linterry's blogger

Did you ever have this feeling after you finish watching a great movie?  You look around the room, the same familiar room where you watch TV, and it feels different.  It’s like your brain is still floating somewhere out there, and it hasn’t come back down yet.  It’s actually the same feeling as taking a real trip to somewhere far away, and then coming back home with an altered consciousness of sorts.  Only the really great movies can do that.

Well I just finished reading South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami, and that’s exactly what I felt.  That book is so goddamn surreal it’s scary.  I cannot pinpoint what it is about the writing that makes it so hauntingly real, but that’s just the way it is.  I think that’s special, because normally I cannot read a single page of fiction without feeling irritated.  Even popular works like the Harry Potter series and the Da Vinci Code end up hurting my brain.  The only other fiction books I can ever recall finishing on my own were Sputnik Sweetheart (also by Murakami) and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.  But I think South of the Border, West of the Sun is the most surreal of the three.  It took me to so many places, I ended up slightly disoriented in my own room after finishing the book.

Today I borrowed another one of Murakami Haruki’s books from the library, South of the Border, West of the Sun.  Much like how a video game can grab your attention from the first few minutes of play, this one had me glued from the first chapter.  I think the most important thing for me in a book (and I'm sure Murakami feels this way too) is to quickly introduce a ravishing, unresolved crush.  For if our emotional intensity were a wave function that fluctuates over time, then the moments when we fall madly in love with another person would undeniably be the ultimate peaks.  Almost everyone who has gone through adulthood can relate to that intense, tumultuous, maddening, irrational lust for the opposite sex, and anything that can trigger those memories (books, music, etc.) will fatalistically be held in high esteem by our overly selective minds.

Whenever Murakami talks about one of his romantic interests, I can’t help but think of certain girls I have pursued in the past.  Since I am probably the polar opposite of the stereotypical playah, most of these pursuits have pretty much been in my own imagination.  Although I do not like admitting it, I have created some of the most ridiculous and laughable romantic scenarios in my mind - some so ridiculous that I dare not even speak of them in this blogger (despite, strangely, being able to disclose my masturbating habits with relative ease).  I have fallen in “love” with quite a few girls, and for each girl I have carved a certain space in my mind where I am able to create a sappy, unrealistic scenario not unlike most soap operas.  Unfortunately, none of them have ever materialized, and I often believe that if they “magically” did, I would think less cynically of the world I live in.

Just because I have a steady girlfriend who is with me all the time does not suppress the longing, the craving, the fantasizing.  Sometimes I feel that I redirect all this craving onto my girlfriend, occasionally going as far as pretending that she is someone else when I have sex with her.  But most of the time, all of this unresolved desire manifests itself in an elevated libido: a rather unhealthy hyper-sexuality, if you will.  Yet no matter how much sex or masturbation, the cravings only subside, at best.  Within a few hours, they return at full strength, and I can feel all the strange motivating forces imposing themselves on me once more.  I want to reach out and connect, I want to read books and connect, I want to become someone else and attain approval.  I often wonder, just how much of who I am is defined by my sexual aggression.  If I lost my sexual aggression, would I still bother writing in this blogger?  Would I still worry about my hair?  I wonder if I could finally sit down and actually think for more than ten seconds about finding a real occupation and finally making a practical amount of money, instead of always fantasizing about some dream job where some unspoken, unidentifiable girl would end up sucking my dick for how successful I become.  I could actually be bothered to open the mail, or cleaning up my room, or doing all those tedious, boring things that have zero correlation with achieving my selfish romantic dreams.   I could become responsible.

I have noticed that the feelings I encounter after ejaculation are quite different depending on whether it was accomplished after sex, or after masturbation. In the case of ejaculation after sex, almost nine times after ten I will immediately proceed to watch TV or surf the Internet with a feeling of almost complete emptiness. I don’t feel particularly happy or sad, just sort of light-headed and mildly relieved.

But in the case of ejaculation after masturbation, I feel unusually lonely. It is not the same kind of loneliness as say, being at home at 2pm on a weekend and having nothing to do and feeling anxious to see somebody. It’s more of a silent, solitary, loneliness, where the heart tends to long for something meaningful in this cold, dark, universe. I suppose you could say it’s almost a poetic, movie-like loneliness. I find myself often writing something in this blogger after masturbating, a motivation undoubtedly associated with trying to reach out to somebody out there with my selfish thoughts, hoping for perfect understanding. At other times when I immediately take a shower, I find myself imagining that I accomplished something meaningful and finally captivating the attention of some girl(s) that I happen to fantasize about at that moment. The behavioral patterns after masturbating are unusually consistent and don’t seem to vary throughout the years.

Sometimes I wonder if I was castrated, how would that affect my behavior. I think I would be much better fit to serve society if I was castrated. The unrelenting, destructive, sexual desires of man are undoubtedly in opposition to the natural fabrics of society. Yet hidden beneath the surface, oppressed by many written and unwritten rules, they still manage to manifest themselves in all sorts of visible ways.

FEELING CALM - Four days after my castration I was walking across downtown Philadelphia to meet someone new, and as I walked it seemed that waiting for traffic lights and other little annoyances did not bother me so much. Was this an effect of castration? Six days post castration I returned to work. This workday was unusually hectic becuase it was a Monday and the plant had just installed some new lines but didn't yet know how to run them smoothly. All of this happened while I still felt some pain where the surgery was done, and yet I still felt so calm when the day was all over. I was definintely feeling the effects of castration and most certainly felt better all the time without testosterone. Ten days post castration I felt as a feather floating around everywhere. I just kept feeling better and better. For me the serenity was the strongest of the castration effects, followed by the decrease in libido
(http://www.geocities.com/sherrylanina/CastrationEffects.html)

I have an old Celeron 450A with 256MB of RAM that’s still in my room that my girlfriend uses from time to time.  It’s noisy.  It thrashes a lot due to swapping.  It’s almost unbearable to use.  And yet there was a time when using this computer was a great joy.  I still remember that day when I first installed UltraHLE on this machine and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Mario 64 running at the original framerates in beautiful 640x480 resolution.  That was back in 1st year university.

And yet, today, as of September 24, 2005, I cannot stand this computer.  I click on the start button and it thrashes 0.5 seconds.  I hit Control Panel and it thrashes 3 seconds.  I hit Internet Explorer and it thrashes 5 seconds.  These precious few seconds irritate my brain and I start twitching my leg muscles.  My right leg goes boom-boom-boom-boom as it slams the ground in a repeating motion.  Logically, it makes no sense.  I empirically have a lot of time.  There should be no “logical” reason to feel upset over a few seconds. But when it comes to gratification, even milliseconds make a huge difference.  

The computer has not changed.  What has changed, is me.  My expectations.  My standards. My patience.  My need for constant stimulation.  Is there any way to undo this?  Can I not go back to the days when my brain wasn’t so wired?  Am I doomed to flip open my cellular phone every time there is a five second lull with nothing to do?  

I imagine if I wake up tomorrow and all the instant gratification devices disappeared: my computer, my cell phone, my MP3 player, my TV, my PS2, and my car, what would happen?  Much like a heavy smoker stopping cold turkey, I would probably go insane in the first week.  My brain is just too used to seeing quick results for a miniscule amount of effort.  But sooner or later, my brain will go down the list and pick the next best thing in the reward to effort ratio.  Maybe that would be going for a nice walk outside.  People five hundred years ago probably loved to take walks, the same way we love to chill in front of the TV or mindlessly surf the Internet.  But I don’t know anybody my age who likes to take walks just for the sake of taking walks.  People my age are like the N side of a magnet for which computers are the S side.  They just can’t stop using these diabolic instant gratification devices.  And they still want more.  More iPods.  More music.  More MP3 downloads, more ringtones.  Instant access to this, instant access to that.  Instant fucking gratification.  Yay for humanity.  

Today I went to Future Shop to return a recently bought D-Link DI-624 wireless router.  It was not my idea to buy it, rather it was a gift for my dad who said he wanted wireless internet at home.  So I bought this router over any others because it had a $30 rebate.  I'm such a sucker for rebates, especially the Future Shop ones.  They fucking pwn me.  They are in the same category as monosodium glutamate and other sinful man-made delights ? they target some primitive area of the brain that gets us excited and makes us behave irrationally.

But wow, this router fucking sucks.  It works straight out of the box (and smells really nice too), but somehow if you make certain changes at certain times it starts fucking things up.  Like it did something to the cable modem, and everytime I tried to load a web page I’d get re-directed to some bullshit Rogers page where I'm supposed to authorize my cable modem… again.  Oooookay.  Mad props to Taiwanese engineering.  

And then after another few changes, the DHCP on this fucker just dies.  Yep, just goes kaput, like that.  Just another one of those mysterious Double-You-Tee-Eff phenomenons where you leave the explanations to God.   The connections are exactly the same as before, except, it doesn’t work anymore.  It’s as if somehow it got itself into some fucked up state and it couldn’t get out.  The “Hardware” reset button doesn’t work.  Even if I manually assign myself an IP I can no longer get through to the router via HTTP.  That’s how fucked it was.  I switch back to the uglier looking (but thankfully functional) SMC Barricade and do a quick search on this DI-624.  What do I find?  Tons of people are having similar problems.  Maybe five years ago, I would have persisted and tried to find a solution.  But in my present state, I could only say “Fuck wireless”.  I don’t need this kind of bullshit.

It’s just incredible whenever I walk into a Future Shop.  It’s a whole goddamn warehouse filled with a fucking boatload of brand new, factory-fresh electronics.  You get the impression that production rates for computer-related stuff is just a little too high for its own good - like somebody strapped a turbine engine to a Civic or something.  Or kinda like the hyperactive kid who plays too many games, talks to too many friends, and basically can’t sit still for one single fucking minute.   I can’t even begin to imagine how much plastics and electronics we throw away per year, it must be monstrous… and it’s accelerating.  Everything I buy is so fucking temporary.  Disturbing.

Yah, so what have I been doing these last few days in Toronto. Basically, trying to find any possible way to kill time before… something else happens. Any attempts to find a real job have been limited to going on workopolis.com and typing in “Japanese” in the keyword search (because I'm looking for a job that can make use of my l33t Japanese ability, fuck you Nihonjin-wannabes, I got there first). I look at the list and then say “oh fuck, ain’t no good jobs for me”.

At this rate, unless some incredibly hot CBC/CBJ chick knocks on my door with an offer for a $80/hour that involves me meeting ten other CBC/CBJ chicks a day, realistically I think I am doomed to roam around pictures taking pictures like these:


Yah that’s from the Toronto Zoo. Talk about being at the right place at the right time eh? If you look closely, you can see that the male giraffe (the one who's not defecating in front of the camera) is drooling. Apparently scatology isn't reserved exclusively for humans. By the way, I'm positive the drooling one is male, because we stayed around for Meet The Zoo Keeper at 2:30pm, and the Keeper said he's male and also sexually frustrated.

Here’s another awesome pic of one of the polar bears:



Can’t beat that shit. The Toronto Zoo.

OMFG, I just discovered that Fox Sports Network Canada has like a zillion soccer matches every week!  From the Premiership to the Serie A and even the fucking French Leagues, it’s absolutely mind blowing!  I don’t know why I like soccer so much but I guess it’s more the aura and the culture than the actual sport itself.  

http://www2.foxsports.com/world/pdf/fswc4.pdf

http://www.lifestudies.org/blog/2005/08/feeling-of-emptiness-after-ejaculation.html

Recently, I’ve noticed a rather disturbing phenomenon.  Whenever I am forced to eat lunch or dinner with my parents, I start to feel extremely uncomfortable.  I can’t really describe the feeling but it most certainly lies outside the domain of rationality, for there is no logical reason for feeling uncomfortable.  It’s just… there.  Yesterday I looked at my mom who was sporting that same “I’ve suffered the most out of anyone in this dysfunctional family, so fuck you all” look, and I honestly felt that I was looking at the Ugliest Woman on Earth.

When I lie on my bed with nothing but my twisted thoughts circling through my twisted head, I sometimes wonder how I would feel if my parents just suddenly dropped dead.  You know, like a fatal car accident or something.  The normal healthy response, I believe, is to weep, grieve, and move on.  But I have this nagging feeling that my response would be something like “yeah, ok, whatever”.  In fact (and this just goes to show how awful a person I am), I actually like the idea of them dying, because they I can brag to girls how my parents died and get that “Oh, you poor thing” response from them.  Ever notice how most heroes in a story don’t have parents?  I don’t quite understand the mechanics behind this phenomenon, but it works.  Hero without parents = Cool, Hero with parents = Uncool.  Oh, unless the father’s one of those stereotypical raging alcoholics who beat on the kid.  Then he can still be a Cool Hero.  But a person with my kind of background never gets to be the Hero.  We’re supposed to have everything already, so who the fuck cares, right?

“Don’t you know how much they love you?”  “Don’t you know how much they suffered to give you a proper home?”  “Don’t you know how much you’re disrespecting them?”  These annoying, nagging voices of reason echo through my head as I imagine my high school classmates lecturing me, once again, on how to be a Proper Human Being.  I wonder if having my girlfriend around me all the time has essentially removed all motivation for getting some kind of socially acceptable act together.  After all, a human in the most natural, unmanaged state, will tend towards animalistic behavior.  It is only through constant social stress (ie fear of rejection) can he achieve an equilibrium that lies within the Proper Human Being spectrum.

You know, I have to try hard nowadays not to think about the future.  Because the moment my mind focuses on anything past the next ten minutes, my mind starts to cut itself and the words “PLEASE LET ME DIE” start pounding me from every direction.  I cannot seem to materialize any kind of socially acceptable goal in my brain anymore.   Or more importantly, I cannot imagine any kind of reward that is worth having.  Sometimes, when somebody insults me, or my ego is directly threatened, something flares up inside me: a 10 minute motivation to prove that I have a bigger dick.  It’s quite unpleasant actually, because I really have no avenues to blow that kind of steam off except to berate my girlfriend.  But after those 10 minutes, the neuronal activity ceases, and magically I return to my old self.  Perhaps if somebody insulted me every 90 minutes, I would eventually get off my ass and put on my “Hi!  I'm Socially Acceptable!” hat.  It could also rebound and I’d end up starting a physical fight and losing badly, and then moaning and weeping in bed.

I don’t quite understand why I seem to have a different visual acuity than the rest of the world.  There must be others like me, right?  I visited Future Shop and Best Buy today in hopes of replacing the aging television downstairs with something more reasonable.  I am not asking for much.  Just your run of the mill 29” CRT, built with solid engineering practices with reasonable grayscale tracking, NTSC standard 6500K whites (plus or minus 500k, can’t ask for too much), and a color decoder that does not mutilate flesh tones.  But oh the horrors!  In a showroom of practically 50 displays, there was not a single display that showed anything promising.  Yes, I saw gigantic displays that looked extremely cool, but were there any displays that tried to conform to any proper standards?  It was quite funny actually.  You could see the same signal piped into rows of LCD displays, and each one had entirely different colors.  And none looked half-decent.  And most of them cost over thousands of dollars Canadian.

Am I dreaming here?  I mean, even if I was a millionaire and walked in and said “I'm just looking for a decent 30” or so CRT that can display a picture reasonably close to the NTSC Standard”, I’d still end up walking away empty handed.  I don’t belong in this world anymore.  How could I belong when I have an old BlackStripe TV made in the 1970’s that outperforms more than half of the displays in the average electronics store.

Some of you might be wondering what is wrong with LCD TV’s.  You ever see how awful those interlaced pictures look on a LCD TV after being de-interlaced?  It’s like somebody took a harsh digital scraper and tore out the flesh of the natural edges and colors.  Digitally harsh is the word here.  The color reproduction on LCD models is even more haphazard than CRT’s.  Most are too blue, some lack green.  Why would anyone pay thousands of dollars to watch such an unsightly scene?  Is it just so you can look cool and brag to your friends?  I simply don’t get it.  I mean yeah, if somebody ripped out certain parts of my brain that related to visual acuity, maybe I could enjoy that god-awful picture.  But otherwise, I miss that 29” Mitsubishi TV I bought in Taiwan so much.  Oh it was the best.  It looked so natural, so warm, so well-balanced.  Sure I had to tone down the contrast to like 10% of the original like all displays, but after I did that it became well behaved.  Natural flesh ones.  A feeling that you are seeing a picture similar to when it was originally filmed.

The typical TV that is sold today, usually brags about

• SuperContrast 5000:1 ratio


• Five picture aspect modes


• 1080p Virtual HD Processor


• Multi-function remote control


• Detail Circuitry (DSD)

WHO THE FUCK CARES.  Please, somebody market this kind of display for me:

• Conforms within 10% deviation to the NTSC Standard out of the box


• Includes a Color-Analyzer


• Grayscale test modes


• Extremely consistent grayscale tracking


• NTSC Standard Color Decoder

I want to buy quality products.  But there is no quality left.  Just quantity.  I mean, the peak of keyboard quality was back in the 80’s with the IBM super-clicky super-heavy keyboard.  Nothing can match the solid engineering practices that went behind that baby.  In fact, most electronics made in the 80’s have much better engineering practices than practically anything you can buy today.  I used to have a Sony Amplifier 10W and some Boombox Jensen speakers that my dad bought in 1982.   The amp was 10 WATTS.  And yet it produced such a lovely, natural, wonderful sound.  Nowadays, 95% of audio systems out there, whether it’s 500W computer speakers or 1000W home stereo systems or what not, produce the most awful sound you could possibly imagine.  So harsh and unnatural.  I don’t belong in this world.

today my gf and i went to the plaza at laird and eglinton (the one with the future shop, petsmart and canadian tire). when I got out of the car i could see the sky was perfectly blue, and despite the air being cool, the sun was shining down hard. there was almost nobody in sight, and only a few cars parked. it was unbelievably serene. i felt like i had reached another world, a remote place far far away. i stepped into the future shop. it was fairly empty. although I tried rationalizing my way out of it, i honestly felt like a loser. i felt that my only purpose in life had been reduced to browsing electronic goods at 11:00am on a weekday. i could almost hear all those voices in my head, representing a conglomeration of all the people i knew in high school, laughing at me. it was not pleasant.

i looked at other customers. there were a few white guys in their late twenties looking at some pc games. i thought they were losers too. before the feeling overcame me, i started talking to my girlfriend. then i stopped feeling like a loser, because she was here with me. i worshp my girlfriend. she keeps me tethered to this world. without her i would fly away into space, hopelessly lost and completely bereft of direction. i also thought about the three years in taiwan. for some reason, that also made me feel beter - like i had done something special that made me different. it's quite strange. i have to keep reminding myself why i'm here. i have to keep thinking back to those dreadful panic attacks and manic episodes. then somehow, it's all justified.

i said not too long ago i did not like cell phones, particularily the new ones. i guess i must take that back. i cannot stop touching the motorola v551. everytime i flip the lid open and i bathe in the Glorious Light of its color-calibrated LCD, i get a huge fix. it's like smoking a cigarette (except i can't be sure becuase i've never smoked). before lunch. after lunch. when i'm pacing around. i just grab the phone and flip the lid open and start pressing buttons. i've only called one person on that phone, yet god knows how many minutes i have spent already just pressing buttons, bathing in the Glorious Light of its color-calibrated LCD. i am conscoiusly aware of how pointless this activity is, yet my muscles do not listen. they keep wanting to flip open the phone so that my eyes can be satiated by the Glorious Light of its color-calibrated LCD.

My parents are filthy rich. I can’t put this in any other way. Upon stepping into my old house, I am overwhelmed by the sterility and abundance of material goods. The air is so sterile. There is no noise. Everything seems to be institutionally clean and disinfected. There are stacks and stacks of Dasani bottled water in a corner - in three different sizes.

When I see all this, I feel cold. I feel a strange sense of loneliness, like the house is full of molecules and atoms but completely devoid of spirit and warmth. If I had put on thermal goggles, everything except my girlfriend would be a stark cold blue. She is the only source of radiant energy in this house. I cannot deny that an abundance of material goods does satiate a certain part of the mind, but it seems to be almost trivial nowadays, like it’s almost unimportant.

My parents also bought two expensive Motorola phones for my gf and I to use. I initially hated the idea. It’s those really new models with the full color screen, camera function, java games, and what not. I can’t really put my finger on my distaste for these new models. I guess they feel so much like a gimmicky toy than an industrial tool. They come out of the box so pretentiously new smelling of fresh plastic, and yet in less than a year it will be scratched all over and mechanical parts like the battery latch will ultimately become loose and defective. Shortly, these forgotten pieces of plastic will be off to cell phone heaven. I simply cannot fall in love with something as a cell phone; their existence is so light and fleeting that I feel I am holding something ethereal.



Interestingly, my parents bought two separate phones, a Motorola V551 and a V635. The moment I realized they were different, I had this sudden urge to compare the two. In doing so, I found something rather surprising, but not entirely shocking. The discovery was that the older model, the Motorola V551, had a much better LCD screen than the newer V635. The colors on the V551 seemed more “solid” which may be a function of the LCD panel type, but more importantly the older V551 seemed to have much better proper color calibration. The whites on the V551 were warm and pure, whereas the V635 were far too cold. I took a screenshot of both with the Powershot A95 with Automatic White Balance set to Daylight in pitch darkness:



Although the difference between the color solidity is not apparent through these images, one can fairly easily discern that the LCD on the right seems to be “better”. The one on the left seems be a little too blue, a problem that has pervaded all types of displays from CRTs decades ago. Yet this is the screen that was installed in the newer V635 model.

I suppose one might begin to wonder why a newer model would tote a discernibly worse screen. Cost cutting and relentless outsourcing would be one way to frame it. An marketing-oriented emphasis on features over quality would be another, for it is much easier to brag that a cell phone has MP3 playback than the fact that the LCD is properly calibrated. It truly breaks my heart that these phones are saddled with such ridiculously gimmicky features. They only serve to make their existence even more ethereal. The camera function is clonky and produces absolutely horrible images in every possible dimension. At least certain Japanese models I saw in Okinawa had proper colors, both of these phones sadly, do not. The Java games, while functional, produces some of the most annoying sound effects that grated the ears.

Only after 10 minutes of use, the battery latch on the newer V635 came loose and only after some applying random physical force could it be restored to its original position.

Looking at the world around me, and how the cell phone market has turned into such a multi-billion dollar industry, and how everyone is so involved in their new phones, I cannot help but feel that through my thermal goggles, everything is just getting colder and bluer. I left Taiwan to escape the insanity of having all my senses pummeled relentlessly, but only after 24 hours of being here again, I want to escape. Not just from this world, but from my own defective mind. How can I possibly integrate into this modern society when all of my twisted values run in opposition? If this world was run like the Borg from Star Trek, I would have been labeled defective and disassembled a long time ago.

today at a 2nd hand bookstore, i started to read sputnik sweetheart by haruki murakami. it was a good book. it made me feel that i am not alone. i like the characters, they are so real. i don't think i can associate with any character if their sexual desires are not revealed. they must at least admit that they fantasize and lust over somebody. otherwise they become just like the people you meet everyday in casual conversation.

i wanted the book. but i forgot to bring the bag of old books we intended to sell here. so we took a taxi, all the way back home, picked up our books while the taxi waited, and then went all the way back for a price of 175NT. strange isn' t it, how i remember this price, with such utter clarity. "forgetting to bring the bag of old books = 175NT". i also remember the taxi driver was an obsessive patriot who would probably throw me out of his car if I told him i supported guomingdang. the reality is i just don't care, although i do favor blues a little - only because the majority of greens seem to remind me of the mentally undeveloped. the reality is... i just don't care. yet this taxi driver couldn't stop badgering us about the fact that we should have at least learned to speak taiwanese because taiwan is taiwan and not china. oh, how much i wanted him to just shutup and let me enjoy the specks of rain on his car window. but my ego is so mutable that i always oblige.

i couldn't wait to get off the patriot's car, so we stopped somewhere a bit ways off from the 2nd hand store. that was a grave mistake. it was not fun lugging four bags full of old books and magazines, especially when it's raining hard and you don't have a third hand to hold the umbrella. so you kind of just loop your arm through the handle of one bag while holding the umbrella with your fingers (not very comfortable) at one point one of the flimsy bags ripped open and all the magazines just fell onto the wet pavement. you would not believe how difficult it was trying to manage an umberlla, two heavy bags and trying to pick up magazines from the ground at the same time. i swear, rain can make even the smallest tasks seem like a complete reformat of your c: drive.

finally, at long last, we brought the books inside the 2nd hand shop. i couldn't wait to get rid of our old shit and pick up the new. but unforutnately, the lady clerk informs us that they can't take our old stuff, because the owner isn't in and the owner is the only person who decides how much old stuff is worth. "well when's the owner coming back?", i ask. "10:30 or so". and it was only 8:50.

at that point something inside my brain decided to scream. why the fuck is something as simple as selling old books and getting a couple of new ones so fucking complicated. shouldn't it just be "take old books, bring to store, and pick up new books?" nope, sorry, that's how the world works in my head. reality is always exponentially more complicated. it's more like "oops, forgot old books!, take a taxi back home, listen to a patriot yap, pick up books, take a taxi back to the store, listen to a patriot yap, get dropped off 50 metres from store because of "yap aversion", carry huge bags of books and an umbrella making me wish i had three hands, having a bag rip open and having to pick up those magazines making me wish i had four hands, and then arriving in the store and being told that i have to wait another fucknig hour and a half just because the owner isn't in.

i could have just said "fuck it" and given all my old stuff for free. that is what my girlfriend wanted me to do. but when my brain is sceraming, i become hyper-irrational. i couldn't stand the idea of going through all that hassle for nothing, so, I sat there for a full fucking hour and half waiting for the owner to saunter in at his leisure.

the funny thing is that i would go to such extreme lengths just to save at best, a few hundred NT. yet at other times, i seem to blow money out my ass because i'm just too fucking lazy. for instance I sold my IKEA chair for 500NT less just because the buyer asked for it. in that one second of negotiation laziness, I blow 500NT. and yet when the situation involves not getting anything for my hassles, I'm prepared to wait an hour and a half just so I can get at best, a few hundred NT. well i must ask myself, do I or do I not care about money? at the 2nd hand bookstore, it seems like I would be pretty fucking anal for even a penny. but when I'm selling used stuff to people, it seems I can be as generous as Santa Claus.

It’s strange that even though I consciously know that my beliefs are fatalistic, cynical and ultimately self-destructive, there is nothing I can do to rewire the neurons in my brain to believe otherwise.  By willingly submitting myself to theories of homeostasis, I have effectively destroyed any motivation to accomplish any conceivable goal.  Were I not buoyed by the knowledge that my parents possess an abundance of wealth to sustain a single child’s life for not one but several generations, perhaps I would have developed a motivation in the limbic areas of my brain to make money.  Such a motivation could have developed into a sad but viable raison d’etre.  

In my life, I have consumed hundreds of video games.  The consumption of each video game follows an eeringly similar pattern:

1. The initial feeling of Wonder, as the brain struggles (sometimes pleasantly) to map out the appropriate neuronal connections to deal with the incoming onslaught of new visual and aural stimulation.  If there is anything remarkable about the game, this is the time to go “whoh”.


2. The feeling of Addiction, as the brain builds upon these neuronal connections and tries to make everything faster, better, stronger.  Any “whoh” factors are gradually removed as the brain adapts to higher levels of stimulation.  Game performance improves quickly as the brain gradually maps out the quickest way to solve any given challenge until it becomes second nature.


3. And finally, Disillusionment, as once the brain realizes that it has mapped all the neuronal connections it can reasonably map, the game is subconsciously categorized as boring.  All “whoh” factors have been completely eliminated as the brain finds everything about the game too familiar.

What’s scary is that this kind of pattern can apply to almost anything in life, only on different scales.  Girlfriends, cell-phones, magazines, books, 3D graphic cards, even countries to live - it seems nothing is immune to the brain’s natural ability to consume and exhaust any source of pleasure.  This cycle is so endless that a heightened awareness of its existence is enough to rob my willpower to live.  

I have been trying to stay from all sources of caffeine lately with some success.  The average rate of neuronal firing in my brain has slowed dramatically and a lot of the psycho-pathologic behaviors have ceased.  Could this whole episode, starting from the insomnia in May, to the manic attacks in July, be all related to caffeine?  It might be possible.

It is startling how difficult it is to completely avoid caffeine.  Much like how cables seem to get magically tangled behind your back, caffeinated tea also seems to magically find its way into any diet.  Coffee is easier to avoid because the moment I see or smell coffee, I end up craving it with a passion, thus raising the warning flags in my conscious ego.  But if I let my guard down for just a single moment, it’s far too easy to take a sip of that green tea that always seems to be at arm’s reach at any restaurant.  In order to completely abstain, I have to push the cup of tea away to my girlfriend’s side of the table at the very beginning, so that it’s very clear from my side that there is nothing to drink (except water).  

What does it feel like to have a reduced neuronal firing?  Well, for one thing, I feel very bland the whole day.  I often want to take naps which is absolutely incredible.  It is difficult to think about anything - and that, believe it or not, is a huge relief.  I'm tired of thinking, especially the kind of thinking that feels like pressing the gas pedal when the gear is in neutral.  I actually catch myself sitting down saying ten words a minute instead of a hundred, and that’s a miracle.  I stop idealizing about grand impractical schemes on how to remedy all the illnesses in the world.  Basically, I feel all I am capable of is grunt work that uses a minimal amount of neurons in my brain.

I also have difficulty writing blogs.  Like this entry - it seems to take a monumental effort just to write.  So I'm going to stop here, because it’s hurting my brain just to write.

After reading the caffeine poisoning article, I have been trying my best to avoid any caffeinated beverages, even the rather innocuous tea.  Completely depriving myself of caffeine, I feel like the world around me has faded somewhat into the background.  My senses feel dulled and the noticeability of everything around me has been drastically reduced.  I can’t for instance, identify screen fonts within 50ms like I used to.  It’s like having my consciousness reduced to Porridge after being somewhere up there in the Spicy Fried Chicken range.

It is unusual isn’t it, that the majority of sit-down beverage-only shops in this world primarily serve caffeinated beverages.  Coffee shops or tea shops.  You never see a Soda Shop, or a Milk Shop, or a Water Shop, or a Juice Shop.  Ok, maybe *sometimes* you see a juice shop, but it’s mostly a stand and not a real shop.  People always sit down and drink over tea, coffee or hot chocolate.  Isn’t that disturbing?  Caffeine seems like an innocuous drug and people always say they like coffee for its taste but I seriously have to question that statement.  Why isn’t decaf the standard then?  Caffeine seems to have some intrinsic, evil, power that allows it to penetrate all kinds of markets, and then we happily dress it up with culture to make it more palatable.  After all, when a drug is sold as some whitish powder from some dodgy fellow from a dark alley, it kind of loses its mass appeal.  But using the familiarity of a Corporate Logo with IKEA-valued interiors as the vehicle of caffeine, and the whole world is hooked.

This is a snapshot from the Naruto Episode with the Chuunin paper exam. The last few English questions are kind of funny:

3. How many commandments was Moses given (approximately)
4. Can you explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity? (a) yes (b) no
5. What are coat hangers used for?

The answers:

3. 12
4. (a) yes
5. 'fuku wo kakeru tame' - to hang clothes

http://www.doctoryourself.com/caffeine_allergy.html

It’s silly really.  If I make general sweeping statements like “Humans were not meant to live on this planet” ? Boom, that triggers some kind of natural defense system in your brain and you go “Sure, whatever.” ( also a general sweeping statement.  Sweeping statements are a big turn off, I'm sure after reading a couple that you don’t agree with, you probably don’t bother to read the rest.  ( did it again.  So I pretty much have to prefix “I think” or “I feel” because that confines the statement to the sphere of my own opinion and not some global truth and that makes you feel more comfortable because it doesn’t invade your truth tables.  ( another one, but probably not that irritating.  Don’t you feel like disagreeing with any statement that’s not confined to my own sphere of opinion?  ( phrased as a polite rhetorical question, even less irritating God it’s so irritating how this guy puts italics god I want to say something to injure his ego. NO you’re so wrong! I'm too busy!

I'm going to make another general sweeping statement because I'm too lazy to prefix “I think” or “I feel” to every fucking statement: People only think a post is awesome if it somehow conforms to their own experiences or opinions.  Boom.  Hope that didn’t trigger your natural defense system.   Because there’s a lot of sweeping statements below.  Don’t read if your truth tables are resonating today.

Don’t you just love the predictability of humans?  I mean it’s like, we’ve got all this wonderful rationality and common sense and “101 habits of successful people” (sorry I can’t think of a another title, I really should) shit floating around the surface, and deep down inside all of this, I mean these are REALLY the forces that make this world go around, are our basic, intrinsic, cosmically given, desires, for a positive first-derivate change in our surrounding environment.  It’s all about tantalizing the neurons in our brain.  I have yet to see a human who does not follow these rules.  Everybody, at the end, can be framed within the context of neuroscience.  There is a base predictability, or shall we say, global characteristics between all humans, independent of culture, background.  God, if he even exists, must lie not out there, because everything that’s out there, is right in our brains.  I mean all that fucking neuronic activity creates consciousness, interpretation, rationality, ideas, this fucking blog, everything.  Sweeping statements galore!

I just visited some random page on x-bit (have no fucking idea how I got there) and I saw some review about Nvidia’s latest graphic card.  I was so fucking shocked at how little I cared.  Just knowing that new cards are still coming out makes me want to kill somebody (myself first).  The endlessly accelerating production of 3D Graphics Cards is the end result of too much dopamergenic level-up EMR Desire flowing throughout the veins of humans living in first-world countries.  I just can’t stop making sweeping statements!  

Oh I digress.  I cannot stand 10 minutes of doing nothing.  Computers.  Click click click lick more web pages oh glorious lights from the LCD’s stimulating my visual senses.  More new downloads!  More videos!  I want to find old friends!  Please recoganize me!  I'm somebody right?  Please recognize me!  I want to pretend to be smart!  I am smart!  Please recognize me!  Hey I want to find information on my ex-girlfriend!  God I want to spy more on people I don’t even know but find interesting!  Oh I want to self-evaluate myself and say “I have no life” but that’s too North American for me.  Oh people are saying “holy shit he’s crazy” omg they are right!  They are right!  Please how many more egos do we have to satisfy?  I'll make the whole fucking airport wait foryou!   More more more more more more more.  Faster faster faster faster faster faster faster.  Better Better better better better better better.  A;sdklfjs;fklsflksd fjsdfkjsdfjldk;sf l;sdkf;kdjfkl;sdjfklsdjfklsdf;lkjsdaf better beter better faster faster fastesr ;lkasjdf;sd klfjasd;kljfsd fklsdfkjsfkdkl;f fucking insanity insanity insanity insanity insanity insanity I need to stay away but can’t but can’t but can’t so full of desire desire desire faster faster faster faster faster faster better better better better

Thank you this has been the regular 3am “I feel like I'm going insane” post.  Can I project a social ego now?  Please?

Every night, about this hour, my heart is burning with desire.  I feel like I have not had enough.  Enough of what?  I don’t know.  More sex maybe?  More social ego projections?  I haven’t had enough.  I can already hear the voice of reason echoing from a collaborative mix of the people I know - get a job Terry.  Unfortunately, I had such an awesome job before and despite having numerous chances to resume it, I inexplicably felt disinterested, as if composing music had no meaning left for me.

(Right about now I can hear voices, from the anonymous reader who knows me “Fuck yeah, Terry doesn’t have his job anymore.  At least I'm in a better shape that he is.  It feels good.  Oops, I can’t say that, nope, of course I feel sorry for Terry, ahem, yeah sure, I feel sorry.  Haha he doesn’t have his job anymore.  Oops.”  Sorry I had to digress there.  Personally I always feel great when I hear other people are doing like shit.  No, I don’t say to myself “Holy fuck I feel so good because a friend just broke up.”  But I’d much rather be consoling a friend who just broke up than congratulating him on a new girlfriend.  Hey, if we hated to hear bad news about other people, why do we watch the disasters of other countries on TV like fucking drug addicts?  The media shows you what you want to see.  You don’t want to hear endless stories about how other countries are doing better than you.  That’d only piss you off.  You want to hear about countries that are doing worse because fuck that shit gets the ratings.  but then, maybe you think that line “inexplicably felt disinterested” is just a self-defence mechanism to protect my own ego.  Hey you’re right, it is!  Bingo!  You’re a fucking winner!  So I'm wrong?  Why is it that people can’t stop flaunting modesty then?   Oh no, man, I'm not that good, blah blah blah.  And then when somebody else really does flaunt in front of your face, it pisses you off?  Well, do you or do you NOT care about how good you are?  If you do, why flaunt modesty?  If you don’t, why do you let other people’s flaunts piss you off so much?  So of course you care!  Yay I'm a winner!  You care and thus at the deepest level, you really do want to hear about other people’s failures because that, on some levels, makes you a success, even if all the rationalizers in the world would jump in at this point and point out how I'm so wrong Whew that was a fucked up  mega-digression.  Whoops, there I am again, flaunting modesty.  Fuck I can’t escape myself.)

I'm so sick of so many things - some of them, ironically, are things that used to bring me so much pleasure.  I'm sick of Taipei.  I'm sick of Canada.  I'm sick of my girlfriend.  I'm sick of having to wait 30 fucking seconds after I push the power button on the PS2 before I can get into the game.  I'm sick of the same old fucking patterns that govern this world.  I'm sick of seeing money and I'm sick of having to pay money for anything.  In fact, I'm downright sick of life.  I'm sick of World of Warcraft.  I'm even sick of the idea that I'm sick of World of Warcraft and there’s nothing I can do resume my interest in it.  There is only one thing that I am open to, and that’s having sex with a few more girls before I expire.  

In fact, I’ve downright exhausted so many things in this world.  Is this my fault?  Should I meditate?  Should I exercise more rationality?  Should I take deep breaths and pump in all those wonderful wise adages into my mind?  Those fucking lines in the typical book of “101 habits of successful people” having a batting average of .000 for me.  They make you feel nice and warm when you read them, but how often does that translate to a long-term change that propagates throughout eternity?  Never. It’s so fucking retarded to believe that the relatively non-limbic act of reading can produce significant change in one’s dopamergenic habits.  To change habits, you need a fucking sledgehammer, not a goddamn toothpick.  Just ask anyone who’s tried to quit smoking.

I know why I can’t sleep.  The pure essence of Desire courses through my veins, right now, at 3am, as I am writing this.  Upon reflection, the only times I were able to sleep when I should sleep was when my brain was busy forming fresh neuronal connections due to the introduction of something new.  Whether it was living at a new place, or having somebody sleep at our place, anything significantly new would temporarily satiate the cravings and would buy me maybe a week of sleep tops.  But after the neuronal connections form, it’s all back to the same shit again.

No conceivable world could ever satiate my perpetually accelerating desires.  I think if I was God and had the power to bend reality to my will, I would eventually go insane and end up killing myself in the instantaneous and painless way that so many others desire.