What is your greatest fear?
To live and insignificant life. I don’t need fame or fortune, but to entrapped by the comfortable and mundane and live a life of averages and indifference terrifies me. I am also terrified by the mortality of those I love.
What is your biggest regret?
My biggest regret is all the time I have wasted on my computer. This is not 100% of the time I have spent on the computer, just all the time I have spent not working on meaningful projects or strengthening my relationships with others. This includes but is not limited too almost all the time I have spent playing computer games, most of the time i have spent on reddit, and anytime I am using the internet to avoid things that are scary or exciting like meeting new people and having adventures.
This may seem like a silly regret, but it is the magnitude that scares me. I have easily wasted 20,000 hours of my life on the computer. In this time I could have gotten a PHD, become a world class musician or athlete or mastered any number of trade skills.
Cake or Pie?
Pie. Butter crust ideally. I was a pie smith for a summer and regularly made 120-200 pies in an 8 hour shift working in front of a 9foot tall bread oven. It was awesome.
Sub-question: If cake, one… you are wrong and two… pancake or chocolate cake?
If this is Dan Rowell, your pancakes are wicked awesome. If this is anyone else, chocolate cake is amazing if it is moist and borderline a brownie. Bad pancakes can be saved with syrup, bad chocolate cake is a lost cause.
It pie, congratulations, l will now bake you a pie… apple, peach, coconut meringue, lemon meringue, grasshopper, strawberry, or peach?
I am not sure what the difference is between peach? and peach, but peach pie or apple pie are some of the best pies ever made. If we are having ice-cream then apple cannot be beat. If we are eating the pie by itself, then peach is the better choice for its slightly more complex flavor.
if you could/had to repeat one day over and over for the rest of eternity but you couldn’t change it, what day would it be?
Depends on a few things. Is it a day I have had or a day I can craft? Also, can I change my personal actions overtime as it repeats (like groundhogs day) or will the day simply play as it always does, me acting as an observer from inside my own head?
I will answer all 4 combinations. On a day that has happened and I can’t change any of my reactions I have the toughest time deciding. There are days in North Carolina, RIT, Chicago, and this summer in Cleveland that I would not mind repeating over and over. If I had to chose just one, it would be from this summer. I would relive the day that I learned to rock climb, went for a 24 mile bike ride, went swimming in the fountain on Mall C, had porter chunk ice-cream at the Great Lakes brewery and slept one of the coziest sleeps I have ever slept.
A day that has happened that I could change my personal actions would be any spring Saturday in Cleveland that I woke up at 6am and all my friends where in the country. I believe this happened at least once in my life. I would do this because in these circumstances I would never be more than 9 hours away from all of my friends and could repeat the day over and over adventuring to all of them and learning everything I can about all the parts I never got to know. Then I could explore every major city east of Chicago and a little west, and see and explore some of the nations greatest parks and land marks. Chicago might be a slightly better central hub, but I like the idea of occasionally spending the day at home reading one of my many unread books.
A day I could craft and my reactions could change would be similar but sometime this coming spring when I have a place in Chicago to call home. The ability to feel like I belong where I wake up seems very important to me. Ideally all my friends are in good health that day too.
A day I could craft and once made my personal actions could not change would be a terrible burden and responsibility if I knew it was going to happen. Assuming I could over come the pressure and not bumble through, I would probably pick this coming new years. I intend on making it the kind of day/night that will be worth repeating.
These questions are awesome everyone! Keep them coming!
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
2006-12-06 15:34:00
Sometime between 1am and 3am on Monday-Tuesday night, I was hanging out with my buddy Josh from the sixth floor. We went adventuring for ice cream sandwiches and eventually settled for apple juice and water and eventually settled in the north elevator in Sol. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” I said. “I’m glad I can be with you to do something you’ve always wanted to do,” he said. There were broken white plastic sporks on the floor. We discovered that the north elevator likes to chill on the ninth floor when it’s not in use, and sometimes on the third floor. We discussed how interesting it would be if elevators eventually had artificial intelligence and monitored which floors were most frequently used at what times of day and picked its resting space that way. We talked about 12-mile long machines that shoot atoms at each other, and the wonders of the human mind. Curiosity.
We got off at the ninth floor and rested in their lounge. It was nice to see the campus high up like that, with our noses pressed against the windows. His stayed there long after mine did, matched with a grin, pausing every so often to mumble about how much he loved snow.
“I’m asking everyone this, because that’s what I do, because I’m curious. So I’m asking you, but you don’t have to answer,” he said. “I’ll answer, unless you ask me something ridiculous,” I responded.
“What are your views on God?”
I told him what I thought: that I believe something created us but I don’t chose to associate a name or attributes with it. God is some force, whether intentional or not, that made us, and I’m thankful for it, but I won’t change the way I live (which is a good life anyway) because of it.
He smiled, hung his head back, and sat there. he started talking about how he thinks there are two types of ideas of God. The kind that created, and the kind that has emotions.
“I like to think that whatever God there is has these amazing complex emotions, like contemplative, and indecision, and confusion, and love. But deep down, I don’t think it does,” he said, sadly.
“I like to think that we weren’t an accident, but that’s the human self-centered thing,” I said. “Yeah,” he said.
Then he said something amazing, and deep, and meaningful, and profound. I don’t even want to try to write it, it was beautiful and I don’t want to mess it up. I sat there and felt amazing with what he said. It dealt with God, and humans, and life, and in the end he said, “The most beautiful thing that whatever this God gave us was curiosity.” only he said it more elegantly, and more flowing, and just more.
“Did you just make that up? Just now, those were your own thoughts and ideas?” I asked. “As far as I’m aware, yes,” he responded. “That was beautiful, thank you.” I said, “You have beautiful thoughts.” “You have beautiful thoughts, too,” he said, and laughed a little awkwardly. “No, not like that,” I said. “You have before, don’t worry,” he said.
Then he kicked me off the couch.
Why did you leave RIT?
I left RIT for many reasons. Over all though, I was doing terribly. My GPA was 2.0ish or worse. I was losing my scholarship. I was depressed. I did not know what I was doing with my life. I was making my own crappy major at a highly specialized school. I was wasting my parents money. And, I had lost the vast majority of the faith I had in myself to do well. I gave up on myself and tricked myself into believing Cleveland State is where I belonged. It had the right major and many of my friends had gotten good educations there. I have had a good time, but there are strong tinges of regret.
I loved the people at RIT and I miss it every day. But I was not cut out for that school and would never go back.
What is the best you can imagine for your future?
The best? Oh my, that is a lot of wiggle room. One of the very best endgames I can imagine is that I die a great great great great great grandfather at the ripe old age of 1000. In my time I have found a lovely life partner and all of our children and all of their children (and their children and so on) meet wild success as defined by them on their terms. I have ventured to another planet or two but am retired on my home one. The earth is lush and war seems like a bad joke to my grand-kids, just like when I tell them there was once no internet.
My adventures hopefully would have been many and my contributions to education, science literacy, and the world’s sense of adventure and playfulness have been great. Ideally I have won some sort of competition for the deepest laugh/smile lines and the most adorable old man face, but my body still lets me play with the newest born of my family.
Flight Of The Conchords - Jenny (via asianscion)
I’ve laughed so much at this that my belly is aching.
If I could laugh without pain I probably would be laughing a whole lot more.
I might have posted this before at some point, but I just really want people to see it. This isn’t a routine. This is pure connection, leading, and following. Kevin and Carla have danced together for ages which is why they can pull off something like a slow motion aerial, but that doesn’t make the fact that tiny pulls, pushes, and weight changes communicate all of that. This is, in my opinion, how dancing should be. Not an empty shell of dance you get after so many repetitions so you can parade it around a judge.*
I didn’t realize how much I missed swing dancing until Dan mentioned it last night. I haven’t danced with another person since early September and I can feel it. There just isn’t any dancing to be had in Greensboro, or they’re doing a great job of hiding it. I think they have one every other weekend somewhere but it’s expensive.
On the bright side, Zeke expressed an interest in learning, and he has rhythm already, so it shouldn’t be too tough to get the basics down. And if he learns, others will too. And then I will have people to dance with! It’s all very selfish.
* No offense to anyone who enjoys routines. They certainly have their merits and there are some that i absolutely love, but often they’re boring as hell for me to watch. To each his own, I suppose.
Then start it. your on campus. Get the paper work for a student group. Find out the policy on inviting non students. Find away to work around the policy if it limiting. Get your roommates to sign as interested partners (even if they are not) and do it.
Don’t want to risk fucking with you school? Talk to Tate street coffee or who ever else is a cool establishment. Say once a week or every other week you would like to have dancing here. Negotiate that you will put alot of pressure on for people to drink, and you will find the bands or provide the music.
Someone ought to do this and you just happen to be someone.
“Well science doesn’t know everything.”
“Well, science knows it doesn’t know everything, otherwise it would stop.”
Science is not an idea. It is a process.
And this guy is side splitting hilarious.
asymptotic is my new science tumblr. I will soon stop reblogging every post except for th emost widely appealing. If you love the stuff I find on science I recomend following asymptotic. If you like just a little does of science, just stay tuned to this tumblr.
with love.
Stop What You’re Doing And Watch The Very Pit Of Hell Out Of This of the Day: Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) speaks out in favor of same-sex marriage ahead of today’s failed vote in the New York Senate.
Well put, got goosebumps at the end. Why can’t more people just get it?
i’m mad it didn’t pass. i’m mad we’re sending more troops. i’m mad as hell and i’m not going to take it anymore.
In 10 years these laws and amendments will seem as awful and bigoted as Jim Crow laws seem to us now. Though it is simply pathetic and disgusting and damning of America that it will take 10 years or more.
