? On voit que cette grille, ce masque, est fait de bandelettes, d'idées données, mais non sollicitées, de sa culture. Et si on approche le miroir, on voit que les pansements sont légers, ils sont des faibles tentatives à s'empêcher la réalisation de l'absence de sens, c'est-à-dire la chaos qui défini notre réalité, dont on a peur. C'est un mécanisme de défense construit inconsciemment par soi-même, avec les matières trouvées dans sa culture.

Et quand on réalise que les bandelettes ne sont que des illusions qu'on a mis afin d'être capable de nier la chaos, ils pourrissent, ils chutent. C'est comme dans un dessin d'où est Charlie. Au début il est difficile à trouver, mais une fois que on l'a trouvé, il est impossible de ne plus le voir. On essai d'en mettre une nouvelle pour le remplacer, et parfois ça marche, mais pas toujours. Certaines personnes qui n'ont pas envie d'admettre un fait dans leur vies ont un pouvoir exceptionnel pour se convaincre d'une autre explication, qu'importe si elle est improbable. Il y en a certains qui les ont tout arrachées ou presque, et ils sont devenus fous, comme Nietzsche et des millions d'inconnus.

Donc, puisque beaucoup de monde n'a pas envie de suivre les chemins de ceux qui cherchaient la vérité, la réalité, ou même juste un petit coup d'œil à son propre visage, mais enfin n'ont trouvé que la folie(qui est, peut-être, la vrai nature de soi-même), il faut laisser des bandelettes. Ce n'est pas du tout nécessaire de tout laisser, et je dirais même que si on en garde trop, on ne trouvera rien, mais le visage tout nu n'est pas capable d'appréhender notre monde. Et donc, si on veut continuer à vivre dans ce monde où le sens est une nécessité, il faut garder le masque.

Je n'en sais rien, mais j'espère qu'après la mort je peut abandonner ma gueule afin de voir mon visage, et je soupçonne que ça sera le cas. Mais l'homme doit garder son masque durant son temps ici, sinon il va se perdre, trop impatient pour la vérité et la clarté qu'il n'a pas.









Just thought you guys might find it interesting. I'll be back later with a translation

I like rap, I write rap, and I just discovered one awesome artist and rediscovered another, thought I'd share

New guy(who's really old): 'Slug' from Atmosphere
this guy is excellent. a little like Sage Francis, if you know him. Great wordplay and poetic rhythm. I'm hooked on 2 songs, 'Body Pillow' and 'Bleed Slow'

and I recently rediscovered Gift of Gab from Blackalicious, who is fucking excellent. The song 'Release' he did with Saul Williams was excellent, and I just started listening carefully to 4th Dimension Rocketships Going Up, which is some really great work.

I'm also getting into French rap and slam, namely MC Solaar and Grands Corps Malade. If you understand French they're both must-listens.

what rhythmic rhymes are you guys listening to these days?

I made a really good bread 2 days ago, well actually I made 2 breads, one banana bread and one real bread. The normal bread was just a good bread recipe with mustard and emmentalle cheese rolled into and baked into it. And it's awesome! Now I was to make a bunch more bread, but interesting stuff you wouldn't be able to find in a store. Ideas?

Ok, so a little backstory. I've lived in a university town in Belgium for 11 months now, and in all that time, I've only met 1 other American. I've gone to all of the English speaking events, and I always say something when I hear a native accent in English(which is pretty uncommon here), and all I've met are Irish, Scottish, and Canadians, except one guy who was visiting someone, who I met in an English pub. The closest thing I've heard to my accent here was a guy from Columbia(who went to middle school in English and probably watches alot of American movies).

So I'm walking home from the store just now and I see I guy on a bike, passing slowly in front of me to go down a twisty ramp thing. On the back of his shirt it says "Want our country back?", and I think to myself, "oh that looks American". Then on the front in huge letters: "HOWARD DEAN FOR AMERICA"

I was too shocked to say anything, though I would have liked to. First of all, no one has worn a Howard Dean shirt in America for at least 4 years(to my knowledge), but here?

This part belongs in the OP board, but as a tangent to this I thought it would be great to wear political shirts that don't make much sense, mostly in America(no one wears shirts of the politicians here, most people don't know who they are). I was thinking along the lines of "Ban Ki-Moon for Surgeon General!"

anyway, the Howard Dean shirt just fucked with my head, I had to share

Here's what's for dinner, pasta(leftovers) with zucchini, onions, garlic, and olives fried in butter and olive juice, with some fresh ground black pepper. Also, you have to imagine the shredded Emmentale cheese cos I forgot to put it on before the picture.



It's delicious, in case you were wondering.

And to drink, a Tongerlo Triple:



Bon app à tout le monde

[Realistically]

Having read too many of this loopy girl's notes on facebook telling people how to live(though I agree with much of what she said), I decided to post my own note, titled "Social Meta-Commentary(sounds so interesting, I know!)"

it reads:

I have alot of beliefs, kindof. I actually just have many ideas that I hold fast to.

I've been seeing alot of things on facebook and elsewhere lately where people are stating their steadfast beliefs, saying how they are right and how others are wrong. I believe that yes, everyone is right, but the others are in fact also right.

I am right about this.

All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.

There are people who I would(and do) say are dumb, but they are still right. How can you criticize someone without knowing their exact reasoning for what they say, as is influenced by every experience, no matter how trivial, in their lives? And how could you know a fraction of that?

I love George Bush. I would say that he has made many very poor decisions in his policies, but how do I know the complete end result of everything he's done? What if the world's counter-push-pull effect from his actions makes the world better than it would have been otherwise? I would say that he is a dishonest person, but how as I can't read his mind, I can't judge it. And even if I could why would I?


Realistically, I would say that he was a bad president. I did not support him in either election. I am an Obama supporter, as I was when I worked on his campaign for senate in 2004.

But who am I even to judge realism? I realize I digress here, and the more that I push the envelope on metaphysics the smaller my audience gets, but it pains me to deal in absolutes.

Obama=McCain=MLK=Bush=Ghandi=Hitler=your high school principle



Trying to apply abstracts, especially those of what many would consider an absurdist nature, to the politics and social issues that overbear our senses daily is difficult, so I'll wrap this up in the interest of having anyone glance at more than the title.

What I'm trying to say here is that YOU KNOW NOTHING. Nothing is certain, nothing is real, and you are not Saul Goodman when you are lost out here.

Having written this note, I have proven that I know even less, trying to tell you what to think.


'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.

the girl mentioned previously was the first to reply, with only


"lol love it"

[PPGASM]

PPGASM

Product Placement - Golden Apple Seed Mission


This is something I've been doing for a couple months. It's fun, entertaining, and very easy.

Basically: if you see any type of surveillance camera or video camera or any of that, or even you just think you're being watched, find the nearest thing around you with a brand logo on it, the bigger the logo the better, hold it up in on hand, give a thumbs up with the other, and give a big cheesy smile for the camera.


It's a beautiful mindfuck, IMO. Granted the cameras are rarely screened by actual humans, but I do this often enough that I'm sure it has been seen multiple times. I can imagine someone bored at work, staring at a screen and seeing what looks like someone try market a product. Then I can imagine them thinking, "wait, are companies going trying so hard to get their logo stuck in my head that they're advertising on security cameras?! no, that couldn't be. but what if?...". Same goes for the security guard lost in his thoughts, or even an onlooking shopper or whatever.

The idea came to me from open road tolling. You know those things that you drive under with your iPass or what have you and then if you don't have one the big thing you go under takes a picture of your license plate? Well I was driving to Illinois, and I left mine in my parents other car, but I hadn't realized until I'd passed under 2 of them already. I figured if they're going to take a picture of me, I might as well do something funny, maybe they'll laugh and not ticket me(it turns out they know which plates are associated with iPasses so they wouldn't have anyway). I was drinking a ginger ale, as I often do, and it had a big Canada Dry logo on it, so I held it up, gave a thumbs up, smiled and drove on through.

Now whenever I'm in a store or anywhere I see cameras, I just grab the nearest corporate logo and go for it. I'm always looking for cameras anyway cos I'm hopelessly paranoid, so this makes it into a quite entertaining game, and I got a few friends hooked too.



So yeah, I've been meaning to write this up for awhile but have been too lazy. Any thoughts?

oh, and pee-pee-gasm sounds funny.

Avocados and fresh mozzarella. Two of the best things ever. Just sliced up and one put on top of the other.


It was so hard to stop eating this long enough to take a picture of it.

This summer I want to do some more stuff with a charcoal grill, but I'm lost beyond pineapples and Boca burgers(both of which are about to be put on the grill, my charcoal is still heating up).

Assuming I don't burn down my house, as I almost just did(grill was waaay too close to the house, used way too much lighter fluid), does anyone have any suggestions of veggie dishes I can grill this summer?

He was talking to some guest who wrote a book about the internet, and part of the interview included them discussing what "creative chaos" is, at least in terms of the internet. I'll watch the interview again and pay more attention, see if I can transcribe any of it. But yeah it was pretty interesting.

I know it sounds awful, that's what everyone says until I offer them a bit and they reluctantly take it, then I have to stop them from stealing my lunch. Anyway yeah it's delicious.

Note: This dish can be enjoyed hot or cold, but if you decide to eat it hot, put the lime juice on after microwaving.

Ok, so you take a bagel(or a pizza crust, but I usually use a bagel, they taste a bit better that way I think), cut in half, and spread peanut butter on it. Usually I eat natural peanut butter that I make myself at work sans added salt, sugar, or oil, but for this dish get something salty and with a little bit of oil to it. Then you add the pizza sauce, I usually use Contadina Pizza Squeeze because we keep it in the house, but go with whatever you have around. Add your cheese(for 5 years I used fake cheese, but it's oh so much better now with real cheese), shredded preferably. (this would be the time to microwave your pizza if you wish to do so.) Then spritz a little lime juice on top, and tilt the bagel to let any extra lime juice drip off(unless you're like me, and you really, really like lime juice). Enjoy!

I know this sounds disgusting, but it's one of my favorite dishes, and it's super easy to make.

It works because first of all, it's already pizza. Then you add the peanut butter, which gives it some substance and fills you up. That by itself might be a bit too heavy, so the lime juice counterbalances that with a bit of sour and sweet. The pizza sauce also has a bit of acidic nature to it, but not too much. Everyone likes the ingredients in different proportions, and some only use a drop or two of lime or none at all, but if you get it right, it's phenomenal.

So I was a vegan for over 5 years, and I just downgraded to veggie about a month and a half ago. I've been going heavy into cheese and pancakes and that sort of thing, but I want more, MOAR.

I'm currently eating Doritos Collisions(it's pretty intense; two flavors - one bag), the hot wings/blue cheese blend. They're pretty awesome, after eating bland horseshit for 5 years, but I want to branch out.

I have a very, very low budget(my bank account is currently $-6.94, but measly paycheck coming soon), but I want to make up for all the that time without all the dairy goodness. I'm not big on swiss cheese, but other than that, I'm willing to try anything.

Any suggestions?

Also, I just have to say, the best part about not being a vegan anymore is that I don't have to tell people I'm a vegan. I was always a self-loathing vegan that would encourage others at a restaurant to order steak to make up for my lack of meat.

I was at a park yesterday where some friends were fishing and those of us who weren't eventually got bored and started chucking shit in the lake. I told them about Sink, and only one payed attention really(but she got into it, she was hellbent on sinking Kentucky[this was in Illinois]), but we all kept throwing shit anyway. Eventually we found a bunch of wood, including the palate for crates or whatever, and we were all a couple joints in at that point so we decided it was our boat, and threw it over the mound of shopping carts that were already in the lake when we got there, and spent a good 45 minutes pushing it out to sea and throwing shit at/on it. It was an incredible amount of fun.

Anyway, has anyone else intentionally played Sink?

Does anyone play any other absurdist games they consider Discordian?

1000 Blank White Cards comes to mind. Any others?


Oh yeah, and pics to come.

I love them.

In fact, my name, NWC, originated from my initials, N*C, and the W was added by a stranger, who, after having heard me at a poetry reading, officially changed my middle name to Wordsmith.

So I decided to post a bit of poetry, because I like it and it is me. It's often personal, and the best of my work all is inspired by the love of my life, so yeah, there will be some love poetry.

I know! Posting personal poetry on a forum, I'm just asking to be flamed. Go ahead. In fact, I'll join in.
Actually that gives me an idea. I'll start with a poem of mine called Camping, simply because I'm sick of it and need to flame it myself. I do love this poem dearly, but I've heard it to goddamn much. It was written about the first time my raison d'etre told me she loved me.

"Camping"

one day, late may
or one night, I should say
I lay there in dim light
drenched in dismay

sensation travels through my hand
to my brain, the information
haunting me dauntingly
with certainty of cessation

human contact, a basic instinct
distinctly remembered, now penned in ink
recalling words, not yet requited
but conceived, I hope, I think

endorphin rush from lips to lips
engulfs my heart, it melts, it drips
the sweet delight envelopes the night
tickling my fingertips

in her eyes, my reflection
my mind begs softly for verbal connection
inflection in her angelic voice
teasing me pleasingly with whispers of affection

the sun arises, we both awaken
a photo in my memory taken
the words she murmured in my ear
sincere, I am not mistaken



I may or may not post more, based on response.


I love you Marina!

My tattoo, done, by a Discordian at a shop called Sacred Chao Tatoo.