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I was just thinking that I've been posting a lot of philosophical masturbation lately. This is neither my intention nor my desire for a blog. So just a heads up, I'm planning on moving away from that and towards more story telling, perhaps some ranting, maybe some light hearted humorous posts. I don't know, I'll see where inspiration takes me, blah, blah, blah, phhhhhttt.

It's funny sometimes where inspiration comes from. Last night we were flipping channels and settled on an episode of Wife Swap. They had switched a traditional southern housewife with a liberal hippy northern one, with both sides learning valuable lessons of course. The interesting part though was the Hippy woman's son. He was long haired, in his late teens, and passionate. In short probably the type of person I would have been friends with at his age.

Now this kid had a problem with the southern woman doing all of the house work. In fact he rebelled against her rule that she alone would do all the cleaning and did the dishes. This lead to an argument between the two of them, and we flipped stations. When we turned back, the parents were discussing their experiences in each others houses. The southern women said about the son that he was disrespectful of her views, that he disrespected the flag, and disrespected his country (at which point I'm having a hard time not laughing, he is a teenager after all).

Next scene, the hippy mom talking to her son. She starts off saying how she knows he is passionate in his views, and correct in essence, but it's just the way he says it. His anger at others lack of understanding is off putting. You have to be respectful of other peoples views if you want them to listen to yours, she tells him. This conversation could have been taken from my own past. My mom said the same thing to me. And in the end she was right. No one would listen to my perspective if it was dripping with contempt and anger. Now they listen, maybe, but the result is the same. People dismiss my views as unfeasible, unrealistic, but I guess they listen.

That's not my problem though. The problem is what they don't tell you when they give you this lecture. They don't say that people will only really listen to you when your views have fallen more in line with theirs. It's misrepresented that it is anger that puts them off, when really it's the difference of the perspective itself that's off putting. Take the example of the angry hippy boy and the conservative southern housewife. Now to follow his mom's advice he should have listened to her perspective, and then gently, without anger or condescension, have told her his views. Slowly and carefully and she would have seen them, understood them, and eventually, if they were stated properly, she would see the superiority of his perspective and the truth in what he said. In the end it is not only the content but how you say it.

Problem is this is bull shit.

The content itself is where the problem lies. No matter how you coat it, it won't be swallowed. The anger and contempt are just the excuse for rejecting it. I know, I've tried this first hand. I've tried taking the prescribed hippy approach and gently introducing my perspective to a person. Continually trying to redirect away from the idea that I thought was wrong. Didn't work. Nothing changed. Maybe it was already to late. Maybe she was already too old and habits were too deeply ingrained. It became more of a discussion of different view points. Not bad, but no change.

I don't know the answer, and I'm trying to say that I do. All I'm saying is this: society has a tendency of trying to force the angry youth to quiet their voices, telling them that then they will be heard. Never mentioning that doing so their views will change. They will drift more towards the side they disagreed with, that they will be cast adrift in a sea of gray where there are no really wrong view points, just different ones. They will become a muddled mess where inaction is easier then action, and maybe just as correct.

Things were more clear cut as an angry youth. There was an enemy. There was injustice that needed to be fought, voices that needed to be heard. Now it's not so for me. It's easier for me to live my life and hope things will work themselves out. Sometimes I wish I could go back.

This Weekend was our block party. We live on a short block, only four houses. So we got permission from the city and closed off our little section of street and invited all of the neighbors. We probably go a turn out of around 40 or so people, including both of our mail people (our female mail person brought three pug puppies that she breeds. They are ridiculously cute).

A neighborhood can be an interesting thing, and ours is no exception. There are some interesting folks living in our neighborhood. From the couple that collects flags (his hobby is flag flying, her's apparently is wearing her pants just below her rib cage), to the recluse who lives next door with whom I've probably shared a grand total of 15 words with in the 4 years we've lived next door who recently joined a women's sail group even though he's a man (not surprisingly he's the only man in the group).

Now, I'm not sure what this means, but the most exciting moment of the night went down like this: I was standing there talking with my sister who was just visiting town for the weekend when one of my neighbors decided it was time to take his dog home. The path he chose happened to take him and his dog in front of a good sized gray cat. Bad choice. The cat started hissing at the dog (some kind of collie mix).

The cat leaped at the dog (to be honest this is actually when the whole thing caught my attention), and scratched it across the face. The dog gave way trying to back away from the cat. The cat in turn wasn't having any of that. He pressed the attack, striking the dog multiple more times in the face. At this point the dog's owner decided it was time to intervene. He hesitantly stepped forward (he looked a little afraid of the cat) to get between the cat and dog, and to try and shield his dog.

The cat was not dissuaded in the slightest. He jumped around the man, turning in mid air and renewed his assault. There was a flurry of hissing and the cats claws were tearing the dog. He struck the dog in the face, climbed up on the dogs back (much like a lion as it brings down its prey). The dog was cowering, trying to shrink away from the cat, but there was no hope. I'm pretty sure that if the owner hadn't stepped in at this point and swung at the cat it would have been all over. The cat would have killed the dog.

Instead the dog was free, and the cat stood a few feet away with all its hair standing on end. It was a show down between probably a 10-15 pound cat and a team of a 40-50 dog and a 160 pound man. The cat had the upper hand and knew it. He started pressing his advantage, moving back towards the dog and its owner, who were backing fearfully away from the dog. At this point my 120 pound wife stepped in (I couldn't as I was just standing there with my mouth hanging open. I think it was one of the most beautiful things I've seen). She walked slowly up to the cat and shewed it away.

The cat's owner stepped in (the woman with the high pants and the flag flying man). Apparently this cat has a history of ass kicking.

I was blown away. I've always been more of a cat person then a dog person. Usually I get teased for being a male that prefers sissy ass cats. Now I'm not so sure. I saw a cat kick a dogs ass, even though the dog was three times its size. The same night I met another dog that had just been attacked by three raccoons. She had not fared well. In fact she was lucky to be alive.

It's always good to have your opinions backed up by empirical evidence. When a person wants an animal for protection they invariably get a dog. After what I saw this weekend I'm not so sure. I say keep your dogs, I feel perfectly well protected by my 18 pound man cat.

The last Harry Potter book came out over the weekend, of course I bought it. I'm a sucker for a good children's book, sadly though my wife got first dibs on the new book (technically I did buy it for her). So I am rereading the last one. We also went and saw the newest movie (which was by far the best one yet in my opinion, I'm pretty sure they changed directors after the stink-fest that was the one before it). So admittedly I enjoy the books, although they are pretty much literary crack. You tear your way through them and then in a few months you're hard pressed to say what actually happened in them (at least I am, so it kind of works out that I just saw the movie of the 5th one and am rereading the 6th one while my wife reads the 7th).

I do have a problem with the books, and it's this: they make me depressed. Okay, maybe that's not entirely accurate. They don't make me depressed, they just make me disappointed with my life. Here's why: I've always wanted to have magic powers (as I assume a lot of people do). Reading about people with magic powers makes it worse. In normal life the desire fades into the background, and to be honest I barely ever think about it. But then a one of these books comes along and it stirs it up again. I think this is why I've never been able to really get into fantasy books, they make me feel inadequate.

To some extent the Star Wars movies do the same thing, though I'd rather be a wizard then a jedi, they're way to combat oriented for my taste. Still, if offered, it's not like I'd refuse.

Over all I'd say I'm a pretty happy person, well satisfied with my life, family and friends. It's just these escapist books. It's like working your ass off to paint this beautiful picture, and then you look over and your friend who's barely trying is painting a picture that makes yours look like a paint-by-number kit. It especially hurts because I know that magic powers aren't happening. Once I may have believed, but having suckled at the teat of science for too long I've been tainted and now believe as Arthur C. Clarke said, 'magic is only science that we do not yet understand'.

Maybe that takes some of the beauty out of life, it certainly kills the hope that some big half-giant is going to burst into my house and tell me that I've got magical powers and he's to escort me to my new magical school. Damn.

It does make me understand people who pursue the 'dark arts'. What if it is possible and you can learn to perform real magic (or magik if you prefer)? It sounds pretty cool, finding the original necronomicom, perform some sacrifices, have some hot sex rituals, and give myself magic powers. I think the only thing stopping me from becoming a modern Aleister Crowley is the fact that I'm lazy. Well, that or the fact that I don't really believe, one or the other.

Regardless it makes me sad that I will never have magical powers, or at least some telepathic or telekinetic ones. I would be too hard to please, just give me some powers that let me do things everyone else thinks are impossible, then I'll be happy. Or I guess I could just not read fantasy and it would stop tormenting me.

Why J.K Rowling, why?

Warning: what follows is a bunch of philosophical drivel (you've been warned, so don't complain).

On the MAX this morning I was reading We (by Yevgeny Zamyatin, it's supposed to be the book that inspired 1984 and Brave New World, and it's worth the read). It's slow going, because it seems like every paragraph gets me thinking about something. For the most part it's an exploration of the difference between the individual and the state.

This question is troubling to me. We were all raised to believe that we are individuals, that we are unique, that we are capable of being whatever we want. But life teaches us differently. It isn't long before we run up against someone who is better then us at some such. How often do you meat someone and say "damn, you totally remind me of my friend so-and-so"?

If you think about it, there are six billion of us on this planet. With such numbers 1 becomes totally meaningless. What does it matter if that 1 were to disappear? What percentage of the six billion would notice? 0.000001%, maybe a little more. Then you think that if life was a spontaneous occurrence (I think the most likely explanation), and our universe is infinite (so we are told and I have no reason to doubt), then is there really any chance that our planet is the only one that has life on it? So that means that you, the totally unique and special little person, are one of some obscenely large number of sentient beings.

How can it even possible for every person to be unique? How many traits are there in a human personality? Enough that there are more then 6 billion permutations? How high does the human population have to get before we start duplicating personas? It's a question I don't know how to answer, I mean even trying to figure out how to quantify a personality is so very difficult. We've all taken those personality test in some psychology class or another. Even the most complex of those only have something like 16 or so different personality types. And often they fit decently well. Does that mean there are only 16 different people out there?

It's one of the failings of the Politically Correct mindset, the idea that we are each unique. And that it even matters. I think about it, and the PC upbringing in me screams in rage at the thought that there are 1000s of people out there that are just like me. I want to be unique, my mom, my teacher, and all those many children's books I read told me that I am unique, that I am special. But as I grow older, travel more, experience more, and read more it becomes clear to me that I am not. If you sit in a cafe in some foreign country (your choice of where, it doesn't matter) and watch the people around you, you see it. You don't even need to understand the language. You watch their body language and their interactions and you can see it. The way people flirt and their interactions; they're the same. The emotions that drive us are all the same. We just want to be happy.

Some times I sit on the bus, and I listen to the conversations around me. Often there are conversations that get loud and boisterous, and I get annoyed. But if I force myself to step back and pretend that I was saying these things, and it clicks. Maybe some of those conversations are more dumb then the ones I would have, but not much. They are me, just slightly different.

Where does this leave me? Am I a unique individual who is special and great, or am I a blind face drowning in the mass of humanity that swarms our world? I don't know. I know which one I want to be, and how I was raised to believe that I am. And I know that if I am honest with myself which one I should believe. In the end though, does it matter? It's the same philosophical masturbation we did when we played with the idea of whether people still exist when we leave the room. It doesn't matter. The world goes on regardless of how I think it works. It went on before I was born and it will after I die.

I guess that's the root of the exercise. Trying to reconcile the fact that you really don't matter with your desire to be of value and to have purpose. It's a never ending battle between the nihilist and the dreamer. Neither can ever really win. This is what I get for reading a Russian science fiction author, who lived during the revolution, first thing in the morning. Maybe I should switch to Clancy.

At this point I'm about 95% positive that the only person reading these posts is Space Zombie himself. Oh well, it's like a private story telling time. I'm cool with that. Eventually random people will begin to stumble across these posts and grasps their true brilliance. From there it will spread and eventually everyone will hang on each word these fingers type. But until then, it's just you and me Space zombie.

So here's what I was thinking. Yesterday I got a replacement for my older I-pod with a new model (under warranty so I paid nothing). It was a painful long and involved process, but in the end it worked out. All morning now I've been bonding with my new I-pod. It's a beaut, 30gb video I-pod, black and shiny with a nice big screen. A definite upgrade over my 20gb I-pod photo. So to kick things off I filled it up and put it on shuffle and its been kicking ass. Assembling a good shuffle is a fine art. The songs need to play off each other, you can't play back to back songs by the same band, and don't play the crappy songs.

This new I-pod has done it masterfully. My first I-pod did it all right. And the I-pod I was borrowing while my other was in the shop did it terribly (frequently playing back to back songs by the same artist, given its only a 4gb so there's less to choose from). As interesting as all that is, my point is this; I really only have two superstitions. First I feel you must knock on wood after you tempt fate. And second I believe in the predictive power of the I-pod shuffle.

To elaborate I frequently will ask a question (in my head of course) of the I-pod and press play in shuffle mode with whatever song it chooses answering my question. Obviously this doesn't work for specific questions such as is blue, red, yellow, or green the best color (like I'd really need to ask that, green wins in a land slide). But for more abstract questions it can be quite illuminating.

For example, last weekend was Brian's Bachelor party, for which I played a good part in the planning and organizing. I asked my I-pod how things would go. It chose a Lyrics Born song. A good omen. It had a good beat, the lyrics invoked a good time, and I felt good knowing that things would go well. And it was right. The Bachelor Party turned out to be one of the better days in recent memory. A good time was had by all. All bow down and praise the prognostic abilities of the great I-pod.

Here's an entry in an underrated genre: "I'm bored at work and so I'm going to write some meaningless drivel to kill some time".

It's something like 90 degrees outside, not that you'd know it being stuck inside at a permanent 72 degrees year round. What are seasons like? I don't know anymore. They all seem to blend together, and I can almost always wear the same outfits, cause the temperature never changes. You spend all day doing the same things over and over, staring at the same things, it's kind of soul killing and it's kind of zen. It makes me think of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The true story of a man's personal quest for perfection (though he calls it quality), and whole in the end it destroyed him leading to shock therapy, and the complete destruction of his memories. But he goes right back at it.

Maybe the parallels aren't that clear, but something about the repetitive nature of a job reminds me of a quest for perfection. As if your doomed to repeat the same day until it goes perfectly, and only then can you move on from it. But sadly for you, perfection is impossible, there's always a flaw. You've got to go back to work, and it just blurs until it's eaten away your memories. But you go right back at it.

That's what my work personae seems like to me; a pale shadow of my real self, the person I am when I step off the MAX at the end of a day, after traveling a route that's now so familiar that I can picture it all in my mind's eye. I step out in front of the Dancin' Bare, and my work mentality begins to molt off like some undersized old skin. It's weird when you think about it, how many times during your life you shift your personality to fit a situation, and how your personality grows and changes to accommodate circumstance.

Really works not as bad as all that. Sometimes it can be elating. For example when an experiment goes off better then hoped or expected and you see something new. You're looking at something that no human being has ever seen before. Maybe it's a detail that so trivial that it's beyond meaningless to the average person, but to you, who devotes your life to meaningless trivialities, it's a thing of beauty and it makes it worth it. You forget the fact that all too often you're stuck repeating the same process over and over again. Or worse, you're trying to figure out why something that should have worked (so you've convinced yourself) hasn't worked. The problem being that 90% of the steps you have to take in the process have no visible result. You've got to care it out all faith, believing that in the end you will have a result. And then you don't. It's so much fun figuring out and correcting what went wrong. But then there's always the chance that the result just doesn't exist in the first place. What you'd originally hypothesized is just wrong, and no matter how much you change you'll never get a positive result. But then how do you know which situation is which?

Going back to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a second. He talks of this idea of gumption. All creative processes or works that require focus and thought are driven by gumption. And only when your gumption is at it's fullest is it worth doing anything, because it is only then that you can perform at you best. And when things go wrong it's what he calls a gumption killer. Your gumption is drained and so is your ability and drive to do your work. Failed experiments are gumption killers, and the sad truth of science is that something like 90% of experiments fail to give the desired result. How is that relevant? Maybe it's not, maybe it's just an excuse for feeling the way I do. I don't know.