That's hardly anything new, is it? Well, not if you know me at all, that is.
Anyway, I'm still conflicted as to whether or not me being drunk is a good thing or not. In general, it's a terribly bad thing, but that also means I'm having fun which is about three quarters of what I care about life, right?
Well, wrong. I think. If I was trying to maximise my profits on enjoyment on life, such that I would have to enjoy all of my later life and therefore have no life whatsoever during my university years, then I would totally be on the wrong track right at this moment. Because I would be enjoying myself when all of my reasonable state of mind says I shouldn't be.
So today's lesson is about BALANCE.
This is, arguably, the single most important lesson there is to learn. Balance is EVERYTHING.
And EVERYTHING mean almost everything. This is the point where I go in to feng shui and all that, but the central idea you need to keep in mind is that everything you do has consequences. And all of those consequences are balanced in some way by the universe. In general, you can sum a lot of this up through Newton's third law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
This means, if you do something which benefits you in the short term, then it will ultimately hinder you in the long run. Furthermore, something which might not seem at the time to be a wise choice might ultimately result in a greater position for yourself later on.
Okay, I'll be the first to admit that Newton's Laws were meant for physical applications rather than moral ones. But the point still stands that everything that comes around, goes around. In a very much more verbose fashion, but still.
So yeah. Balance. Balance in everything you do, say and think. That's what it all comes down to. If you have no balance then <insert weird crazy zen talk here> and you will never find true happiness.
Trufax.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Monday, 15 April 2013
Monday, 8 April 2013
50th Post, Whoo!
...And of course there's no better time to make it than when I really really should be studying for a Calculus test tomorrow.
But you know, fuck Calculus and all that whatnot.
I'd like to point out that this blog has actually been going since October 2011, meaning that I've had it for just under a year and a half. In those 36 months I've managed to rack up an average of just over one and a third posts per month, which means one post every 23 days or so. Of course, that's just an average and is totally ignoring that time I did like three in one day because I was bored as fuck, or when I actually managed to post one every day for a week and a bit. Or even for the last two months when I've just posted a bunch because I actually bookmarked Blogger so I don't go forgetting about the fact that I even have a blog in the first place.
That said, for all my many many posts, there's surprisingly little actual content. I'm convinced a good third or more of all my posts are all just made when I was bored and figured I should just make posts because it might alleviate the boredom for a bit.... kind of like right now! How about that.
...Okay I actually don't have anything to say. I feel like I should make a big deal over the fact that after all this time, I've finally managed to hit a half century in posts, but in light of the fact that a decent majority of those are kind of content- and/or meaning-free, it doesn't feel like all that much of an achievement. It's honestly more impressive that I've kept at it for this long.
Well, that's it, I guess. Not much to say really. Maybe I'll do something more celebratory-like later on.
But you know, fuck Calculus and all that whatnot.
I'd like to point out that this blog has actually been going since October 2011, meaning that I've had it for just under a year and a half. In those 36 months I've managed to rack up an average of just over one and a third posts per month, which means one post every 23 days or so. Of course, that's just an average and is totally ignoring that time I did like three in one day because I was bored as fuck, or when I actually managed to post one every day for a week and a bit. Or even for the last two months when I've just posted a bunch because I actually bookmarked Blogger so I don't go forgetting about the fact that I even have a blog in the first place.
That said, for all my many many posts, there's surprisingly little actual content. I'm convinced a good third or more of all my posts are all just made when I was bored and figured I should just make posts because it might alleviate the boredom for a bit.... kind of like right now! How about that.
...Okay I actually don't have anything to say. I feel like I should make a big deal over the fact that after all this time, I've finally managed to hit a half century in posts, but in light of the fact that a decent majority of those are kind of content- and/or meaning-free, it doesn't feel like all that much of an achievement. It's honestly more impressive that I've kept at it for this long.
Well, that's it, I guess. Not much to say really. Maybe I'll do something more celebratory-like later on.
Monday, 1 April 2013
Contiki Chronicles, Day 11: Machine Optional
Day 11 was a good day, if I may say so myself. I bought a belt.
Anyway, this was the day we got to explore Florence! We started outside some cathedral and/or church dedicated to some saint or something, and from there we walked down an alleyway (of which there are many in Florence) to this place:
Leonardo Leather Works. If the name doesn't give it away, they make leather and leather products. While inside, we got a brief talk on all things leather, before they sent us into the shop to buy some of their many many leather products.
Leather is pretty cool stuff, by the way. I mean, what is there to NOT like about dead cow skin, treated in chemicals until it's suitable to be worn as a jacket or belt?
...I might sound like I'm bitter or something, but in reality I don't actually care that much. But I did get some good tips on how to tell fake leather for real leather. Or at least, in Florence, anyway. Y'see, Florence is kind of famous for its leather, and where you get really good quality stuff of anything, you can also get really crappy knock-off stuff of the same thing. Hence the streets of Florence are filled with hawkers trying to sell fake leather goods to Tourists by claiming they're real leather. This is actually illegal (or at least I'm pretty sure it is), so it's kind of funny watching them all scatter when a cop shows up.
Anyway, the city of Florence has a number of laws in place to help deal with these people. For example, every leather product in the city has to be labelled (read: burnt into the leather itself) as such, and to label something as leather when it is, in fact, NOT leather is as crime. The hawkers get around this by getting strips of real leather, branding them, and slipping them inside the pockets of fake leather garments. Since the strip is technically a separate object, they can claim that it's real leather without (technically) breaking any laws.
Another thing the hawkers do in their pursuit of forcing fake leather goods upon hapless tourists is that they move around the city every single day, so that they're never in the same spot when your new leather jacket falls apart at the seams and you try to go back for a refund. In the same way, you can tell that if the shop you're buying stuff from has wheels, it's probably selling you fake merchandise. The only way to be sure you're getting real proper leather is if the store is, say, AN ACTUAL BUILDING, and preferably if the brand has some guarantee that they've been making leather for seventeen generations or something, so you can probably assume that they know their shit.
Two more things about fake leather: Suede (the underside of leather) is actually impossible to replicate, so if you can find any of that on your product, then it's most likely real. That's not as easy as it sounds, though, because most products have the Suede on the inside to protect it, and because the outside is the better part anyway. So if you cut open a leather jacket to find it and you find that it actually is real leather... well, you've just made a massive hole in a perfectly good leather jacket.
The other thing that they'll try to do when trying to get you to buy fake leather goods is they'll claim that real leather doesn't burn, pull out a lighter, and then demonstrate by trying to burn their apparently "real" jacket. Just so you know: THIS IS A MYTH. LEATHER IS MADE OUT OF DEAD COWS AND DEAD COWS ARE HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. Furthermore, fake leather burns as well. What they're doing when they pull out the lighter is that they never hold it over one spot on the leather for long enough that it will catch fire. If they ever try to scam you this way, ask if you can give it a try. Chances are they'll say no. Plus, if they say yes, then you can have fun burning fake leather.
Anyway, that's enough about leather. I left that shop with my brand new leather belt in tow, and then we headed over into one of the main-ish squares in Florence: Piazza della Signoria (thank you, Google maps). This is where we started our city walking tour of Florence (or Firenze, as it is called in Italian - although I'm pretty sure that's also the name of a centaur from Harry Potter). Anyway, he was telling us the history of the city, and I've mostly forgotten it by now. I do remember that the entire city, back in the day, was one of the more powerful city-states in Italy, because the people here kind of invented banking and were therefore really rich. That let them bring in a lot of artisans and whatnot from all over the place and the entire city prospered. There were also a bunch of really famous Florentines, and there's a square lined with statues of a whole heap of them, such as this guy:
Yeah, that's right. GALILEO GALILEI. YOU KNOW, THE FAMOUS GUY? YEAH, HIM.
Oh, and the only other one I got a photo of was Machiavelli, because I freakin' love the look of pure evil on his face in that statue:
Anyway, this was the day we got to explore Florence! We started outside some cathedral and/or church dedicated to some saint or something, and from there we walked down an alleyway (of which there are many in Florence) to this place:
Leonardo Leather Works. If the name doesn't give it away, they make leather and leather products. While inside, we got a brief talk on all things leather, before they sent us into the shop to buy some of their many many leather products.
Leather is pretty cool stuff, by the way. I mean, what is there to NOT like about dead cow skin, treated in chemicals until it's suitable to be worn as a jacket or belt?
...I might sound like I'm bitter or something, but in reality I don't actually care that much. But I did get some good tips on how to tell fake leather for real leather. Or at least, in Florence, anyway. Y'see, Florence is kind of famous for its leather, and where you get really good quality stuff of anything, you can also get really crappy knock-off stuff of the same thing. Hence the streets of Florence are filled with hawkers trying to sell fake leather goods to Tourists by claiming they're real leather. This is actually illegal (or at least I'm pretty sure it is), so it's kind of funny watching them all scatter when a cop shows up.
Anyway, the city of Florence has a number of laws in place to help deal with these people. For example, every leather product in the city has to be labelled (read: burnt into the leather itself) as such, and to label something as leather when it is, in fact, NOT leather is as crime. The hawkers get around this by getting strips of real leather, branding them, and slipping them inside the pockets of fake leather garments. Since the strip is technically a separate object, they can claim that it's real leather without (technically) breaking any laws.
Another thing the hawkers do in their pursuit of forcing fake leather goods upon hapless tourists is that they move around the city every single day, so that they're never in the same spot when your new leather jacket falls apart at the seams and you try to go back for a refund. In the same way, you can tell that if the shop you're buying stuff from has wheels, it's probably selling you fake merchandise. The only way to be sure you're getting real proper leather is if the store is, say, AN ACTUAL BUILDING, and preferably if the brand has some guarantee that they've been making leather for seventeen generations or something, so you can probably assume that they know their shit.
Two more things about fake leather: Suede (the underside of leather) is actually impossible to replicate, so if you can find any of that on your product, then it's most likely real. That's not as easy as it sounds, though, because most products have the Suede on the inside to protect it, and because the outside is the better part anyway. So if you cut open a leather jacket to find it and you find that it actually is real leather... well, you've just made a massive hole in a perfectly good leather jacket.
The other thing that they'll try to do when trying to get you to buy fake leather goods is they'll claim that real leather doesn't burn, pull out a lighter, and then demonstrate by trying to burn their apparently "real" jacket. Just so you know: THIS IS A MYTH. LEATHER IS MADE OUT OF DEAD COWS AND DEAD COWS ARE HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. Furthermore, fake leather burns as well. What they're doing when they pull out the lighter is that they never hold it over one spot on the leather for long enough that it will catch fire. If they ever try to scam you this way, ask if you can give it a try. Chances are they'll say no. Plus, if they say yes, then you can have fun burning fake leather.
Anyway, that's enough about leather. I left that shop with my brand new leather belt in tow, and then we headed over into one of the main-ish squares in Florence: Piazza della Signoria (thank you, Google maps). This is where we started our city walking tour of Florence (or Firenze, as it is called in Italian - although I'm pretty sure that's also the name of a centaur from Harry Potter). Anyway, he was telling us the history of the city, and I've mostly forgotten it by now. I do remember that the entire city, back in the day, was one of the more powerful city-states in Italy, because the people here kind of invented banking and were therefore really rich. That let them bring in a lot of artisans and whatnot from all over the place and the entire city prospered. There were also a bunch of really famous Florentines, and there's a square lined with statues of a whole heap of them, such as this guy:
Yeah, that's right. GALILEO GALILEI. YOU KNOW, THE FAMOUS GUY? YEAH, HIM.
Oh, and the only other one I got a photo of was Machiavelli, because I freakin' love the look of pure evil on his face in that statue:
Other famous Florentines include Dante (of Inferno fame), Da Vinci (you know, the guy with the code) and Michelangelo (Otherwise known as the dude with the really sore back from painting ceilings all day).
Anyway, I actually can't remember a lot of the history of Florence. Maybe it just wasn't interesting enough for me to remember. Well, whatever. We saw a bunch of really cool stuff, such as this one area which had been bombed in WW1, and was now almost completely rebuilt. And this one bridge which is completely covered with shops and pickpockets and tourists. And finally the Duomo of Florence, which is basically this one ridiculously massive (and I mean MASSIVE) cathedral in the middle of this huge square which as nothing but the Cathedral in it.
Seriously, this thing is huge. Like, it takes ten minutes to walk from one end to the other. I'm not even sure of the reason why it's so ridiculously massive. It just is. This is the FRONT side:
So, after the very enlightening and exciting walking tour of the city in which I learnt an immeasurable amount about the city and its history, we were given the rest of the day to explore. This one other guy and I made it our mission to hunt down the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum. Which we did, after much searching. It was down an alley at the ass end of the Duomo, and it was marked by a single sign that we missed the first time we saw it. Inside though, was pretty cool. We paid like €5 to get in, and then spent the next hour or two looking at wooden productions of a bunch of Da Vinci's sketches.
Here are some pictures:
...Okay, that's a lot of pictures. But, in order, they are (or at least, I'm pretty sure they are): Horse drawn plow/harvesting mechanism, Some kind of crank-powered boat, A FREAKIN TANK, attempt at a flying machine, some kind of wood-cutting thing, a ball-bearing thing (like the sorts they put in roller blade wheels, except bigger and made of wood), something I'm pretty sure was a crane of some description, A GODDAMN CANNON, Another attempt at a flying machine, wind powered boat (which may have also flown, who the fuck knows?), a frame for another flying machine (with bonus wooden man), and the coolest damn clock I've ever seen. Seriously, pictures don't do that clock justice. I'll see if I can dig out the video I took of it at some point.
So yeah, Da Vinci designed a lot of stuff. Like, a hell of a lot of stuff. And some of it actually worked.
After that productive hour or two, we headed back to the square where we started the walking tour - Piazza della Signoria. Why? Because there were a bunch of statues in that square, and I didn't get any photos of them. I still didn't actually, except for one. One of a very, VERY famous statue:
Michelangelo's David (WARNING: NUDITY BELOW).
So yeah. It's a statue by Michelangelo, and it is called David. Hence, Michelangelo's David. As one would assume, it is in fact a statue of David, from the Bible.
Although... this isn't actually the real statue. The ACTUAL statue of David is in a museum with a ridiculous line that you have to pay to get in to and you're not allowed to take photos. So that's why I'm not complaining that this is in fact a fake statue.
Oh, and you know when I said I only took one photo?
I lied.
Because I'm secretly 12 years old like that.
(I actually really, REALLY want to just end this post there, like that. But alas, more things happened that day. It's almost over though. I swear.)
So after our day in Florence, there were three things: A photo shoot from a lookout point above the city, dinner, and then a trip to Space Electronic Discothèque, the biggest Nightclub in Florence. Dinner was alright, but the Nightclub was pretty crazy. I drank some unholy number of Long Island Ice Tea's, and also introduced myself to the B-52 shot - equal parts Bailey's, Kahlua and Grand Mariner. Goooood stuff. Also works well as a cocktail.
I got a bunch of photos from the night, but a rather disconcertingly large number of them are of one of my friends hooking up with this one chick (who he actually met the night before, and spent the night at her place). I think the one which sums up the night the most is this one here:
I don't know, but there's something about that photo which perfectly encapsulates everything there is about going to a nightclub.
I think I'll leave it there for tonight. I got home safely and slept fairly well. Day 12 should come along eventually.
Friday, 29 March 2013
Contiki Chronicles, Day 10: ITALY!
At long last, I finally decided to get off my ass and start writing these things again. Although by this point it's been almost 9 months since all the stuff happened, so my recollection may be a little... rusty.
Anyway.
Day 10 started with us leaving Antibes and heading south. After some amount of driving, we exited France, and crossed over into Italy. Our destination? Just a little city in the more northerly part of Italy, by the name of Florence.
But first, a stopover to gaze in amazement and awe at one specific tower.
A little note about Pisa: The place is famous for its Leaning Tower. But something that isn't as well known about the place is that there is LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE TO DO THERE. Seriously. You go in, check out the tower, take the obligatory photos with you in weird poses and then get the hell out because that place is hot as fuck.
Speaking of photos:
Anyway.
Day 10 started with us leaving Antibes and heading south. After some amount of driving, we exited France, and crossed over into Italy. Our destination? Just a little city in the more northerly part of Italy, by the name of Florence.
But first, a stopover to gaze in amazement and awe at one specific tower.
A little note about Pisa: The place is famous for its Leaning Tower. But something that isn't as well known about the place is that there is LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE TO DO THERE. Seriously. You go in, check out the tower, take the obligatory photos with you in weird poses and then get the hell out because that place is hot as fuck.
Speaking of photos:
I don't know what you're talking about. Clearly that tower isn't leaning at all. It's just everything else is.
Okay seriously though, there's the tower. Now you don't need to go all the way over to Pisa to see it. When they built it, the city was basically doing it to show off their wealth. But what I gather happened is that they just so happened to build it on the worst possible place, and with improper foundations. Meaning that when they were three quarters of the way through building it, it started to lean. They kept building it though, and you can see that the upper floors are sort of angled in regards to the floors below them.
There's also this big ass lawn out the front that you're not allowed to step on, meaning that the road becomes clogged with tourists, and every twenty minutes a Police Officer and/or Security Guard has to come and yell at people for being on the lawn and doing stupid shit like this:
Yeah, that's a human pyramid in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, because why the fuck not? I think making stupid poses in front of the tower is sort of like the unofficial pastime of the entire City, and all tourists are required by law to pick it up whilst in the city. Which is why I discovered a hobby of taking photos of people in stupid stances from a totally different angle, without the tower in the background. Kind of like this:
Because it cracks me up the amount of stupid shit people will do if they can get a photo of it.
Oh, and here's another photo of the tower, because why not.
It's seriously not leaning at all. I don't get this country.
After lunch, we cleared that hell hole of a city, and got back on the bus and after much more driving, arrived at our destination.
Now, Florence is a pretty cool city. But we'll get to that tomorrow, because that's when all the stuff we actually did in Florence happened. That night, we went to a karaoke bar, I drank a 2 litre jug of Long Island Ice Tea almost entirely by myself, and ended up not being as drunk as I'd expect, but still pretty drunk. That was a good night.
I'll try to update some time between now and three months from now with day 11.
Monday, 25 March 2013
Monday, 18 March 2013
Stimulate me!
Totally not changing that post title.
Anyway, I'm making a post. On my blog.
Madness.
I often find myself struggling for things to put on this blog. I kind of know why, as well - I use writing as a means of organising my thoughts - putting them down somewhere so that they're on the page instead of running around inside my head. On top of that, the act of writing, of creating meaning through words, is what helps me to understand a lot of things. My brain is a messy and confused place, so it's not really the ideal workspace to try and sort through the various conundrums that constitute my life. The problem is that whenever I have something I want to say, I generally have other avenues to pursue in order to thrust those words out of my mind.
The other thing is that I think I may have left the purpose of this blog a bit too intentionally vague. Well, vague and/or non-existent. I don't really have any good reason for making a blog; anything that I want to say desperately enough, I have other places to put them. You'll notice I usually begin my posts with either "This has been on my mind for a while..." or "I guess I should probably write something, but I have no idea what." Or words to those effects. The thing is that I fail at spontaneously coming up with things. I need some sort of stimulus for me to get the ball rolling, and then only after that does the whole writing process happen. My thought processes are reactive, not proactive. And I'm not too sure if that's a problem or not.
So, I've decided that I need some sort of stimulus for my posts. I suppose I could pick a random word every day and write a post based off of it, like a certain other blog I know, but that just doesn't seem right to me. Instead, I'm turning to you guys - all 20 of my followers (although I'm fairly sure most of that 20 probably haven't checked the blog in months, if not longer). What I want you to do, is comment on this post with a sentence, or a word, or some other kind of stimulus, and if I feel up to it, I'll choose one and write something using that stimulus. It may be some kind of short story, or a bunch of random musings, or a haiku... basically whatever I feel like doing at the time. Please, though, don't ask for anything like "You should write about..." or "What are your thoughts on...". Nothing like that. The stimulus has to be able to stand by itself as an entirely separate entity to the fact that I'm going to write about it. That's the only condition I have, so get commenting!
Anyway, I'm making a post. On my blog.
Madness.
I often find myself struggling for things to put on this blog. I kind of know why, as well - I use writing as a means of organising my thoughts - putting them down somewhere so that they're on the page instead of running around inside my head. On top of that, the act of writing, of creating meaning through words, is what helps me to understand a lot of things. My brain is a messy and confused place, so it's not really the ideal workspace to try and sort through the various conundrums that constitute my life. The problem is that whenever I have something I want to say, I generally have other avenues to pursue in order to thrust those words out of my mind.
The other thing is that I think I may have left the purpose of this blog a bit too intentionally vague. Well, vague and/or non-existent. I don't really have any good reason for making a blog; anything that I want to say desperately enough, I have other places to put them. You'll notice I usually begin my posts with either "This has been on my mind for a while..." or "I guess I should probably write something, but I have no idea what." Or words to those effects. The thing is that I fail at spontaneously coming up with things. I need some sort of stimulus for me to get the ball rolling, and then only after that does the whole writing process happen. My thought processes are reactive, not proactive. And I'm not too sure if that's a problem or not.
So, I've decided that I need some sort of stimulus for my posts. I suppose I could pick a random word every day and write a post based off of it, like a certain other blog I know, but that just doesn't seem right to me. Instead, I'm turning to you guys - all 20 of my followers (although I'm fairly sure most of that 20 probably haven't checked the blog in months, if not longer). What I want you to do, is comment on this post with a sentence, or a word, or some other kind of stimulus, and if I feel up to it, I'll choose one and write something using that stimulus. It may be some kind of short story, or a bunch of random musings, or a haiku... basically whatever I feel like doing at the time. Please, though, don't ask for anything like "You should write about..." or "What are your thoughts on...". Nothing like that. The stimulus has to be able to stand by itself as an entirely separate entity to the fact that I'm going to write about it. That's the only condition I have, so get commenting!
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