a secret post

i generally read non-fiction. i love philosophy, Christopher Hitchens, psychology, non-thesim, the studies of evolution, humanity, genetics, mathematics, economics, genocide, politics... i have read my share of Dave Berry, but that is about the closest thing to fiction i generally read.  but lately i have found myself picking up... fiction to read myself to sleep. while i was pregnant with my babies i picked up twilight. i could hardly stay awake so Friedman did not sound particularly achievable. i read twlight in a week. every word of every book in the series in 5.5 days. recently, a friend suggested i read the sookie stackhouse series and lent me a copy of the first book. i like it. it flows relatively smoothly and i can pretend you can avoid death. i am glad i didn't start reading books like this until my twenty somethings. my thoughts:

What would twilight have done to my more impressionable mind?
A) made me long for a love unattainable
B) make me love my odd self more thereby perhaps allowing myself the simple pleasures of nerd love
C) succeed in making me believe that the man in my life should have the reigns in our relationship and immerse myself in his love
D) create bonds with other nerdy girls and form a nerdy coalition helping me be more confident

How has vampire fiction effected my adult life?
A) helped me sleep
B) gave me perspective on how I want my daughters to date and the principles allowing them to understand how wonderful they are
C) helped me see the flaws in myself are cute
D) given me unreasonable expectations for chivalry
E) gave me a break from a hobbsian world of inherently evil humans

i may not read much more fiction, but i have enjoyed my brief encounters with it. next on my reading list is: the psychopathy test by jon ronson. a review of the book is here. after that, hitchen's newest, arguably: essays. here is the daily hitchens product description.

tonal amusement: eluvium's an accidental memory in the case of death

a chemical reaction

playing dress up

sometimes people let you down. it is an experience that isn't terribly unique to the human journey. being let down means you've made yourself vulnerable or lent more of yourself than you could afford to protect or lose. i am still wondering what the appropriate reaction is to feeling let down. i practiced my own philosophy and made my expectations known and still i was hurt: deeply, not in some shallow, you called me a bitch kind of way. a way that i haven't let anyone ever hurt me before. i suppose there is a first time for everything. and unfortunately for me, not the last time for feeling let down.

app approved

i, like most people i know, actually and not so secretly detest working out. i do it anyway because i want a perfect body, i want a perfect soul. but, i'm a creep. no, seriously, i fight myself with every mile i jog and every 15 minute ab sesh that drags on. i need serious rewards and incentive to accomplish my physical fitness goals. i found a neat free app for my iDevices! it is called nike trainer. there are four categories: get lean, get toned, get strong and get focused. each have a dozen or so 15 minute workouts. the "trainer" counts the seconds for you and let's you know what workout your doing next. there are cutesy "rewards" for every 60 minutes you've spent torturing yourself. sometimes those rewards are actually gratifying, since results on ones own body can take upward of 17,000 years to see. with nike trainer, you are able to listen to your playlist with flawless transition.

in summation:

i am driven by incentives.

i love music.

I rather dislike exerting unnatural amounts of energy unless the result is immediate six pack abs.

i'm partial to nike.

i'm a materialistic 'merican. shiiiiiiit.

inspired art

a new piece i made today.

.

i also did a few cards.

tonal stimulation: the rip tide and elephant gun both by Beirut.

thoughts on the porcelain god

life.
the laws of energy transfer.
goofy eyeballs.
a noticeable amount of unfairness?
probably not.
it seems like existence may just "be."
no order.
no chaos.

A Phenomenological Examination of Video Games and Time

“I do not hear the melody but only a single present tone.”

Husserl’s examination of consciousness and internal time begins, as always, with questions, this time specifically concerning the constitution of time. In, On the Phenomenology of the Conscious of Internal Time, Husserl asks the reader to accept a couple premises leading to his evidence; not to disregard all transcendencies and that a temporal object contains both time and space. I think to understand this concept you must also accept that objects present themselves in profiles. He uses a melody for an example of a single immanent profile; hearing as perceiving in a simple form of perceiving. He asserts that you are able to differentiate between one note and the next and from note to note you no longer hear the previous. That being said, you must also accept that you don’t lose the notes past altogether in consciousness, you retain them in order to continue making sense of the tune. “Anticipatory expectation” is the first appearance of a protensive plain of consciousness. Further, Husserl discusses tones in the present; you only hear one tone in the present time. The entirety of the three phases he calls an act-continuum. He concludes that immanent time appears as a continual flow. You can’t distinguish one moment from the next because as you intend the idea of distinguishing, each of the moments to be distinguished have passed, nearly unnoticed and would then belong to memory and neither would be a present blip of time. That is not to say that whether something is noticeable qualifies it as a distinguished moment, however the act of distinguishing takes a part in the consistent unity and flow forward of conscious time.


In an effort to better qualify my understanding of the unity of conscious time, I actively sought an example to examine phenomenologically, and came up with the video game Guitar Hero. Guitar is set up representing to play like a guitar, you “strum” and press “frets” and you do so in time with “notes” and a song on the screen. The flow of notes on the screen move continuously forward with only a sequence of four quarter notes consecutively able to be seen at any time. The object of the game is to be proficient in all of the act-continuum of time-consciousness’ relationship. At times, while playing Guitar Hero, my fingers respond to the visual mark on the screen too late, especially when playing songs I do not know. I have no protension in my present moment, so from one moment to the next I must tell my fingers to do only what I am receiving through perception in visual marks and tone-now’s. Sometimes, if a rather popular grouping of tones occurs, they collect in the past conscious, while being stored in retention and form a memory based apprehension. That is to say, from memory recollection in the retentive quality of time-consciousness’ relationship, a protension may occur without base of knowing the song but know tone groupings, similar.
Other instances, while playing Guitar Hero, my fingers preempt the timing for the game. My mind relies on its long-term memory signals to give me smaller time samples of time, so I may project what is to come. Unfortunately for my game, my long term memory is not sharp enough to accurately protense the tone-moment to come and I miss the point (and the tone now). Protension can be beneficial to game playing. The more I can anticipate accurately on the game the more probable it is that I will command my fingers properly. The protension of soon-to-be tone now’s are going to be both the now point and the past in a stream of consciousness Husserl’s vision of the relationship between time and consciousness is a continuous flow of acts; the current, the recent past and the projected future. This model is accurately applicable to, along with among most other experiences, playing video games. The examination Husserl gives of the tone in a melody is thorough and applicable also to all music and embodies consciousness and time relationship. 

the distance between us

here are some tips for maintaining long distance relationships (when sex isn't involved, because as we all know, sex is a great incentive):
pick up the phone when you're driving
a voice rather than an email is a nice change in communications with your far away beloveds. what better venue than the car when your children are contained and you can't text.
use traditional mail to surprise a friend with a greeting
it really invokes smiles to get a cute or goofy hello instead of a bill from insurance for $16,000 from that test they decided not to cover last year.
utilize technology like Skype
perhaps you won't be able to smell the garlic on your pal's breath but seeing someone's face once in a while can aid in keeping you tight.
muster up actual concern
even though your bro's drama probably doesn't affect you, showing honest concern for their ups and downs can help keep you tight. if you're on the book of face and you read that your friend is having a quarter life crisis, make your ear available for a bitch-fest or brag-fest. even if they don't take the offer of your ear, at least they know you care.