KindaGamey

In honor of the Free Marketeers who want less regulation. Here’s your theme song:

Digipix 9.30.08

This Here Blog is a Buffet, Not a Novel

Don’t misunderstand this blog. You don’t have to read everything. You don’t have to believe anything. No one expects that of you. Go ahead just browse, take what you like, leave the rest. Whatever you want to resonate off of and investigate more of, then go ahead. Don’t feel like reading today? Ok, just meander along the pictures. If you do get your interest peaked enough to dive in a little, then go ahead. But it isn’t expected of you. I don’t ever want you to feel stress because I’ve posted too much and you feel like you are ‘falling behind’ on your reading.

(I have this problem where I always repeat the same shit anyway, so if you miss something it might come back one day. Seriously, in real life I do it all the time – say the same facts or stories or jokes. People never correct me or stop me and I get embarassed as hell when I do it, but on the positive side I think it does serve us to re-learn that which we already knew because you can refine your understanding in light of everything that has happened hence. Hell, if I don’t remind myself each day that the universe is consciousness then the seeming reality of it all overwhelmes me again and tries to beat me down with worry.)

I think some people have stopped reading this blog because there is just too much stuff. Before the words were too voluminous and now the links are overwhelming. They just don’t have the time to read it all so they avoid it entirely. It doesn’t have to be that way. No one expects you to read everything in the newspaper or the library. No worries.

Flash Player / YouTube Firefox Problem – The 2 Second Stoppage

Ben,

I told you I wasn’t having problems playing the Flash vids on my page, but damn if I didn’t start getting the ‘youtube videos stopping after 2 seconds’ problem consistently after that. I could go to youtube and play them, but not on my page. Explorer and other browsers worked, it just screwed up in Firefox 3.

There are many convoluted solutions on the web, but I just downloaded Adobe’s Beta Flash 10 plugin and that seemed to fix it: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

If anyone else is having the same problem I suggest you do the same. Well, unless you use WordPress’ Flash picture uploader because I just discovered that I can’t click that anymore. Horseshit!

(If you are a flash developer, I’m sure you’ve seen the

If anyone else is having the same problem I suggest you do the same. Well, unless you use WordPress’ Flash picture uploader because I just discovered that I can’t click that anymore. Horseshit!

(If you are a flash developer, I’m sure you’ve seen the Crop Circles and what they might mean beyond their geometry and mathematical boasting.

McKenna said he was given this information when he and his brother Dennis partook in entheogenic experiences in the Columbian Amazon, at a site known as La Chorrera; details of his exploits are written down in the books “True Hallucinations” and “The Invisible Landscape”. McKenna described the moment as “an encounter with an insectoid intelligence who had curious things to say about the nature of time.” He also felt that these creatures were the real occupants of the UFOs, stating “We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us.”

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However much we make of 2012, the Mayans themselves never saw it as an end of times, or the return of Quetzalcoatl, as Pinchbeck subtitles his book. They “merely” saw it as the end of one of their calendars – others continuing beyond. After all, the Mayans did not see August 12, 3114 BC as the literal date when Earth was created, but “merely” as the start of that calendar round.

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By the early 1990s, Jenkins and McKenna became more and more convinced that the end-date of the Mayan 13 baktun cycle was linked with the conjunction of the sun with the intersection of the ecliptic and the plane of the Milky Way. It is indeed a major astronomical event, and one does stand perplexed by the conclusion that the Mayans were aware of this centuries before science was able to confirm this fact. And what to make of the “coincidence” of our physicists’ discovery of a black hole at the centre of our galaxy and the Maya belief in a great black hole in the same spot?

McKenna also noted that it was remarkable that the Maya were fascinated less by their own time, and more by the time we live in, a time that lay more than two millennia in the future at the time the first Long Count dates were recorded. McKenna added that “over millennia, the Maya observed the drama of the approach of father sun toward the vagina of mother sky and, though the cosmic event itself was calculated to occur many centuries in the future, the Maya made the future conjunction the anchor point of their machinery of cosmic time keeping. Their myth […] chose our time as the quintessential moment of creation.” A year before his own death, McKenna wrote how the world was perhaps not meant to end, but was to be born, on December 21, 2012.

It coincides with John Major Jenkins’ conclusion, that “the ancient Maya understood something about the nature of the cosmos and the spiritual evolution of humanity that has gone unrecognized in our own worldview. This understanding involves our alignment with the center of our Galaxy, our cosmic center and source, and identifies A.D. 2012 as a time of tremendous transformation and opportunity for spiritual growth, a transition from one World Age to another.”

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That is so important:
We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us.

If we are just in a sea of consciousness then it all makes sense – and why extraterrestrials can walk through walls, sense if their ships have been noticed, only leave enough fuzzy evidence of their passing for ‘plausible deniability’, etc. You know what it makes me think of? Arkham Horror, actually. Cthulu. HP Lovecraft went beyond standard monster stories; he referenced another dimension from whence they came. They disguise themselves as extraterrestrials. It makes for a better story of the world, so I hereby declare it to be true. I make my own reality by manipulating my belief structures. Love it!

(It occurs to me that we could just as easily say that we are something - entities of consciousness – which disguises itself as human beings.)

Dr. John Hagelin Phd
In case you think I just go on about a force that connects us all, the underlying fabric of consciousness, because I’ve just watched too many Star Wars movies (melanie!), please give my friend John Hagelin a listen. Physics has discovered, long after Eastern traditions already tried to tell us and we didn’t believe them, that everything is one. That the underlying basis/structure of everything is consciousness and it wells up through us and all life.

(If you don’t understand at first what they are on about, just give it a minute and the words will become relevant, even though the context of him reflecting on a movie has been lost on us. No worries.)

Snapfish

I hate the word snapfish for some reason. My aunt took these pics at Massenuten on her vacation with my mom and dad. Amazing. Richmonders, those beautiful vistas aren’t that far away from you (2 hours?). We should all travel more.

(Why did I not go into photoshop and present you with a precursor to this experience? Because I don’t care as much whether you click that one or not. If you are into that sort of thing, like nature, or just want to voyeur a bit, go ahead.)

Digipixels

Zombies Kissing for the Win

Check out the Illuminati House
The eye peering through the top (I swear I didn’t even notice it when I took the picture.) The pyramidal shape. I could just photoshop that left bit and plunk it on top of the house for the capstone.

You guys know you can click the pictures and then click them again (and then again?) to get the full size right? I don’t know why WordPress does it like that, but it does.

This is only worth mentioning because my brother and I took this picture and then that night I was at L’s house and she came across a scene in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind whilst flipping channels. Right after Clementine and Joel’s date on the ice he calls her when he gets back home and she is in her living room, “Didja miss me?”. There on the wall is a Bump sign with the P covered up by a small white square of paper.

What really bakes my noodle is that, at the time, I spent extra brain cycles on the idea even though I wasn’t that impressed with the concept of the photo in the first place. What I mean is that I just stood there and thought for a bit. No particular thoughts came to mind; my brain just churned (as you do.) Then, in the future, when I see the Spotless Mind clip and it suddenly becomes relevant I churned again and reattached to those spent cycles in the past which I didn’t fully comprehend at the time. And then both those extra moments gain relevance. And it is all tied to the relevance and wonder and majesty that I felt for the movie the first time I ever watched it in the first place. Past future and present are one.

I don’t need to seek out Synchromysticism in all things. It finds me in little life segments. Like I needed personal examples that reality is just reinterpretted mind structures so it gives me those examples over and over till I get it. A theater of consciousness and overlapping ideas and perspectives that is translated to us through the reductionist limiter mechanisms of our senses.

(Our senses pull apart and dumb down the entirety of the mindstream to give us pieces to manage instead of the whole of the idea of the NOW. For instance, here is a smell: it is one limited topographic area (like a state or continent) of the entirety of the landscape of the total idea which is carried by NOW. Our brains are limiters as well! Serotonin is actually a limiter, like the sink faucet, it cuts down on the flow. It reduces unnecessary information. And LSD mimics serotonin distribution, but DOESN’T suppress information. So LSD is a closer approximation of reality than your reality. How about that.)

Only instead of topographic lines the gradiations are concepts. A Venn Diagram of meaning who’s metaphors are buried holographically/fractally throughout the structure.

Oop. Time to stop. Sounding nutty again.
I really need to make this into an animated video with an echoey voiceover to make it make any sense at all. One day.

Joseph Cambell’s Hero Myth Structures and The Matrix

Strange News I Just Had to Click
Funny how I made a personal decision not to post these to the blog and now they are the first things I lead with. I’m so anti-authoritarian I defy myself!

Deranged Naked Man Threatens to Jump Off Building
How do the cops respond? They tazer him!  Whilst this seems like a perfectly logical solution to the dilemma at hand, surprisingly, the incident doesn’t end well.

Now, in complete contrast of police styles, check out these British cops who put up with no end of trouble from two superhuman and insane Swedish girls who like to run out in front of cars on a freeway, get hit, and get back up again fighting mad! U.S. cops would have had truncheons and tazers out in a heartbeat, but the brits really do try and solve this crisis as kindly as possible.

PCP is hard to get in the U.K. but I can’t imagine what the hell else they could be on. As Chris said, PCP doesn’t make your bones any less fragile! How can they just walk away from that?

Cellphone Pictures

Most of these are other people’s pictures. And they are so much better than mine! I can’t take pictures when I’m in a funk. I fail to see the beauty or the humor of life. And fate doesn’t deliver me picture-worthy events when I’m down because I am at contrast with the universe. Not in the flow. I need to start meditating again. In the ‘real world’ I am a tiny fragile ship on a vast and angry ocean that tosses me about, but meditation reminds me that I am empowered and that I have control where it matters most.

If there has to be a winner, I would say it is this one:

- Chris

Wait! We have a late entry!

Ben just sent me this of my dear friend Michael with the caption, “It’s Fall!” You see, the little fellow was born and raised in that Guinness hooded sweatshirt thing and sadly, it goes into hiding in the Spring and Summer. Luckily, he wasn’t scared by his shadow this year and fall can officially begin.

Anyone want to go to Rosie Connolly’s Pub?

- Ben

For the Synchromystics

Paris’ first skyscraper is… a pyramid?

Ideology Trumps Facts

Our first article is, There’s No Arguing with Conservatives – No seriously, science proves it
(I’m linking you to the opinion piece because it’s more human. Actual WP article is The Power of Political Misinformation.)

(opinion)
A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling conservatives makes them more stupid.

(WP)
In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might “argue back” against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation.

As far as misinformation goes, this article, The Push to Otherize Obama, is about how 13% of people think Obama is a muslim, 16% aren’t sure.

In the article Ideology Trumps Facts, we are reminded that both ideologies tend to ignore facts. No matter what you believe, at least all scientists can agree:

WATCHING FOX NEWS MAKES YOU DUMB

If you are a conservative, or you are superior to both parties like Chris is, you can read this article instead: Democrats and Republicans BOTH ignore facts.

This would actually be a good time to segue to my chemically dumbing us down with flouride bit, but instead I’ll start with mind control less threatening:

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On that same subject, How Easily We Are Fooled, an addendum to another TED lecture (I am just loving TED!)

THE TED LECTURE: OUR BRAINS ARE MIS-WIRED*

* is the audience getting paid by the laugh or something? jeezus.

(for the record, I NEVER saw the dolphins. And I tried really hard.)

Pictures from India

Link Here

Which one is the elitist again?
http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo113/amk123amk/elitist2.gif

How
You know those images that show the size of the earth in relation to other planets and the stars? Well for some reason I’ve only ever seen the still images and no one ever showed me this.

Fear of Fairy Tales
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/09/21/fear_of_fairy_tales/?page=full
Article about how we have sanitized and Disneyfied fairy tales to the point that we removed the fear factor – we removed the part that drove the message home. (Ever read the real Grimm Fairy Tales? Gruesome!) Damn, do NOT go to GrimmFairyTales dot com. What a travesty. I refuse to link.

Is It True John McCain Voted 95% With Bush?
Actually…. yes. Thanks factcheck.org!

The American Public Wants a Bailout Too

BuyMyShitPile.com
YouTube – BailMeOut!

Radiohead
You shut up and watch. It is related.

2+2=5

YouTube – A Wolf at the Door

The Large Hard-on Collider
Not safe for work? I’ll just link it here.

We Have Sunspot!
Realtime Sun Pics – SOHO

So we finally got a sunspot back, but I had another link to a crazy guy about how it was kind of squarish and how NASA is saying that the solar winds are really crappy now and omg! Well I lost it. You wouldn’t have clicked it anyway so I ain’t looking. I’ve still got more shit to do.

Actually, I did look for it just to see if I could find it and I did. (I wonder if I could start a service where you could call me from wherever you are and ask me to look something up on the web: settle a bar conversation, directions in new york, height of the pyramids, mating habits of ducks, whatever… ?) Please note that he is talking about intelligent manipulation of the sun and take with salt. I can’t wait for his update though. Man, that’s gonna be a good one.

Giant Natural Hole Under Ground Zero?
40 Foot Pothole Caused by Ice Aged Glacier

Seriously? No one mentioned this thing in the construction papers or the documentaries about how they built the WTC? There was molten metal down there after the collapse for months because of… well we don’t know, do we? … and rumors of explosions in the basement and of gold being stored and all sorts of craziness — and then they find this!?!?

I must admit, it looks totally natural and old school. I don’t think there is trickery going on here I’m just kind of blown away at what an odd coincidence it is.

The World’s Most Disgusting Apartment
I won’t link a picture. You can take your own ride into the filth. Careful when you get to the bathroom area.

Ben Stein Almost Blows the Big Secret
Oh, Ben Stein! Cute Clear Eyes commercial guy! Cute little game show host! No. Evil politics. Selfish. Compassionless. I’m sure it’s as heartbreaking as the day you found out about Drew Carey’s politics.

Anyway, not the point. He let’s out a doozy here:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/23/133349/153/556/607628

The last words of that article haunted me and I had forgotten where I’d read them till now:

Somebody, somewhere, is blackmailing the entire United States economy.  Somebody, somewhere, has a gun to our head.  And to the head of the American government.

I want to know who they are.  I want them identified.

Who are they?  And why are we willing to bankrupt the entire country in order to pay them off?

How to Deal with Mooching Friends
CNN
I think some people are raised in circumstances where they have been trained to ‘take what they can get when they can’ and it is truly unfair to say that someone who mooches is no friend at all. They may give of themselves personally; it’s just, when it comes to tabs or cigarettes or beers or pizza – they skiddoo. Not sure what to think about this one.

Oliver Stone’s “W” – Trailer 2
Just incredible.
http://www.movietrailertalk.com/2008/09/oliver-stone-w/