Author Archives: Nabil
Tadpoles Don’t Have Feet
Into My Arms
Apologies for the ads, it’s the only place I could find it still up. If you know someone with the Jonathan Glazer volume of the Director’s Label, you can watch it in a nice high quality. Well worth it.
Don’t Plan It, Just Let it Happen
Albert’s Path is a Strange and Difficult One
How Was the Pie?
Exceptional, as always.
Steps at a Time
It is perhaps not surprising that now that work is starting to settle into a routine, I’m suddenly finding time to write on the blog again. It’s not that I’m slacking off at work, per se, so much as there is down time where I still need to be at or near my computer — so why not write? Ten minutes here, five minutes there, and next thing you know, there’s a post. I’m not going to hold by breath that things will always work out that way, but it is nice to have a moment to breathe, and to use my brain for my own purposes.
“I learned when I was young that the only true life I had was the life of my brain. But if it’s true the only real life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?” Fry Pan Jack, via Utah Philips
Definitely a sentiment that I can get behind — I get home more often than not wanting to just hide out, and the idea of working on any of the projects that I have on my plate seems actively repugnant. There’s only so long, however, that you can put up with that before you suffer a soul-death. We are not automata, we are humans. We have dreams and aspirations and goals and desires, and falling into the rigidity and rote of corporatism is inherently inimical to those emotional and intellectual needs. I mean, hey, maybe you dream of spending most of your waking hours in a cubicle, doing work you aren’t appreciated for. I’m not judging. I know it isn’t what I dream of, though, nor anyone I’ve asked.
It’s that drive to survive (in the true sense, not the literal sense) that spawns office haiku, an overdeveloped affection for coffee, and reams upon reams of internet cruft. Where do you think memes get their momentum? Bored employees and students, people who technically should be working on something else, but have hit their limit, and needed to look at or think about anything else for at least a little bit. The more random, idiotic, or inane the better. We’re looking for some spark of the personal to feed our soul. That’s my observation, anyway, anecdotal as it may be.
If You See Something…
Generally speaking, I’m not very political. But the current “If you see something, say something” Homeland Security campaign creeps me the hell out. I can’t help but think about the old Soviet and eastern bloc informant system, which was pretty heinously evil.
As a social phenomenon anonymous letters were a frequent occurrence in the USSR during the period of mass political terror. These were the years when physical destruction of the opposition and prosecutions of “enemies of the people” helped Stalin consolidate his dictatorship. Bloody “purges” accompanied by constant appeals for “vigilance” and the eradication of complacency in the struggle against wreckers (saboteurs), spies, and “internal” counterrevolution created through the entire country an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion. Many Soviet Citizens in constant turmoil over the threat to their freedom and their lives, turned to informing as a means of self-preservation by proving their “reliability.” They were no more amoral in their attitude toward society than society was toward them. Informing was then extolled as a “moral duty” of the Soviet ctiizen.
Anonymous letters were written not only by those who retained their belief in the rectitude and infallibility of communist ideals but also by those who, by victimizing as many others as possible, hoped to stay safe; and by those who were seeking revenge against personal enemies among their acquaintances and colleagues. Zemtsov, Ilya. Encyclopedia of Soviet Life, pp13-14.
Paradise Circus
I’ve had the opening to Paradise Circus by Massive Attack stuck in my head as I woke up the past few days. It’s a nice opening, but I’m wondering why it’s been a recurring thing.
And here’s just the song for those who want to hear it but are bothered by or not able to view the video:
The NSFW video is behind the break. (It auto-plays.)
Continue reading
Spectacular
First: I hope my roommate Jessie has a fabulous birthday today. She’s rad; an excellent musician, artist, and friend. If you get a chance, you should swing by her site and check out her work.
Second: as some folks noticed, there were some encoding mixups on Critical Games following a database upgrade… mostly involving me forgetting to zap smart quotes into something encoding-friendly. This has now been corrected. I did it manually, so I may have missed a few — if you are reading through archives and notice any more quirky symbols or empty squares, et cetera, let me know so I can fix it.
Third: World of Warcraft‘s new expansion, Cataclysm, comes/came out today. I’m back to playing the WoW, but I’ve not picked it up (yet)… I’d really like to, as I think Worgen sounds neat, but it’s going to have to wait a little bit. That said, if you play and happen to swing onto Bloodhoof, feel free to say “Hi” (my main is Nadreck).