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Thursday, February 16th, 2006
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People really scare me. Yep, I've seen people duped and ditched a hundred times and more because they failed to investigate something or have some amount of skepticism. I do it, too, but sometimes regular joes will believe anything. It really erks me that I have to constantly fight with my parents (who annoy me more often than not on very trite issues) about the amount of harm I inflict on myself when I play videogames. "It creates killers." "It makes people lazy." "It desensitizes people from reality."
All except the middle one are invalid points. The middle one is only valid because I consider games like DDR to be a phenomenon that could never happen again under the same circumstances. The killer argument is refuted because of a)the statistics involved and b) science has yet to prove any casual relationship between violent videogames and aggression. They HAVE proven a CORRELATION, but that is NOT the same thing.
Let me tell a story...
Once in a European country there was proven to be a correlation between the number of storks in an area and the number of babies being born. Thus, these sociologists laughing thought that the stork MUST be delivering the babies. This is an example of a correlation. It was found out that storks like to make their homes in tall structures. At the time large buildings were being constructed because of the industrial revolution. So, it wasn't that storks made birth rates go up, it was because the areas that storks inhabited coincidentally was a place of high population, namely a city on the boom. The idea that the size and amount of people entering a city influencing per capita birth rates is called a casual relationship.
Correlations do not prove anything, hell I have hundreds more examples of correlations that happened because a second independent variable was involved that the scientists did not seem to realize.
The clown part of this little update comes from seeing a girl with so much makeup on that I wanted to see if she had a orange wig to stick on her head, too. Seriously, I could SMELL the shit from across the room and it looked like a 13 year olds idea of fixing herself up.
I just thought it was damn hilarious looking. The only thing more hilarious sounding is...
The idealism of anarchists.
No, I don't think it would work out. While bureaucracy is inefficient as hell as it gets bigger, anarchists seem to not understand it is a necessary evil. The idea that people, after thousands of years of agrarian and industrialized society would be all, "Hey man, can I borrow your car, I know you gots to go to work, but I have to get some beer" is ludicrous. Anti-government is what mostly gets me.
I mean, who are you going to blame when government isn't there anymore?
:)
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Saturday, February 11th, 2006
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| Time: | 12:28 am. |
| Mood: |  contemplative. |
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People frighten me. Let me relate a story to anyone that happens to find this blog.
It all happened in late December. Now, the thing you have to realize is, is that Oklahoma is usually a mildly cold place in winter. While not as bad as, say, Colorado or North Dakota---it still gets pretty damn bad. But this winter has been irrationally warm, except for possibly one exception and that is for another story. I went back home to Tulsa for my holiday break (they don't call it Christmas break anymore for some reason even though it begins the week of Christmas) and I happened to find out that a friend of my was playing at the Pink Eye.
For those of you not in the know, the Pink Eye is the worst locale for independent (read: garage) bands in Oklahoma. They don't pay much, if at all, the location is in a bad part of town, and the equipment they use is not tuned correctly. I have been there on two separate occasions, both in service to my friends who have bands that need to go there. For while the Pink Eye sucks hardcore, it attracts numerous people.
Now being in college for the first time is kind of a cultural shock. For the first few months I just had to adjust to a few things.
1. Girls at colleges were waaaaayyy hotter than in high school
2. People were just as smart as me.
3. People were cool.
4. No one really fits anymore into a certain peer group
Yeah, I know its surprising, but no one I know really fits into a peer group here. Not the kind that are in high schools. Everything here is laid back since we're all on the same wavelength of "Piss off asshole, I'm an adult now, leave that high schooler shit back home." I seriously have not had a single problem with fitting in because of my clothes or what I own. I adjusted to this kind of treatment, it just seemed really nice.
Back at the Pink Eye I'm just about to open the door. They call it the Pink Eye because (surprise!) it's painted nasty-pink on the outside. Sorry, if that was random, I just want to establish how horrid this place really is. What I do for my friends, sigh. So, I walk in wearing a grey coat, some khakis, and I believe a red or blue shit of somekind. Normal, comfortable clothing that I employ often.
I am astounded by what I find.
Every person in this place (except the bands) are wearing a black shirt and blue jeans. It's like a freakin' cult. The guy all look like emo kids, so I pass it off as trying to look gay, which seems to be in this season (no offense to homosexuals, I love you guys, great fashion advice and all, it's just I hate people who dye their hair because it makes them "unique"). This isn't that disturbing since it happens in a variety of colors at college and even I'm swept up in ever so often. Hell, no problems, except for the girls. Girls have always been weird and little after entering college I decided to stop trying to figure them out and just go with the flow. All the girls were wearing the aforementioned garments except one key difference:
They were all wearing the exact same FUCKING shirt. I just couldn't understand it! WHY! Why would you all wear the same thing, but talk about individuality? And they all stare at me, with my multiple colors and I feel truly alone. They all gave me a classic example of social inattentiveness for the rest of the night, but I kept thinking something, deep in my head.
So, what's the point of this story? Children (I emphasize the word children) that attend high school are not cool. It's ironic since all children think they themselves are cool. Not to me, when you become your own person and can stand to be around not only a single person you hate, but an entire group and still be friendly, you've more or less figured out being an adult. I'm not saying that to be an individual in style is the part about being an adult, or even being without hypocrisy. Hell, hypocrisy is everywhere in adulthood, it's about figuring out exactly what you want out of life and living. For me, that means being an individual and a bunch of other things.
Not being pretentious jerks in a shitty music locale all wearing the same thing.
Sorry that this has been a bit negative. I'm feeling kinda weird. This story of mine kept popping up in my head. I left a lot of this huge rant out for fear that if I keep going I'd never be through. But I think this is enough for now. I'll get back on the issue of adulthood later.
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Friday, February 10th, 2006
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Today is T-day. Test day. The ultimate indicator to the amount of studying I have to do in order to do better in my classes. Yes, it seems kinda stupid to use a freakin' test to determine workload, but hell, I hate work. Being lazy is my life goal. Astronomy, my god such a boring class, but atleast I have sociology which is fairly intriguing.
Sociological Question of the Day: Why do people have a tendency to ignore fastfood and supermarket employees?
I've noticed I've become more isolated, not because I don't get out of my room. I do, but now I own an iPod. It seems while I'm listening to various (read: crappy) music, I miss alot of people and conversations. Hell I walked into class, sat down, and waited a full 5 minutes before a TA informed me personally that the class had been cancelled. I would have known this if I hadn't had my headphones playing around a 100 decibels. So I believe that the iPod will elminate all communication everywhere by the time Apple is through.
"Nuclear---what! Shut up already I don't have time for that, I'm listening to my iPod, B!"
-Predicted type of saying in the next five years.
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Thursday, February 9th, 2006
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Alright, a long time ago I was a really big geek and nerd (you'd think their the same, but actually their mutually exclusive of each other). At that time I moderated several forums and did enough IMs to make a normal persons head spin. I took away some key knowledge about forums in general. I will now state them in order for people to understand the dynamics and structure a forum community should have.
1. The forum is not a democracy and it is not anarchy. It is owned by people that take great care (sometimes less than great, though) to insure an environment that fits their self-image. A regular member or any non-paying member has no right to complain about policies and the harshness of any decision of the administration. It is a privilege to interact with people on various (usually nonsensical, but funny) topics. Thus, while constructive criticism is allowed, blatant flaming should never be allowed in a community. It creaes all kinds of problems.
2. The forum is not a dictatorship or somekind of monarchy. Believe me I have seen the egotistical behavior exhibited by people who believe that that not only is being about to attend a forum a privilege, but somekind of blessing from the internet gods. You build a website and a community, firstly, because you want your friends to be able to chat under any circumstance, not to boost a large ego into a larger one.
The best case scenario is to be a benevolent ruler and take some tips from Malkavalian ( I know I'm mangling that word, but I'm tired and I don't want to spell check) thought and find the best balance of fairness with fun. Just don't be a dick.
On another note, I'm thinking of starting my own website under the designs of making a student organization at the college I'm attending---The University of Oklahoma. I think I'm going to center it around gaming of every type since there doesn't seem to be any real games site anywhere, which is really sad.
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Tuesday, February 7th, 2006
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I've been trying to avoid blogging for the better part of a year now. I've been around the internet at various websites since around 1998 and while I was heavily into forums and IMs, blogs just never held my attention for very long. I guess I'm going to just tell a bunch of goofy stories here that no one wants to read about. So enjoy.
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ouroborous_19's journal
sleepy.
bitchy.