What really fires me up? I was just thinking what are the things to me in life that I really enjoy, that inspire passion and get me riled up. A rather cynical little voice said, "Working out, the idea of a sports car, and uh...the nature of reality." Obviously there's more (truly), but as a function of my life right now, I've got nothing else but to think about well pleasurable things. Don't worry, be happy, right? So I'll skip the first two, since well, you don't care. Nature of reality? Oh man, I have a good time with this one. There's so many sides you can choose to make an argument with, it's a good mind game. There never is a resolution, but that's ok. Why should there be? I think it'd be awfully arogant of myself (at least) to be able to be able to describe my reality completely or completely explain my reality. But that doesn't mean you can't try, or at least get some progress goin. Why be a fatalist? I think it's in our nature to be able to decide on things, it's instinctual. We have to be able to distinguish between situations, objects, thoughts, etc... Given evolutions, we tend to classify like with like, and this breaks up our reality into bite sized chunks. It's a lot easier to understand an engine if you understand each part. However, if I know what all the parts do, do I know what they do together is the big question. If I laid out all the parts of an engine out, no one would have any idea how to put it together without any instruction unless you've done it before. Aha! I say. So if someone has done it before, I should listen to how they gone about doing it, and apply it (or the philosophy of "it") to myself. However, I run into a liar's paradox with it, as meaning, why the hell should I believe you? Maybe nobody ever truly "gets it" and understand how everything of your reality works together. And that's exactly it, maybe everyone's different, maybe it's impossible to percieve the true underpinnings and fabric of reality for different people, as I assert reality is subjective. Maybe they're just lying or at some stage of false confidence. Ok, so maybe it's not quite binary you say, either you "got it" or you don't. Well, it's gotta be a spectrum then, right? You have degrees of understanding. What constitutes an understanding for me may be insufficient to you then, or perhaps just not suited. As well, your understanding of nature/reality must change with time, as does your reality. As you can see this is getting pretty complicated. So let's go back to the engine example, and see what we can do. So we are struggling away see what parts go where, and like most people you are trying to guess their function as to what it does in reality. Some pieces are self explanatory, and some are a little confusing and vague. The question that is naturally led to, do we need all the pieces to get "the damn thing to work". As I'm sure any of you have built Ikea furniture, you're left over with a few pieces when it's done wondering where the hell do they go. Engineers routinely overbuild designs, and hey, you think reality would have a bit of redundancy? You know, like it's got to be fairly stable, consistent. I mean, I'd be scared of somehow our reality collapsing in on us in a Rejected cartoon feel. And hey, it hasn't happened yet, has it? So of all the pieces do you leave out, is it the big ones? Is it the ones that the engine doesn't make sense without? The Ikea table is missing a leg? No! So you're damn well gonna use the important ones. Ooooh...snap, well what's important? Pretty subjective, but I'd say there's a lot out there which are objective. Science has gotten us pretty far no doubt, Religeon...not so much (atheists at war anyone?), and a whole gamut of others. I can tell you what's gotten me the furthest and helped me understand reality best, my noggin. It's what you use all the time, it's the most powerful tool availiable to you, and everything else is affected by it. If my consciouness plays such a huge role in my reality, perhaps I can achieve understanding purely through it? Worth a shot isn't it? I suppose this line of thinking has led people like Immanuel Kant to try to a priori objects/thoughts. By a priori, I mean only reliant on ideas inherent to the mind, not requiring information of the outside world. To Kant logic is often a favourite, because it probably came to him so easily hahaha. But that's the issue then isn't it, because if we go back to our engine analogy, what the hells the point of just examining what you think to the most important piece for hours going to help you figure out how it all works together So what the hell to do? I dunno, but this is a brief glimpse into how I'm coming to terms with the world. If you've read all of this, I'm impressed you spent such lengths for my ramblings.

Why is it so damn important that I look women in the eye? I really don't like to unless I know them really well or am dating them (and thus know them really well). Seriously, it's not insecurity...

I guess the only bit of "mysticism" or unexplainable part of my life (ok, ok, there's a few) is the fact that when I look into someone's eyes I feel that they're reading me, stealing my soul. You have to earn that right dammit.

Also I feel that it becomes more of an emotional connection then, and I don't usually want that. You gotta impress me intellectually (or on the dancefloor) before I'll let myself use some emotion up. It takes a lot out of me.

I dunno, I guess I'm a weirdo.

On another note, I realize I'm known as that guy who dances amongst most Calgary folk. Even got recognized at a bar as, "that guy who dances crazy at Bamboo".

zimma zim zum!

Saw Mr. Lif last night in what was perhaps one of the best hip-hop shows I'll ever see. Well, hopefully I'll see better, although I don't see how. If you are interested in hip-hop with a political edge, check out his Emergency Rations CD, and if you like that, everything else is sick.

Man, logic is so much fun. You can use it to do anything you want! One of my favourite things though is to completely change people's arguments around in a Lewis Caroll-esque fashion. Not only does it confuse the hell out of people, but you end up talking about something completely different and they'll wonder how the hell you got there.

I feel like I've accomplished a bit of my job. I was tutoring the other day, and it was the reasoning unit in Math 20. I was doing a proof with one of my students, who hates math a lot and is more of an artist. I helped guide her through the proof and at the end, she exclaimed "Wow, that's really pretty!"

If you need a good laugh, the online comic The Perry Bible Fellowship will make you laugh for hours.

Houston in 2 months, holy crap!

Oh man, I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday, and I'm fucked. I feel like such an old man, I've been hobbling around all day and my students are giving me funny looks.

And who else has seen GSP just dominate Matt Hughes? Wasn't that a beautiful display of skill? He just picked him apart like nothing I've ever seen, except possibly Anderson Silva and Franklin (which I still deny in my mind happened). On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Tim Sylvia is a big tall douche and I can't wait until he loses his precious belt. I think a champ should fight as such, take some risks and make it a good looking fight. Don't go to a 5 round boring decision just because you can.

New Year's is just around the corner...I'm gonna start making plans for everyone in Calgary unless you tell me otherwise. So get your ass to Calgary for New Year's!

Oh snap! I got a job.

In geophysics, I'll be the guy looking for oil to power...well, the world. I'll be interpreting data from seismic (i.e. bombs) testing, to make a 2d or 3d picture of what the underlying earth looks like.

The cool fuckin part about the job though is the training program. I first will be doing an intense 3 month training in Houston, Texas finding out all I ever wanted to know about geophysics. This will be hard.

Then I have to decide whether I want to go to London, Paris, Oslo or Perth for another 9 months. I'm hoping London will be available, because I like concerts.

Do not fear my friends, I will be back every 2 months or so in Calgary to party it up, attend certain festivals (hint, hint...), and generally make a mess of myself.

I'm happy now. Stress is coming off in buckets.

I actually have a real blog coming, I've been working away at it for a little while. It's very...bloggy.

more nonsense from my little head

After a recent conversation, I realize that I can't scoff at anybody's reading material. I'm reading about an imaginary race of big cats fighting humans. Monkey cat fight, it's fun.

I realize that I find the difference between a good album and a great one is often production values. I haven't looked into the actual technological reasons as to the subjective difference, but I can't deny it. I think not only does good equipment have to be used, and a solid recording process, but the skill of the producer plays a key role. But you already knew that.

My weekly MMA/Kickboxing bit: If you are bored and want to see some very skilled striking, look up Cung Le or Buakaw on YouTube. I hadn't see Sans Shou before, but it's pretty cool stuff, it's so chinese though. The Chinese have a strict conception about martial arts, and what they should be. If you watch, you'll notice that they won't actually fight on the ground, it's always been viewed as a unacceptable type of fighting. That being said, Sans Shou and Muay Thai can seem much more exciting to a newcomer than MMA because of the sublties in groundfighting.

I was asked an interesting question as to how could I work for a large oil type company. Usually my answer is, "Because if I don't somebody else will" but I realize that is the answer to why. Living through day to day working to make a made up entity profit is an odd idea. It challenged me throughout my time at the bank, when people would refer to the corporation as something that ontologically exists. It's epistomology folks! Something made up! Oh snap...I just realized that that would make me working FOR an abstract idea. Fuck.

The new Foo Fighter's album, Skin and Bones is actually really good. I recommend you all give it at least 1 listen.

I like the fact that all my grade 12 students have troubles with double angle identities, because that means we get to do lots of them. They are to actual mathematics and proofs as are a snack to a meal. I honestly like doing math that much, it's so satisfying completing a proof (or at least a bunch of mini ones). And it's so...elegant, I don't even know how to put it into words.

You know what's nice to do? Nap.

I think it's time to finally grow back my hair. I'll post some progress pics soon enough.

My new method to stop smoking is working very well. I'm happy.

I'm much more of a summer person, and I think most people are. Honestly, just doing anything in the cold sucks ass, and puts me in a pissy mood overall. I mean, you can't ever be happy stepping out into the cold, it just plain sucks. Rain I can handle, but it's that icy wind that kills me.

Who wants books for Christmas? Because you may get them.

I hope everything is going well for everyone. I think I'm going to get back to my cheesy science ficition, don't laugh.