It's Not a Blog

Because no one will read this

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:43:57 -0500

Why am I writing this? Because I wanted to write somewhere that technically anyone could read it, but realistically no one will. I am writing this because I have so much to get off my chest and have no one I can tell it to. And I don’t even care if I end my sentences in prepositions.

Tonight, I’m really feeling that I don’t *really* have anyone I can talk to about anything, and that no one can *really* talk to me about absolutely anything. It’s jot that Jo one would listen to me, or that I wouldn’t listen to anyone else, but rather that I don’t know if there’s anyone I can open up to. Perhaps I could text at least one person about anything, but she’s probably asleep and it would be way too weird to text someone I’m the middle of the night about your huge issues, especially if they have stuff to do in the morning and you don’t want to put them in such an awkward position at 5 am. Plus, what the hell kind of catharsis its texting supposed to provide, anyway?

I promised myself that this would be long and that I would just say everything, so I am currently topping this almost pointless sentence.

I am supposed to be giving the talk tomorrow night at young life, but I rely don’t know how I’m supposed to do that. I was having so much trouble coming up with ideas and I asked my mom to help jr come up with some. I know shew was trying to help, but she kept going on and on about an idea that I’d already said I wouldn’t use. This wouldn’t really be a problem because she was trying to give context about what kind of thing would possibly be useful from her idea, but she completely distracted me when I was getting close to coming up with an idea.

I feel like everyone has abandoned me.

Anyway, this greatly irritated me because it completely detailed me more every second and I could not get her to stop.

It’s as though everyone who I thought I could count on to talk to had decided at the same time that it’s better to ignore me than to put up with all of the probably annoying things that I do or say. And, of course, it’s right when I really need them more than any other recent time that I can think of. No explanation, no responses. I feel foolish for having previously thought that perhaps things were starting to look up a but more, despite not doing as well add I feel I should in school. I feel life I will always be helpless and alone; stuck apart from everyone I know. Good night, for now.

Warning, possible spoiler alert for Lost (Written, but not finished in March/April/May 2011 or thereabouts)

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:47:24 -0600

I just finished watching the series finale of Lost. It was truly a great experience. I can’t believe that I’ve finally finished watching the show. I watched the first part of the pilot when it first aired, and even though I liked it, for some reason I decided to not watch the second part. After a couple seasons I knew that I wanted to watch the show a bunch, but I knew it would be a bad idea to start watching the show in the middle of the series, so I never did. Last fall, I saw that Lost was on Hulu so I started with the first part of the pilot, which I had already watched twice, actually. After getting sick of the repetitive commercials on Hulu, I decided that I would…download the rest of the series. What I downloaded was seasons one through five. Ended up being great that I didn’t download season six, too. Anyway, that fall I started watching the series and I got through part of the third season, at which point I got caught up with some other things and stopped watching for a while. When I did start watching again, I got so into it that I watched the rest of season three and all of seasons four and five in a matter of days. What was great about that decision was that those episodes took place over much less time than the previous seasons (except for the sudden three-year gap), so the original episodes seemed soooo long ago (even though it had only been a matter of months), and things that happened at the end of season three seemed like they were so recent. It was really crazy. Once I got to season five, I knew I had to get season six soon. But when you watch a whole season in a day or two, you don’t do much else (including clicking “download”), so I ended up with nothing to do after I finished season five. That left me with a decision: break the law some more or purchase the $150 box set of the complete series. Which, of course, meant that I needed to buy the box set and have all that stuff. That was a great decision. It allowed me to start watching the first season with my mom, of all people; I got to watch the finale on a TV with my sister (who is adamantly opposed to the thought of watching Lost). I have been watching a documentary of the cast and crew of the show at the end of the last season. Just before that, I watched a short doc on the music of the finale. It is so weird (I want to call it surreal, but I don’t want to use the same word the actors used to describe their experience, mine can’t be equal to theirs) to watch all this about it being over, and it is just so sad to hear the music being played for the last time and to kind end the series with the actors. It really wants me just want to be a part of something like that.

whatis love: A sample bash shell script to give the whatis command over 9000 times more awesome

Wed, 18 May 2011 20:43:00 -0500

This is a script that will output lyrics from the song “What is Love?” when a user enters

$ whatis love

Of course, there are many other ways to make this happen, and most of them are probably better than my way :D The edit I made to the regular source for the command is in bold italics.

Here’s the code:

#!/bin/sh

program=`basename $0`

# When man pages in your favorite locale look to grep like binary files
# (and you use GNU grep) you may want to add the ‘a’ option to *grepopt1.
aproposgrepopt1=’ai’
aproposgrepopt2=”
whatisgrepopt1=’aiw’
whatisgrepopt2=’^’
grepopt1=$whatisgrepopt1
grepopt2=$whatisgrepopt2

if [ $# = 0 ]
then
    echo “usage: $program keyword …”
    exit 1
fi

manpath=`man —path | tr : ‘\040’`

if [ “$manpath” = “” ]
then
    echo “$program: manpath is null”
    exit 1
fi

args=
for arg in $*; do
    case $arg in
        —version|-V|-v)
        echo “$program from man-1.6f”
        exit 0
        ;;
    —help|-h)
            echo “usage: $program keyword …”
        exit 0
        ;;
    -*)
        echo “$program: $arg: unknown option”
        exit 1
        ;;
    *)
        args=”$args $arg”
    esac
done

if [ “$1” = “love” ]
then
    echo “baby don’t hurt me”
    echo “don’t hurt me”
    echo “no more”
    exit
fi

while [ “$1” != “” ]
do
    found=0
    for d in /var/cache/man $manpath /usr/lib
    do
        if [ -f $d/whatis ]
        then
            if grep -“$grepopt1” “$grepopt2”“$1” $d/whatis
            then
                found=1
# Some people are satisfied with a single occurrence
# But it is better to give all
#               break
            fi
        fi
    done

    if [ $found = 0 ]
    then
        echo “whatis $1: nothing appropriate”
    fi

    shift
done

exit

Profundity of things that aren't really profound

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:26:25 -0600

A lot of times, it annoys me when people try to infuse a kick of profundity into what they say. Usually there’s nothing profound about what they’re saying, just something that seems illogical in some way. Often, it only seems like that because the human brain is highly illogical. We rely on things like Vulcans and androids and Hermione Granger to have a good understanding of logic (thank God for Leonard, Brent, and, most importantly, Emma Watson).

I do like when things are profound that aren’t really profound. In case you couldn’t tell from the title. One such thing that I saw recently was a church sign that simply read, “Return.” Now, one of the first things I noticed about the sign was that it is at least a little funny that the sign said just that. It’s the specific word that makes it funny, as if it’s issuing a command. Now I could relate this to our rebellion against God by equating the pharisees to Clu, going against the meaning commands issued by his, and Jesus to Tron, but I won’t. Although that could be funny.

The sign was, pardon my Young Life-ness, profound in its simplicity. It was also beautiful and intentional (now I’m *so* Young Life). But its profundity really was evident through its simplicity. The sign didn’t say, “Return to church!” or anything that forced its meaning. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all New Age-y and say that everone is right and it doesn’t really matter what you believe, just that you do! The simplicity of the sign expresses the simplicity of its message: just return. Return to the most basic of foundations; return to what is simple: God. And the only way to return is through Jesus. The complexity in the simplicity is astounding—so much flows from so little. Is that overly profound? If it is, sue me. I’m a hypocrite just like you.

Words I like

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:26:17 -0600

Profundity

This ain't a blog, it's a gosh-darned arms race

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:26:11 -0600

Just kidding, Fall Out Boy is terrible. This actually *is* a blog. But I’ve never been a big fan of the whole blog thing, they seem too narcissistic to me. That’s why I’m thinking about this as more of an online journal than my way of voicing my voice to the masses. Because who cares what I have to say? I’m not even sure that I care about what I’m saying right now. Maybe I’m just rationalizing and I actually do want you to read this. Maybe this will become the most-read blog in the universe and I will be deluded and think it’s still only me paying attention. Oh well, time to start my online journal/notebook (that’s for you McAdams and Gosling). Let the profundity begin! Because forced profundity is the point of blogs, right?

P.S. I like the word profundity. It sounds funny. Also I heard the word somewhere so I decided to use it. Or maybe I read it. Who knows?