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DEMISE
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Jul. 19th, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
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Blinking lights in the dark,
Sad lights in the dark.
Signaling
"This is where
We all fall down."
Smell the musty stench
Of the fog
Filling up our minds.
We have always been alone.
The expressions of the people
Rounding the corners
To all the wrong places
Haunt my dream to no end.
Get out your cameras
Focus on the champion
Falling into the sea.
This is where it ends.
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she sobs that in the midwest
there are men of character, not characters
with honest problems, not stories
dragging their lakes, deluging their daughters
buried with inheritence, though not hereditary
but born of crops, then lost in plagues |
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*edges in*
This is more for those opera fans here - there's a contest going on to vote for awesome female characters in literature/TV/etc., and Tosca and Leonore (from Fidelio) have both been nominated and need more votes! You vote by leaving a comment under the nominating comment - Tosca is here and Leonore is here.
(Mods, let me know if this isn't appropriate and I'll delete it.) |
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Jul. 19th, 2009 @ 01:44 pm
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I Like it That Way So I will shut down and I will smile
Avoiding thought all the while
I'm fine, I am fine, I am so very fine
I understand what you want
And I know you're not mine
To covet and keep
To kiss you to sleep
I do it, though, as well you know
I got in far too deep.
And I said, what the hell, I can swim pretty well
I can't drown, I'll leave when I like
I can't drown in your smile and the way your perfume smells
Or in my jealousy and lust for your life.
I held my breath and ducked beneath
I thought I could drown the love away
Life is sharpening it's teeth
And it says I look tasty, so let me stay
Drowning for another day
In what I feel and what you don't
I smile, feeling empty and I say
I like it this way
I love it this way. |
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Soho the Dog: In the ballpark:Reading that the Boston Symphony Orchestra management and players have agreed to freeze salaries at their current minimum of $128,180, Thomas Garvey asks—more to the point, asks why my Globe colleague Geoff Edgers isn't asking, "Why is the BSO so overpaid?" The answer? Because they're not. Here are the starting salaries for either the last or the coming season for the traditional Big Five, plus San Francisco and Los Angeles:
* New York Philharmonic: $129,740 (2009-10)
* San Francisco Orchestra: $129,740 (2009-10)
* Los Angeles Philharmonic: $129,585 (2008-09)
* Boston Symphony Orchestra: $128,180 (2009-10)
* Chicago Symphony Orchestra: $127,637 (2009-10)
* Philadelphia Orchestra: $124,800 (2009-10)
* Cleveland Orchestra: $115,440 (2008-09)
The BSO is right in the middle of that pack. |
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A/N: Dedicated to an amazing writer, Franz Kafka.
Joseph K. dies like every man. |
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A friend recently challenged me to write a poem about toilet seats. Never one to back down from a challenge, I present:
TOILET SEATS Were they wings my house would fly, raised white arms reaching toward some unknown sky. Do they dream of escape, write epic poetry about the Isle of Lesbos? Would they vacation in Japan, seeking out masters to help them become fully actualized and self-warming? Could a book help? “Come and Relax: A Sure-Fire Method to Get Them to Sit” Alas, in my house, they will continue to dream of wings while three boys leave them up, drop them hard, and appreciate them not at all.
Current Mood:  silly Current Music: Kitties |
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maybe
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Jul. 18th, 2009 @ 09:25 pm
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indecision to illusions
a dark corner of a library
a stained hourglass empty
one better
one feather
too much for a moment
too little for second.. and cold
in a limbo for time untold
in fear, nay friend. only confusions |
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I burned water
today in a
saucepan on the
kitchen stove and the smoke
stank of car exhaust and
my own exhaustion and
you should have
been there as I
paced the backyard and watched
the smoke rise out the
open door and up
to the sky and
in another world you
might have wrapped your arms
around me
and laughed your laugh
but in this world
the water made smoke
that smelled
of rotten bones. |
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Blink
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Jul. 19th, 2009 @ 12:06 am
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By Danielle Searby Mother's milk is sweet trust.
It fades and twists and combusts.
The woman who gave birth to me.
The woman who wants the death of me.
Splintered wombs and withered heirlooms
won't heal all of the bruises.
Broken trust and cuts a must
are the dalliance she chooses.
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Ok, so i've heard some economists and supporters of Keynesian economic policies talk about the possibility that the US will go into an extended period of deflation...basically where the prices of goods and services falls. Of course, there are others talking about the future possibility of inflation or even hyperinflation because of the growth in the money supply and extreme debts. Does anyone with a bit more economic literacy know more about deflation as it relates to our current economic situation and how it affect us if it does in fact happen? |
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I take a step. An anthill crumbles
beneath my bare foot like a sandcastle –
We once held out our hands to check
for tremors, & his certainly are trembling, and he
says something like "No,
yours are alright." But it isn’t all
right, because my feet are sinking
inches into the crawling ants.
The ants themselves are trembling. But –
"It’s alright," they tell me, the ants
tell me, sandcastles are rebuilt & he’ll be rebuilt too,
hands stop their little earthquakes,
and footsteps make new quakes.
Quakes can be rebuilt into
glorious sandcastles – hands stop shaking.
One of his hands might dip itself gently into the
swarming grains of sand. |
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Friday 7/17
"3-rep max good form"
FS: 5x45,3x95,3x105,3x115,3x125,3x135
Press: 5x45,3x65,3x75,3x85,3x90,3x95,3x100
DL: 3x125,3x145,3x165,3x185,3x195 |
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There was one knot in your ribbon
when I tied it across my forehead
and we stopped to get coffee
by the side of the highway
as you drove me home
at 9:00 a.m.
There are two knots now.
The Crows are singing backwards:
two for sorrow, one for joy. |
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Sleeping in and being lazy is kind of nice, for a change. I can't remember the last time I really slept in! |
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maybe I use twitter differently from others. For me, it is the perfect phone blog write/read experience. The short messages are ideal for reading on my phone (especially since Shannon had me install Twidroid). Links interrupt the scanning process, requiring my phone to open a new window and load a page, which is much slower than scanning tweets. Also, a tweet doesn't have room to excerpt enough of the link for me to know if I want to read it. Same goes for pics, although I do post them b/c Twidroid makes it so easy. I wish Twidroid would preload tweeted pics in the background, that would rule.
Whereas Google Reader is perfect for reading links, since I mainly use it on larger screens and faster connections. (And it may do some preloading magic too). On LJ, you can make long comments. On delicious, you can tag. All seem much better than twitter for sharing links.
So do y'all mainly tweet from your desktop computers, is that why tweeting links is so common? Anyway, if I don't follow you, it may be b/c you are a link tweeter. And/or high traffic, I tarely read blogs or tweets that post more than a couple times a day. Prefer diversity in my feeds. (Fortunately, y'all are willing to put up with my blog blathering!) |
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Last Fall, I thought the "Mad as Hell" speech from Network was an almost perfect expression of my mood. You can watch it here and see for yourself -- if you don't still feel that way now, odds are you did then.
I joked about moving along the Kubler-Ross grief cycle because, well, I kind of was following that approximate model, as silly as it sounds. But where I am now is far more depressing, and, it seems, something more in line with a scene toward the end of Network, where Howard Beale surrenders before his audience:
At the bottom of all our terrified souls we know that democracy is a dying giant, a sick, sick dying, decaying political concept writhing in its final pain. I don't mean that the United States is finished as a world power. The United States is the richest, the most powerful, the most advanced country in the world -- light years ahead of any other country. And I don't mean the communists are going to take over the world, because the communists are deader than we are.
What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it.
It's the individual that's finished.
It's the single, solitary human being that's finished.
It's every single one of you out there that's finished.
Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some two-hundred-odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods.
But I won't myself say what he said next, that we should ask ourselves if that's really such a bad thing. |
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Ой, как я кому-то завидую! В Нижнем Новгороде будет TEDx, а там будет ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ailev, а также с очень интригующей темой sartac ("почему образование уже больше не образование, а не образование уже давно образование").
Если кто не знает, там где ailev , обычно самое интересное место на свете. Таким, например, был для меня TechInvestLab 2006 года. Ну, вот, например, послушайте: http://www.techinvestlab.ru/files/169452/070821_ailev_praxos.mp3 |
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В продолжение поднятой Сергеем Алексашенко темы регулирования цен на лекарства Ирина Ясина сделала интервью с одним из российских производителей лекарств. Конечно, ничего неожиданного: станет только хуже.
Нет смысла повторять известные аргументы против ценового регулирования. Интересен другой вопрос: если некто считает, что регулирование цен хорошая идея, почему не регулировать все цены? Парадокс в том, что подводные камни регулирования всем известны, но при этом правительство обычно пытается его ввести именно в самых приоритетных с политической точки зрения секторов. Т.е. именно на самые важные сектора ложится больше всего рисков.
Этот парадокс был замечен еще в 1992 году, когда Рабочий центр экономических реформ готовил ответ на очередную инициативу регулирования цен:
"РЦЭР полностью поддерживает предложения Комитета по политике цен относительно отмены регулирования цен на товары, не относящиеся к предметам первой необходимости. Комитет по политике цен считает, что регулирование цен на эти товары способствует их дефициту и перепродаже на черном рынке. Это абсолютно справедливо. Именно поэтому результатом мер по усилению государственного регулирования цен станут те же дефициты и черный рынок. Экспертам РЦЭР непонятно, почему Комитет по политике цен считает недопустимым дефицит и черный рынок для престижных и дорогих товаров, и при этом предлагает меры с такими же последствиями, но в отношении товаров первоочередной необходимости".
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Авторы там интересные (тот же Беккер и Левитт), а вот материалов, увы, не так много:
http://research.chicagogsb.edu/pricetheory/index.aspx |
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Jul. 18th, 2009 @ 07:52 pm
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spiraled out,
they say,
wisps in water,
the food-coloring effect,
so it’s been for me,
eating the sunset with mine own eyes,
swirls fiery-sweet,
i can always
tape myself together,
tighter,
tighter,
don’t let the bleed
hit the tiles,
and then one day,
sinking down into porcelain,
it was too sharp to hurt,
and now it’s too warm,
it’ll burn,
all’s gone marooned,
flooding now,
build me an arc,
O God,
with my wrist in my mouth,
drinking the sunrise so sweet,
i leapt the ladder to the clouds. |
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the design that i'm looking at uses grade 35 magnets but i found a place that sells grade 50 magnets. i know the stronger the magnetic field the more power you can make but will the only real difference be that i need longer blades or will i need to make more changes? i really wish i knew more about electronics and motors damnit. |
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Little black dresses
Never seem to fit
Whenever they are needed
To match your wit.
Your painstakingly gorgeous
No one sees your flaws
No one compairs to your beauty
But they all have withdraws.
Your skin soaks in sunlight
Leaving all visionaries breathless
To bad they can't view you through my eyes
As nothing but worthless.
A dream is only a dream
Until you make it come true
But the only truth to these dreams
Is how I have no use for boys like you.Current Mood:  apathetic |
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Let us toast to the end of a long farewell.
The past was just a well written closing statement.
And you never sealed the envelope.
Say goodbye to the people we could never be again.
Look back, its hard to imagine it was ever even worth it.
You never could keep your lid on tight enough.
Blow the kisses clean and proper to those you'll miss.
You don't want anyone to get the feeling they are singled out.
Then again, you always were a little self centered.
Say you will take this chance of a life time and make it worthwhile.
Even though deep down, everyone knows that a permanent arrangement.
I always hated the way you could never just say goodbye.Current Mood: apathetic |
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The problem with writing about PUA on my LJ is that my LJ selects for exactly the kind of women PUA is least likely to work on. Which is a good thing, because the more male cognitive style of those women is one I find it much easier to interact with than other women. But it means that when I write about PUA, the women are all like "no way, that wouldn't work on me at all".
But I believe that the underlying theory still has merit, even for those people. I ain't no grandpa, but 32 is enough years that I've seen what kinda guys get the chicks and what kind don't, and how hot the chicks are. Come on, how can you move in geek circles and not see how awkward, needy guys (ie those who display beta characteristics) get ignored by the vast majority of women?
Yeah, there are women who aren't like that, who actually dig betas, who see past superficial posturing. I am really glad that those women exist, and I wish there were a lot more of them! But there are a lot less of them than there are beta geeky guys, and I don't think most women are like that. You gals who read me are special (in a good way), but you ain't normal. Be proud of it, but don't pretend to be representative. You're selling yourselves short.
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Packing up my shit throwing it all in a bag but soon I'll be back. i just wanted to say to myself that i will never let anyone hurt me again
Skipping to Oz
To get back my heart
Won't let you move my hair
To kiss my lips and neck with art
I want to date your best friend
He looks at me when you don't see
I think he fell for me
When he saw what you did
You like to grab my skin
Make me feel fat
Never thin
Really for once I looked in the mirror
And I actually liked the girl who appeared
Those pills you made me take
"Just in case" are dissolving in my vase
The flowers you gave me
Now dead, I guess the pills would of done what they said.
You always talk about the girl who showed you it all
A harlot you say but that's not what i saw
Touch my hair or cut my skin,
grab those pills, shove your dick in,
Looking forward to when we meet once more
You'll be 6 feet below my floor. |
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Had a very stimulating conversation tonight over dinner w/ willmagic and some very interesting pseudonymous intellectual figures.
There was much depth and breadth, and I should go to bed soon, so I'll give you my favorite tiny little nugget. Let's combine a couple observations.
1) One important thing that needs to change about libertarian activism is privatizing the good of freedom, rather than providing it publicly (Jonathan Wilde of DR and ATN has made this point a number of times). That's one reason why Ron Paul and the LP and other forms of Folk Activism are doomed - they require people to work hard for reforms that they will only share a tiny part of the rewards from. And that's why seasteading has a chance - I am working my ass off because if I create an awesome seastead I can live there, and the residents have incentive to create it for the same reason.
2) The mainstream social, political, and cultural consensus is full of bullshit. There are things commonly accepted as being true which are contradicted by the weight of the evidence - in some cases, enormously so. Much about democracy and political history falls into this category, far less about science. For those of us who want the world to work better, this bullshit is our enemy. Convincing people to break out of unquestioning acceptance of the lies and learn to use their critical faculties is thus quite important for fixing the world.
However, (2) is hard to do because of (1). To learn the truth behind a controversial fact, like say "An Ashkenazi Jew is more likely to win a Nobel Prize than the average American, because of genes" offers no personal benefit. If anything, it offers the harm of having to either reveal taboo beliefs or hide your beliefs from those around you. And as Will pointed out, investigating all the modern controversies and obtaining a better estimate of the truth than the mainstream is *expensive*.
Which is where PUA, or the David Deida view of male-female sexuality, come in. Here we have a crazy, controversial claim that men and women are different, that male assertiveness is hot while male supplication is not. It has all kinds of weird sociobiological implications related to how sexual dynamics have been changed by feminism, birth control technology, and the economic empowerment of women. Like any true theory, it cuts across obvious party lines - one can be in favor of feminism, birth control, and the economic empowerment of women (I am, for some definition of feminism), while being against the effects they cause to reverberate through society.
Yet for once, unlike global warming or any of the other bullshit mainstream ideas I'm always ranting about, PUA is actually a private good! Awkward guys can take Mystery workshops and use these theories (which contradict the mainstream and have society-wide implications) to get laid. Women who make the mistake of thinking that the same male-polarity behaviors that earn them success in business will let them flourish in relationships and get the kind of man they want can go to David Deida workshops and learn when and how to let the light of their feminine polarity shine through.
Hence, these beliefs a much better chance of spearheading a social revolution than the belief that IQ is real, measurable, important, and distributed inequally. It's much harder to stop something that people will pay to learn than to stop something that has to be given away for free. (How sick is it that libertarians are blind to this?)
The only other one of my contrarian beliefs that comes to mind with this property is diet & exercise. There, alternative beliefs (whether SLD, paleo, crossfit, whatever) can have meaningful impacts on one's health and appearance.
(This totally needs to be a Less Wrong post about how the rationality movement can succeed by focusing on privatizing the public good of rationality...hopefully I can find time to write that this weekend...)
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Jul. 17th, 2009 @ 11:26 pm
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The Return
The ghost of my charred past Arose from the ashes I left it in. Coming back to the world That it never should have belonged in. Memories come rushing back Like water in the river’s flow It was once at rest But now it comes back again. To redefine it’s self And gain back the power it once had. To be able to reign over My soul And take over my mind Its dark intentions are beginning. But I wont let them escape my grasp. For it’s my life now And I’ll be the one Who decides what lives and what doesn’t. So farewell ghost My fate will not fall Into your hands of destruction. I’ve defeated you once before It’s just this time The chances of you returning Are none.
- By: DRC
[check out and comment some of my other work on my lj please...]
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Jul. 18th, 2009 @ 12:55 am
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unknown choices,
and the lasting fear,
as it grabs hold of my insides,
screaming pain of unjust,
fear and mental dichotomy.
i want what needs not to be wanted,
and want you as everything you are,
instilled, erected, the torn gossip
as we lie naked on your floor.
this everlasting fear,
and the embarrassment of resentment,
feeding the crux that chomps away
at the optimistic present.
a hindrance that lies dormant.
and when i look into your eyes,
i know not what i want,
but want what is forever lost in the cause,
a cause full of hope, love and wonder.
so i do know the lost girl that sits beside me, shaken by what fears her,
only caught up in only in what i fear.
fear that drives my past,
my present, and our future.
-F |
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slow waltz so
clear you could
almost hear
it float
miles deep
into the mouth
of the sky; gone
as fast as
the ground took
to kick clean
out from my
mind come silently
colliding
with sparse phrases
of notes scattered
among the loose
gravel and beat
palm's; I wish
I could keep
on drifting
alone up
here for-
ever.
Current Mood:  calm Current Music: Dark Night of the Soul-Star Eyes |
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These really are the end times -- I'm linking approvingly to something in The Huffington Post. The piece is a month and a half old now, but it's still new to most people and is very important. Government Sachs: Goldman's Close Ties To Washington Arouse Envy, Raise Questions. There's a magnificent interactive chart that details the intertwining between Goldman Sachs and The Government.
Before the crash, it was hard to tell where the government ended and private enterprise began. The situation since has been disturbingly eye-opening. |
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i have the molly-16's again,
that great urge to think nobody cares,
i'd rather not go to her wedding,
love is only a four letter word,
written by great men,
who chase after long dead women,
they only love us after we're gone,
those poets who wrote of us,
women,
kohl eyed,
wrapped in linen,
tied with a golden cord,
well oiled and perfumed,
perhaps it is only the lingering scent that reminds them of some hidden dream in their head,
love is for the dead, tv characters, children with mothers, and puppies licking ice cream,
i'm back to the molly-16's again,
no one cares,
so think of a new four letter word that expresses how you care.Current Mood:  pessimistic Current Music: justended |
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You live your life in a box With no key just locks Wanting to live for the ordinary Not desiring to be of the contrary Scared to live out of your comfort zone But hungry for your soul to roam Wish for the things you dare Hope with a will to get you there Take a step toward soulful relief Make a stand for release |
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Jul. 17th, 2009 @ 11:14 pm
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We burn out like candles We burn out like distant stars A brief flash of brilliant light And then we’re gone I don’t want this light to fade I don’t want to live with my eyes closed Tell me that you’ll keep your candle lit for me Tell me that you’ll keep my heart against yours For all the time that you’ve been mine For I’ve been yours, every part of me tuned Into every fiber of you Into every breath of you But you act like we’re already over That the storybook is closing And our end is nigh, impending I want to keep this story from ending I want to keep you close to me A place where wars and violence Will never touch you A place where beauty and freedom Will always bath you If you run I’ll run with you If you die I’ll die too I won’t make you choose I never do I just always want it to be you That I can turn and run to.
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there’s nothing
(at all)
like a really long run
even if it ends up you're running
alone,
cause you can handle the lonely
even if only
the meaning of
your motion is
to forget
someone. |
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(Catching up on blogs right now...)
The Evil One poses a pickup test (as always, don't read The Evil One if bothered by callous yet insightful misanthropy), which starts:You met a girl at a bar. (Where else are you gonna meet her, tiger? The church social?) She’s a six foot tall, 23-year-old statuesque brunette who would probably intimidate most men, but not you. You gab for twenty minutes and score the digits.
On your first date four days later you arrive at the swank Connecticut Ave lounge ten minutes late, as per your usual routine. Your date is already there, drinking a cocktail. A smile flashes across your face, as much for seeing her again as for the thought that you will not have to buy her a drink. You sit down and notice she is glowering, her legs crossed geometrically. You hope she’ll uncross in homage to Basic Instinct.
“You’re ten minutes late.”
“I don’t *feel* tardy.”
She doesn’t laugh. “Are you always late for dates?”
You pause. She’s reacting to your lack of punctuality worse than most women.
What do you do? Now, there are some clear principles from PUA here about how to respond to this: Don't apologize, don't explain, assert your dominance. The goal is to make her want to be in a better mood for you - to feel that you are worthy and she is seeking your approval (an idealist would call this "to be a better person for you"). I am far from an expert on sexual dynamics, but based on PUA and David Deida's teachings, I buy the idea that for many women, the response of apologizing & explaining submissively will reduce (maybe even kill) her attraction for you, while a more assertive response will increase it (passing a test, in a way).
But within this space, there are a wide variety of different responses ranging from sweet to mean. My favorite response *by far* (which The Evil One listed as one of the winners - so it fits w/ PUA principles) was:I smile, stare at her right in the eye, HOLD… HOLD… and then say: “You missed me that much, huh? Well, I guess I can understand that..” Smile…
Her: *attitude change* I love that it is asserting the man's quality and the woman's desire for him while refusing to apologize (just as PUA dictates) while *acknowledging* and *connecting with* her feelings (rather than mocking them or painting as bad). Contrast it with some of the other winners:Look around like Stevie Wonder, and say in a German accent: “Mother is that you? I’m sorry mother. I von’t be bad again.” Then laugh. Then order a beer.
If she presses say “Gimme a fuckin break. I thought you said you were fun and easygoing?”
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“If you’re in a bad mood we can reschedule the date no problem.” Definitely no smirk or smiles. Laser eye contact. If she leaves then you just saved yourself a couple hours of hell.
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“Well, you’ve been waiting four days, what’s ten more minutes?” The whole "Mom" vein, which several people suggested, strikes me as classic B-level Game. Yeah, it turns the tables, makes her feel judged and insecure about her actions, makes her seek your approval, maybe even makes her laugh if you do it right...but seems pathetic to me. Better for the date than being a wimp, sure, but a real man can do better than just always making fun of his partner.
Same goes with the "reschedule", I admire drawing a line and standing up for your own quality while being willing to adapt, basically saying "I am not going to have dinner with someone being a total bitch, but if this is just a bad time for you (it turns out later she just finished a triathlon and is probably cranky) you get another chance." Better than sucking up, better than being rude, but...in my book, a real man has to take a shot at turning her mood around. That's part of the value you provide to the women in your life.
Ok, my goal here was to illustrate that PUA principles proscribe certain behaviors and suggest certain responses, but that within that, you can still be a fun, genuine, contagious-good-mood guy (like my preferred answer), or an aloof (yet desirable) jerk. PUA does not mean that you have to be a jerk, it just means that you have to be a strong man. Is that really so bad?
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Jul. 17th, 2009 @ 10:07 pm
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Hypnotic and moronic are two words to describe it,
I think I know the answer, or at least a way to find it,
So what if nothing makes sense,
Or does it really matter,
We're standing miles apart or if we're standing all together,
And when it comes down to it, the ants will have their glory,
So what if we're not there, the ashes tell our story. |
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Jul. 17th, 2009 @ 06:55 pm
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The US-China Ponzi scheme
Imagine becoming so successful at your job that you stack up $2 trillion in income, which you conservatively place in short-term U.S. Treasury bonds for safekeeping.
Now imagine that when you try to cash in those bonds to buy a few things for your kids, the clerk at the bank abruptly shuts her window and tells you to go away.
That is essentially the situation faced by China these days as it wonders whether its plan to manufacture goods for U.S. consumers over the past two decades in exchange for a pile of credit slips was really such a hot idea.
It really should be blatantly obvious that deficit spending can not continue indefinitely, any more than you can build a perpetual motion machine. Maybe it's the same mentality that makes people keep trying though. Well, people are likely to learn the hard way, or maybe more likely, not learn and keep bashing their head against the wall. |
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The Evil One:"Erik Von Markovic (AKA Mystery) has a 1 year old daughter named Dakota Breeze. Such a cheeseball name. It’s as if he named her knowing she’d grow up to be an exotic dancer. I couldn’t find any information about the mother. Anyhow, Mystery has put up a youtube video of him serenading his daughter in song:
A great man goes down. He’s traded in his peacocking heart medallion for a heartfelt song about his daughter. This is the end of an era. Mystery is from my generation. I attended one of his seminars (at no cost). I used his material to fuck quite a number of women. But now he has surrendered to the slow, persistent wind-down of aging, settling (at least in some small measure) for fatherhood and responsibility at the expense of the thrill of seducing fresh, piping hot pussy. I feel hollow inside." Having experienced both fatherhood and the thrill of seduction for short-term relationships, I think Roissy has it exactly backward about which is more likely to lead to feeling "hollow inside".
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I am sorry
I am sorry if I hurt you some way
I am sorry if I ever make you feel less than what you were
I am sorry for the way I am
I wish I would have been stronger
How could I not see it?
You were more and I was less
You were an angel
And I was the devil who tempted you
But maybe it wasn’t like that
Maybe you were the one who didn’t care
Maybe no one really cares
So I am sorry but I AM NOT SORRY! |
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Everyone who's flipping out about the Orwellian Kindle fiasco needs to relax.
Yes, Amazon did something stupid. Yes, DRM is bad for consumers and bad for society. But Amazon is not the enemy here, the publishers are. Right now, the balance of power is still with the publishing houses, so Amazon needs to play with them. When it comes to DRM, people at Amazon "get it." They're techies, after all. If they do evil things, it's because their hands are tied. It is the publishers who are pushing for DRM. Market forces are going to push them out of existence, and they will do all they can to prolong their misery.
Dramatic as the current incident may be, the same story has already played out with Apple and the iTunes store. Apple bent over backwards for the labels in order to sign them up to sell their wares online, but once they came on board, the power shifted to the technology companies, and Jobs turned around and attacked DRM (the "Thoughts on Music" letter.) By now, just two years later, everyone agrees that music DRM is on its way out and the future of recorded music is Free.
So please do express your outrage, but make sure you have the right target :-) Do complain to Amazon about how much DRM sucks, go write reviews of the product on their site and others, but don't "boycott" the Kindle. That's just plain counterproductive — books aren't magically going to become DRM-free without first becoming digital, and there's no way that's going to happen except under whatever terms the publishers choose to impose.
There's still quite a ways to go before all the major publishers succumb to the pressure of growing Kindle sales and start offering their content digitally. For that to happen, the Kindle userbase needs to grow a lot. Paradoxically, now, more than any other time, the Kindle needs your support.
Oh, and while I'm at it, can we stop making silly comparisons between the Kindle and Sony's or whoever's two-bit book reader that no one's ever heard of? Without the EVDO network and Amazon's catalog behind it, it's not even the same category of device as fas as the average person is concerned. Thanks.
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So I am beautiful.
Flawlessly, stunningly, gorgeous.
Compare me as a porcelain doll.
Yes, a mindless
Expressionless.
Porcelain doll.
Lips tinted red,
Long curled eyelashes
Silken gold hair
And powdered pink cheeks
The porcelain doll
Clothed in apparel
That is neither hers to choose
Or hers to ever be chosen.
A caged, dull little
Pocelain Doll.
Idle and opinionless.
A decoration.
Seated by the masters side.
I sit as Mindless
And Expressionless
And caged
And Dull
And Idle
And Opinionless.
As a Little Mrs. Porcelain Doll.
Current Mood: blank Current Music: 10000 Stones- Adrianne |
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Rebel
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Jul. 17th, 2009 @ 07:15 pm
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i want to be a rebel
i want to fend for myself
i want to be my own person
not fucking controlled by everyone else
i want to play life like a game
i want to show everyone i wil do as i please
i will not follow the rules
i want to be me
but first i guess
to be rebellious
u have to show u dnt give a shit
and learn the rebels rules
but wait as i think about it
i'm trying to rebel life
but really i think
is life trying to rebel me?Current Mood: depressed |
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What happens when Matt wants object-oriented concepts, C, and none of the things he considers ugly about C++?
Why, he writes his own library for object-oriented C, full of really sneaky memory manipulation tricks to get just those features he likes and none of the crap he doesn't. No special preprocessor required.
I'll probably release the source code after I test it out more and get in a few more desired features.
This is why I'm not a mainstream programmer-for-hire. I just can't do it their way.
Now, if only I could get Fortran 90-style multidimensional array handling... |
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via dmorr, a study on how learning hand expression techniques in addition to using pumps helps moms of preemies to successfully produce milk.
UPDATE: Fixed link. |
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I dunno if I ever blogged this, but I use Catalog Choice to reduce junk mail catalogs. They aggregate many requests and contact the mailers on your behalf. You should all use it, so then it will be useful for you, and more useful for me b/c of network effects :). |
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I need crash space in San Francisco next Friday & Saturday nights, as I am doing 34 hours of workshop in 2.5 days and there will not be time to drive home.
No cats, but other than that I don't think I have much in the way of requirements. Ideally not too far from the workshop location of "115 10th St, San Francisco, CA 94103"
Thanks!
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