Scott Alexander reflects on the bittersweet experience of graduating from college in his introspective essay. He delves into the contrasting emotions of happiness and sadness that arise during this transitional phase. Alexander also explores the significance of his college memories and the struggle of navigating relationships. As he contemplates his future, he shares his plans to embark on a journey to Japan and embrace the pursuit of truth and beauty. Discover the profound insights and self-discovery in this captivating read.

Mi, skathanalamiaph quentelin prition
[May. 21st, 2006|01:07 am]




[Tags|college, meaningful]
[Current Location
|Major 314, Hamilton College]
[mood
|thoughtful]
[music
|Find the River]I graduate tomorrow. Early morning. Then I meet my family and we all fly home. Everyone asks whether I'm sad or happy or what. With my usual ambivalence, I reply "A little of both." Enough of that! Let me amend every previous opinion and say with the confidence of someone who knows he has no other option that I am entirely, one hundred percent happy about graduation.Most likely Senior Week did it to me. That was its unintentional effect - a week to remind me of everything I disliked most about college. The supposedly cute or inspirational or hip activities that ended up being a desperate attempt to pleadingly convince me to have fun. The endless dances and parties where everyone except me is happily hanging out with zir girlfriend/boyfriend and drinking. The nonsensical regulations. And at the same time, the things I love about college are all gone. My freshman and sophomore and junior friends have long since gone home. Classes are long since over. The clubs and the newspapers and the library have stopped meeting and publishing and being open. The rain keeps me from the Glen and turns the walkways into a mud-soaked swamp.And there are other things, too. Everything's become too full of memories. Some of them bad, some of them good, but all of them just being there and being memorable and confusing me and making me all emotional. There are too many people who for some stupid reason I don't like or who don't like me, too many people who like me and always want to do things with me and I still have no idea what their names are, too many people who consider me a friend without me even understanding why. It's not that any of this is bad - it's part of life, and an important part. It's just that it's to the point where it feels about to bury me. What's that verse from the Shelley poem? Something like "And now he fled astray / with feeble step, o'er the world's wilderness / and his own thoughts, along that rugged way / pursued, like hunting hounds, their shepherd and their prey." That's how I feel.Or to put it another way - in the forest south of Hamilton, there's a sign with a map of all the trails. All these years, I've taken all the trails except one, which I was just never able to find. Just last week, I found the last one. It led to a little field with lots of yellow flowers. Now I've been on all of them. Why stay somewhere when there are no more unknown trails to explore?There is a lot that I wish I had done differently even though I know that if it all happened all over again I would do everything exactly the same. That's not a contradiction! There are just certain things I wish I could do but cannot. I wish I could have connected more deeply with my friends, had people to whom I was connected in a deep and meaningful way rather than just people whom I liked, joked with, and occasionally had dinner with. But I just don't do that. The connection just doesn't come through. And it's not my way to rework that, try again and again to reinvent myself. It is more my way to erase everything and try again. I know things will most likely turn out the same way, but at least there will be that short little grace period when anything is possible.I have not yet found what I am looking for. I am still not even sure what it is. But I feel like I am more prepared to look for it. The college is deliberately refusing to call tomorrow a "graduation". They want to call it a "commencement". Because I am "commencing" the adult portion of my life. I'll go for that. I'm not as ready as I could be, but I'm ready enough. Prepared to follow Truth and Beauty, wherever in the world they take me. That's what I need to do and I think I can.My provisional plan for the rest of time is as follows. Go to Japan, stay there a year, maybe a year and a half. Come back, live at my parents' place for (God willing) no more than a few months while I work in some sort of hospital in some sort of menial position and apply to take the three pre-med courses with which I'm still not finished. Take them wherever I can find them. Live in that city until I get accepted to medical school, working whatever jobs I can find. Get into med school, trade five otherwise valuable years of my live for a piece of paper allowing me to practice psychiatry. Practice psychiatry according to terms listed on piece of paper. Pay off med school loans. Buy a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus. Travel around the world, at least once to Greenland. Meet a cute, compassionate, slightly geeky girl, fall in love, miraculously gain the ability to tell her so, marry her, have a honeymoon on Santorini, have two identical twin children named Aleitha and Kalissa. Get a yellow Labrador Retriever, or a Newfoundland. Go back to Greenland, through-hike the Appalachian Trail, do amateur research into consciousness-expanding machinery, climb Mt. Whitney, donate enough money to a charitable organization to have my name on a bench somewhere. Learn to speak Finnish. Travel the Trans-Siberian Railroad while listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Write a long, expressive poem that none of the critics appreciate because it's in the 19th century Romantic style. See a polar bear in its natural habitat. Make such a deeply important contribution to the field of psychiatry that someday people use my name as an adjective, as with "Darwinian" or "Newtonian". Retire to Dingle, Ireland. Operate a lighthouse. Memorize "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage". Design and build my own home in a never-before-seen, distinctly Hyperborean architectural style. Live there until the age of eighty, then, in the traditional Hindu fashion, vanish into the woods and spend a the rest of my years secluded in meditation. Die.But if I can only do a few of those things, that would still be pretty sweet.Also, premature and/or postmature congratulations to everyone else who's graduating around now, including faint_praise, pentameterpunk, son_of_hob, monolith94, nobleplatypus, mjulietm, and anyone who's been forgotten.

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Mi, skathanalamiaph quentelin prition

Scott Alexander takes us on a reflective journey as he grapples with the transition from college to adulthood in his latest article. From an entertaining mishap during his graduation ceremony to airport encounters with a metal detector guy, Alexander shares humorous anecdotes that will leave you chuckling. Yet, amidst the lightheartedness, he also contemplates deeper themes of following dreams and the uncertainty that comes with stepping into the adult world. Join Alexander as he bids farewell to his favorite books and offers a glimpse into his personal experiences in this delightful and thought-provoking essay.

Araton nixen
[May. 23rd, 2006|11:39 pm]




[Tags|college, family, images]
[Current Location
|Irvine, California]
[mood
|relaxed]
[music
|Ayreon - The Human Equation]I'm back at home, having completed the graduation ceremony without any major catastrophes. Well, one sorta catastrophe - I ended up going in my brown slip-on shoes because I forgot I wasn't supposed to - but no one really noticed.Anna Quindlen from the New York Times gave the big speech. If you've ever seen Donnie Darko, maybe you remember the gym teacher's spiel about how there's HOPE and there's FEAR, and you have to reject FEAR and embrace HOPE. I am not going to accuse Mrs. Quindlen of copying that verbatim, but it was definitely her inspiration.Mrs. Quindlen reassured us that we should not be afraid to follow our conscience, to pursue our dreams, to take our place as adults, to lead the nation into a glorious future. I was not afraid of any of those things. I was afraid that my hat was going to fall off my head in the middle of the ceremony and I was going to look like an idiot. No matter how I adjusted it, it wouldn't stay on right! But at the crucial moment, it came through for me.( Pictures!Collapse )Jeremy and I flew home through Phoenix, where a weird terminal setup forced us to pass through security a second time. The guy at the metal detector saw I was wearing an Ireland t-shirt and struck up a conversation. "Did you know that a few years ago, Gerry Adams went through this metal detector?" he asked me. I had to admit that I didn't. So the metal detector guy told me the whole story, which was basically just that Gerry Adams was in Phoenix for some reason, flew out, and went through his metal detector without incident while he was catching his plane.What a disappointment! Imagine: you've been working a metal detector for years and years without anything happening, suddenly the head of one of the world's largest and best-known sort-of-sometimes-terrorist organizations walks through your security checkpoint, and he doesn't even have any bombs on him or anything. It must be a tough life, being a metal detector guy.While everyone else was at parties saying goodbye to their favorite people, I was in the library, saying goodbye to my favorite books. In particular, I made about ten scans of the Codex Seraphinianus, which I'll try to upload and post here sometime soon. I still haven't been able to track down a copy for less than $250, but at least I'll have the scans to ogle over until I do.

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Araton nixen

Scott Alexander delves into the mysterious and surreal world of the Codex Seraphinianus. Through a captivating animated .gif, he takes readers on a visual journey accompanied by his faux translation. Prepare to be mesmerized by the indescribable strangeness of this unique art form and the unexpected visions it may evoke. Discover the enigmatic beauty of the Codex Seraphinianus as Alexander unlocks its secrets in this intriguing article.

Semional lisdelin iuph tertekata
[May. 25th, 2006|11:59 pm]




[Tags|art, images, movies]I finally got around to looking at some of those Codex Seraphinianus scans I mentioned last entry. Though I hope to eventually stick them in an album or something, I kinda became distracted by a side project. One of the "articles" shows a progression over time, and I thought it would make an interesting short movie. Three graphics editing programs and a lot of wasted time later, it is now an animated .gif,  complete with my (totally fake) translation and available for your viewing pleasure below. Keep in mind that this is the Codex Seraphinianus we're talking about, so I take no responsibility for any horrible nightmare visions you may suffer after watching it.( Cut for its own sort of indescribable strangenessCollapse )

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Semional lisdelin iuph tertekata

Scott Alexander grapples with the challenge of finding a meaningful and heartfelt gift for his grandmother's seventy-fifth birthday. Lamenting his lack of talent and creativity, he is urged to write a poem by his parents. In this relatable and humorous essay, Alexander explores the difficulty of writing meaningful poetry and delves into the conflict between true emotions and the need to embellish them for artistic effect. With his signature wit and self-deprecating humor, Alexander captures the struggle of expressing love and appreciation in a genuine yet poetic way.

Palos aphakaimanami
[May. 28th, 2006|01:25 am]




[Tags|family, poetry, writing]
[mood
|aggravated]This Tuesday will be my grandmother's seventy-fifth birthday: the big seven-five! The members of the family with steady well-paying jobs, i.e. the parents, have all pooled their money and bought her a nice expensive present, while we grandchildren have been asked to come up with some sort of homemade meaningful thing.My brother, of course, promptly sits down at the piano and records seventy-five minutes of amazing birthday-themed music. No doubt he will enter it in some competition and win thousands of dollars in prize money and be featured on national television. Unfortunately, he got all the talent in the family, leaving me clueless on what I can make Grandma. I wish I could knit or something. Then this would be easy. Whenever I needed to give someone a heartfelt, homemade gift, I could just knit zir a sweater, and be all like "Here, I made you this sweater!" and ze'd have to pretend to be really grateful and appreciative the same way I pretend to be really grateful and appreciative whenever I get a sweater. But I do not know how to knit, and my grandmother lives in Utah, which is hardly prime sweater territory.Or if I was five, or even six or seven, I could get a piece of paper, write "GRAMNA" on it in green crayon, draw a stick figure that might resemble my grandmother if she had green skin and three green legs, and then scribble all over it. My grandmother would then admire it and hang it on her fridge and never take it down. I know this because the last time I went to visit her she still had one of these I sent her when I was five up on her fridge. But as a recent college graduate, I no longer have this option, although I guarantee you it's what all of my cousins are doing.So I sat around thinking and being generally uncreative and complaining, and my parents make the suggestion I was afraid they were going to make: "You do a lot of writing, and you know Grandma loves to hear from you. Why don't you write her a poem or something?" And I do do a lot of writing. I can write, just to give one example, a blog post complaining about having to think of a present for my grandmother in about fifteen minutes, and be completely satisfied with the result. But meaningful writing with emotional content is harder, and meaningful poetry is the hardest of all.And after finally finishing seventeen years of schooling, I thought I was celebrating the end of having to write in order to fill a page with florid-sounding stuff I didn't necessarily mean.Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I don't really, really love my grandmother or that I don't wish her the happiest birthday possible. In fact, that's exactly the problem: I do love my grandmother and wish her the happiest birthday possible. But that's neither a poem nor an essay. To make it a poem or an essay I'd have to somehow come up with some supposedly witty angle on it, or turn up the sappiness level three hundred percent, or make broad overgeneralizations like "Since the beginning of time, it has been the support of their grandmothers that has enabled the human species to carry on," and then draw those out into paragraphs until I felt I had filled up enough of the page by repeating them a few times with just enough meaningless changes to prevent people from noticing the repetition.Not that I can't do that. Thanks to the aforementioned seventeen years of schooling, I and ever other American am a master of exactly that art. And I would feel silly arguing that it's "prostituting my talent" or something since you would probably have to be much more talented than I am to really be able to make that complaint without sounding pretentious. But it's still an affront to both Truth and Beauty, and I'm not looking forward to it. Yes, it really is necessary that I make something nice for my grandmother and I'm not going to try to get out of it, and yes, I am overreacting, but if one can't overreact on a livejournal, where can one overreact?I spent some time yesterday trying to figure out what to write by throwing verses together and seeing what happened. After about a minute, a poem immediately popped fully-formed into my mind, and of course it is completely unusable. I blame the demons. They twist my thoughts and make them all evil! But I suppose it at least deserves to see the light of day on a blog no one much even reads: ( To Grandma on Her Seventy-Fifth BirthdayCollapse )I BLAME DEMONS! They come into my head when I'm trying to write stuff and make it all evil!jadiekitty, it sounds like you're graduating around now. Many congratulations and good luck with your career in teaching. I hope to see you and Zary at the convention next month if you can make it.

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Palos aphakaimanami

In this intriguing article by Scott Alexander, he delves into an unconventional perspective on Memorial Day and expresses gratitude towards those who have defended our country, both past and present. With a touch of humor, Alexander highlights the importance of military service while acknowledging the sacrifices made by individuals. Explore this thought-provoking piece that sheds light on the unsung heroes who protect and serve.

Tium niaktanelin
[May. 30th, 2006|03:13 am]




[Tags|holidays]Ah, Memorial Day, when General John Abizaid gets in his magical F-15 pulled by eight giant eagles and flies around the world, giving presents to all the patriotic boys and girls. If he sees a "Support Our Troops" sign, then it is a good omen and the year ahead will be full of military victories, but if he sees the liberal media suggesting we end the occupation, then he returns to Iraq and there will be six more weeks of winter.I may be mixing parts of that up with something else, but the point is that I'm very grateful to everyone who has defended our country past and present. In particular a big thank you to jupitersgrin, the only military man whom I know personally, who in the service of his country has endured such hardships as tornadoes, an endless stream of crazy idiots, and missing two entire ShireCons.ari_rahikkala, you may not technically be an American soldier, but if you and your fellow Finns weren't keeping those Swedes at bay they'd probably go after us next, so my deepest thanks to you go also.As for the rest of us, well, I like to think that if it became necessary for some reason I'd be able to defend my country without breaking down completely in the first three minutes of battle, although I have no way of knowing and hope never to have to find out. Maybe if we end up invading Iran and have to reinstitute the draft, I'll get a chance to find out, and then I can get thanked on Memorial Day by people I barely know. Until then, I will just have to be grateful that there are other people who are more committed - and I am.

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Tium niaktanelin

Prepare to have your mind blown by three mind-boggling facts in this article by Scott Alexander. Did you know that the vending machine dates all the way back to 215 BC? Or that twenty-one US states have official state dirts? And if that's not enough, discover how the U.S. Supreme Court once debated whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. Get ready for a fascinating read that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew.

Three more interesting things you might not have known
[Jun. 1st, 2006|05:10 am]





[mood
|good]
[music
|Arjen Lucassen - Star One - Set Your Controls]1. The vending machine was invented by Heron of Alexandria in 215 BC.2. Twenty-one US states have official state dirts.3. In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to rule whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable; the justices unanimously agreed it was a vegetable.

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Three more interesting things you might not have known

Scott Alexander finally unveils his long-awaited photos from his epic trip to Greece. After some technical hurdles, he's ready to share the stunning visuals that captured his unforgettable experiences. From breathtaking landscapes to intriguing encounters, immerse yourself in the beauty and charm of Greece through Alexander's lens. Don't miss this chance to transport yourself to a world of adventure and discovery, all with just a click.

Better late than never...
[Jun. 2nd, 2006|03:18 am]




[Tags|greece, images, travel]Remember when I took that big trip to Greece last summer and all kinds of crazy stuff happened? And everyone was all "Show us your photos!" and I kinda admitted that I compressed them in .rar format and then my .rar decompressor broke? Well, my .rar decompressor works again! So now, about ten months later, I have photos of Greece! And they came out pretty well! Check them out before Geocities arbitrarily decides to deny them bandwidth!Edit: And, right on cue from Geocities... :/ As per gryphonavocatio's suggestion, see them at Flickr instead.

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Better late than never...

Embark on a whimsical journey with Scott Alexander as he navigates the hilarious and unexpected antics of Clover the Labrador. From nudging strangers to a quest to convince Scott to take her to Japan, Clover's determination knows no bounds. Alongside the canine adventures, Scott shares his encounters with a giant, terrifying wooden statue of a Chinese god and his summer reading list of science-fiction/fantasy books set in Orange County. Strap in for a delightful blend of humor, philosophy, and California charm in this amusing essay.

Can't sleep, Buddha will eat me
[Jun. 3rd, 2006|02:37 am]




[Tags|california, family, literature]Clover the Labrador has embarked on a quest to nudge everyone in the entire world. It started with me and my family, but soon progressed to squeezing out the door when someone leaves the house, running up to the nearest neighbor on the street, and slobbering all over them. By Thursday, it was at the stage where she would go up to people on bicycles, try to jump up and knock them over, and then lick their face while they lay helpless on the ground.Now she is trying to convince me, in her nonverbal way, to take her to Japan with me. "Scott," she thinks at me, using that whole dog-owner telepathic bond you always hear about, "bring me with you. Otherwise, literally billions of Asian people may remain tragically un-nudged." I keep telling her there's no way I could bring a dog with me to Japan, that she probably wouldn't even be allowed in my apartment, but her eyes shine with a fierce determination not to take "no" for an answer. As she waits, she contents herself with trying to catch me unaware, trick me into dropping her leash, and then run as fast as she can in a random direction, nudging all whom she encounters.In other news, I am now the not-so-proud owner of a really really big wooden statue of one of the chubbier Chinese gods. My Uncle Mark  sent it to me as a graduation present, tragically mistaking my interest in Buddhist philosophy and spiritual practice for a desire to own a gigantic sculpture of the Chinese Buddhist deity Hotei. His features are permanently frozen in a horrible leer, and he has his arms outstretched in a gesture that clearly says "Seek ultimate serenity by denying the fundamental unreality of codependent being, or I will kill you in your sleep." I absolutely refused to have it in my bedroom, in case it came to life and started destroying my material possessions, or whatever else it is giant evil Buddhas do when you're helpless to stop them. So now it's sitting atop Clover's crate downstairs. Maybe that's why she's been behaving so strangely lately.My summer reading list comes from a Wikipedia article on science-fiction/fantasy books taking place in Orange County. There are actually quite a few good ones; indeed do many things come to pass. I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's The Wild Shore, about life in Orange County after a nuclear apocalypse; next on the list is All the Bells on Earth, a modern Faustian tale about an Orange County businessman who sells his soul to the devil. This is fiction, of course; in real life it's only Orange County politicians, developers, journalists and educators who have sold their souls to the devil. And okay, maybe a few businessmen. Like that woman who owns the Radio Shack on Culver.In other Orange County news, one of our local boys is literally soaring to great heights. Michael Lopez-Alegria from Mission Viejo will be the next commander of the International Space Station. It seems NASA has discovered what I have known all along - if you need someone who can live day in, day out, in a cramped hideously artificial environment where there's nothing to do, and you need to make sure they stay cool and don't go insane, ask a Southern Californian. We've had practice.

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Can't sleep, Buddha will eat me

Get ready for a mind-bending dose of surrealism as Scott Alexander delves into the world of Nift VI. From the impending birth of the anti-Christ to eye-catching Escher-esque frame-shift pictures and mind-boggling arguments about the existence of all great works of literature, art, and music in a transcendental number, this article promises a wild ride through the realms of imagination. And there's even a twist involving a vain multimillionaire who buys an entire town and names it after himself – with the same name as the author! Don't miss out on this captivating exploration of the bizarre and extraordinary.

Instantations of Nift VI
[Jun. 5th, 2006|10:47 pm]




[Tags|links]This is gonna be a big week for the forces of darkness. First, of course, is the birth of the anti-Christ tomorrow. Then comes the big party in Hell to celebrate. Finally, evil will round out the week by nuking the UN headquarters on Friday.It's a good thing the new Messiah was just born in Namibia or I don't know what we'd do.Other signs of the impending apocalypse: swarms of droids invade the International Space Station, a member of Parliament eats a bill to prevent it from passing, a prominent inventor plans to shoot himself into space with a giant crossbow, and a man named Xavier robs a store at gunpoint, laughs, refuses to take the money, and says he was only kidding.If you're not confused enough yet, here are Escher-esque frame-shift pictures, the actual works of Escher rendered in Lego bricks, portraits of world figures that are also words and a seemingly irrefutable argument that all great works of literature, art, music, science, etc, past present and future, already exist in the transcendental number pi and therefore cannot be effectively copyrighted.This week's best story? A vain multimillionaire has bought an entire town and plans to name it after himself. The nifty part? The vain multimillionaire is named Scott Alexander. I get to sit back and let him spend the money, but I still get a town named after me. MY EMPIRE EXPANDS!

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Instantations of Nift VI

Scott Alexander seeks advice on writing a novella, specifically on developing engaging scenes and maintaining a smooth flow throughout the story. He expresses frustration with generic writing tips and requests practical suggestions. Alexander describes his current approach of structuring the story into chapter-long scenes, incorporating mini-flashbacks, but notes that it lacks the polish of professionally written books. He seeks recommendations for websites or free resources that address his specific concerns. Join Alexander on his quest as he navigates the challenges of writing a compelling novella.

Writers - some help please?
[Jun. 7th, 2006|09:38 am]




[Tags|writing]I kinda want to write a novella this summer. Short stories are fun, but something closer to novel-length would be a great learning experience and let me do something a little more in-depth, plus the idea I have is sort of complicated.I've got the basic structure all planned out, but I'm having trouble getting going. I've started a few times, been unimpressed, and stopped a few times. I've searched websites with writing tips, but they've all been either so obvious as to be worthless or addressing very specific things that aren't my problem. For example, a lot of sites seem to be about how to come up with a plot. Is there really someone who thinks "You know, I'd love to write a book, don't really care about what; let me check an internet site to see if they've got any good plot ideas."?My trouble is with scenes and pacing. I've got a certain number of really interesting climactic moments where surprising and exciting things happen, and I think I can write those just fine. But then there's everything in between. Any novel has to have at least a few pages in which no one is being pursued by gun-wielding lunatics involved in a secret evil conspiracy (except maybe The Da Vinci Code), where characters are travelling between two important scenes, or working at their day job, or just chilling. And although I know I'm supposed to use those for Expository Dialogue and Foreshadowing, I just can't get those so that someone would voluntarily read through them. I feel like I'd have to go up to someone and say "This is paving the way for something that's going to be really cool fifty pages from now, I promise!" Whereas I know that in the really good books I read, I even like the "boring parts" because it's all tied in together and the buildup of tension forms a continuous process.One thing that is kind of working so far is a set-up like a play, divided into chapter-long scenes. Each scene is at least a little interesting, then it's over, and then after a chapter break I go to the next one. In the next one, there may be mini-flashbacks, a "John remembered how after that climactic thing from the last chapter he went off to work and then went to bed and then came back here the next morning and nothing really exciting happened in the meantime. Now, about that zombie that's in front of him right now..." sort of thing. That is partially working, but it's giving the story a jumpy sort of feeling as opposed to the smooth, padded feel I get in professionally written books.Anyone know of any website that addresses this issue, or have some suggestions yourself? I'm too cynical about the quality of most 'learn to write' books to be willing to spend money on any, but any free source of help I will gladly check out.

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Writers - some help please?

Squid314

Buddhism is a very forgiving religion, and there's hardly anything that corresponds to the Christian idea of a "mortal sin". Murder, theft, violence - all of these are definitely bad, but in the cosmic scheme of things they're minor stumbling blocks whose karmic influence can eventually be countered by lifetimes of good work. In fact, there's nothing that condemns you to an eternity of suffering.

But there is something that can get you 432,000,000,000 years.

It's called "showing anger towards a bodhisattva". A bodhisattva is a mythical enlightened being who dedicates itself to helping others, kind of like an angel. Since all they ever do is help people and ease suffering, only a real jerk would ever get angry with one of them, or so goes the theory. Hence the overwhelming punishment. I happen to think it's a bit much, but since bodhisattvas don't technically exist I figured it mattered about much as the government imposing unfairly high penalties on unicorn poachers.

But some teacher in a book I read at one point manages to find a way to make it matter. He says that to all of us, our parents count as bodhisattvas. After all, they're doing everything they can to help us out without expecting anything in return. If you get mad at your parents when they're only trying to help you, goes this theory, then you might as well be offending a bodhisattva.

And that might sort of be a problem.

I love my parents. They're the best parents in the world et cetera. But I am becoming increasingly convinced of my inability to live under the same roof as them for more than a week or so at a time. Everything I do, they have to tell me why it won't work or why I ought to do it this way instead or just ask me over and over again whether I'm sure I'm doing the right thing until eventually it gets so deeply worked into my subconscious that I start to doubt everything I do and want to just stay at home, locked in my room, letting them do whatever they want with my life. And when I confront them about it, they very correctly point out that they never forbid me to do anything. "We're just trying to help you out and give you the benefit of our years of experience," they tell me.

And it's true. That's honestly what they're doing, and I'm grateful for it. But...well, take today. I need to go to Los Angeles to give the Japanese consulate there some paperwork. So I say "Goodbye, I'm going to Los Angeles!" And they're all like "Los Angeles! That's almost fifty miles away! You'll die!" And I'm like "No." And they're like "All of the streets in Los Angeles are one-way and poorly marked! And you're never going to find parking! And you've got to change to about three different freeways, and you know how bad you are at spotting freeway exits! Here, look at this part. This is really hard to drive right. Here, let me check your directions. No, you should probably go this way instead. And what about this part?" And finally, after I have been told repeatedly how every part of the trip will end up with my mangled corpse lying on the side of the I-5, because I am weak and easily persuaded, I just sort of break down and am like "Aaargh, I'll never get to Los Angeles!" And they're like "Of course you will, we'll come with you." So now I'm driving to Los Angeles with my mother tomorrow. And every time she is in the car with me, it's a nightmare. As soon as a light turns green, when the car in front of me still hasn't moved so there's absolutely nowhere I can go, my mother starts shouting "Come on, Scott, you can't just sit at a green light you've got to go or someone will run into you from behind trust me I've driven for forty years now I know what I'm talking about!" If I even try to protest, she yells at me for trying to make trouble when all she's trying to do is help me.

Or the other day. I made sure to purchase health insurance from a Japanese company so I'll be insured when I'm in Japan. I am probably the one person happy to be purchasing health insurance; it means I'm finally responsible for myself and able to pay my own way. Then my mother comes by and says "Hey, Scott, I've decided whatever health insurance you've got isn't nearly enough, so I'm going to buy you some health insurance instead with my provider." Well, I thank her very much but say that I'm going to be on my own now and I'm really quite happy to buy my own health insurance, and everyone else in the world just starting work in an entry-level job gets by with cheap health insurance, and she tells me that if I get my own health insurance, I will probably get cancer and fall into a coma and die (these are her exact words) because I didn't have good enough insurance to be treated properly. The scary part is that, her having said this, it forces me to use the words "No, I'm sure I won't get cancer and fall into a coma and die," thus drawing the attention of the Irony Gods, who are pumping potent tumor-promoting-factors into my bloodstream at this very moment. Unusually, I managed to make this one a compromise: I keep my own health insurance, but they buy some other insurance that supplements onto it. Still, I thought moving ten thousand miles away would be the one way to ensure that I finally get to be independent of my parents; it seems I will have to go further.

The worst part is that I can't talk to them about it. My normal method when there's a problem is to talk to the person about it and work out a compromise that works fine for everyone, and with everyone else in the world I do this just fine. But when I mention to my parents that something bothers me, they chide me for being oversensitive or difficult to get along with or literally laugh at me for being so silly as to not like whatever I don't like. It's not that they're too stubborn to admit they're wrong, it's just that the possibility of framing the question as whether or not they're wrong never even occurs to them: it's just "What could possibly be messing up our son so much that he doesn't appreciate what we're doing?" And so after years of trying this, my only option is to just suppress everything until it eventually breaks out and I throw a tantrum and yell at them, which is exactly the opposite of how I behave around everyone else in the world and something that I always hate when other people do it. About ten minutes later I remember the whole bodhisattva thing and this makes me feel really horrible and guilty, and then since I can't talk to them about it I just write long LiveJournal entries complaining.

(no subject)

Scott Alexander shares his frustrating and hilarious experiences with lucid dreaming in "Fate of a Dreamer." From having leprosy in a dream to running out of gas in the middle of nowhere, Alexander hilariously recounts his misadventures and the challenges of distinguishing reality from dreams. Get ready to laugh and empathize with his bewildering journey through the world of dreams and the surprising encounters he faces along the way.

Fate of a Dreamer
[Jun. 9th, 2006|07:59 am]




[Tags|dreams]
[Current Location
|Irvine, California]
[mood
|confused]
[music
|Ayreon - Fate of a Dreamer - Cold Metal]A few weeks ago, I mentioned I was trying to learn to lucid dream out of a text from WikiBooks. Their procedure is pretty easy. You get into the habit of performing certain lucid dreaming checks they teach you. These let you know whether you're dreaming or not. Eventually you discover that you are and become conscious of it. I've been doing this pretty dilligently. But it just hasn't been working out.Take my dream experience a few nights ago: I developed a horrible case of leprosy. This was an unusual enough event that I suspected I was dreaming, especially when my doctor decided to amputate my fingers with a pair of kitchen scissors (this hurts). So I did the usual lucid dreaming checks. They all came out negative, telling me this was all completely real. It seemed unlikely, but the alternative - information from a Wiki being wrong - was unthinkable. "Darn," I thought, as my doctor snipped off another few fingers. Then I woke up.The other night I had an even worse lucid-dream related experience: I decided to go hiking in a nearby canyon at 4 AM in the morning. I got in the car and checked the gas gauge: it read that I still had half a tank of gas left, and I was satisfied. So I drove over to the canyon, which really wasn't that far, and about three-quarters of the way there, the "very low fuel!" light started flashing, the gas had all magically disappeared. One of my random little fears has always been running out of gas in the middle of nowhere, so I suspected it was a dream and did a few lucid dreaming checks. They all came out negative again.So now I had a problem: I was in the middle of nowhere at 4 AM and quickly running out of gas. I decided to go the rest of the way to the trailhead because there would be somewhere to park there, and I could figure out what to do next without having to worry about running out of gas in the middle of the road. So I made it to the canyon with a couple of drops of gas left in the tank, and right across from the trailhead was...what else?...a giant shopping center. So I parked in the shopping center and looked around for a gas station. There was none. I figured I would wait until the people who worked at the stores showed up and see if any of them would help me, but it was still only around 5. So I hiked the canyon for a couple of hours and came back around 8:30.[at this point, I just want to mention that I'm writing this on my bed with my laptop in my lap. I caught site of my desk, saw that my laptop was missing, got worried, and started looking around my room for it without even bothering to stop typing this entry while I was doing so. I would say it took me a good ten seconds to realize what I was doing. Anyway...]At 8:30, there were a couple of people around, and I asked one of them if there were any gas stations nearby. "Sure," she told me, "just walk down San Joaquin Hill until you reach the bottom, and there will be a gas station on the right." I see the sign for San Joaquin Hill right there, so I figure this will be easy. I'll go down the hill, borrow a can of gas from the station, come back up, refill my car, and drive it down and get it filled up.So I start walking down San Joaquin Hill. And I walk. And I walk. And an hour and a half later, I come to the ocean, because apparently this is the World's Biggest Hill and goes all the way down to Newport Beach. There, on my right, is a gas station, and I go in and ask for a can of gas. Surprise! Their cans of gas are in the garage, and the garage is locked today because it's the mechanic's day off! There is no other gas station for miles around.So I start walking back up San Joaquin Hill. It's about ninety degrees out, I just walked a whole canyon and then down a gigantic hill, I have no gas, and I'm starting to feel pretty miserable. Then I realize: forget what the checks had to say, this must be a dream! Why else would my gas be all gone when it was half-full when I checked the tank? Why else would there be a huge shopping center at the entrance to a canyon trail? I try all of the checks again. I still can't get them to check out, but I do notice that things seem a little unreal and that my consciousness is less clear than usual. By the time I make it back up to the shopping center and my car, I am pretty sure that I am, indeed, dreaming.Emboldened by this revelation, I get a plan. My car probably has like two drops of gas left. So I can use one of those drops to get to the top of San Joaquin Hill, then just coast down the hill for a few miles without using up any fuel, and then use the other drop to get into the gas station. I am a little worried by this plan because if I run out of gas on the hill I'm likely to be in a very, very bad position, but what the heck, it's just a stupid dream anyway.I turn on the car, drive to the top of the hill, coast down, turn into the gas station, and successfully fill up my car. Victory for Scott! With a full tank of gas, I drive home and make it back by 11 or so. I spend the rest of the day reading, playing Civilization IV, and doing a lot of other activities that conspicuously do not involve waking up and realizing that I was dreaming all along.From this experience I have learned the following things:1. On my car, the gas gauge always hovers around half-full until you turn the car on, at which point it slowly goes to whatever the real level is.2. This is Orange County. Of course there's a giant shopping center near the entrance to a pristine canyon.3. It is sort of to be expected that things seem a little unreal and that my consciousness is less clear than usual when I wake up at 4 AM and hike for five hours in ninety degree heat.4. Lucid dreaming checks may return false negatives, but (luckily!) they will never return false positives.5. Find a better time at which to go hiking.

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Fate of a Dreamer

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[Jul. 14th, 2006|11:31 pm]




[Tags|computers]A big day, full of accomplishments! First, I finished Part I of the novel I'm trying to write. It's about fifty pages, so considering how many more parts I'm expecting this to have I certainly don't have to be worried about insufficient verbosity. Time to edit and re-edit it until I eventually delete the whole thing in a fit of frustration!Second, I finished Level I Japanese! I can now converse fluently and intelligently with Japanese people as long as our discussion stays strictly confined to where I am, how I got there, how long I am staying, and where I want to have dinner. I am also extremely proficient in describing exactly what my wife does and does not like to drink, so I will have to get married while in Japan, preferably to someone who likes to drink several different things, lest I never get a chance to use that information.Third, I got my new laptop. The first hour and a half was spent uninstalling all the junk that Dell preinstalled before it ever got to me. I'd go into "Add/Remove Programs", find a million things with names like "EZAudioBlasterProCreatorMakrHyperDisc 3.1.4.1.5, click the "uninstall" button, and immediately be bombarded with the sort of warning message you imagine NORAD would have received if the Soviets had ever launched their missile stockpile at us. "WARNING: IF YOU UNINSTALL EZAUDIOBLASTERPROCREATORMAKRHYPERDISC 3.1.4.1.5, YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO USE EXCITING FEATURES THAT ENHANCE YOUR AUDIO EXPERIENCE. THIS MAY LEAD TO POOR MULTIMEDIA VIEWING, LACK OF ACCESS TO CONTENT, DEPRESSION, HEART PALPITATIONS, AND DEATH. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?" After three or four of these, I'd have second thoughts and Google the name of the program. For each one, there would be hundreds of hits - all of which would be fellow Dell users posting on bulletin boards "Hey, is it okay to uninstall this program, or will it destroy my computer and void the warranty?" Usually opinion would be split - half the respondents would say it was malware that would severely impede performance and send Dell all of your personal information, and the other half would say that it was a vital part of the operating system and without it your computer would never work again. Eventually I just uninstalled everything that didn't have CRITICAL WINDOWS COMPONENT at the end of its name, and the computer works great. Stupid Dell.I just installed OpenOffice. You know what I find amazing? It brought up a message asking "Do you want to make OpenOffice your default program to open .doc files? If you don't know what this means, you should probably answer 'no'". That's right. A program that doesn't do everything in its power, by hook or by crook, to expand its default-file empire as far as possible. I haven't tried any actual word processing on it yet, but already it earns some points in my book.For my new desktop wallpaper, I'm using Capital Cavern. It's pretty darned good for something I just found by doing a wallpaper search on DeviantArt, dontcha think?And since you were all so helpful with my OpenOffice question, I'm wondering if people might not be willing to give me a hand with a few other choices I need to make.Instant messenger: AIM, Gaim, MirandaIM, something else? Would using Gaim or something like it allow me to keep my GSquid314 account and buddy list and message AIM users? Also, is there any client that allows one to access the MSN network without being either MSN or something that requires installing MSN like Trillian does?Browser: Firefox, Opera, or something else? Keep in mind if you say Explorer I will never respect your opinion on anything ever again.Extensions: If I end up using Firefox, I'll want to take a closer look at the extensions. My old computer didn't have any except fax_celestis's Shireroth theme. Can you recommend some good ones for me? I don't want anything too intrusive or fancy, just little things that make it easier to do the browsing I already do.PDF Reader: Are all the non-Acrobat PDF readers equally good, or are some of them better than others? The only thing I really want is speed, small size, ability to copy-paste, and not being Acrobat.Speakers: Someone I can't remember (maybe nss?) once told me that it was a bad idea to use laptop speakers too often because they burn out and stop working really quickly. Is this true enough that I should go out and buy serious speakers right away, or is it fine to use them as much as I want as long as I don't care about the sound quality?And now...off to see if Civilization IV works on the new computer. I HAVE WAITED SO MANY YEARS FOR THIS MOMENT!

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Now is the autumn of my mild irritation
[Jul. 26th, 2006|11:59 pm]




[Tags|rants]Ngmeh. That's how I feel right now.I've been having weird little spurts of mania and depression all this week. Not real bipolar disease, but just some screw coming loose in my mental regulatory system and sending me off the wall until they can ship the replacement part in from Chicago. I've upped my daily meditation but it hasn't much helped. I am kept sane only by butter cookies with chocolate frosting.Some extremely random person IMed me to mention that Kaiser Meskan II aka bill3000 had reasserted power in Shireroth. I got very pissy because he seemed to be doing absolutely nothing with his authority but throwing a fit whenever someone more proactive tried to get something done. I tried to convince the country to kick him out and replace him with someone better, preferably me. Everyone else was just "Eh, whatever, let's give the Kaiser a forty-seventh chance and not cause any trouble." Now we seem to have worked out a deal in which I get all the responsibilities of the Kaisership and Bill gets all of the privileges and takes all of the credit. But at least it's a compromise!I was also called a "rude" and a "prick" by Shireroth's newest member (and Harvey's friend) for my affectionate teasing of saikar. I've known him since literally the dawn of time, we've built up an entire relationship on constantly escalating mutual mockery, and now suddenly I'm a "prick" for it. All of life's little pleasures are slowly being crushed out of the world, like an ant under an AT-AT walker.I'm having more and more trouble living in the same house as my parents. My latest pet peeve is my mother's inability to get to a point when she's talking. She can never ask me something like "Hey Scott, can you vacuum the upstairs?" It's always something more like "Hey, Scott, can I have a few minutes of your time? There's this job I want you to do. You know the vacuum? In the downstairs closet? We used to have it in a different place but now it's in the downstairs closet. There's a lot of dog hair everywhere in the house, I'm sure you've seen it, and I really want it out of the way before your grandparents show up. I told your father we should get a dog that didn't shed so much but of course he didn't listen. Anyway, could you go get the vacuum? And once you've got it, maybe you could start vacuuming, you know, your room, your brother's room, the guestroom, that area?" A few times I have actually, after waiting five minutes for her to finish a simple sentence, just shouted "WHAT IS IT ALREADY?" It's not her fault, it's just that I've been living around my parents too long and am getting hypersensitive. Twenty-five more days...The war in the Middle East is also really upsetting. It's terrible to open the paper each day and read about how many people have died, and my mother's tendency to spend dinner going on and on about how AWFUL it must be for all the people there is too much for my over-taxed outrage gland to take. And everyone expects me to have an opinion on it. "So, Scott, what's your opinion on the Middle East war?" My natural instinct is to support the Israeli attack, but then I feel like I'm condoning and partially responsible for the deaths of Lebanese. But if I'm against the attack, I feel like I'm condoning and partially responsible for the inevitable deaths of Israelis. Either way I feel horrible and guilty and I just wish that fewer people would die.We have a spare printer from somewhere or other in the house and yesterday I endeavoured to take it over to my grandmother, whose printer broke down a little while ago. So I drive all the way to Huntington Beach, set the printer down in my grandma's house, talk with her for a bit, and sure enough when I go to connect it it's encountered some sort of catastrophe and spattered ink ALL OVER MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE. So I spend the rest of the day helping her clean it up with only partial success and am so embarrassed and horrified that I tell her I'll get her a whole new printer, which I now have to both find and find the money to purchase. So God, next time You don't want me doing nice things for other people, you can just tell me so instead of ruining my entire day getting revenge.Wow. Angry protestations about how God hates me. I'm becoming emo.

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Now is the autumn of my mild irritation

Scott Alexander delves into a fascinating array of topics in this eclectic essay, touching on everything from spiritual lectures to glow-in-the-dark mushrooms in Japan. He cleverly dissects the English language and uncovers some of its quirks, while also exploring unusual taxonomic classifications and the potential neurological advantages of shyness. As he tackles dysgenics and the decline of human intelligence, Alexander's wit and thought-provoking insights keep readers engaged from start to finish. Dive into this captivating exploration of oddities and learn something new along the way.

Instantiations of Nift VII
[Jun. 15th, 2006|01:00 pm]




[Tags|links]Some professors asked a monk to lecture to them on spiritual matters. The monk ascended a podium, struck it once with his stick, and descended. The academics were dumb-founded. The monk asked them, "Do you understand what I have told you?" One professor said, "I do not understand." The monk said, "Then I have concluded my lecture."Another professor said, "We will not pay you for this lecture."- Adam Hindman, Lessons from the TempleWhen NOVA asked me where I wanted to go in Japan, I didn't have a lot of criteria on which to express a preference. Alas, I realize all too late I should have requested Wakayama Prefecture, with its wonderful, wonderful glow in the dark mushrooms.English is essentially... "Anglo-Saxon with all the cool bits taken out", "an imprecise dialect of Java without the object orientation", "a bizarre dialect of Chinese pronounced entirely in the first tone", "Pictish that was attacked out of nowhere by Angles cohabiting with Teutons who were done in by a drunk bunch of Vikings masquerading as Frenchmen who insisted they spoke Latin and Greek but lacked the Arabic in which to convey that", and so on.It looks like someone has finally had the good sense to challenge Apple's blatantly anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices. cactus_rs, please thank a Swede for me. Any Swede will do. And here's another sign of progress from...THE USA?!?! We're doing something right over here?!?!?!?!?!Here is an unusual optical illusion.Was the Ark of the Covenant a powerful electrical generator? Mythbusters calls it "plausible". Key quote is by Nikola Tesla, inventor of either alternating or direct current I forget which: "Moses was undoubtedly a practical and skillful electrician far in advance of his time".An equally unorthodox, but much more adorable Biblical theory: Jesus had a puppy!Wikipedia's page on the cave bettle Anophthalmus hitleri linked me to this page on unusual taxonomic classifications. Did you know that ancient amphibian Eucritta melanolimnetes's scientific name translates as "creature from the black lagoon" or that the name of the dinosaur Megapnosaurus means "big dead lizard"? How about that five species have scientific names in Elvish instead of Latin?Scientists claim to have found neurological advantages to shyness. Apparently shy people may be that way partly because their brains react more strongly to stimuli, which might help them respond more quickly or aptly to them. Therefore, they posit that being shy might have some evolutionary advantages that could be passed down to one's offspring. As a shy person, I find it comforting to know that my offspring would have an evolutionary advantage if it weren't for the fact that I'll never produce any because I'm much too shy to ever have a girlfriend.And continuing on the theme of odd quirks of human evolution, something in dsgood's journal linked me to this Wikipedia page on dysgenics. The theory is that since unintelligent people reproduce much more than intelligent people, the intelligence of the human race as a whole is declining. Although the thesis sounds plausible, I wonder if the difference in intelligence between high and low reproductive rate people isn't mostly from malnutrition, lack of education, and bad childhoods rather than anything genetic. Although it would be a big problem if the intelligence of the human race were decreasing with time, as the laws of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian selection specify that....uh....duuuuh. Wot waz i sayin?nobleplatypus, check your email.

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Instantiations of Nift VII

Nihon-ni ikimasu!
[Jul. 22nd, 2006|04:25 pm]




[Tags|japan, languages]I went to Japan yesterday. It looked a lot like the United States, but that's probably to be expected since it was just the Japanese consulate in Los Angeles. Hey, it's technically Japanese territory! Isn't it? Or is that just embassies? Whatever.My parents were totally right that driving in Los Angeles might well have killed me. Not because I'm a bad driver; just because the streets of Los Angeles are full of death-traps. I can't imagine how any LA residents survive more than three or four weeks; maybe they don't, and are replaced by Mexican immigrants who take their identities. That would be a very Californian way of handling the problem.My experience at the consulate itself went pretty well. I needed to hand them some documents to get a visa. I basically just rang the little bell, a guy showed up immediately, I handed him my documents, and he smiled and said "Thank you, we'll have your visa in the mail within two business days". Considering what I had to go through to get my Irish garda card, that's amazing. If the whole country runs this efficiently, I'm going have an awesome year.It's all starting to come together. I bought my ticket to Osaka yesterday too - it set me back six hundred dollars, but hopefully I'll make the money back pretty quickly once I'm there. I'm going to be flying into that nifty airport on the poorly-built artificial island, so that will be an experience. I just hope it doesn't choose August 24th to sink back into the sea.I have a new hero: James Heisig, professor of religion and author of "Remembering the Kanji". Kanji are the Chinese-style characters that make up most Japanese words. Even though I'm learning the spoken language, I've got to get the Kanji down completely separately, and so on a recommendation from a website on StumbleUpon, I tried Heisig's book. Apparently his tactics involve weirding you out enough that it just sticks in your brain.The idea of the book is that you take a Japanese character, look at it, make out a couple of recognizable shapes, and make up a story for why those shapes would be there. The sections all say stuff like "This character, meaning 'revenge', resembles like a shellfish wearing a top hat standing on a table brandishing a spear. Remember this character by telling yourself that the shellfish, who is wearing the top hat because he is a fan of Abraham Lincoln, is thrusting the spear into the table to get revenge for the time it killed his grandmother." This sounds like it would never work, but, surprisingly, it works better than any other method of learning anything I have ever encountered. I'm getting through up to forty kanji a day with good long-term retention.The book's also great just because of its erudition and its randomness. At one point, Heisig gives a character meaning "ten-day period" and tells us to remember it because it looks like a certain scene from Boccaccio's Decameron, whose title of course means "ten-day period" in Greek. I think I can honestly say that we need more Japanese courses that refer to works of medieval Italian literature with Greek titles. The randomness mostly comes in with his choice of which characters to learn in what order. Last night I learned the characters for "mother" and "child", which make sense, and then the next two characters were "eventide" and "nitrate". Which will be useful indeed, just in case I need to communicate with any Japanese elvish chemists.The heat index in Irvine reached 110 degrees today. AYEEE!

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Nihon-ni ikimasu!

Eoin and I are back from our whirlwind tour of the Southwest, all hot and sweaty and sandy and covered in poisonous snakes.

We spent the first night in Las Vegas, where we met up with Eoin's German friend Lena and ran a daring and ultimately successful experiment to discover how late people can stay up operating on only three hours of sleep (answer: until about 2 AM). We gambled and watched tacky shows and came up with ideas for new theme casinos ("Come to Lucky Lenin's Sovietland! Where there's only one slot machine, a two hour line to use it, and if you win they accuse you of stealing from the proletariat and shoot you on site!")

The next day we visited my mother's family in Utah, where my grandparents moved in '03 after mistakenly conceiving the idea that it was suitable for human habitation. My aunt and uncle were also visiting, having arrived a few days earlier from their home in northern California. Uncle Joe regaled us all with his tales of driving down the Loneliest Highway, a portion of Route 50 so named because of its complete lack of civilization. According to Uncle Joe, along some portions the ground was so completely covered with beetles that it was impossible to tell where the highway ended and the desert began. Equally exciting sites on the road were Sand Mountain and the Nevada Shoe Tree. The Western United States sucks.

From there Lena drove Eoin and I to Zion Canyon, where we kept cool by hiking in the Virgin River. Lena and I kept our heads barely above water while Eoin just sort of took off and started dogpaddling. We also took a much drier hike the next day up on Cedar Breaks, a set of forest-covered canyons and rock formations notable for herding visitors along a tiny dirt path right next to a two thousand foot cliff.

It wouldn't have been Utah without some Mormons, so I took Eoin and Lena to the Temple of Twelve Foot Tall Talking Stone Jesus, aka the St. George Mormon Temple. We listened to aforementioned Twelve Foot Tall Talking Stone Jesus deliver a tape recorded sermon from his giant stone mouth, and then got shown around by a painfully sincere guide. It was a fun time, but there were a few cringeworthy moments:

Painfully Sincere Guide: And, of course, no Mormons drink alcohol. It is prohibited by our prophets, because it is a worldly temptation and keeps us from getting close to Jesus.
Me: But didn't Jesus turn water into wine for a wedding? And didn't he command the disciples to drink wine at the Last Supper?
Painfully Sincere Guide: Well, no one really knows how to translate the Bible. That was probably just grape juice, or something.

If you don't believe that this actually happened, ask Eoin. He was there!

Coming back, we spent the night in the sketchy little border town of Primm, California. When the hotel receptionist handed my room key to me, she said "Have a good night's sleep, and good luck." "Good luck?" I asked her. "Well, you never know," she said. On the way up to my room, we passed a guy being wheeled out of the hotel in a stretcher. I swear I am not making this up.

Besides that the trip home was uneventful. We drove through hundreds and hundreds of miles of godforsaken hundred-and-ten-degree desert until eventually we started hallucinating so badly that we saw a whole town called Zzyzx, California.

I don't have my pictures up yet, but bill3000 has some great pics of our Yosemite vacation at http://www.flickr.com/photos/39153165@N00/

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