Unrolling

Evolution, from the Latin for the unrolling of a book.

How wonderfully elegant!

As you grow up there are fewer and fewer instances of that wonderful little expansive feeling when you realized the etymology of a word.

The more you know the bigger the world is!

It nice to know that feeling doesn't go away.

Potato

Human being do not like pointlessness. We hate it. There must be a certain amount of satisfaction in working as a farmer. Every year your work, mindless, and grueling though it may be, produces. You have a potato, and that potato can feed somebody, or become another potato.

I see art like this. I may not produce food but I produce something new, something that wasn't there before. I produce ideas and concepts, I am a vessel for the dissemination of culture. Culture is a potato. Likewise as an academic I learn, not only because I want to, but simply to know because someone should know! Knowledge is a potato. A potato that can feed someone or become another potato (metaphorically of course). One idea inspires many others! That's what academic discussion is for.

Even on the very edge of "worth it", the fringe of commercialism, working for a salary produces potatoes. I work and I am given potatoes to eat, or place holders which represent potatoes that I can exchange for real potatoes. And the work itself, if it is productive, creates a sort of potato. When I make a latte, even though that latte is simply a luxury, nothing important, I have created a latte. It was nothing but component parts before I made it, perhaps the person who ordered it could not make one for themselves. I have given them a potato.

This is worth it.

When I am confronted with the abstract I become disheartened. We live in a world that is frequently devoid of potatoes. If I write a paper that I learn from, even if it is a bad paper I have gained a potato. If I write a paper that I do not learn from but teaches another person I have given them a potato. If, however, I have to write a paper that does not educate me or anyone else there are no potatoes, only a piece of paper, and you can not "eat" paper. An entire subset of our world runs on this paper. An entire population starved and potatoless, simply passing around pieces of paper, taxes, reports, burocracy. Things that are necessary only because we have created a completely artificial environment for them to mater in.

Yes, I must do my homework because I will get a grade. But that grade is paper. If I do not learn anything I have not gained anything really. There is no potato.

I don't know about you but I like potatoes.

Maru!

BEST CAT VIDEO E-V-E-R!

You have to watch it all the way through.

O_o

Creeeeeeepy!

Spreckels...

Spreckels is possible one of the most amusing street names on my commute. Along with Monkey Wrench Ln.

No... No I'm not making these up.

Something for Nothing

Yes. Denny's gave away free breakfasts yesterday.

. . .

w00t!

. . .

"There... THERE... on the other side... in the middle of the other side... away from everything else on the other side..."

The local Wal Mart has, like many a Wal Mart, a covered garage. A covered garage much like many covered garages. Grotty, with odd little corners and ramps leading from one level to the next with awkward little corners and dark places.

By the entrance to the store where it is relatively bright and clean are soda machines next to the bucking bronco ride and trash cans, as usual.

However...

In a corner of the grotty parking lot... under the ramp to the second level... faaaar away from the other machines... Unlit and just sitting there all on it's own is anoter soda machine... next to the dumpsters... tucked under the ramp... in the grotty parking lot...

"Pst!... PST!... Hey kid! You wanna Coke?"

CREEP!

Happy "Festival of Giving"!

I was walking past the Wal Mart today (is that one word or two?) and had a vision of a depressing post modern metaphor for how commercialism and big business have ruined the Christmas spirit.

'Tis of course the season for the Salvation Army (is buskers the right word?) to stand in front of drug stores ringing their bells for donations. Now while some of these (does it seem like they're always women?) are the friendliest people you could hope to meet, most are rather unhappy seeming folks. I can't blame them, if my job were to stand out side all day ringing a bell and being nice to people I'd get pretty bored pretty quickly, and I am sure they are not the best paid people either. The woman outside Wal Mart is down right truculent looking.

As I passed her station today and looked up I noticed a Zebra Dove (the dumbest birds alive) which had managed to get itself inside the store and was beating its wings against the windowed area above the automatic doors in an attempt to escape, while the truculent santa-be-hatted Salvation Army woman gazed up blankly at it, ringing her bell irritably.

The metaphor immediately entered my head "Dove of peace trapped by Wal Mart, Santa does nothing."

. . .

“Well doc, you know those tiny birds that clean our teeth. Lately I’ve been eating those guys like popcorn”

There are these tiny little birds here called common waxbills. They're ridiculously small. Where I come from birds that size would freeze solid within 15 seconds. As I oft observe, I want to take three or four of 'em, pop 'em in my mouth and start eatin' 'em like popcorn...

Not really... I mean... that would be kinda gross, not to mention the serious hygienic and social issues that arise from that sort of behaviors.

What is particularly impressive about the little guys is their numbers. All the individuals on campus seem to roost in the same bamboo hedge in the art building. The pure volume of tiny bird is incredible, it brings to mind both Hitchcock and the scene in The Mummy with the flesh eating scarabs.

Anyway... I'm gonna go make popcorn...