A Validation: Forbidding Parking

Okay, obviously, I'm not the type of person to do online quizzes, but this one caught my eye, and I did it, and realized it was very, very accurate. So here were the results:

Your Social Dysfunction: Narcissistic You are very self-important, preoccupied with success fantasies, expect special treatment and lack interpersonal empathy.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com Please note that we aren't, nor do we claim to be, psychologists. This quiz is for fun and entertainment only. Try not to freak out about your results.

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me, "How's it going?" or a question of equally deep existential import, I would probably be an incredibly wealthy person. People ask you this question every day, sometimes several times. Sometimes several times by the same person.

If I had half a million dollars for every time someone asked me what I thought of the metaphysical theories of George Berkeley outside of a classroom setting, I might actually have a million dollars. And that's only because I hang out with the same pretentious people who already know how you're going to answer the questions.

The question, is not the meaning of all the phenomenlogical rubbish that Berkeley spouted, but about conversations and human interaction. When someone asks how you are doing, they don't really care. It's an obligatory question that you ask everyone. In fact, as it turns out, the more you get to know someone, and the more you begin to care about 'how they are doing,' the less frequently you ask this obligatory question and have to hear the obligatory, response, usually something along the lines of 'not bad,' or 'pretty good,' or some such thing.

When I ask you, "How are you?" I don't necessarily care what the answer is. It's just a conversational convention. We all do it, and we do it without even thinking. A good definition of 'chit chat,' would be conversation with the purpose of filling meaningless empty time with something even more empty and meaningless. The same goes for such things as 'small talk,' 'pleasantries,' and 'gossip.' It's all the same thing, designed to cheapen our most effective means of conveying information, verbal speech.

Now, of course I'm being melodramatic about the whole thing. I am as guilty as anyone of engaging in pointless conversation, and even enjoying it from time to time. Exchanging jokes is perhaps one of the most pleasant ways to pass time. But it seems to me, that sometimes it's all we do. We talk about the movies we watched, what was on television last night, sports, or heaven forbid, the weather! It's not very often, that we talk about things in a meaningful way, or a way that is emotionally, intellectually fullfilling.

When people do get caught up some sort of debate, a deep philosophical conversation, one of two things will happen: 9 times out of 10, it will get uncomfortable and someone will change the subject; and all the other times it will become a heated argument and more than one ego will get bruised. Very rarely do we engage someone in conversation with the intent of learning from them. We all are so very sure that we're right about everything that we refuse to take into account the consideration that we are wrong.

I am guilty of this as well, however, I have a different problem: I am always right, and no one seems to believe me.

So this is the problem, more or less, with verbal communication. It's either pointless, boring, or trivial. And if it's not one of those three, it's invariably not going to be productive anyway.

The solution? You'd like that wouldn't you. Well, let me tell you. There is an answer to this question, but you're not going to like it. Despite that fact, we humans evolved as problem solvers, despite the fact that every modern convenience we possess is the direct result of a simple algorithm (find a problem, figure out a solution to it, implement that solution), there is no solution to this problem. It is fundamentally built into us. People will never be able to fully understand each other, and no matter what, we will never, ever, have world peace.

Good night.

I'll be honest with you. I don't like sentimental blogs, or sentimental anything for that matter. This blog was no different. It's actual subject matter does not interest me at all. However, it is an excellent, and surprisingly well-written example of what I call a "blogging notebook," to combine two of Blood's categories.

Of course, there's a very distinct and noticeable leaning towards the whole 'notebook' concept. Posts are focused and reflective. They are will-written and tightly constructed. It's not inane rambling like so many blogs out there, and in that respect it scores points with me. It may be sentimental and sweet, but reflective, which also gets points from me. Debbi does not flinch or muck about the issue. She's honest about her situations with both herself and whoever may or may not read her blog (which, judging from lack of comments, of course, is not very many, not surprisingly; but that's not the point, now is it?).

Plain and simple, this is an online diary. It's purpose is a creative outlet, and a place to put thoughts. It doesn't matter who reads it, and she doesn't need to feel embarassed about any deep private thoughts, since I don't have any emotional attatchments to her issues, only an intellectual curiosity. Some of my readers may yet become attached in some way, but still won't be intimate in the same way as her family. So, it's sort of like counseling. You talk to a psychologist, who, no matter what crazy shit comes out of your mouth, is not allowed to react emotionally. He or she is a sounding board and sage advice-giver (not that I've ever been in counseling, seeing as how I am The Good Doctor). If she finds herself in some sort of online community of readers, they will still manage to be unbaised and trustworthy because they need not worry about hurting anyone's feelings.

This is an interesting concept and probably one that I may or may not explore further throughout the semester. What do you think, dear reader?

This is a very important and up and coming blog. It is by the godhead, Jessymandias. It's a very new blog, because, of course, gods are very busy people. You know, smiting people, rewarding others, mostly arbitrarily.

I thought it would be important to catch at least one blog in its infancy, and look at it. Because this is the point at which a blogger is at his or her most vulnerable. Said blogger has not completely defined a voice or purpose for using said blog, and the writing will be kind of willy-nilly. It won't be quite as finely crafted as the blog may potentially be a few weeks or so down the road, so it's interesting to take a look and maybe predict the possible future of the blog.

So let's look at it first in terms of Blood. Jessymandias has a filter/notebook. There is one post that links...well...back to the Oracle itself, and another that links to a newspaper article. However, there is a strong leaning to the notebook concept. Most of the blog (at this early, perhaps infantile stage), is set up around ruminations, observations, and reflections. In this sense, it is a notebook mostly, with the probably future tendency of occaisonal filtering.

Another important observatin of this blog is that it is very, very, very serious. Jessymandias does not mess around. He is not the type of person, clearly, who likes to muck around and reflect on trivial matters. He clearly, with no doubt, is only interested in exploring the deepest, most pressing questions of the human condition. And being a god himiself must play a little in to that and affect his concerns and wishes and desires in respect to the future of his blog.

On the whole, I think that this will be a very important influential site on the e-verse, and anyone who is at all interested in bettering themselves should devote a certain amount of time to reading and pondering his important and life-changing words...nay: scriptures.

So, this is a blog that I used to read years ago. Of course, the biggest and most obvious problem with it is that Mr. Chomsky hasn't posted in quite a long while. In fact, there's only 5 months of archives. I would be very interested to know what he would say about the further developments of the world. I mean... a lot has happened since July 20004. Seriously, Noam Chomsky is one of the most brilliant and astute political analysts in our age...and he can't even keep his blog updated.

Regardless of the lack of updates for nearly 2 years, it's pretty clear that this is what Ms. Blood would refer to as a notebook. I'm not in the habit of categorizing or labelling things, especially since more often than not, those categories are invarably categorically wrong. Not wrong in the sense, that nothing can be learned from them, seeing as how, the distinctions that Blood draws are interesting and useful, but instead in the sense that most blogs (and most things in general), will almost always defy any attempt to categorize.

No one fits in one broad demographic, and the only way to be definite about identifying any one person is to get as specific as possible. Instead of the general "Doctor," or even the slightly more specifc, "Doctor of parapsychological philosophy, who is white and male and incredibly good looking," it is important that people will not know exactly who you are talking about until you say, "The Good Doctor Kuha." No one fits into only one demographic except in the very deliberate and specific, usually the demographic that contains only that person, "John Smith," or whatever.

That being said, categories can be useful. While my own blog experiements have consisted mainly of notebook-style posting, there is some filtering, and every now and again a little "blogging," though I find that kind of writing to be exceedingly boring, unless they filter it out a little bit and only discuss the interesting events with a little bit of "notebook-like" analysis, or if their "bloggging," their diary-like posting is in some other way interesting.

And so, by saying that Mr. Chomsky's blog is clearly a notebook, and a well-written, insigthful, and dreadfully out of date and mostly useless except in a historical sense, blog, is doing just that. Interestingly enough, there is very little (none that I can find) filtering and absolutely no 'blogging' on Turning the Tide. So it's a notebook; but it could be reasonably surmised, that if Mr. Chomsky had kept the blog going longer than five months, it may have evolved into something else, and thereby defying categorization in any sort of literal sense.

Hmm... This post was not so much aimed at analyzing TTT, as it was analyzing the categorization methods that Ms. Blood used. Of course, that's just as useful. Um... enjoy.

So hey, I just thought that my loyal readers who don't follow links (because they are so unflinchingly, unabashedly obsessed with me and my life), they really need to check out this little gem, from our good friend B-Dawgy-Dawg. I think everyone who is honest enough with themselves to admit that their blog sucks, should really take B-Dawg's advice. Lord knows I will.

February 1 is on the way!

So, what happened was this: I came home from playing that new Cranium Turbo Edition (brilliant but sadistic game) at my girlfriend's mom's house and was going to post a review of either that game, or come up with something actually clever or itneresting. But instead, I started playing around with Netflix, which is the most brilliant thing in the world.

I got sucked in, reviewing movies left and right. Oh my god, it's addicting. And so now, it's 2:30 AM... And you guys have the pleasure of reading the most boring thing I've ever written anywhere at any point in time! Ha!

I was taking a look around at Hawkins's (Witchdreamer's) blog, while tapping my foot to the newest "Kidz Bop" commercial. And it struck me that this whimsical person's existential problems, these problems with her self, which force her to use such creative tensing in her proper nouns (Did you refer to yourself in the fifth person??), are not so unique. I think we should all be wary in the very near future of the potential of strikes. Yes, labor disputes between us and our selfs. You see, I think we push our selfs too far sometimes. We don't allow them to catch up and enjoy life the way they ought to be allowed.

You know what kind of calamity would be caused if our selfs went on a general strike? I think its safe to say, the unless this matter is resolved in timely manner, it could mean the fall of Western Civilization, brought on by mass psychosis, or depression. Prozac, Zoloft, or Welbutrin be damned! They won't help us reclaim our selfs! Take a lesson from Witchdreamer's problems, because we must act now or be destroyed! There is no room for error, because the coming weeks could signal a very real tragedy....and our Selfs might just not be there to help us out of it.

A lot of people seem to think I make long posts. Well, just to prove that I don't always make long posts. Here's a short one.

This is my pet rat. His name is Sammy the Rat. He's named after Sammy the Bull Gravano, who ratted out John Gotti and his crime family.

Sammy meet the e-verse. E-verse, meet Sammy. Sammy loves Ritz crackers.

Have you seen this guy? He's simply amazing.

Just in case you didn't click the link, I want it perfectly clear how bizarre this all is. He's a vampire. He's running for governor. Okay, that's great. He follows a different religion. That's not too bad. He's Satanic. I mean, he claims to be all in favor of freedom of religion, but...he's Satanic. I mean, he stands for everything that the Christian right is against. He claims not to hate them, but that does not mean he doesn't personally look down upon them in utter contempt. Any self-identifying Christian would have to be a little bit foolish to vote for him.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in neither Lucifer nor "God the Father," as Sharkey calls him. But I can see very little chance for this guy to win the election. That being said, I do not think it's totally impossible for him to win. Very, very wierd things have happened in politics. Jesse Ventura, for instance. Oh, did you see the part where Sharkey talks about being a pro-wrestler?

I think it's entirely possible that this guy could create such a media frenzy, simply because he's so damned wierd, that he could make a fairly strong showing in the election, maybe even win, though it's way to early yet in this whole fiasco we call an election year to make any solid predictions.

My problem with him, though, is basically...well...bad grammar. His website is really, really badly made. The pictures are aweful, and poorly presented, the actual text is articulate enough to make you think he's got at least average intelligence, however, it's not articulate enough to make him brilliant. And he's really not very thorough. He did not do any revising. It's all first drafts. I mean, Bush couldn't make a better page, but at least he has editors.

You see, I want to vote for him, because some of his platform is good (though poorly developed), but he's just not smart enough to pull it off. If you look at everything on the site, you'll see a pattern emerge. Sharkey is nothing if not completely straightforward an honest (except to himself). His whole policy is built up, largely as a sounding board for all of his specific and somewhat uncommon pathology. Every single point in his platform is based on something that happened to him in the past. His drug policy for instance (punishment: impalement for possession or selling), is based on his experiences with an old girlfriend who was a junky. He's emotionally attatched to his issues in a way that I am uncomfortable with. His whole platform isn't based on carefully considering his stance on any particular issue, but some sort of emotional trauma.

On one of the sections of his site, he claims to be friends with the Bushes. If you find that material, I think you'll agree with me on the assessment that he's just a little bit deluded about it. Bottom line in all of this: he takes himself too seriously, and that's what causes problems in office.

Another detractor from his appeal for me is...well...this impalement thing. I am pretty much, one hundred percent, against the death penalty. And impalement, believe it or not, is a form of the death penalty. And Sharkey is really obsessed with it. If I thought for a moment that he could somehow legally bring back the death penalty in Minnesota, I would definitely not vote for him.

Well...I have no conclusions for the moment.

This is the blog I never intended to create. But since my other blog is written by a very evil person, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to get one rolling that's about my real feelings on issues (as if they didn't shine through in some way or another at Dr Kuha's Office).

This blog stands to be significantly more boring, or aggravating, because when people get serious, and I say this in all seriousness, people do one of two things: they get really angry, or they lose interest right away. No one wants to actually talk things through about anything.

I had a conversation with an old friend last night, an old friend that I hadn't seen in a while. And while it was "good" to see him again, when the conversation got "deep," and I found myself disagreeing with him, I felt myself close off. I resisted it as best I could, and managed to keep the conversation civil without swinging off into sleepy boredom time (life is all about extremes), it was difficult.

The point is, this blog could be aggravating or boring. While the former is preferable, neither are completely desireable. We'll see how it goes.