Razor

I love you so much Kevin. ~runs away cackling madly~

The problem with that is that the logic taught through philosophy is based on the woefully inexact medium of language. Paradoxes don't exist in nature, they don't exist in mathematics. It is only when you apply language to things that a paradox can exist. :king: Dr. Mr. Snow "Snoopy" Dog That's why I studied Wittgenstein, or even better, J.L. Austin, who dealt with the inexactitude of language and the need to be specific, in order to perform logic using plain language. Let me recommend "Three Ways of Spilling Ink," which is a damn fine entertaining read even if you're not a philosophy major. He talks about the differences between doing something deliberately, doing it intentionally, and doing it on purpose--though they seem to be synonyms, he carefully distinguishes the nuances between them, and suggests a similar carefulness is needed everywhere, in order to do "plain language philosophy." And symbolic logic tries to remove the uncertainties of rhetoric by taking the thoughts beyond mere linguistic twists by assigning non-linguistic units to the various parts of the arguments. --Rigel I like this concept... I've always thought it was a bit annoying when someone who doesn't know a lot of words whips out the thesaurus. Synonyms are great and all, but if you haven't been in close contact with the word before then you seem to miss out on the connotations of the word that everyone else has, and so you can misuse it even though the definition is in context with what you were aiming for. Maybe I'm weird, but I'm very, very picky about which word goes where.

~waves~ So... um... wanna mail me an echidna? If you poke holes in the jar and wrap him in bubblewrap.... well.... ~sigh~ I'll never get one. Congratulations, though, and thanks for being so delightfully Graeme-y.

Depending on the way the world deals out my cards in the coming months, there's a good chance that I may be able to show up at something like this... Truthfully, I'm not really sure how likely either location is, so I'm thinking they're probably equal. Either way, I could probably figure out some way to tag along with someone or visit friends and work this in. ~shrugs~ I just gots to have time to scheme. Oh, and if it's in Dallas... NOT JUNE! HOT=BAD! Although if it were in NYC I don't forsee the same... voracity of heat. Plus, summer would be the time when I would be most likely to be able to get away. Kinda impossible for me to travel in the midst of classes, especially after I get through all the easy ones. This does actually sound kind of fun, especially if Krista and some others manage to show up. Alas, I am notorious for backing out of things at the absolute last minute, so it's anybody's guess. Would be fun, though.

Hehe, I like philosophy class. I especially like the way baptists gang rape logic and philosophers pretend to be experts in the other sciences. I have also decided that philosophy is probably the most useless waste of brain power possible. There is absolutely no realm within philosophy anymore other than ethics; almost all of the other major questions they pose can be answered by one of the other sciences with concrete evidence, as opposed to shaky inductive arguments. Don't even get me started on the God thing. Hehe, I do so love the way they figure these things, though. The ontological argument for God's existence is always fun. It goes something like... 1. God is, by definition, the greatest being one can think of. 2. Assume that God does not exist. 3. If God does not exist, then God exists only in the understanding and not in reality. 4. If God exists only in the understanding and not in reality, then it is possible to think of something greater than God. 5. It is impossible to think of something greater than God. Therefore: It is false that God does not exist. Did ya catch that wonderful little rhetorical somersault? Of course, as usual, there's a really good way to shove that right back in a Christian's face and completely belittle their intelligence and beliefs. For instance, this classic little flip... 1. I can think of the greatest possible <insert random thing>. 2. The idea of the greatest possible <random thing> is the idea of a <random thing> none greater can be thought. 3. Assume that the greatest possible <random thing> does not exist. 4. In that case, one can think of a greater <random thing> that has all the properties of the original <random thing> plus the property of existence. 5. But 4 contradicts 2. Therefore: The greatest possible <random thing> exists. I especially like substituting the words "hot, sweaty, gay anal sex" for <random thing>. It seems to me that most of philosophy is about people attempting to twist words in such a fashion as to dilute logic just enough to make it seem like their idea is plausible. Besides that, what is the point of ever studying an inductive argument? If it is not true, or at least extremely likely to be true, then why accept that as a strong possibility? Anyway, I have fun with it. It's quite funny the way they feel this overwhelming need to be prepared against arguments that a three-year-old could come up with, and their responses would always make the three-year-old say "...that's stupid." Anyways, I'm kind of tired and slightly bored. I believe, therefore, that I shall go to sleep soon. But first, I shall regale you all with a teensy lil short story. It got me a 100 in English comp. ~shrugs~ I Didn’t Hear the Owl “Did you hear that owl?” my mother asked me. I looked up from Pug to where she sat perched on the porch swing and nodded. “When an owl hoots in the daytime, it’s supposed to mean there’s been a death in the family.” I scratched Pug’s ears while I thought about this. In a ten-year-old mind, death is an abstract concept with no real form or figure; the tooth fairy has more solidity in everyday life. “Really?” I asked. She nodded and smiled. “It’s just superstition, though, it doesn’t really mean that.” “Oh,” I nodded with a solemn face. Running through my head was a list of family members. My grandma, my memaw, both pepaws, older sister, uncles and aunts. I imagined what it would be like for them to cease to exist, but it wasn’t possible for me to actually grasp the concept of nothingness filling their niche in my life. The next day, I heard the owl again. Then again on the third day, the owl was just as loud. None of those family members disappeared, and the owl’s hoot lost its fearsome power. Almost a year later, my mother walked into my room slowly. She was crying. I remember thinking that I’d never seen her cry openly before then. Her mouth opened to bite a chunk out of my world. “Your pepaw Clark just died,” she said. “He had another heart attack while he was in the hospital.” My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I thought she must be mistaken. I heard my older sister start to cry, and my mother hugged us both tight. I didn’t cry at all. It didn’t feel real, as if the concept had just been invented. A week before that I had run up the driveway barefoot and stopped at the wooden gate around my grandparents’ lawn. My pepaw had a green thumb for certain. His yard was well-kept, always in bloom. I reached down for the long, L-shaped metal pin that kept the gate shut by sliding through a bracket and into a hole in the ground. For my efforts I received a nice jolt of electricity that knocked me back and made tears come to my eyes. My pepaw was in the lawn working on planting some four o’clocks and came running when he heard me yell. “What happened?” he asked. “It shocked me!” “Oh hell, it must’ve sunk down ‘cause of all the rain and hit some line runnin’ under there. C’mon, we’ll go get grandma to check on you and I’ll fix this for you.” He took off his belt, caught the top of the upside down L-pin with it, and jerked it out of the ground. My pepaw scooped me up and took me inside where my grandma fawned over me and made everything better with fresh popcorn and the cartoon channel. “Okay, buddy, I fixed that gate. You wanna come help me put this tire swing up on the jungle gym?” he asked me. I nodded and grinned, following him outside to the mini-playground he’d built for my sister and me. “Alright, first off, when you’re putting up a swing you wanna make sure it’s balanced. Can’t have one side longer than the other. Any idea of how we’re gonna do that?” “Um, count the chain things on both sides?” He grinned and nodded at me. “That’s my boy, smarter than the average bear.” Even though my mother had just said he was gone, I kept thinking that the next time I did something even slightly clever, he’d be around to say I was ‘smarter than the average bear’. My dad was in the living room, sitting there with a blank stare on his face. He’d ran up the road when pepaw had the first heart attack and performed CPR while the paramedics were on their way. When I was older, my mom told me exactly what happened that day. When my pepaw regained consciousness, he told my dad “I wish you hadn’t done that.” My mother packed us up in the car and took us to the store to get decent clothes for the funeral. She picked out the suit and shirt, but I picked my own tie. It featured Taz, the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes, whirling all around and hunting for that tasty wabbit. I felt defensive as I picked it up, thinking my mom would say no when she noticed it. I knew my pepaw, I watched cartoons with him enough to know that he liked Taz. Instead, she just smiled and nodded as she set it in the buggy and headed for the register. We entered the funeral home to find it packed. People I didn’t know told me “you look just like Jimmy”, and “your pepaw was a real fine man”. One couple recounted to my mother how my pepaw had built a little pink playhouse for their daughters for Christmas because he knew they didn’t have the money to get anything like it. A local minister praised him for doing drafting and architecture work for free on his church. My mother took my hand and squeezed it as she wiped her eyes and led me over to the casket. I saw my pepaw, arms folded, eyes closed. My dad put a hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to leave your tie with him? I know he’d like it,” my dad asked me. I nodded, and took off the clip-on tie and laid it down beside my pepaw. The tears started flowing, but I wasn’t crying because I missed my pepaw. I was crying out of anger and outrage. I was furious to the point of sobbing in frustration. The world had done me wrong. Nothing signaled this for me. No one gave me a chance to give him one last hug, sneak one last pretzel from the giant jug in his study, or watch one more episode of Looney Tunes with him. I was angry because I hadn’t heard the goddamned owl. Meh, I know, it's not really my bestest work ever, but I figure it's almost like a less happy Chicken Soup for the Soul story. Anyway, hope ya liked it. Have a wonderful whateverthehellitisrightnowwhereyoulive.

I want Mr. Phelps and his buddies to come try that here. You've all seen videos of their protests, right? How the police don't ever seem to do very much to help them out? Well, c'mon down to Mississippi and protest at a person's funeral who had tons of redneck relatives and see how long it takes to get pumped full of lead. No one has the right to protest at a funeral. That's crossing a line of common decency, and if you do cross that line, you should expect to get the shit kicked out of you. If it's important enough to you, go ahead and pick up that sign. Just remember that you stand a good chance of picking up your teeth as well.

Yeah, I just get very frustrated. Things start to annoy me and I can't stop thinking about them, but eventually I get over it. I'm mostly over what had me in such a pissy mood the night I wrote that. It still kinda stings, but I've kind of thought about it and come to the conclusion that ya know what, I just don't care what that particular person thinks about me anymore. His opinion matters no more than anyone else's, because he hasn't earned enough of my respect and trust to have his opinion actually matter. So there.

Everything I do or try to achieve, I fail miserably at. Why? What's so wrong with me? Is it my personality? Am I just not good looking enough? Am I an asshole and don't know it? Am I stupid? I'm just not comprehending why every time I find a boy I like they want nothing to do with me. Another thing, why do they always let me get my hopes up first? Why not just go ahead and tell me that I stand a snowball's chance in Hell? WHY? What is the reasoning behind all of this? So I officially have reverted to my emo form. Expect every blog entry to be a whiney, bitchy, moany collection of dumbassery. It's gonna be that way for a while, I think. I will never be rich. I will never look the way I want. I will never have a decent boyfriend. I will never be content. It's just not going to happen for me. After realizing this, I've been asking myself what I should do. I can't come up with anything. I don't have any drive. There's no motivation for anything I do anymore. I'm not going to be writing for a while. Maybe once my pissy mood blows over and I have classes under control and finally have everything figured out, then I'll be back. No clue when that will be. Sorry about being such a downer. It's late, and I had no one to talk to, so I came here. Maybe just spitting out all of my frustrations will make them easier to deal with and get over. It usually does. Love you all, see ya.

Withholding the information about HIV infection should be treated as attempted murder. Prophylaxis, if begun within 24 hours of exposure, gives a very good chance of avoiding any infection. All authorities involved should be very harshly dealt with.

I like it, but then again I like anything that makes anyone happy because it's just, well, happy. There was a little table with the GSA people out on the lil coming out day here at USM, I signed a petition having something to do with an anti discrimination law or something. It was nice, anyway, I'll hunt them down again sometime. Was nice that they recognized it and did something for it, even if it wasn't very big.

I couldn't read it... his grammar is absolute shit. That's for a serious newspaper? I'm assuming he doesn't speak English as his mother tongue, but one would hope that an editor would fix things like that. Half of it's been so engrished up it doesn't make much sense. Anyway, from what I read, he's another freak. Ignore them and they go away.

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1 2 3 4 by Feist (aka that iPod commercial song) 1 2 3 4 tell me that you love me more Sleepless long nights That's what my youth was for Oh, teenage hopes are alive at your door Left you with nothing but they want some more Oh, you're changing your heart. Oh, you know who you are. Sweetheart, bitter heart, now I can't tell you apart. Cozy and cold, put the horse before the cart. Those teenage hopes who have tears in their eyes, Too scared to own up to one little lie. 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 or 10 Money can't buy you back the love that you had then. 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 or 10 Money can't buy you back the love that you had then. Oh, you're changing your heart. Oh, you know who you are. Oh, you're changing your heart. Oh, you know who you are. For those teenage boys, They're breaking your heart. For those teenage boys, They're breaking your heart. I f**kING LOVE THIS SONG. It just makes me smile so much. Go to youtube and check out the video, it's such a fun song.

My little cousin Hannah. She's so adorable and absolutely delightful. (btw Kevvers I really love your new avatar)

As you all know, CJames has kept a low profile with regards to personal appearance. He hides behind the anonymity of his goatliness. However, I have found a way to unmask him once and for all.... C. James lives on my floor of the dorm at USM!!!!!!!! I'll take a picture, but one of the lil names on the doors is "C. James", hehehe! So watch out, you silly goatly goat, I shall catch you entering or exiting that room eventually, and when I do, everyone will know your secrets!!! (whatever they may be!!!) Yes, random, I know. It did, however, tickle me as I walked by, saw the name, and pondered about the possibility of a goat taking night classes.

Haha, I've slept over at a few girls' houses... even slept in the same bed as a few. ~shrugs~ It's easier for me to feel comfortable around girls than guys. They're so much more normal. I HAVE been told before that I don't walk, I "float". I say it came from years of marching, and you're not supposed to move anything above your hips... so I didn't have any of that normal pendulum-ish movement most guys have, or the bobbing head thing. I took very even, measured eight-to-five steps, lol. However, almost every single person who suddenly finds out that I'm gay is like "WHAT?! REALLY?! I would've never guessed!". ~shrugs~ Guess I give off conflicting signals or something.

If you dare tell me I can't smoke, I will hold you down and blow the smoke in your face just to spite you. Then I just might put the cigarette out on you. If you don't like the smoke, stay the hell away from the smokers. Most of us smoke outside, in the open, and you have to be standing downwind of us to get a lungful. Those of you who don't smoke, I'm happy for you. I'll quit some day when I can find the right motivation and circumstance (working on that). Until then, I'm gonna keep on doing it. You should all already be happy since they're assraping us as far as price goes just to give ourselves cancer.

I thought Harry Potter magic was just kind of cutesy. Not much depth to it. It kind of got deeper toward the end but it was still very wishy washy as far as mechanics and theory went. Just way too vague to decide if I liked it as a system or not. It worked for JK, though, so go her.

Phonics, you silly brits. COLOR!!!

I like David Eddings' version. Y'know, the whole the will and the word thing.

CONNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU SEXY MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ~hugs!~

I took a look at the plot of Equus and I just didn't take to it. It made a bit of sense, but it was like it was tainted by some sort of half-assed freudian logic that doesn't quite make sense... ah, hard to explain, but basically I didn't think it had any serious value or any real substance to the play. When I watch or read something, I want it to produce a certain feeling or give me some sort of insight. That just didn't seem like it would deliver what I wanted.

Well, well, well... this is interesting. It reminds me of the South Park episode where the immigrants come from the future and then all the rednecks are like "THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!!" and yeah... you should watch it, it's great. Anyway, um, yeah... I'm not even gonna attempt to argue a point in here because somebody'll get mad.

Hehe, I picked partner. Why, you ask? Well, I shall indulge you all with an explanation! (cause I'm a chatty bastard like that) A partner helps with all of those. If you have someone who really does love you and wants to stand beside you and help you no matter what, then it's a lot easier to make all the rest of your decisions. You know that if you f**K up, you'll have somebody who can catch you and point you back in the right direction if necessary. Where to live? How about centered around where your and your partner's family are? Or maybe you have someplace in mind for a career opportunity? So yeah, it's easier to make that decision with someone else throwing in some ideas and motivations. Accepting who you are? It's a lot easier to accept yourself if someone else lets you know that they accept you, too. Profession? Ah, that's mostly a personal decision but it can still be influenced by what your partner thinks, and what they think you would enjoy, and the ideas they share with you. Beliefs? C'mon, you gotta be influenced/shaped/changed/whatever on this one by your partner. That's pretty obvious. Anyway, you get the picture. I just really think that picking the RIGHT kind of partner makes everything else a lot easier. If you have someone who's dependable, intelligent, forgiving, and thoughtful, then yeah... a lot of that other stuff could be easier. Then again I'm a sucker for lovey dovey shit.

GO YOU.