Random Generator: The 20 Piece Quest

1:05 p.m.: We are less than an hour away from my meeting with 20 Chicken McNuggets (CM's for short) for the "It Must Be Bad For You If It Is This Cheap" price of five American dollars. I have no shame in my pursuit of wholesale foods that, despite recent public infatuation with health and food awareness, taste better than every and any thing deemed edible by the FDA and civilized peoples.
If you want to be enthralled by the scope of this mission you should know that this was planned with  advanced scheduling techniques, statistical considerations, calorie intake and calorie burning charts, terrain and weather projections, supply distribution and inventory, all to lessen the possibility of a mishap. My brother, knowing very well how important this quest was, agreed to accompany me on what would be a 15 block trek to the nearest McDonald's.
You see, it all started last night with a commercial induced craving for the small fried nuggets filled with chicken parts. Commercials work. They plant the seed from which a desire for something like CM's flourishes into bursts of lucid daydreams involving yourself and the product.

The Holy Grail.

The Odd Couple: Satan's Duality

This is not where you go to for television show recaps. But what you are about to read is so much more than that. I'm talking about nether-realm shadiness in the form of television programming. Oh, and it's not just TV, it's HBO.

No Place Like Home

The weekend brings about a flattering reflection on my legacy. I spin a short autobiography that explains my flunking out of normalcy and the cooler lunch tables. First, you have to create a persona that would negate any proposal along the lines of "let's go to X place and drink" before it is conceived. Your aura would translate this proposal into: "let's willingly (!!!) pay seven times as much for this mid-level bottle of liquor..." and the words would simply turn into vomit in the mouth of our proposer. Whatever the situation calling for celebration may be it is never good enough to get me dressed (appropriately). I exaggerate, but we all do from time to time.

The Humane Revolution: Cryptocurrencies & The Old Regime

The plight of recent post-graduates is extensively documented. Even more notorious are the stories of student debts that drive the younger section of the working class towards the service industry. You have technical institutes recruiting mostly minority male youths knowing very well that there are simply not enough jobs for their indebted graduates. There are mid tier retail jobs occupied by bright, creative and over-educated adults who need the hours. Certificates and diplomas hang shamefully on the walls of underemployed young people like the trophies of retired, and usually washed up, athletes. The fact that the term 'Human Resources' exists is evidence of a society that has put a price on people. Because it is the fate of all resources to lose value at some point we can begin questioning where this machine is heading.

A Standing Ovation: Poverty & Approval

Someone needs to fight for poverty. Not against it or its causes. No, someone somewhere needs to get up in the mornings and dig themselves a trench from which they will defend their poverty. Where are all the people who eat soup out of styrofoam cups too often? That can't be real meat in there...

Social Reproduction Online: The Opinionated Ouroboros

Definitions of things undefinable float freely through an atmosphere of opinions interpreted as fact. It's difficult for the working adult to separate opinion from fact because of time constraints and their obsession with living in the "real world." Those that have streamlined their reality to resemble a 40 hour work week with time for sleep and little leisure find it easier to avoid the task of organizing their value system. It's a good thing that we know that the majority of online content is not factual. Therefore, no value system is set in stone. Right?

Away You Go

It may be because I'm getting older, but I am starting to notice that the concept of traveling is becoming a bigger issue among people I know. I have had friends who have recently traveled, and others who are planning to travel in the near future. Others have complained about their inability to travel at this time, but about how they will when they can. I've even seen the word "wanderlust" come up a few times in the past few months. All I can ask myself when I see all this is, why?

Minimalism vs Anti-Comsumerism

     Many of the opinions I express to people are probably misconstrued. I try to explain things I say as thoroughly as I can, but I'm pretty sure I fail many times. Plus many people probably don't want to read the paragraphs I write, or hear my 20 minute discourses on my theories. The result is there are a lot of people out there that think I do something for a certain reason, when in reality I do whatever it may be for a different reason. I will continue to try and work on that, but I'll try to clear one thing up here at least.

Independent Dependent

     How long could you last without communicating with anyone? Not including people like cashiers or food delivery people; I mean family, friends and acquaintances. A week? Maybe less? How long would it take before you felt lonely? At what point would you start talking to your pets? How long before you start talking to yourself?

Resolutions

        The year is about to come to an end. What does that really mean? In all honesty, it simply means you have to start remembering it's 2013 instead of 2012 when you're writing the date. Apart from that, it isn't that much different from any other day. Everyday is the start of a new year if you look back to that same day a year ago. Years are a measurement of time created by humans, so the fact that tomorrow will be 2013, is something humans made up.

2 + 2 Will Equal 4

                Romantic relationships are something I still haven't figure out. I don't know if you're ever supposed to, or you just get lucky and find someone you can stand. Either way, my New Year's resolution for 2011 was to be single for the whole year in an attempt to see if some time alone would give me some insight into what was going wrong. After a year single though, not much changed. Maybe I went about it all wrong.

You Gotta' Have Faith...

       Faith has played an extremely important role in society. Sometimes it has been misplaced and caused some horrific things to happen, sometimes it leads to positive activity. What people place their faith in defines various aspects of who they are. This isn’t limited to religious faith either. Faith is defined as a strong belief in something, so when someone acts upon a belief it can be considered an act of faith. So how should we decide what to place our faith in?

The Wasted 2

Sometime last week I was forcibly removed from my comfort zone. I was fooled into believing a quiet night out would occur. Instead, I was surprisingly greeted with "Do you have your ID?"

The Wasted

So what are you doing this weekend? If you're between the ages of 21-45, I think I can safely assume it will involve liquor. Going camping? Bring a cooler of Coors. Bowling? Fill that plastic cup. Going out for dinner? Inhale the scent of wine, then ingest enough of it to make your lips change color. I assume this not only because of personal experience, but because I am also reminded of it by advertising. Do you remember the commercials you watched as a kid when your favorite cartoon was on? Toys, orange juice, cereal; these were all sold to you, and in many cases partially sold to your parents who thought many of these things would help you have a healthy childhood. These days I rarely watch TV without seeing at least one commercial for beer or vodka.

Keep Working!

I get many of the ideas for posts from conversations with the people. Most of the time these conversations can lead to people wanting to karate chop me because I can confuse people and have them misunderstand me, that's when I have to break down everything I said at length. This usually ends in them nodding a bit, and then things move forward more smoothly. Recently I was told that I should probably work on the way I argue, and they're probably right, but the idea came with a phrase that caused an involuntary twitch in the left side of my face. That phrase was "I think if you work hard on something, it's so much more rewarding."

Changing Lenses

I was on the train back home today when I started doing a quick tally of some things around me. There were 23 people on the train with me. 16 of them had iPhones which they pulled out during the ride, and 4 others had Apple headphones which could mean either they also had iPhones or they had iPods. 8 people had Beats over-the-ear headphones, and another 3 had Beats earbud headphones. Two people were sleeping, and then there was the gentleman reciting lyrics to himself near the train door; I was unable to see what these people had. As I thought about how amazing it was that in a train car of 23 people, 20 of them had Apple products and almost half had Beats products, I remembered a conversation I had some time ago with a friend.

Around the World: Guerilla Warfare in Spain

Black Beauty

Mother Nature,
Firstly, I would like to thank you for providing me with the necessary elements which keep me alive and well. I am a ticking clock thanks to you.

Equations, Again

12  people were killed in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater during the midnight screening of the new Batman movie. The number of wounded floats around 50; it depends on who you talk to, what you watch, and/or hear.

Cages

A cage went in search of a bird. - Franz Kafka (The Zürau Aphorisms)

The above is aphorism 16 in Kafka's Zürau Aphorisms. It sits neatly on a page mostly left blank. Above it the number 16 and below it the page number: 16.