Choreographed Dance Music

I spilled Coca Cola on my expensive keyboard. It doesn't work any more. When I press down certain keys, every other key also presses down simultaneously. I miss it. It lit up in the dark, and also had a display which told me things but was never actually critically useful.

Just goes to show how technology all needs to be food proof- or simply made of food.

Recently my mother also managed to spill coffee on my old powerbook G4 laptop.

Being a laptop, it did not fare nearly as well as my expensive ex-keyboard. It simply fried and now can not even be eaten. I have since disassembled it, which was both enjoyable and educational.

In a dream I invented a food computer. The computer box was a hollowed out coconut, and the interior was pomegranate and lime. The mouse was a pear and the desk was an extremely large watermelon, sliced in half and set on its tip so that the top was flat. The monitor was thinly sliced grapes placed in a lattice made of the vines, and it actually displayed images just like a real monitor. If only I could paint.

At a party last Friday my friend Andrew bestowed upon me a 70 something year old banjo with a real abalone fretboard. The head is most likely the original and is peeling and browned like an old manuscript left in the sun, and the neck has had repair at some point, but it looks to be in somewhat decent shape, otherwise. I am going to re-head it, string it, and then most likely play it.

Speaking of music, everyone who likes a bit of folk should listen to The Tallest Man on Earth. He isn't very famous, but he probably should be and he needs your support, and also his music is fantastic.

Also this past weekend, my girlfriend came home and we had a delightful free concert during our visit to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT. We only paid standard admission, but the musicians who were to be giving a chamber music performance later in the day were warming up and practicing while we viewed an exhibit called the Allure of Lace. Slaughter Pens drooled (although I think she is quite lovely when drooling, 'raved' is probably a more accurate word) over the late 19th and early 20th century dresses, commented on how she would wear some, and not others, and I imagined her wearing some, and not others, and not wearing anything at all.

We sat on a window sill directly across from the practicing musicians, and in sight of a 3000 year old statue of Bastet.

I adore museums.

Cox Internet

So, my apartment complex was built some time in the mid to late 1980's (I'm pretty sure). The rise of the internet sparked a retrofitting craze, where hubs and signal amplifiers were built into these old complexes to make normal people capable of high-powered internet speeds.

I pay for the "Premium" internet around here, marketed as being 30 mbps download, up to 10 mbps upload. Due to something being wrong here, I average between 1 and 10 mbps. Cox, my service provider, has been trying to fix this problem for about 3 weeks now, though it has been going on for probably much longer than that. I have had four technicians out here, including one who told me to clear out my "cookies and temporary internet files," even though it was plain as day that my computer has no problems with some temporary internet files. Then he broke my thermostat.

This prompted a call to my local landlady, who, after hearing the story, was UP IN ARMS about this guy, wanted his name, his station, his home address... She was on a warpath and Cox was the destination.

To give you an idea of why this is so funny, my land lady is about 5'1" with crazy curly hair and encyclopedia glasses. She tells me stories about her friends who died in motorcycle accidents, probably with the hope that I will some day put my bike away, or at least ride with a bit more sanity. Never fear, Candy (Yes, that's her real name). A saner rider you will rarely find than I. She was also extraordinarily snobbish towards us until we moved in, but after she realized we were neither poor nor delinquent we found her to be quite nice, and very capable of ripping Cox employees' balls off- a welcome twist.

It is almost March, the month wherein my motorcycle returns to its regular road rampages, snow melts and spring dreams of cascading flowers on rolling hills, ad nauseum. I enjoy March for its productivity and proclivity to warmer temperatures, and yet my girlfriend is still an hour away in college.

My girlfriend's blog is much more eloquent than mine. It also includes more naked pictures, historical facts, portents of a greater good/evil, and other such ephemera. She is here.

My apartment has been rearranged quite extensively in the past two days, mostly due to Slaughter Pens' imminent visit, but also due to my rather large dislike of the previous layout. Beds were moved, couches were moved, bookcases were moved, desks were moved, tv stands were moved, speakers were moved, the hippopotamus shaped mass of guitars was moved and organized. Somehow out of all this one-man-made chaos came order, and I now have a functional living room, clean and organized bedroom, and even a dedicated music space here next to my computer, where guitars are actually set up ready to play on stands, amplifiers are plugged in and humming in anticipatory glee, and a large firewire enabled mixing board interfaces with my computer. The hope is that I will eventually record music here, for better or worse, to the tempo of a nigh-humdrum folk-singing college almost-bound 20 something.

I'm seeking peace, though I'm afraid that everywhere I've looked for it, all I have found is anger.

Anger is a usable energy source, it is forgiving and malleable and easily extends to new targets or forgets old ones. Anger is not a blind rage or a senseless feeling of hatred, and it does not burn the soul or degrade the person, but it can lead to these things. Anger can also raise mountains and raze cities of inadequacy and weakness and all sorts of other things that begin with the letter R. I am never expecting to have to replace my anger (at life, at society, at people), but I always expect some day that it will lead me to a better place. Rather, that I will lead myself in anger out of darkness.

Perhaps by writing, or singing. Perhaps by mathematics or luthiery. Perhaps just by lending myself to another, or others, or some thing found wanting or in need.

Peace can be made in our own microcosms, happiness can be earned, and we are all one step in every direction at any time.

It's okay to be confused.

A wholly unsatisfactory affair.

I have been unable to sleep the past few days. Time drifts backwards and forwards like fat kids in a wave pool. There's nothing gentle or sane about it, only mindless tasks and mindless eating and mindless playing. My muscles have gotten so sleepy that I feel all the strain from my entire life (so it seems) built up in them with every movement, but still I cannot sleep just yet.

Purportedly, it is due to my lack of direction.

I flunked my last semester, mostly because I just stopped attending, but with all the free time I've had, a lot more time has come to think over that choice, and progressively dislike it. I removed the tire from my rear wheel, ripped down my sail, robbed a bank but forgot to take anything. That's not entirely true. I spoke with the dean of student affairs over there yonder college, and he told me that the grades would not be expunged, but I could retake all of the classes and have my GPA recalculated. SO... I can save my ass, since my first semester was a 4.0, as was each following semester, until last fall.

In other news, we finally put down my dog of 16 last wednesday and it hit me harder than I thought it would, I found out that they make a SUPERCHARGER KIT for my motorcycle which is insane, I just bought a new seat for the bike and it is extremely comfy (thanks, Sargent!), and I am still madly in love, having been so for the past year and a half.

blah blah blah something something something dark side.

Election Day!

Attention United States Citizens,

Today is November 4th. Do you know what that means? That's right, today is Election Day for the position of President. Please get off your lazy bum for one day, and cast your vote.

Unless you actually think Sarah Palin could handle the presidency without causing some sort of Catholic cataclysm (not that I have anything against Catholics, I was one for a long time, it's just the zealot end-of-the-world-is-nigh types I have a problem with). If that is the case, please, please, stay at home, cozy up with a nice mug of tea or coffee or a glass of fine wine, watch your favorite Spanish soap opera, and try to educate yourself a little bit better.

Also, if you plan on voting for Nader, please consider that no conservative-minded person would ever vote for him, so by voting for him instead of Obama you are pretty much just making it that much harder for Obama to win. So let's face it, Nader will never, ever, ever win, and would you really rather have McCain than Obama?

Good luck America.

Be excellent to each other.

Nice track suit, dude.

For anyone who has never seen any Wes Anderson movies, I highly recommend them. On Halloween my general plan is to dress like Richie Tenenbaum and make like the Baumer, a character of the movie The Royal Tenenbaums. A beard, a track suit, and a headband are already part of the uniform (no, I cannot remove the beard). I don't know where I will go.

For reference, the Wes Anderson movies I have seen, all of which I have loved, are these-

The Royal Tenenbaums
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Bottle Rocket
The Darjeeling Limited
Rushmore

... I don't know where I will go.

On the topic of education;

Humanity needs to develop a new way of educating and teaching its young (and its old for that matter). It is something I have been thinking about for years, ever since I got into High School, and possibly before that. What I have seen so far is a seriously terrible trend- teachers spout information useful to passing a test and only useful to passing a test, and allow students to think that the only important information is what will let them pass a test. Students are either not encouraged or are not pushed towards innovation and real solutions.

An example would be my recent "Psychology class" quiz, a 23 question multiple choice quiz based on just about nothing. The questions were either directly off of a handout we had received early in the class (and this is an open notes class), or were of a somewhat bizarre psycho-analytical nature which did require a bit of thought. I learned afterward that nearly everyone had either failed or scored extraordinarily low. I got a 91. Now, you must realize, this class is pretty much a joke, which is why the name is in quotations, and the teacher is an absolute failure at actually "teaching." She comes into class, spouts random things about her life in her very latin-american accent (which she either refuses to acknowledge or uses like a shield) and she never repeats herself if asked (of course, I have had perfectly understandable english speaking teachers do this for me if they spoke too fast or said something unintelligible), and she forces absolutely no disciplinary measures on the half or more of the class that is completely uninterested in forwarding their mental state.

So, in my belief, this quiz actually showed one level of education- that of seeking rational answers even when one is not already learned, which is SORELY under appreciated in today's system. That most of the class FAILED this very easy quiz is a sign that not only the teacher is a failure, but that all of the educational system before her has failed. That, or most of these kids just had no good parenting, and were never taught to teach themselves. I'm not saying everyone who failed that quiz is unintelligent, and I'm certainly not condemning anyone to idiocy, but there is certainly something missing in their past education if they couldn't even pass.

I am also a firm believer in capability. Some people are DEFINITELY more capable than others in specific areas, and some people are incapable in intellectual areas like some are incapable in physical areas. For example, have you ever heard of a skilled and famous football player who was 5'4" and weighed 120 pounds? That doesn't mean a 6'4" 250 pound man can't be a scientist, or must be a good football player, but the size helps with being a good football player, and being mentally capable helps with being a scientist.

SO, we need to do some changes. We need to facilitate teaching in such a way that kids will learn to solve their own problems, and we need to accommodate for skill and capability. I still don't know what the real answer is to this, but I'm thinking about it, every day.

More on that later.

Nervous System was at it again.

The damn bastard.

In lieu of facebook, myspace, livejournal, other blog sites, I am inclined to craft a blog worthy of one "blogspot," of which being this place hitherto and hereafter this place, but at no time during the present will be this place.

My name is Gregory. Egregious, informally Greg, and this is my introduction.

In the past X years of my existence the general content and implications of my work has moved from the painfully and irreconcilably obvious (though as a child this is more-or-less acceptable), to the slightly more painfully and only so much less irreconcilable emotional destitution of high school (grammar school being a fictitious black hole, a joke on the common man by God, or gods), to the alacritous tedium and precision of working-class-minimum-wage-slave-drone blather, and has at this point settled on the vague and beautiful only a late blooming college eidolon such as myself can muster.

I am absolutely aware my last paragraph was one sentence, and to be honest it kind of bothers me. After all, whether sensically or nonsensically, writing should portray a sense of understandable communication. He said she said I said you said that I loved you. What did you just say?

I suppose in my time here I may lust after explanations for such intense topics as love, war, and ice cream, but for the time being I am much too tired and this is getting redundant.

This is getting redundant.