linterry's blogger

today was not a good day. i had a mental breakdown of sorts from the moment i woke up. i tried to allievate the pain by visiting my grandma's house. it's quite amazing how being in the presence of foreign people automatically brings out an alter ego of sorts whether i want to or not. this alter ego, it's like a Social Ego - a projection of one's self as one might hope to be seen by the world. the fact that i still have the ability to project the Social Ego is proof that I am still not as crazy as crazy can get. and when the Social Ego is doing its this, I am stable. I am "normal".

but after i came home, and the Social Ego just vanished, it all went downhill from there. i screamed out in pain several times, pulling out my hair. i smashed doors and walls. but since i was a chicken nothing was broken and i didn't even bleed. i paced around the house without purpose. looked over the balcony and thought about jumping. i'm still here writing a blog so no i didn't jump (i was reminded then that people who actually do jump must suffer something fierce). i also started licking the floor for no reason, and then i smeared the saliva around me. it's quite a funny substance, saliva. when you smear it over and over on a smooth surface the viscocity is freakishly similar to egg yolk.

and then, my girlfriend who was crying and sobbing over her defective boyfriend forced 0.5mg of ativan down my throat. i screamed again. but then... slowly... i felt relaxed, somewhat at peace. and then i fell asleep. and then i had sex. and then we went out for a lousy dinner. we watched naruto together and that was about the only part of the day when i was not hammered by mental agony.

you can tell how excited i am to looking forwards to tomorrow.

in a quick and dirty attempt to increase the # of usable winks i followed the first link after googling "messenger winks". a bit of hesitation and a few clicks later, yeah i got some extra winks. i also got a SHITLOAD of useless "search assistants". thank god there's adaware.

it is simply mind-boggling to imagine how much "digital trash" the world is producing each and every day. i guess some fucking assholes will put my blog in that list. but they can go fuck themselves. i entertain people just by being my fucked up self. fuck, what was i talking about? oh yeah, the digital trash. do you know why there's so much of this trash? because people are too involved with their dopamine. that's right. they feel the need to level-up their fucking life every single day. it's a cruel Darwinian complex. hence, they go into marketing, so they buy a better house, better car, get satellite, whatever. it can be said that humans operate like a BFS algorithm when going through the "Ways to Make Money" Tree. for you non-CS people, i don't fucking care if you don't understand.

http://www.btaa.co.uk/winners2005/HondaDiesel_Grr.htm

don't get what's so good about it

today i met my old teacher from ntu langauge school for lunch. we talked. it was fun. talking is a great natural anaesthetic. people who like talking are no different from heroin addicts. you're just a slave to the chemical processes in your brain. you know what's tough? try staying at home for ages and not talking to anybody. that's right. deprive yourself of the "natural drugs" your body needs. how long can you go on without talking to anybody? and you think you have free will? fuck that. you talk to people because your brain wants those chemicals. you eat, have sex, make money... because your brain craves those chemicals. the fact you believe you are in a control of yourself is a cruel Darwinian illusion to prevent revolts. you have no control over yourself. i learned my teacher also suffered from depression and anxiety disorder and had to see a psych for one year. no surprise. people who don't have psych problems seem to be a rare breed nowadays. but she's better now. that's better. so all that struggle, just so you aren't crazy. gee. that's some great motivation. i have no problem censoring myself outside of home. but at this hour. at this same place. it's a struggle to just keep myself in one piece. i cannot think. something inside my brain is screaming at me. the message is unclear. but it's screaming. mentally i'm pretty fucking sick right now. bye

i feel like i want to cry my fucking guts out. the exasperation, the FUCKING EXASPERATION! WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I BE AT PEACE? WHY THE FUCK DO I WRITE ALL THIS DUMB SHIT HERE. SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME. OH NO. WAIT. I'VE HEARD THAT BEFORE. I'VE GOTTA HELP MYSELF. RIGHT. IT'S ALL IN MY CONTROL. IT'S ALL IN MY HEAD. SORRY!! I'M NOT FUCKING NORTH AMERICAN. YOU DUMB TWATS. FUCK!!!!! SO .. MUCH... FUCKING.... EXASPERATION. NO AMOUNT OF SEX. NO AMOUNT OF EXERCISE. NO AMOUNT OF VITAMINS. WILL HELP MY CONDITION. WOMEN! STOP FUCKING INDULGING IN YORU FUCKING APPERANCE. NOBODY CARES IF YOUR HAIR IS FUCKING 1 DEGREE OFF FROM IT'S IDEAL POSITION. WE JUST WANT YOUR PUSSY. WHY DON'T YOU SHAVE YOUR PUSSY? SHAVE YOUR FUCKING PUSSY. SEEN PORN LATELY? TREND IS: SHAVED CUNTS. SO SHAVE YOUR PUSSY AND STOP FREAKING OUT OVER NAILS AND OTHER PARTS OF YOUR BODY WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT. GODDAMNIT. HOW CAN YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELVES WHEN YOU BLEED SOME AWFUL SMELLING GUNK FROM YOUR CRACK EVERY GODDAMN MONTH? DO YOUR BEST TO SHAVE YOUR PUSSY OK?

OH I CAN'T STOP WRITING. THE HEROINIGISTC PAINKILLING EFFECT IS SO RELIEVING. IF I HOP INTO BED MY MIND IS POUNDING WITH SO MANY FUCKING USELESS THOUGHTS. WHY CAN'T I FIT INTO SOCIETY? WHY CAN'T I WRITE ABOUT MY FUCKING DAY, RESTAURANTS I WENT TO, PEOPLE I MET, AND USELESS TOURIST PICTURE AND JUST LEAVE IT AT FUCKING THAT? BLOGGING IS NO DIFFERNT FROM REALLY CHEAP PAINKILLERS. OH IT'S SUCH A RELIEF. TO TYPE. TO TYPE TYPETYPETYPE AND FEEL LIKE I'M TALKNIG TO SOMEBODY. I'M SO AFRAID TO GO TO BED.. SO MANY FUCKING USELESS THOUGHTS BARRAGING.... MONEY IS SO FUCKING IMPORTANT! SO FUCKING IMPORTANT! SO FUKCIN GIMPORATTN! NOPE. SORRY. DOESN'T WORK. I'M SO SORRY! PEOPLE WOULD BE A LOT MORE SYMPATHETIC IF I WAS POOR. NOBODY FEELS SORRY FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME. BECAUSE IT'S ALL IN MY OWN HANDS. IT'S ALL UNDER MY CONTROL. FREE WILL! YEAH! FREE WILL. YOU FUCKING MORONS. YOU FUCKING MORONS.

SEE A DOCTOR? SEE A PSYCHOLOGIST YOU SAY? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ONE? WHY DO YOU ASSUME THEY ARE EVEN HALF-QUALIFIED? BECAUSE THEY HOLD A DEGREE? WHO GAVE THEM THAT DEGREE? DO YOU THINK PSYCHOLOGISTS REALLY KNOW HOW TO FUCKING HELP PEOPLE LIKE ME? IN FACT, WHY DO YOU ASSUME THERE IS EVEN HELP IN THIS WORLD? HAVE YOU NEVER ENTERTAINED THE THOUGHT THAT I CANNOT BE SAVED? THAT I AM HOPELESSLY LOST? NO? THEN ENTERTAIN IT. OPEN UP YOU FUCKING MIND AND TAKE IN SOME NEGATIVITY FOR ONCE. DOCTORS ARE FUCKING MORONS. I SHOULD KNOW, MY UNCLE IS A DOCTOR. HE'S AN IDIOT. DOCTORS ACT LIKE THEY KNOW THEIR SHIT, IT'S PART OF THEIR ROUTINE. IN REALITY THEY ARE FUCKING TIRED FROM SEEING A BILLION PATIENTS THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT. ALL THEY WANT IS TO MAKE MONEY BUY A BENZ AND NOT GET SUED. WHY WOULD THEY FUCKING GENUIENLY WNAT TO HELP YOU? GET REAL, IDIOT.

HELP HELP HELP HELP

today when i was walking through the supermarket my head was spinning from all the marketing hype that surrounded me. i suppose like most others i should just get used to it, but whenever i see the next product advertise how it has vitamin X or gyukyuu extract or how all orange juices emphasize 100% fresh i just feel like smashing things up. why can't people be honest. why does subway call it a "veggie delite" when it should really be called an "empty sub". so much hype so much fucking HYPE...HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE
everytime i hear how some girl's boyfriend is in marketing i feel like smashing something up. why do people go into marketing? do they get a kick out of deceiving people? do they sleep well knowing they cover the truth with misleading statements and psychological subterfuge? they are worse than lawyers, because they fucking create a market for them.

hey i have a brilliant idea on how to make some quick bucks. invent some kind of fat that's chemically different from all the fats right now, but tastes the same as the greasiest, oilest chicken fat. get a lawyer to take the necessary steps to ensure your new fat isn't actually called a "fat", but anything else you want to call it. NutraSlim or something recycled like that. now put loads of that in a cookie and advertise it as "Fat-Free". Then women will just go nuts on how fucking good it tastes while simultanaously feeling no guilt. in fact, they think they're doing their body a favor! but hell, let's not stop there. put how there's like vitamins A, C, E and Zinc and also some totally made up herbal extract that helps their skin. the miracle cookie. ok, so maybe I have to tone it down to make it believable. maybe it shouldn't be something as stupid as a cookie. but you get the idea. all you really need is a fat that tastes like fat (but legally isn't called fat), and a lot of useless vitamins and herbal extracts, and your hands are already in the pockets of milions of women around the world. how do you think clairol "herbal essences" got so popular? you REALLY think that's better shampoo because it has some Ayakwabiaginasening "herbal extract" inside? cut me a fucking break. what the FUCK do you know about herbs?

women are so dumb. they crave for fat-free foods and then when they eat something with fat that they're unaware of, they say "oh this is so good" and then think it's because the food is using fresh ingredients or whatever. wake the fuck up. food tastes good either because a) it's loaded with oily animal fats or b) extremely sweet or c) (if you're asian) it's laced with flavor enhancers that go for the jugular on your taste buds. GET REAL. BE PARANOID, NOW! EVERYBODY JUST WANTS YOUR FUCKING MONEY AND THEY WILL LIE, SHIT, AND DECEIVE YOU TO FULFILL THEIR GOALS.

Hey, I've got the best fucking water for you, it's

Natural Mineral Spring
Reverse Osmosis, Vapor distilled, Electrolyte-Enhanced
Aquadella De L'Eau!!!

How else are you going to sell tap water for like $3 a bottle?

i watched some naruto recently. it's ok. nice characters, nice colors, and very smooth animation when it's required. i like how the fights resemble video games. people abuse the same moves over and over again. but you know what's even better? watching lock, stock, and two smoking barrels for like the 15th time. god that movie is the shit. "sawn-offs are out. people want a bit more range these days". fuck that's the shit.

Rationality is so fucking overated.

Even when I dress nicely, when I try to make myself socially agreeable, I can feel the bugs inside of me, swimming in the filth that is my mind.



Oh, how I desire ATTENTION, how I desire AFFECTION. How I want to fuck all night until the bugs come crawling out of my body. All that semen, pouring out, promiscuously copulating. The smell of the thick vaginal lubrication and female sweat overwhelming my senses. The bugs will come out.

Then when I am done fucking, I want to eat. I want to murder those who are different from me. The judgemental capitalists shall all die.

Yes sometimes I look at my own posts and I'm fairly shocked at how psychopathic I am. Who is that writing those posts? I don't think it's really me, but definitely it's a part of me.



The id, the inner child, the impulsive, indulgent, INNER CHILD. Most normal, euthymic people have it well contained and under control. But mine is often out of control. I can surpress it best in the afternoon and early evening. But late into the night, it dominates everything. Hence if you were to collect statistics on this blogger, I'm sure the majority of the "ok, what the fuck terry" posts will be around bedtime.

Yeah according to Freud the inner child lies in our unconscious. Thus what it really wants is not always known to us. It can only tell us when it's satisfied and when it's not - thus dictacting how be behave and controlling our motivations.

Most people think Freud is a complete dork because of his penis envy and Oedipus complex bullshit. Hey I'm with you on that. But his divisons of the human mind into the id, ego, and superego (which were developed very late in this career) make a lot of sense. They don't exist in a concrete sense, they are simply abstractions of the complex neuronal network that is our brain. For sure, our dopamergenic reward/motivation/expecation systems are strictly in the domain of the id. That is why our most fundmental drives (sex, food, defecation) are intense and pretty much automatic. Substitutions of these fundmental drives, such as obssessive behiavor, also lie within the same domain. Feelings of hate, racism, bigotry are also in the id, thus explaining their intense, unconquerable nature.

Like for instance, maybe you, the reader, hate me with a passion. I'm so immature, so dorky, whatever. That's in your id. You can't just sit back and say, ok, this guy is a dork, i don't care. Your id cares. Your id is telling you that I'm your enemy, I'm a sicko. It probably engages the same neural pathways as racism. In that sense you are no differnet from Hitler or the KKK.

If reality gave me everything I wanted
I would still be incomplete
I would still want more
Even where there is nothing more to be had.

I feel so incomplete. I feel so exasperated. But why? why why why why why why why why why why why why. why why why why why. I suppose if I had a job that would fix it. But I don't think it will. My mind is just so FUCKING INDULGENT. It cannot survive on the meagre supply of pleasure the world around me can offer. It endlessly needs to consume, to devour, to destroy. Like a child that never sleeps, it keeps my entire existence under chains, yelling orders non-stop. Here's a sample of what it keeps telling me:

"More food! More sex! More women! Masturbate! Tweak your desktop! Find more girls to meet! Force your girlfriend to have sex! Insult your girlfriend! Ignore people you find inferior! Cuddle up with those who are superior! Hate everyone who doesn't agree with you! Hate the world! Everyone's out to get you!. Those capitalist bastards! Get something new in your life! FUUUUCK! FUUUUUCK! FUUUUUCK! FUUUUUCK! You goddamn judgemental assholes!"

And then there's the other side of me... the dwindling, rational side of me that is pretty much summed up in the typical book called "101 Habits of Successfull people" that says:

"Relax dude. Just appreciate what you have in life, take it easy, and don't sweat the small stuff. Respect other people's opinions, don't forget those who've helped you, and help those who are in need. Don't ask the world to understand you before trying to understand the world.

...and all that bullcrap. Hey. I want out of this. Can't the child just go away. Can't it just GO FUCKING AWAY!? I WANT TO FIT INTO SOCIETY! I WANT APPROVAL!!!!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK

Hey, this reminds me of someone:



Intersetingly, I think the rational side of me just wants to die. But the child, inconsiderately programmed for the interests of my own DNA and not society, insists on pressing on.

Of all the things I wish i could have in this world, I wish I could be in love again. I mean that intense, magical, dopamergenic, cosmically fucking-higher-than-high love. For that is the only time I do not question why I still linger on this sick, capitalist planet, filled with contradictory, misleading, and contrived customs that are no longer in sync with whom we really are.

Do I sound extreme? Do I sound fanatical? It may be reassurance to those who are no longer in touch with themselves, who are lost in the unsolvable maze of intractable complexities we call SOCIETY, that the human brain is wired for love. This is not some hard scientific fact. But it would seem that our dopamergenic pathways, responsible for our feelings of pleasure, motivation, and expecation, are only brought into action in full force when we experience the early stages of romantic infatuation. Everything else is just placeholders.

We have created a social system whereby if a person can experience such feelings maybe twice or three times in a lifetime without guilt, they are considered extremely lucky. How can so many humans survive in such a barren wasteland, given that we were never meant to live the way we do now? Simple. We turn to other addictions that at best, do a half-assed job at stimulating the same pathways:

• Coffee. Alcohol, Cigarettes
• Excessive music that overwhelm the aural senses
• Obsessively competitive behavior
• Obessive blogging or chatting
• Obsessive infatuation with one's apperance
• Golf.
• Uninhinibited wealth accumulation and material consumption.
• Swiss Chalet.

These pathological habits all share the same kind of dopamergenic reward/expectation/motivation mechanisms as love. Then, if we're sick of the half-assed measures, we go for the jugular: recreational drugs. They actually do a better job than love - if only you could experience what crack feels like, you would understand. Love and cocaine would go hand in hand... but too bad Mother Nature is a fucking tight-ass: no cheating or you will be PUNISHED.

I see so many people nowadays who tragically have managed to surpress their inner child for the sake of fulfilling Society's Ascension Game. That is study hard, work hard, beat the shit out your competitors, and you can finally drive a nice car, live in a decent house, and be happy. I'm fine with everything except the last part. Be happy. What a shitty lie. Do you think rich kids have orgy fests day in and day out? By and large, they are just as fucking miserable as you, the whole lot of them. Unless they are in the early stages of romantic infatuation. That is pretty much, as young adults, the only time you will ever feel ALIVE. Everything else is just placeholders.

I wish there was way to tag songs in my MP3 collection and rate it according to the amount of mastering compression applied to it. Then when I feel like being overwhelmed by massive sonic waves, I could just sort and filter out the compressed songs. When I actually feel like listening to music, I could sort filter out the pure, uncompressed ones.

I don't know whether it's the fact that I'm using foobar2000 (allowing me to navigate and search the playlist with utmost effieincy) or whether it's because i repositioned my speakers, but I have become hyper-sensitive to loudness. When my room is dead quiet (turning off the telly and AC), I find even moderate compression to be somewhat grating. Here's a rough estimate as to to the amount of compression applied to certain tracks.

Almost no compression (hard to find, nobody wants to listen to this stuff anymore)

• Any classical recording
• Most film soundtracks
• Musicals (exception: Chicago the musical official film soundtrack)
• Nirvana (surprise)
• Goo Goo Dolls
• Jann Arden's Good Mother
• Sheryl Crow's All I wanna do
• Chemical Brother's "Loops of Fury" (huge surprise, considering nature of track)

Moderate compression (some added punch, usually older songs in the 90's)

• Radiohead's The Bends
• Most of U2's hits
• Chemical Brothers Leave Home
• Alanis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill
• Sarah Mclachlan's Surfacing

Moderate-Heavy Compression (slightly more punch, the norm for today's records that are not specifically targeted toward attention-deficit people, also for techno/dance music produced in the 90's)

• Radiohead
• Prodigy
• Dido's No Angel, Life for Rent
• Oasis
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Chemical Brothers (most of their work)
• Utada Hikaru (minus Exodus)

Heavy Compression (mega-punch, for those suffering from ADD)

• Keane (surprise? it's pretty fucking loud for it's actual musical content)
• Gwen Stefani's L.A.M.B. (ouch, watch out for those kicks)
• Britney Spears' In The Zone
• Chemical Brothers's Block Rockin Beats, Setting Sun
• 50 Cent
• Utada Hikaru's Exodus

Some things you may notice. Generally, the newer the song is, the more likely it has a heaiver amount of compression. For instance under the heavy compression category, I could only find songs that loud that were made in the last few years. The reason is simple: the technology to maximize the loudness of a song to that degree was simply not available ten years ago. Or maybe it was but nobody felt the need to use it. From what I've gathered from several magazines, most audio engineers actually don't like using maximizers because they feel it ruins the dynamics (it does), but they are forced to because without doing so, nobody will listen to it.

The other funny thing you will notice is that a track from say, Keane's Hopes and Fears, will actually sound much louder than the average track from Prodigy's Fat of the Land. Does this not seem strange to you? How does a melody and piano driven track sound LOUDER than pure beats, bass, and ripping synth leads? But it does. Try it for yourself. The fact is: the genre of the music has little to do with how loud it can sound. Loudness maximization is purely in the scientific domain. It's a repeatable algorithm that can work even on classical music if you wanted it to.

You might be asking: Terry, why do you care so much? Well, I care because this trend is simply a reflection of the values of society today: Instant, mindless, gratification. Compression is there for two reasons: 1. to try to gratify what's left of your perpetually overloaded senses 2. so that it sounds louder than the other album on the market ie capitalist values. Where are puritanical principles in all of this? Gone. They were gone from the 80's. The thing is, if you listen to pure silence for just 10 minutes (torture for most people nowadays), you can actually listen to "quiet" uncompressed songs and be enraptured by their delicate beauty. The moments of natural quietness between the kicks and snares are so beautiful.

But think, when's the last time you sat down and enjoyed 10 minutes of REAL silence while you were awake? No AC fan, no telly, no fridge, no humming from your computer's PS and CPU fan. Hard to recall isn't it? No wonder why you need a constant wall of -5~10dB sound in order to obtain gratifcation.

The funny thing is that I feel that maximization has pretty much hit a peak nowadays. Really, unless you want a track to sound so unbelievably blaring like Black Suits Coming, there's no more room for loudness anymore. So where does the music industry go from here? How can it still improve music when the loudness department has already been exhausted? What statistical variables will they concentrate on next? Who knows.

This morning at 10:30am my cell phone rang. I thought, hmm.. maybe it's those guys at NMI, finally. Surprise surprise. It's the old people at KK. Despite the fact that I told them that I pretty much retired from music, despite the fact that I told them I would have been in Canada by now, they still call me and pretty much begged me to do work for them.

Like a whore who can't get enough of worshipping and praise, I could only accept.

Really, they should be looking for someone else. My music production skills are extremely rusty, my piano is not even in tune... but.... I suppose this illustrates a fundmental principle of humans: They Always Go For the Shortest And Safest Route. They behave like fucking Dijkstra's algorithm, each and every time, without fail.

Option #1: Hiring a New Person. They have to find a place to put out an ad. They have to wait for respones. They have to schedule interviews. They have to re-schedule interviews. They have to agonize over choices. The guy might turn out to be a flake. He might be qualified but ask for too much money. Bottom Line: It's just too fucking long, and risky.

Option #2: Hiring me. They know what I can do. One phone call. Doesn't matter if I just came off goddamn panic attacks, anxiety disorders, and dysphoric mania, and should be resting. It's just one phone call anyhow.

I've always been wondering how many people are masturbating at any given time: well, a google on "masturbation statistics" only reveals one number, oddly enough, for females:

(from http://www.clitical.com/female-masturbation/masturbation-statistics.php)

• There are about 6 billion people on the planet, half are women = 3,000,000,000
• Five out of seven are of an age where they are likely to masturbate, or are at least able to = 2142857143
• About 60% of women masturbate (source Kinsey etc) = 1285714286
• Women seem to masturbate about twice a week on average (our survey and reading around) - 2571428571 sessions starting per week.
• = 734693877 sessions starting per day, or 30612244 per hour, or 510204 per minute, or 8503 per second (That must mean 8500 female orgasms per second in the world!)
• An average session (excluding multiple orgasm women) lasts 4 minutes (source Kinsey) so 2040816 women, on average, are masturbating at any time....

Whatever. Let's assume this crude approximation is off by a long shot and only half of its estimated number are actually masturbating. Wow. Can you feel that? Just close your eyes... line them all up, a million females, all doing themselves a favor - at any given time!!! Now let's just assume that males masturbate with at least as much frequency as females (now that's conservative). So, alongside those million females all stimulating their clitoris, you got another million males stroking themselves - at any given time!

If I were the leader of this world, I would declare a "worldwide sex deprivation crisis" - okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. But... don't you think it's SO unfortunate that these millions of people have to resort to self-satisfaction on a regular basis? I know that when I see an animal doing himself a favor, let's say a cat licking his own balls for example, I feel so sorry for him and I wish I could get him a female friend so he wouldn't have to lick his own balls anymore. Yes that really happened with my cat. He was licking his own balls one day and I really thought about buying him a female friend. But then I saw how small his dick was and then I thought twice.

Anyhow, to a computer scientist, this is like a maximization problem just begging to be solved. You have people of both genders who want sex, but can't get it. So they resort to masturbation. Sigh. Yeah okay, so some girls prefer masturbation to sex and just because they masturbate doesn't mean they want sex. Or they'd rather eat chocolate instead. Tra-la-la-la. Listen, you got all your goddamn woman rights, men are now cooking for you, you have Sex and the City, what the FUCK are you complaining about? Give it up! Stop touching your clitoris and suck some dick!

Okay. Thank god no girls read this site (I think). I think it's time to do myself a favor now.

It has been my wish to educate anyone who reads this blog about the despicable practice that the music industry uses nowadays to grab what remains of your scattered attention span. The process is called "multi-band audio compression". Scientifically, it is nothing more than a complex algorithm applied to the audio data, which is used at the mastering stage to "compress" the dynamic range over multiple frequencies bands, making a track sound louder without even having to touch any volume knobs. However, the psychological effects are quite profound, as a "compressed" track is far more likely to grab the average person's attention than an "uncompressed" one. Marketers in the music industry have noticed this - in order to sell records and grab the top 10 spots on MTV, you do not need to put much musical thought into each song, you just have to make it LOUD so that the average attention-deficit teenager takes notice.

(Note that "compression" in this context does not refer to compression of the audio data itself - rather, it is a "compression" of the song's dynamic range, that is, the difference between the softest parts of the song and loudest, allowing more parts of the song to bask in higher dB levels. Note that "compression" is also different from "normalization", which is a simple scaling algorithm that ensures that the peak dB value in a song hits -0dB.)

With the proliferation of maximizer technology, the trend has certainly reached its peak in the late 90's. With mainstream music there seems to be a positive correlation between the year the song was produced and the amount of multi-band compression applied. Nowadays every track seems to be loud and "in your face". The problem is that compression also seems to have a negative correlation with the longevity of the song - that is, how long you're going to listen to the song before you discard it as a bunch of noise.

---

Black Suits Coming (soundtrack from MIB2)

This song is possibly the loudest, most maximized audio track I have in my collection. I still have a hard time imaging how the engineers managed to cram so much loudness into 16-bit audio without distortion. Looking at the histogram we can see the extent of the compression, resulting in a very narrow band centered around -4dB. Not surprisingly, this track is extremely loud and will mostly likely shock first time listeners (perhaps this is the producer's intended effect) Unfortunately, I would imagine that anyone with a musical ear will find this track gratingly loud even after the volume has been turned down post-decoding whether in software or hardware. Fortunately, this is an extreme example and not representative of the engineering practices used in the bulk of mainstream music.

Click here to hear sample (~100k MP3)

The waveform display on CoolEdit is almost a joke, the WHOLE screen is just filled with loudness!

---

K.D Lang - Constant Craving

Click Here to hear sample (~100k MP3)

Here is an example of a song produced in the 80's. Now, if you turned the volume down on your speakers because Black Suits Coming was just WAY too loud, then this song will seem too quiet. But you can fix that easily just by turning the volume back up. What marketers have realized is that the average consumer associates a "quiet" song with "inferiority", most likely because if they do not get an immediate fix from the first 2 seconds of a song, they generally do not want to listen to it. So while the engineering practices behind this song are far more kosher, the problem is that if a song like this was released today,it wouldn't even have a millionth of a chance in succeeding (unless of course it was re-mastered with multi-band compression). The harsh reality is that people just don't like to turn up their stereo systems, particularily if "better" songs don't require htem to.

But, if turn the volume on your speakers up to a high enough level for this song, you'll find that you can somewhat enjoy the same kind of "punch". You'll also be rewarded with a much tamer, cleaner sound that doesn't assault your ears with relentless loudness. In other words you can actually HEAR the music as opposed to simply being overwhelmed by a massive sonic assault. Marketers realize though, that most young people don't want to listen to music anymore, all they want is, in fact, to get their senses overloaded by a massive sonic assault.

The histogram shows a healthy balance between mostly high energy levels and a reasonable presence of low energy levels as well. Although I am not expert at extrapolating from histograms, it would seem that only a modest amount of compression was used at the mastering stage (if any).

Looking at the histogram of Constant Craving, we can see how multi-band compression differs from simple normalization. This track, although much quieter overall than Black Suits Coming, shows that it hits 0dB in countless places (mostly on the snares). Without compression, there is simply no way you can make this track any louder without distortion.

---

Black Eyed Peas - Don't Phunk with my Heart

Click here to hear sample (~100K MP3)

Finally we have what can considered be representative of most tracks today: moderate compression which grants a healthy loudness boost enough to let the listener believe that it is a quality track, but without blowing your ears out like Black Suits Coming. You will notice that Don't Phunk with my Heart has more punch and presence than Constant Craving. This has absolutely nothing to do with voice talent or recording practices - this is magic that all happens after the song is finished and sent to the mastering stage. The engineer will make sure that the track is not lost in the sea of "kosher songs that are too quiet" - he is paid mucho-bucks to mangle the original data so that you, the attention-deficit consumer, will actually bother listening to the song.

---

Finally, another interesting point is that the proliferation of audio maximization has many similar parallels in other consumer markets. For instance, televisions and computer displays have been getting brighter and brighter (usually at the expense of color reproduction fidelity) even though scientifically, you only need 30-50% of its maximum potential (as long as you use it in a proper environment). The reason is that a consumer's attention is generally regulated mostly by the brightness of a display before any other criteria. Thus other important characteristic of a display, such as color fidelity and proper grayscale tracking have gone unnoticed for decades whereas brightness and size have been over-emphasized.

I know I must biologically have some preference for Taiwanese girls because just knowing that the girl in this clip was Taiwanese made it like 1000% spicier. I couldn't even make it past the first five minutes, if you know what I mean.

Yesterday while the old geezer was scrutinizing the wine, I noticed that it actually tasted pretty crappy. Yet he claimed to everyone that this was good expensive wine. Ok, you say it's expensive, I think it tastes like shit. Should I believe the labels or my own taste buds?

It's actually well known that many wine producers will pad expensive wines with inexpensive ones to increase profit margins substantially. A google of "wine fraud" will demonstrate to anyone that this is a significant problem in the wine industry. The reason wine fraud works is painfully obvious to me, but even my girlfriend thought i was just a paranoid freak. Think about it: the label on the wine says Brand X, Year Y. And you say, "oh yeah, that's good wine" because that's what you were told. That's what you see. So your opinion about the wine has been calcified even before you've even opened the bottle. Further compounding the problem: because wine is such a "classy" beverage, even if your taste buds disagree, you're more likely to blame your taste buds than the wine itself. The last thing you'd suspect is that the label is just BS. "Heavens, no!", you think, "not something as respectable and elegant as WINE!?!"

How many people really know wine? Unless you're some old fogey living in the vineyards in France, the reality is that you know jack shit. Exception: at the age of 20 something, you're the wine equivalent of Tiger Woods, you've been trained professionally in the art of wine tasting ever since you were a kid. How can anyone claim to be able to taste wine if they don't even bother to reset their taste buds before sampling? Taste is so susceptible to normalization. I really don't have to justify this: the fact that wine fraud still exists to this day is proof that the VAST majority of people (including myself) cannot distinguish between brands of wine. Neither can we distinguish between a '95 bottle or a '02 bottle. If we could, wine fraud would not even be remotely profitable, and the phenomenon would just disappear. But no, it's still around, and thousands if not millions of fat-pocket businessmen are tring to impress guests with "expensive" wine when in reality the actual contents can be bought from your local supermarket.

There was this old geezer at the dinner table today who was the the most annoying prick I have met in recent memory. He was skinny balding and in general looked like a fag. The first thing that annoyed me was the fact that he couldn't stop touching the wine bottles and examining them like he was some kind of expert. I don't know why but I got this grating vibe that he was doing it all for show - to show the whole fucking room of insecure people how special he was. He even brought a cork to my cousin Tracy (who is SMOKING HOT) and asked her to sniff it. Ok... thanks for introducing us to this pointless exercise. And then he would go around the table and pour wine for everybody whether they wanted it or not. And then he would pressure me to drink more and make idiotic comments like "drink it faster, if you don't get drunk what's the point in drinking". Of course he spoke in Chinese using all the cliched idioms (沒有意思) - i fucking cannot stand that idiom anymore it's so goddamn overused for anything that chinese people cannot identify as the source of their disstisfaction.



Anyways at one point I just let him have it. He kept toasting me repeatedly as a friendly gesture, totally oblivious to the fact that I thought that he was a total fag. Then he asked me to drink some wine and I just told him, flat out "I'm not drinking because you said that it's pointless to drink if you don't drink to get drunk". Then, he demonstrates his other annoying trait. Due to his incredible insecurity, he has this compelling urge to speak to my girlfriend in japanese in front of everybody so as to show - well - how good his japanese is. Can you spell... F...L...A..U.N..T? So he explains to my girlfriend the most wonderful culture of Japanese business drinking, where if somebody doesn't drink to get drunk it's an insult because you're wasting money. Uhh. Ok. Am I japanese? No. Am I in a business meeting? No. Do I wish I could jump across the table and beat the shit out of you? Yes, but truth be told, I'm afraid I might actually lose to a skinny fag because I'm a skinny fag myself. Then the abrasive prick has the audactiy to tell my girlfriend to explain everything to me because he thinks his Japanese is at a higher level and that I can't compehend it, like he has the Force and I don't. OMG. Are you that much of a dork at your age that all you can bring for show to a dinner table are your wine-sniffing abilities and your N-i-p-p-o-n-g-o? This guy should wear a T-shirt with the word AUDACIOUS FAG smack dab in the centre.

For quite a long time during the dinner, I visualized myself jumping on the table, rushing him, and giving him a swift boot to his faggoty bald head. I visualized him crippled, moaning on the floor, then I proceed to bash his gonads in so bad yelling "HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR FUCKING CORKS NOW". I wanted to do it so bad but there were so many people there (social incentive: don't turn everything into a mess) and the fear of actually losing to this geezer.

Well, he stopped toasting me, and the coward that he is, didn't even have the minerals to look me face to face. To be fair, I couldn't look at him either. I just zoned out staring into space, trying to keep my inner child from leaping out and doing justice to the world. But I started looking at him eventually, and honestly this guy looked shellshocked that some young ignorant loser like me would talk back to him like that.

Yes I do feel sorry that things turned out that way. Keeping the peace is logically the priority in annoying social situations where you just can't wait to go home. But I just can't stand how people as abrasive as that old geezer can prance around a social setting and do whatever the fuck they please to masturbate their egos without a shred of awareness of how annoying they are. Not that I'm not abrasive. If you ask my girlfriend I can be even worse than that fag. The difference is that in an awkward social setting where you can just smell the insecurity in the air, my empathetic side turns on and I automatically try to not step on anybody's toes as best as possible. I guess that old fag just lacks those cells or has turned them off a long time ago.

By the way, those nasty pictures of skin and hair follicles are a recent obsession of mine. When I see them it makes me feel weird... gross in a way, but almost a naked beauty in another. I'm so fucked.

Okay, I have this real beef with certain kinds of restaurants in Taipei that pretend they are something they are not. I guess only people who have dined extensively in Taipei know what I am talking about, because this disgusting phenomenon is not as apparent in Toronto.

Due to obligations with my relatives, I was coerced into going to this "classy", "upscale", "French" resaturant today. Apparently the owner received some kind of "culinary license" from the "Ministry of Education and Sports in Paris, France". The reason I put those adjectives in quotes is becuase there is a discrepancy in what the owner thinks her restaurant is, and what I think it is. She thinks it's classy, I think it's bullshit. She thinks it's upscale, I think it's bullshit. She thinks it's French, I think it's bullshit. In fact, I even think her license is bullshit. While the food certainly looked Western, everything about the taste screamed Chinese rip-off. You know? Extremely soya-saucey, MSG'ey and totally FUCKING anemic. Way too much taste, not enough lard and butter. The food needs some goddamn fat!! What good is your Education and Sports license if you don't even know how to use fucking lard!?!?!

The highlight pretty much came when one of my annoying distant relatives asked her about croissants. IIRC, croissants are pretty fucking French. But the owner goes "what's a croissant?" OMFG. At that point I just wanted to take all that shitty anemic food I just swalloed, barf it up and smear it on her face. And the I'd stuff that license down her throat. I'd of course want my money back too, because at 1600NT/person for lousy Fusion cuisine is a little too much.



IMHO there is only one place that sells really authentic, fatty, greasy, lardy, Western food, and that's Chili's. OMG. That's the real shit. It really makes you feel like you're in America - it's the REAL THING. But go to just about any other "Western" restaurant in Taipei (especially those, god forbid, that claim they are "French" or "Greek" or anything special) ... umm.. no. You still feel like you're in Taipei. The MSG and soya sauce just give it all away.

If you still don't know what I mean, come anytime to Taipei and buy a doughnut from anywhere other than Mister Donuts. OMG, it's so sad how every Chinese pastry shop tried to sell doughnuts after they saw the huge lineups at Misudo on the daily evening news. But if you believe they are even remotely close in taste, you need your taste buds checked by a doctor. These mockup doughnuts don't even come close, becuase they're so goddamn ANEMIC. Just the fact that they are being passed around under the guise of the real thing upsets me to no end.



Ok. Now that I have had my daily vent out of the way, here are some hilarious links thanks to my gf:

http://pya.cc/pyaimg/pimg.php?imgid=2797

http://pya.cc/pyaimg/pimg.php?imgid=6572

http://pya.cc/pyaimg/pimg.php?imgid=15744

http://pya.cc/pyaimg/pimg.php?imgid=15744

http://pya.cc/pyaimg/pimg.php?imgid=2797

I received a reply from the guy at NMI (the place I applied to work). He basically said that one of the departments wants to talk to me further and that he will schedule an appointment next week. I like that. I'm not so keen on the work itself. I know that eight hours straight on the computer will just drive me up the FCUK'in wall . But... you know what I like? I like the idea that I will have work at some indeterminate point in the future. Weird huh? It's kinda like when you're stuck at home, moaning about having nothing to do for the rest of the day, and then suddenly you make an dinner appointment with some friends in two hours, and then those remaining two hours at home become so much fun! And then you end up late for dinner!

Wow, this is one cool piece of software! I always liked maps since i was a kid. I don't know why. But knowing where everything is located in relation to everything else brings my mind comfort and pleasure, like I can finally pin something down. When I found my home in Taipei, I compusively had to label every fricking intersection and landmarks that I visited often.


I noticed some interesting things. It seems I have pretty much confined my "neighbourhood" to a triangular area bounded by the Roosevelt, Heping, and Hsinsheng Streets. It seems the farthest I am willing to bike from my house (with my not-exactly-light girflriend sitting on the chair behind me) is 1km. Anything father than that is "out of my neighbourhood".

I think somebody misjudged the real center of Taipei. Hence, a lot of the eastern part of the city (including Taipei 101) is still low-res, whereas some pretty unremarkable pleaces in the western part of the city are in high-res (including Hsinzhuang, no offence to anybody who lives there haha).

I also located some pyramids in Egypt, just for fun. Here they are, in relation to Cairo to the Northeast.

A higher resolution picture of the pyramid.

I think work is going to start sometime soon and the only thing i really hope for is that there are some attractive Taiwanese girls to look at. I say these things and always get reminded that I already have a girlfriend BUT.... that's not how i am programmed. My id is commanding me to find other girls to fuck, my ego dictates that the farthest I am allowed to go is simply flirting, and my superego is telling me to avoid any of this if possible because it is judged morally incorrect by society.

I had a dream last night about my ex-girlfriend and it was a dream where we were back together. I think I've dreamed about her over twenty times and I have searched for her information on Google like a hundred times over the last few years (never get any results tho). I guess my id wants to restart the whole romance again somehow.

Lorazepam (Ativan)
Manufacturer: Wyeth (US)

- One of the oldest benzos, has many generic brands
- Much less addictive than Alprazolam (Xanax)
- Like a classic benzo, helps you relax, fall asleep, and stay asleep
- Moderate half-life, onset of action approximately 30 minutes
- Is indicated for both insomnia and anxiety
- My dad has been taking this for almost 20 years. He can no longer fall asleep without taking at least 2mg/night

Alprazolam (Xanax)
Manfacturer: Pharmacia & Upjohn (Swedish & US merger, recently acquired by Pfizer)

- Extremely short half-life, fast onset of action
- Indicated for anxiety rather than insomnia
- Seems to trigger dopamine release OR inhibits dopamine re-uptake
- Along with anti-anxiety causes the user to feel mild euphoria
- Has an extremely unpleasant crash. In my case, triggered severe depression.
- I will never touch this drug again. A legalized version of cocaine

Lunch today:

I'm just waiting around until some guy from III (some IT research company in Taiwan) calls me and invites me over to some office for some interview so that I can do some random job coding some random project for some random person. Strange. People work for money, wish they had tons of money so they could quit their job, sit around all day and play in the park. I essentially have all that money but I want to work because I have been told time and time again it will retain my sanity. Working for money... or working for sanity.

I know I mentioned this before, but did you know that work is an invention in and of itself? Before the advent of agriculture, there was no notion of work. All you had to do was kill deer, put your dick into females you liked, and beat the shit out of males you disliked. That was life in a nutshell. Back then that isNow it seems that's just not enough. You have to have some kind of schedule or structure or there is a high chance of going insane.

So it looks like I'm staying in Taiwan, at least for the time being. It's hard to say whether this is a good choice or not. But I'm just going to rely on a hefty dose of MSN, western restaurants, and bingeing on SF3:Third Strike to maintain my sanity. I guess most importantly I won't feel like I'm fucking up my whole life. Cuz if I ran back to Toronto now, I think I'd might even lose my gf.

I have no goddamn idea where my life is going. But I do know one thing. I've been running like a madman. Not actually physically running mind you. That would actually be healthy for me. I'm running away from troubles. From Canada to Taipei to Canada to Taipei. Fuck, I have no clue where I'm going. Life is just a mess. My mind is a mess. And I don't even know why I should even bother to clean it up. I'd just be back at where I was.... many years ago. Maybe I hit the peak to soon and now I'm just rolling down the hill on the other side.

I'm ... just... fucked.

I think the people who can cope best in this modern society are those whose minds have not been hyperstimulated. They type slow, talk slow, eat slow, and basically do everything slowly. Not on purpose, mind you. If a fast person tries to do things slowly it will just agonize him.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heaven"
Satan, in Milton's Paradise Lost

The only salvation I can possibly conceive of for myself and perhaps the entire human race is outlined in the Hedonistic Imperative. Everytime I read it I am convinced that it is my Bible. I am fairly sure that anyone who has not sampled the power of mood-altering drugs (recreational or therapeutical), will probably not even bother to read it. They simply lack the necessary experience to relate to the material in a meaningful way.

Human emotion is ultimately regulated by the neurochemical activity within our brains. The truth lies within the power of drugs - which directly target the appropriate neural subsystem to re-create feelings of pleasure, love, peace, pain, and anxiety. In strong enough doses, they can even replace our dependency on external stimuli. The potential is staggering. For example, www.cocaine.org reports that crack cocaine can deliver "an intensity of pleasure outisde the normal range of human experience. It offers the most wonderful state of consciousness, and the most intense sense of being alive, the user will ever enjoy." That description alone is enough to take my breath away, let alone the actual experience.



And yet most of us, myself included, would rightfully scoff at even a one-time use of a Schedule I drug such as cocaine or heroin, not because of the wonderful experience it delivers, but because of the negative repurcussions that follow. If the high is indescribably exquisite, then the crash is indescribably excruciating. The only way to alleviate the ensuing crash is to repeat the same action that triggered the intial pleasure. This would be all fine and good, except that the brain seems to build a tolerance, and therefore we feel like we need more and more of the drug to feel as good as we did before. This pattern is referred to on the Internet by various names, a "inhibitory feedback system", a "negative-feedback system", or "homeostasis". The bottom line is that we are limited in the amount of pleasure we can experience in a lifetime, not by the world we live in, but by the way we are built. There is an unwritten guarantee that even a life that seems emperically wonderful to others will eventually regress to level of mediocrity to ourselves.

What is startling is the parallels between drugs and real-world experiences. Although we tend to view drugs as a Prime Evil (and rightfully so in the context of maintaing social order), they are really nothing else but a mirror into our own soul. Does infuative love not also make us feel a wonderous high, as if the whole world was suddenly infused with magic? But should that love collapse, do we not also feel that excruciating crash, as if all that we seemed to live for vanishes before our own eyes? Examples of a lesser degree are not in short order: online chat, surfing the web, watching tv, making love, eating foods laced with fats and MSG - people flock to these activites again and again because they stimulate the right parts of our meso-limbic dopamine system. The mechanism is which pleasure is derived, annulled, reversed, and then tolerated is surprisingly similiar to that of drugs. The difference is only in the intensity, but the pattern seems to be the same.

It is unfortunate that the majority of the world still attaches their well-being and purpose in life to intentional objects in the exterior world. They are only setting themselves up for a grand disappointment as they will eventually realize that even the greatest achievement imaginable will amount to nothing if one's emotional pleasure thermostat is not reset. I am convinced that the only meaningful goal left in this world at this point is in accordance to the Hedonistic Imperative. We must find a way to eliminate the negative-feedback system and the only way to do that, is to not change the world, but find some way to change ourselves on a genetic level for the better. The answer to that lies in science and technology, particuarily in the realm of neuroscience and pharmacotherapy. Softer methods such as religion, beliefs, and self-help can only offer temporary relief at best (hence their endless proliferation - just how much great advice does this world really need before you will finally be ok?)

I AM SO HAPPY THAT MY BLOG CAN PROVIDE AT LEAST SOME ENTERTAINMENT TO BORED PEOPLE OUT THERE. THAT IS JUST ABOUT THE ONLY USE I HAVE LEFT IN THIS WORLD ANYHOW. PROVIDING A FREE AND ENTERTAINING DRAMA FOR A FEW SELECT PEOPLE TO INDULGE IN. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED BY READING OTHER PEOPLE'S MISERY? ISN'T IT GREAT? IT'S LIKE A SHOT OF FUCKING HEROIN. OH WAIT, I'VE NEVER TAKEN HEROIN. IS THAT FUNNY? BUT YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF: WHAT ARE YOU DOING EVERYDAY? LIKE A FUCKING SHEEP TO YOUR OWN FUCKING MIND, CRAVING, CONSUMING, PRETENDING TO BE A RESPONSBILE MEMBER OF THIS SICK SOCIETY. YOU WILL NEVER ACHIEVE PEACE WITH YOURSELF. EVEN IF YOU WERE A FUCKING GOD WITH THE POWER TO BEND REALITY TO YOUR OWN WILL, YOU WILL NEVER ACHIEVE PEACE WITH YOURSELF. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE SLAVE TO YOUR INHERENTLY FLAWED MIND AND YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO ACHIEVE PEACE WITH YOURSELF. THERE IS NO ESCAPE. THERE IS NO ESCAPE. FOREVER WILL REALITY PRESS DOWN UPON YOU.

http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/2004-05-18-HC-suicid-self-harm-paxil.htm
unbelievably all this aggresion and anger can be explained by the fact that i am taking paxil
isn't this wonderful?
well at least the anger is much more bearable than outright anxiety disorder

i remember when i took Xanax (alprazolam), the world suddenly became full of meaning again. trees were beautiful, people were beautiful, everything was beautiful. i would stare at a tree, bristling in the wind, and marvel at it's beauty. i was at peace, serene, and i felt in harmony with the world. i would also experience something similar on Ecstasy (MDMA) - the feeling was different but equally divine.

upon reflection i find it amazing that humans have the potential to experience a range of such marvelous feelings. so why is it that the default sober state is so fucking shitty? is it just me? depression rates are escalating. suicide rates are escalating. panic attacks and anxiety disorders are escalating. so it's not just me. chances are if you read this it's probably not you either, because euthymic or unipolar manic people have absolutely no interest in reading hyper-negative material. unless they get a kick out of other people's misery. i know i do. i just love hearing how somebody i know got struck with depression or lost all his money. it makes me feel better. for about 20 seconds.

I'M FUCKING LOSING IT

I HATE MYSELF, THE WORLD, AND EVERYONE AROUND ME

YOU FUCKING JUDGEMENTAL PRICKS.

JUST ERASE ME AND GET ON WITH YOUR PROGRAM.

I'M FUCKING LOSING IT

I HATE MYSELF, THE WORLD, AND EVERYONE AROUND ME

YOU FUCKING JUDGEMENTAL PRICKS.

JUST ERASE ME AND GET ON WITH YOUR PROGRAM.

my dad is on a plane now, flying to taipei. he promised to come back a million times to my grandparents but everytime it was some excuse: [work too busy, stomach problems, foot problems]. but when it involves his son, he comes back immediately without question.

when it comes to our motivations, those that are connected with our inner child are the most powerful. the scariest thing is that according to Freud, is that the underlying source of these motivations are in our subconscious. so basically, although we try to rationalize why we do something, and they sometimes makes sense, it's more than likely that the REAL reason is something else.

so from insomnia to anxiety disorder, now i am suffering from some kind of anger management issues. the fun never stops. one wonders how a psychotic freak like me got this far in life. really, the logical side of me thinks i should be shot dead for the good of all society. of course the inner child side says no no no. i wish i could be a robot. then i could fulfill all the meaninginless and pointless responsibilities society has imposed upon me, and i woudl stop feeling all these meaningless emotions (the only one that has any value to me is pleasure, but it seems that's becoming exceedingly rare these days). i could talk about the weather, stock prices, how to save up for my retirement, and basically be a co-operative, funcitoning, supportive member of society.

i just think it's hilarious how my girlfriend gets so pissed off when i try to pay stuff for her. she kept telling me how it was so tough being "poor", and that i would never understand. fair enough. everyone always overplays their own troubles, and downplay others.

the thing is, you try to help these kinds of "poor" people, and they are generally insulted. so how could that even qualify as genuine suffering? they may be very well be suffering from a certain degree of non-well-being, but the root cause is not money.

in the case of my girlfriend, my theory is that she is totally into the image of herself working hard to pay of the bills and stuff. never mind the fact that her mental acuity is less than a third of mine, or i that i can make three times the money/hr. that doesn't matter. what matters to her is her own self perceived image of working hard and paying her dues. but what i don't get is how they mark that down on paper as suffering. if it hurts so much, and someone close to you is benevolently offering help, why don't you FUCKING take it? if your answer is "pride", i don't think you are suffering enough.

so take me. i don't how how fucked i am mentally, but i'd wager it's a little above average. the difference betwene my pain and my girlfriend's "money problems", is that if someone came along and gave me something magical to help me out with my condition, i would fucking take it in an instant. i would NOT be insulted in any way. for christ sake's, there were so many times where i fantastized of ending my own life, and perhaps a couple where there was a brief moment of actually going through the motions. being INSULTED is the last fucking thing on my mind. i just want a fucking way out of my goddamn child-like hyper-impulsive behavior. and then people tell me "geezus terry, stop bitching. if you want to get out, that's in your own hands". or "geezus terry, you just put yourself in your own misery. get a grip". yep. that's right. i ENJOY this. i really do! i'm a masochistic son of a bitch. you idiots.

the biggest problem with mental suffering nowadays is that unlike say, a bloody gunshot wound, you really can't see any exterior symptoms. so the vast majority of euthymic people look at you, then they check up in their piddly little database in their cranium for something that they can relate to, find nothing, and then go "uhh, so what's really wrong with you anyways?" it's only after it gets so serious that smoeobdy slits their wrists or jump off a building, that's when they go "Gee, i guess there really was something wrong with that guy!"

suicide goes against everything that's written in your dna. everyone by nature has an extreme resilience to the act of ending their own life. in order to conquer that resilience, an unimaginable degree of suffering has to be loaded on your shoulders first. i don't claim to have ever gone there, cuz i'm still alive. on a suffering scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is when someone actually kills himself, i think i've only hit 30 or 40 at worst. right now it's probably only 20 or so. the SADDEST thing is how euthymic people, who probably have never gotten past 5/100, think they've gottten to a 100 through say "money problems" and by virtue of them being "tough" and "well-bred", made it through without a hitch. then they go on to say how suicide people are irresponsible. hahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahhhhhaahahahah when i hear that it just makes me so sad and unhappy at the lack of empathy and imagination in this world.

i must say the absolute worst feeling in the world is coming back to an empty house. i don't know why, but i used to be a pro at that. i used to just immerse myself at the computer and totally forget the world around me. now, everytime i come back home and i find the house totally empty, a wave of fear and panic washes over me. and i start going bezerk. it's like my inner child (the id) is screaming in terror while the ego and superego are driven into the background.

the id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the reality of the situation. (http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego.html)

yesterday i completely lost it. after coming home to an empty house, and waiting for my girlfriend to come home, rage and anger swelled up inside of me. i was looking for somoene to blame for all of my misery, someone to direct all of this negative emotion, and the only punching bag i could find was my girlfriend. as much as my ego was yelling at me "don't do it, it's not right, she did nothing wrong, you're only going to harm the relationship", the id just completely dominated me. i ended up throwing things, yelling at her, saying things like i'd commit suicide if she didn't quit her job. she ended up crying. i ended up crying. for about 30 minutes i also ended up in this strange state where i would do weird thigns like buying a bottle of water at 7-11 bringing it back home, and then going back again for no reason. i've stockpiled like 10 bottles.

it's now the next day. i called my parents. i begged them for help. i asked them to come back and keep me company for fear that i would go insane, that i would drive my girlfriend away from me. i've lost control over my own thoughts, i've become super impulsive, the only thoughts that dominate my mind at any given second is how to pacify my inner child as it constnatly screams inside my head.

yesterday night i had a dream that i was working at shoppers drug mart at don mills centre. and i believe that i enjoyed it. what the hell is happening to me.