unbibium

why did women ever associate with us in the first place? even before all this bullshit, men have always been totally gross. There's been a lot of dudes whining about "why does HE deserve a girlfriend but not ME" but i pose the question, do any of us deserve anyone? have any of us ever? has all of heterosexuality just been a bunch of trickery and manipulation?

there's a thing that programmers and engineers do where they have a problem they can't solve, and they ask a colleague for help, but while they're explaining the problem aloud for the first time, a solution occurs to them. Sometimes they feel bad for bothering someone for no reason, or want to streamline that process, so some of them buy a rubber duck, to whom they can explain problems aloud.

Rubber ducks will also listen to personal problems, so I hope to avoid bothering my friends with trivial angst matters in future. and I wish I'd thought of this ten years ago. Or even two months ago would have been great.

At this age, when I need to reach out to a friend for help, I might pick someone who's known me long enough to be totally sick of my bullshit and jeopardize that friendship. Or, as always, I might pick someone who takes the opportunity to unload their own bullshit that I'm not ready for. With some people, I realized too late that I always felt worse after I talked to them. Some people act really supportive and demand I call them on the phone and it turns out they're high and incoherent.

I already reach out to friends way less often than I want to, maybe I'll be able to put forth the permanent illusion of self-sufficiency that society demands of me.

when I was in high school my physics teacher suggested I join the chess club. I thought I was too unpopular and joining the chess club would just make it worse. so I didn't spend high school getting better at chess or learning how to compete...

and my brother made fun of Star Trek and I wanted to downplay my fandom so I told him he could shoot me in the head if I learned Klingon. so I didn't learn Klingon even when I was messing around with languages in college.

and there's a bunch of stuff I didn't get into because it would put me in a group that people didn't like.

don't do that, people. there's no payoff. You'll still be weird, you'll just be a less interesting variant of weird.

video: Patton Oswalt at Un-Cabaret talking about how he met his wife

Alice Oswalt would never have been born if it weren't for one socially aware non-nerd, functioning as Patton's prosthetic courage.

I can't help but wonder how many big obvious opportunities I've missed because there was no Greg Behrendt next to me when it happened. At best, there's a Brian Posehn next to me who's too busy talking about his own nerd stuff to notice my situation. At worst, there's a Dane Cook who swoops in and takes her for himself.

So, there are a scant few events that get people to watch broadcast TV in the numbers they used to. The last one I remember tuning into myself was the Peanuts Halloween Special, which was followed up by another Peanuts special to fill up the hour. And after events like that, and the Super Bowl, naturally they're going to showcase some original programming. Except..... all original programming is heavy post-9/11 bleak cynicism. The show that followed Peanuts was a carefully broadcast-edited scene that cold-opened a show called "Scandal," naturally about corruption in the federal government. The show that followed the Super Bowl is about secret prisons and torture and supervillains and spies and also torture.

It made me think about how that sex scene that played over the squashed credits of the Peanuts special, was explicit enough to probably raise uncomfortable questions from children, but zoomed-in and implicit enough that teenagers wouldn't be sexually aroused by it. And how post-9/11 spy stuff always, always, always feeds the "Torture Totally Works, Guys" assumption that Jack Bauer popularized so that we could get all that non-information out of those Gitmo detainees.

It's giving me serious don't-want-to-live-on-this-planet feelings.

my reaction to this stuff... is that one of the things that's been wrong with me? Am I supposed to be feeling some sense of satisfaction? I sat through the whole episode. There was more torture, a bunch of different spy agencies betraying each other, a code-named chunk of information that's worth more than human lives, and a cliffhanger that took the form of an explosion. Is this what normal entertainment is? If I made myself learn to like it, would people relate to me better?

after that is news coverage of all the crowds of people just milling around on the OUTSIDE of sports bars at Westgate. These are the people who clogged up traffic on the 101. And of course they're talking about post-9/11 security too. Naturally the Seahawks fans who missed the first quarter because of a small bag attributed it to security, and not the stadium's unassailable right to make money on food. again, is this what normal people do? Go into traffic and stand outside a bar 50 feet away from a flat-screen TV for six hours? Is this the society I'm trying to integrate myself into?

NBC thursday is the next episode of that spy thing, followed by the premiere episode of another spy thing, this one with Russians. because everything is betrayal. No wonder it's impossible to keep friends, this is what people are being trained to be like.

Coming to the arts district in central Phoenix is like a miniature vacation to Seattle. There's a little coffee place I always go to, and they're in the middle of widening the sidewalks, and I run into old friends sometimes. I feel human again when I'm down here.

That doesn't mean I'm completely immune to cognitive black holes when I'm down here. Normally I use the change of setting to get bits of actual work done. Today I have an internal distraction that I need to clear up first...

This morning I went to Songbird in downtown Phoenix again. I filled out my unemployment form for the week and went through a few chapters of a node.js book.

I was expecting to see Elizabeth there and have I've her homemade waffles but neither were there, so I just had tea.

There was a young woman there at my table who I didn't talk to, and that was kind of the right call because she was waiting for her family. I overheard she was 20 and studying in Seattle abd talked about Battlestar Galactica but got character names wrong.

Another woman came by and ordered the same kind if tea I did and sat at my table. I remarked that she got the same tea as I did, abd was using the same laptop. We made a little small talk. It was refreshing.

then I went to Short Leash having chicken and waffles. I made some more small talk with an elderly couple. I wrote most of this down after my food arrived, so I wouldn't forget I had a good morning.

unfortunately this all cost money. Not a lot of money, but more than I'd have spent if I'd just stayed home. But the isolation was getting to be too much, especially with all the noise in the neighborhood last night.

did a lot of dreaming. Did a lot of thinking while dreaming.

In fact, I pondered the nature of consciousness while I was unconscious.

I grieved for lost friends. So many lost friends.

The job interview went well. Just my luck I'll get the job with the 71-minute commute.

ASU called me back for another one but I don't think it's much of a fit...

should call Larry and ask what the deal is with Limelight...