New changes are forthcoming

Had a long time with my significant other who says she isn’t bothered by being named yet I’m still hesitant to name her, if just out of habit. Seems kinda hard for such rapid change to be genuine, and then again, I’m not sure if I want everyone who is (potentially) reading this blog to know that information.

Anywho, she and I are trying this new thing out where we (gasp) trust each other. Seems to be going pretty well. I hate giving her my trust because that’s something I typically make people earn… and it’s a long process. Most of the people from the LAN had to wait a year or so to get my trust. And there’s no one I would say I can COMPLETELY trust.

Oh well.

Things seem to be getting better.

Written Reflection

J. Durden

Mrs. Crissy

Honors Biology 2

April 28th, 2005

Written Reflection

My project was an odd one. It started off as a typical experiment, morphed into a common practice of procrastionation, and ultimately turned out to be an offshoot of Mr. Michel’s inquiry project. Throughout the whole process, I learned a lot about myself (or at least re-afirrmed known facts) and about nanotechnology. There were many hardships and many helpers, and even a few obstacles too. Read on for a sordid tale of surprise and intrigue!

I began my project by picking air quality off of a sheet (similarly to how most of my projects begin). I was not particularly interested in air quality, but that’s not to say I was particularly disinterested either. Of all the “biological” subjects I could think of, it was the most appealing. After researching more about indoor air quality, I started to get a bit more interested in the topic (especially after taking note of the irony that some air cleaners made the air dirtier) and I designed an experiment to measure Bellingham High School’s air quality. I had intended to conduct my experiment as I stayed after school waiting for debate to start, but I kept putting it off. (I’m a fairly devout procrastinator, and I’m not quite sure why. I guess one could say I work well under pressure, but that doesn’t mean I ENJOY working under pressure. It’s a love-hate relationship, to be sure.) I had a lot of other concerns on my mind at the time, such as debate, issues going on in my life and other class work, so the LTP took a backseat considering it wasn’t due until ‘all the way’ into April.

However, halfway into March, I realized that I hadn’t done anything on my LTP. So did Mrs. Crissy, who took me aside and talked to me about changing my idea. At the time, I was disinterested in biology and more interested in physics – specifically the science of time travel. I had thought to write a report on time travel but never got around to starting. Meanwhile, in Mr. Michel’s class, the Inquiry Project had been well under way. I had chosen nanotechnology as my subject of choice, but I wasn’t particularly interested in it and didn’t know too much about it. I’d heard about it once (tragically enough in a videogame) and thought it an interesting concept to learn more about. Fast forward to the week before spring break – I’d been having a bit of a mental break down, which with Mr. Smith and Mrs. Johnson helped me through. I’d promised to turn in some work for Mr. Michel on the Monday after spring break but that didn’t happen, so I ended up trying to do 15 analyses the night before they were due. I found an excellent site on nanotechnology and my passing interest turned into a very acute interest.

On Monday the 25th I realized that I didn’t have enough time (or desire, now that my interest in physics was taking a backseat to nanotech) to write up a report on time travel. However, I also didn’t have enough leeway in the confines of the Inquiry Project to talk about all of the implications of nanotechnology – there’s simply too many and my paper would not be focused enough. I thought I might be able to use some of the research from Mr. Michel’s class (and some I couldn’t use for his) in order to write up a paper for my LTP, considering that nanotechnology has a lot to do with biology. I asked Mr. Michel what he thought of that (sharing work between classes is risky business) and he encouraged it. I asked Mr. Smith to help me get into contact with Mrs. Crissy to check things over.

I received the ‘go-ahead’ from Mrs. Crissy to write on Tuesday and thus began dilligently working on Wednesday. (Yes, I procrastinate to the absolute LAST minute.) I ended up working for 10 hours total on Wednesday, and for about 3 on Thursday. (As of this writing, it is 12:33 AM Friday morning, and I still have work to do when I get to school.)

All in all, I did learn quite a few things from this project…namely, that I lack the willpower to overcome my procrastination problem. However, I did learn some useful skills too. I learned how to read and analyze articles (particularly dense ones, as the ones used for the report had a lot of ‘meat’ to them) and I learned a lot about MLA formatting (the hard way). Most importantly, I became more knoweledgeable about the future landscape of humanity. I honestly do believe that the world will change, as the experts predict…perhaps not to the extent of some claims (being able to enter crazy virtual realities, etc) but I do believe molecular manufacturing is inevitable, and that it will bring collosal change.

If I could’ve changed anything about my project, I would’ve asked about doing a report much earlier on. I assumed that the LTP required experiments, and it’s a little challenging to actually do experiments on or with nanotechnology (or say, time travel) so I figured that reports were out of the question. I learned that I should be more aggressive in finding ways to do what I’d like to in school – this certainly has applications for my future, when I’m forced into another situation where I might not like any of the options ‘given’ for a particular project (but the project has the freedom to allow for creative pursuits). Also, I would’ve allotted a lot more time to additional research. As it stands, I only have sources from one web page (my Inquiry Project has more, but those articles were rather elementary compared to the ones seen here) and that’ll likely hurt my grade/credability.

I don’t have enough room left to talk about my personal problems…I close with saying “thank you!”

Immortality: Within Our Grasp

J. Durden

Mrs. Crissy

Honors Biology 2

April 27, 2005

Immortality: Within Our Grasp

Mortality is a concept written into humanity’s very genetic code, and it is an idea that constantly shapes how mankind views the world around him (or her). Whether it is a driving factor in one’s day-to-day life or something pondered occasionally, everyone is concerned with the amount of time he or she has left in this world. Robert A. Freitas writes:

34 billion people have ever walked the Earth, and 28 billion of us have already died. The equivalent total information waste is more than 28 billion books, enough to fill almost 2000 Libraries of Congress. The equivalent total economic waste about $60 thousand trillion dollars, enough to rebuild our current tangible civilization 600 times over (sec. 6).

He, along with a collection of other experts believes that within the next few decades the dream of immortality will finally be a reality.

There are essentially two main feasible scenarios of how to get to immortality today. The first of these involves completely erradicating aging at the celluar level. The secret lies in telomeres, “repeating code at the end of each DNA strand, which are made shorter each time a cell divides, thereby placing a limit on the number of times a cell can replicate” (Kurzweil, “Alcor” par. 14). Essentially, once the telomere runs out, the cell is programmed for death (Kurzweil, “Alcor” par. 14). Ray Kurzweil, an important figure in nanotechnology and attendant of the Alcor Convention on Extreme Life Extension, reports Michael West’s findings:

The immortal germ line cells avoid this destruction through the use of a single enzyme called telomerase, which rebuilds the telomere chain after each cell division. This single enzyme makes the germ line cells immortal, and indeed these cells have survived from the beginning of life on Earth billions of years ago (“Alcor” par. 14).

Ironically, the secret to immortality has existed since the dawn of life on Earth. To best utilize this knowledge, Kurzweil reports that West suggests “…future gene therapies that would return cells to their youthful, telomerase-extended state” (“Alcor” par. 15). Kurzweil continues to report:

West expressed confidence that new techniques would provide the ability to transfer the telomerase into the nuclei, and to overcome the cancer issue. Telomerase gene therapy holds the promise of indefinitely rejuvenating human somatic (non-germ line) cells i.e., all human cells (“Alcor” par. 15).

While gene therapy utilizing teomerase may seem to hold the answer to indefinitely prolonging the life of our cells, the thought of such techniques taking mankind all the way to immortality loses its feasibility when you consider that telomerase gene therapy offers no sollution to foreign threats (for example, pathogens) to keep us healthy. However, this is not the only weapon in science’s arsenal in the battle to achieve immortality.

The secret to a more comprehensive immortality strategy (that is, one that keeps mankind healthy as well as unaging) rests within the emerging technology of nanomedicine. Robert A. Freitas is one of the biggest thinkers in the burgeoning field of nanomedicine, and author of several books (including Nanomedicine). In November of 2002, he gave a speech at the Fifth Alcor Conference on Extreme Life Extension discussing what he calls “humanity’s, and history’s, greatest outrage” (sec. 20). He speaks of natural death. In 2001 alone, nearly 55 million people died and only about 3 million of those deaths were caused by human action – “accidents, or suicides, or war,” Freitas claims. “The worldwise influenza pandemic of 1918 exterminated less than 22 million people – not even half the annual casualites from natural death” (Freitas, sec. 1). However, through technology, Freitas believes that mankind can not only stop biological aging, but also reverse its effects on our cells. His contention is that the key lies in the synthesis of biotechnology and nanotechnology – nanomedicine. Freitas explains: “Nanomedicine is most simply and genereally defined as the preservation and improvement of human health, using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body” (sec. 17). It his contention that within the next two decades, nanomedical advances will give mankind the tools necessary “to enable a process I [Robert A. Freitas] call ‘dechronification’ – or, ‘rolling back the clock’” (sec. 18). Essentially, he claims that nanomedicine will allow us to deage – that is, reverse celluar damage and return our physiological age back to our younger years. Nanomedicine will also be able to then retain that age through an annual process or checkup, where “a nanodevice will be sent to enter every tissue cell, to remove accumulating metabolic toxins and undegradable material” (Freitas, sec. 18). What is the limit to all this? Freitas comments, “it may be that you’ll find it hard to coax more than a millennium or two out of your original biological body, because deaths from suicides and accidents have remained stubbornly high for the last 100 years” (sec. 20). Implicitly, it would still remain possible to live forever so long as one could outfit oneself with new biological parts.

Ray Kurzweil sheds some light on how mankind might be able to (easily) manufacture anatomical parts. He explains: “we already have devices to replace our hips, knees, shoulders, elbows, wrists, jaws, teeth, skin, arteries, veins, heart valves, arms, legs, feet, fingers, and toes.” Complex systems, like organs, are also already being replaced…this, in 2002 (Kurzweil, “Cyborgs” par. 2). Work on synthesizing brains is also underway, according to Kurzweil. Clearly, one can infer that human parts will readily be available in the future. Kurzweil is not the only expert to have this vision of the future. “Greg Fahy, Chief Scientific Officer of 21st Century Medicine,” Kurzweil reports in his write up of the Alcor Convention, “…pointed out…it will be possible in the future for people to keep a supply of replacements for all of their organs, to be immediately available in emergencies.” One might think that organs would be costly, however Kurzweil reports that Fahy “painted a picture ‘of the future when organs are grown, stored, and transported as easily as blood is today’”(“Alcor” par. 17-18). Today, blood is relatively cheap, therefore in the future organs will also be relatively inexpensive. Even if one did lose one’s biological body (maintained by nanomedicine) it could easily be replaced – the only problem obviously apparent is that the brain (or rather, the neural networks that makeup an individual’s personality) would be lost somewhere in the process.

The answer lies within Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the future:

Most significantly, these nanobots will be able to directly interface non-invasively with our biological neurons to greatly expand human experience and intelligence. By interfacing directly with our sensory system from inside the nervous system, nanobots will be able to provide full-immersion virtual reality. By creating virtual interneuronal connections, nanobots can literally expand the 100 trillion limit on our interneuronal connections, which is where human thinking takes place (“Future” par. 29).

Nanobots are “tiny yet intelligent devices the size of human blood cells,” (“Future” par. 28) Kurzweil explains. Ultimately, Kurzweil believes that mankind will merge with technology (that in the next two to three decades will rapidly increase in intelligence – to a factor of a trillion or more) in order to increase our own capacity for intelligence while avoiding a doomsday scenario where artificial intelligence takes over the world. In his essay “We Are Becoming Cyborgs,” Kurzweil predicts that “By 2030…It will be routine to have billions of nanobots (i.e., nano-scale robots) coursing through the capillaries of our brains, communicating with each other (over a wireless local area network), as well as with our biological neurons and with the Internet” (par. 12). Inferably, our ‘personalities’ will constantly be connected to and possibly stored on the Internet. If that were true, then it would not be hard to ‘download’ your ‘personality’ into a new brain, which will be as cheap in 30 years as blood is today. Now that the general foundation for how mankind will attain immortality has been laid out, it is time to scrutinize precisely how all these complicated processes might work.

First one must understand (not completely, but at least have a basic knowledge) of how nanotechnology, and in particular molecular manufacturing, will work in order to understand more about nanomedicine and ultimately nanobots. Nanotechnology’s (for clarification, nanotechnology generally referst to anything built at the scale of 1 to 100 nanometers) roots lie with Richard Feynman’s 1959 speech entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” where he theorizied mankind’s ability to construct devices from the atom up. Another source of inspiration for the field of modern technology began in the 1950’s when John Von Neumann theorized a machine, driven by a computer (that contained the machine’s instructions) that was able to replicate itself. It had one arm and essentially created copies of itself from a pile of parts that it was built out of (Kurzweil, “Drexler-Smalley” par. 4-6). This is of course a rather abridged history. Eric Drexler founded modern nanotechnology by essentially combining these two ideas: he theorized a machine built at the molecular scale that could replicate itself, a veritable ‘nanofactory,’ or as Kurzweil refers to it, a universal assembler (“Drexler-Smalley” par. 7-8). For those that doubt molecular manufacturing’s feasibility, Chris Phoenix contends, “A decade ago, Nanosystems studied the required chemistry and engineering in detail; not a single significant error has been found so far” (par. 7). Eric Drexler notes, “When a scientist says something is possible, they’re probably underestimating how long it will take. But if they say it’s impossible, they’re probably wrong” (Kurzweil, “Drexler-Smalley” par. 38). Molecular manufacturing will lead to the cheap production of nanobots, which is a foundation of many other technologies (and most critically to this paper, nanomedicine). Kurzweil explains: “However, the basic concept of nanotechnology is that we will need trillions of nanobots to accomplish meaningful results… Creating trillions of nanobots at reasonable cost will require the nanobots to make themselves” (“Drexler-Smalley” par. 33). Once again, for the critics, Kurzweil alludes, “The ultimate existence proof of the feasibility of a molecular assembler is life itself” (“Drexler-Smalley” par. 21). More pertinently, Kurzweil points out, “By the 2020s, molecular assembly will provide tools to effectively combat poverty, clean up our environment, overcome disease, extend human longevity, and many other worthwhile pursuits” (“Drexler-Smalley” par. 54). Molecular assembly isn’t just a dream; the only reason it doesn’t exist now is because we are still developing the necessary tools to create it. Because the theory of immortality was built upon the foundation of nanotechnology, logically immortality isn’t just a dream either.

Works Cited

Kurzweil, Ray. “The Future of Life.” KurzweilAI. 31 Mar. 2003. 27 Apr. 2005 .

Kurzweil, Ray. “Human Body Version 2.0.” KurzweilAI. 17 Feb. 2003. 27 Apr. 2005 .

Kurzweil, Ray. “We Are Becoming Cyborgs.” KurzweilAI. 15 Mar. 2002. 27 Apr. 2005 .

Freitas Jr., Robert A. “Death is an Outrage.” KurzweilAI. 9 Jan. 2003. 27 Apr. 2005 .

Kurzweil, Ray. “The Drexler-Smalley Debate on Molecular Assembly.” KurzweilAI. 1 Dec. 2003. 27 Apr. 2005 .

Phoenix, Chris. ” Molecular Manufacturing: Start Planning.” KurzweilAI. 8 Oct. 2003. 27 Apr. 2005 .

Kurzweil, Ray. “The Alcor Conference on Extreme Life Extension.” KurzweilAI. 15 Mar. 2002. 27 Apr. 2005 .

Why I hate partying, why morality owns you, who I respect, etc.

Why I Hate Partying/Drinking/Drugs:

While it’s true of pretty much any hobby that you can get lost in said hobby (I’m calling partying a “hobby”) I’ve never before encountered one so consistently destructive. I’ve seen many people, not just my brother, get ruined by partying and drugs. There was a kid named Gus, who I considered an intellectual equal, whose life now consists of waiting for the next high or getting drunk next. One of my best friends is slowly deteriorating in front of my eyes, and there’s an old best friend who’s long gone. On the list of causalities is my brother, as well. My brother was not just my brother, he was my best friend and my only parent, my only role model… he was the only person I ever believed when he said he loved me, and the only times he did say he loved me was when he was drunk. Does that mean anything? I can’t help but think so.

There is no other “hobby” I know of that can destroy even good people so readily. Sure, things like extreme sports are accident prone, and if you aren’t careful you can get hurt worse — ruin your life more — than a little drinking. But typically the only people who get hurt doing other hobbies are the ones who deserve to be hurt (via lack of preparedness and caution). My brother did not deserve to be ruined like that. Gus didn’t deserve it. My other friends didn’t deserve it. Partying/drugs/drinking is the only hobby I know of that can take even the best and brightest you know and turn them into worthless degenerates incapable of anything productive or positive.

Now, I know logically that not everyone who parties is going to be taken in the same way that my friends and brother were. Yet, some of the people who’ve mattered most to me in my life have been taken by booze/drugs/what have you. That has an affect on my emotions, and it’s an irrational one. I can never respect anyone who does something so obviously (to me) self destructive and risky. Aside from the obvious loss of money, I fear that they can be so easily lost in the whole thing, like all those other people important to me were lost. And I won’t rest until I see them come out the other side fine, which means I’ll constantly worry about those people until they reach a certain age and are still fine. I don’t like having to worry about people, and if I think I’m worrying too much and not getting too much out of the relationship, I typically am forced to end it. I can only worry about other people so much, especially when I have other (namely, my own) worries too.

No matter how highly I regard a person, they will always lose my respect for being involved with partying/drugs/alcohol. I know that’s irrational, but that’s just the way it is.

Of Morality:

If you ever hear me talk about considering doing drugs or drinking alcohol, slap me. That basically equates to me talking about committing moral suicide. Lots of people tell me to stop talking about that kinda thing, but I don’t think they tell it to me because they care so much. Lots of people tell me to stop talking about lots of things, so I figure when someone tells me to shut up about that they’re just annoyed. Words only mean so much to me these days, unless I can really tell that they’re sincere words, but that’s pretty hard (unless you’re special in some way to me).

If I committed moral suicide, I might as well be really dead. I’d pretty much be empty, there’d be nothing left of me, nothing commendable, and I wouldn’t be the same person. But I don’t think I’ll be thinking too much about it anymore. A friend of mine, Dave, lent me a pretty interesting movie on Quantum Mechanics, and one of the ideas discussed in the movie was chemical addiction. I have reason to believe this part… basically, the brain can become addicted to ’emotions’ (or rather, the chemicals responsible for said emotions) if one experiences them enough. What happens is if you’re addicted to a particular chemical (read: emotion), when your cells divide the new cell has more receptors for that chemical and less for everything else.

I believe this because I’ve always struggled with the fact that I seem to ‘enjoy’ sadness. That is, whenever I was sad, I would consciously or subconsciously do things to further my depression. Now, I think, I was addicted to the chemical responsible for sadness. With this knowledge, I can now stop this nasty cycle. Really, it amounts to ‘thinking’ myself happy, which sounds kind of retarded, but it works. If it works it can’t be all that retarded, can it? I’m hoping to reverse the process and become addicted to happiness instead. It’s a much nicer chemical, don’t you think?

I’d been considering giving up my moral crusade against partying/drinking/etc, but now I’m not anymore. I have some kinda weird morals, I guess. Above all else, I value self-improvement, the constant search to better oneself. I believe the best way to attain that goal is to be completely honest. Not the only way, but the best way. Kai put it best, however: “Self improvement is the only priority; honesty is merely the best way to achieve it.” That’s one of my biggest morals, and I dunno, perhaps my only one. I don’t consider partying something that betters oneself, and hence I am dead set against it.

Of Respect:

Essentially, it doesn’t take much for me to respect someone. There are three main criteria… the first two are pretty easy to meet, I suppose. One has to be able to hold a conversation with me. One must also have some kind of morals or ethics that drive them, and the ethics or morals must not be completely retarded or faulty. I can respect and enjoy conversation with most people because I often find that most people fall under these two criteria. However, my list of respectable people gets weeded down tremendously by the next and most important element of my respect for someone:

Whether or not they have control of their id. For those of you unfamiliar, here’s a quick crash course… the id is believed to be a part of everyone’s psyche. Basically, the id does only what it wants. It cares not for the reality of the situation, it only has desire, and it acts with incredible self interest. A baby’s psyche is comprised mostly of the id. When a baby is hungry, the id makes it cry. When a baby wants milk, the id makes it cry. The baby has no regard for its parents or concern, crying whenever and wherever it might need whatever it might need. It acts only in its own self interest.

As you age, you are supposed to form the Ego and the Superego, which all serve to balance out the id. However, it has been regarded as a rather difficult task to balance out the id, and I’m starting to believe it. Most people I’ve encountered, you could say the “average” person, cares very little about long-term goals. Most certainly, very few people at school seem to care about long term goals. While I agree with them in their sentiment that school is bullshit and the work they do doesn’t matter and that they’re not learning anything… I can get past all that because I know that eventually my work will pay off. I will be able to go to college and get a better job and make a ton of money and not have to work for very long. Should I play my cards right I could retire by my mid 30’s and spend the rest of my life enjoying life.

However, most people just use the fact that school is bullshit as an excuse to give into their id. The id wants to have a good time, so they neglect their school work and stay out late and party and have a good time. While they may be having a better time than me now, I sincerely doubt that they will be having as good of a time as I could be having when I’m 30 something.

The trick is to know when to give into your id, when to act now and when to hold off and wait and suppress your id. Certain actions can be taken now to have a good time, and that won’t sacrifice the good time that you’ll be having later. Most people haven’t mastered that trick, or even have the slightest grasp on it. I’m still struggling with it, although I’m getting better. I tend to suppress my id more than I probably should; lately though, I haven’t. I’ve been opening up to people, I have a “significant other,” and other various things that my old self would never have dreamed of doing because they’d be far too risky. I could probably be better at controlling my id, but I have a grasp of it.

I respect people who suppress their id much more than people who give into their id. And I respect people who can control their id above all others. I believe life is harder in the short term, especially during, say, your teenage years, if you suppress your id. But I also believe it makes you a better person for being in control of your base desires and knowing when and when not to act on them. Since I, above all else, believe in self-betterment, that is why I respect people who can control their id. That is why I can never respect people who only give into it without thought and make up excuses to justify their submission.

Quick Thanks to Friends:

Thank you to all the people who read this blog and comment on it (namely: Dave, Aaron, Cody, Nick, Dan, Kai and probably some other people but there’s a lot of anonymous people who sign my blog). Thank you to Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Smith who’ve been helping me out a bit lately. Thank you to someone who’ll remain nameless because he or she wishes to remain so (which bothers me but oh well). You’ve all played a part in me turning my life around.

Also thanks to those of you who don’t read this but still made a change in my life… namely Nate.

Now, I will make everyone mad in a single post! Yesss…

Observe now as I make everyone mad.

Religion is dumb. Points:

• While the stories in the bible have mostly been proven, and I do not argue with the bible’s historical accuracy, proving the existence of a God or proving that Jesus’ claims about his heritage are mostly impossible. (If your religion is not based on the bible or involves Jesus, you should feel offended because I’ve neglected to address you in my blog.)
• Even wanting proof of the existence of God or proof of Jesus’ claims makes you, by default, nonreligious. Faith is defined as:
  

  Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.

  Hence, if you want proof of something that you should be faithful in believing, you are not actually faithful/religious.

• The best explanation that I ever got for how God could be as powerful as he was was that he somehow exists outside of time and reality and can yet still influence time and reality, or even enter our time/reality (as he seems to do a lot in the Old Testament). What?

Next, atheism is dumb. Points:

• Atheism is defined as:
  

  Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.

  Just as you can’t prove the existence of God or gods, you can not concretely disprove it.

• While not necessarily true, self proclaimed atheists generally believe in science above all else. (Atheism implies belief in science, essentially.) A belief in science is just as much a leap in faith as a belief in religion: science continually disproves itself (Quantum physics disproving Einstein disproving Newton etc) and is continually changing/evolving. Even scientists themselves say that science is by no means the true answer, it is simply one based on observations. (Note: I like science.)

What does this leave you with? Agnosticism of course. I am an agnostic. Some people call me a “pussy” or call that the “pussy” doctrine. I can see the logic behind this. It is essentially not choosing one side or the other… by why choose one side or the other when both have similar/equal problems? I honestly don’t know if God exists, but I would not be opposed to his existence if it were able to be proved. Hence, I’m agnostic.

Post Script: If you’re agnostic I haven’t offended you, and for that I’m sorry.

Of communication and assecksery

I’m finding it hard to communicate with people lately. It could just be that I suck and am illogical (actually, that’s probably the reason) but I find myself unable to connect with other people. I mean, we can still converse, points still get across… but not completely. Oh well. Thankfully no one hates me too much yet, but I foresee much hate in the future.

I’m sorry, but gay no longer means homosexual, people. It means stupid. Get over it! Stop policing the internet now, thanks. Gay means stupid, pretty much. If you’re using “gay” to describe an inanimate object, chances are you’re not thinking of the inanimate object’s sexual preference anymore. IE: Myspace is gay.

In lighter news, debate has started up again, and I’m happy. My novel seems to kick ass, I’m in a better mood most of the time, homework is easy, classes are easy via being cut back thanks to the WASL, etc etc… Life is good!

Random thoughts/revelations

I’ve discovered a lot of things about myself and just in general lately, and not all are bad…

First off, I am a lot quicker to get angry/be upset that I would’ve thought I was. Plans with my significant other went sour for Thursday, and initially I was pretty upset. However, I had plans on Wednesday to hang out with friends (and her as well) and Wednesday just turned out to be an awesome day where I had a really good time. I was actually happy to have some free time on Thursday to do whatever, as well, so everything turned out good! Still, though, it was surprising to me that I got upset so quickly. Hopefully that will change with time.

Next, I realized I really do run this town, or at least have a bunch of really good friends that can help me out in a pinch. I tried to bus my best friend Kai up from Olympia, but I realized he’d be arriving about ten miles from where I expected him to. Without a car, this created a bit of a problem. However, thankfully, my friend Cody was able to bail me out — he ended up taking the day off from work to hang out with me and help solve my problem too. Nate was able to help me today (Thursday) to get Kai back to where he needed to go, as well as drop me off where I needed to be.

I’m really glad for the internet, too. I think it’s a good thing to meet someone on the internet first and get to know them well, have a “meeting of the minds” of sorts, than to meet in person first. If you meet in person, physical characteristics can often hinder things that shouldn’t be hindered or advance things that shouldn’t be advanced. When you talk to someone without those physical traits getting in the way, meeting someone and getting over the physical aspects becomes much easier. You already know what to expect. It made meeting my friend Kai a very painless, very fun experience.

Lastly, I’ve realized that cars are overhyped. Sure, it’s nice to be able to get around freely, but busses aren’t that bad either. With gas prices the way they are, as well as insurance costs for young people, you have to wonder, is it really worth it? I was talking to my friend Dave about it, and he gave me the impression that he’d rather make the most of his time by spending that money on gas and not dealing with busses… but time really is money, and vice versa. To explain: you worked to get the money that you would spend on gas. If you spend it on gas to save you a little time to get somewhere, you’re making the time you spent working much more wasteful/meaningless. If you make the most of your money, you’re making the time you spent earning it all the more valuable and worthwhile. For the type of traveling I’d be doing, I think I would be getting the most out of my time (read as: life) by making good use of the bus. It only costs $150 for an all-year pass..

Anyway, those were my random thoughts. Slightly less random:

I had a really fun time on Wednesday. I got to see most of my friends at some point in the day, almost all of them (only a handful I could name that I didn’t see)… And then most of them came bowling with me, and had dinner with me afterwards. My “significant other” was there for bowling as well, so I had to juggle time between her, my best friend Kai, and all my other friends, but it was still a very good night. Thanks to all of you who showed up, and who are also reading this.

This place is way better than MySpace.

I think I might even blog here regularly.

There are too many people on MySpace that I really don’t like. All of their profiles eat up my bandwidth and take too long to load. When they finally do load, all you get to see are a bunch of:

A) Slutty pictures
B) Emo pictures
C) Goth pictures
D) “Partying” pictures
E) (This one is a rare) a combination of the above

Not to mention everyone feels the need to put something stupid in their background so that their page is hard to see, or that everyone feels the need to drown you with crappy emo music. Nice job, guys!

Then, people can’t even seem to spell right. Example: Someone’s profile says “I NEVER JUGE A BOOK BY IT’S COVER!” And then there’s all the fake people, whiny people, etc etc etc.

Anyway. It’s nice to have a “respectable” blog. i{content: normal !important}