Let's try something new

Since the year 2006 is quickly approaching I thought I'd suggest we play a game in the new year. It's called "Find Dave a date". That should in no way be construed as sounding desperate. In fact, I tend to do quite well by myself. I've had a lot of time to practice. I just thought I'd take the dating world for a little spin and see how it suited me. So, if you know anyone who's available, in Houston, let me know.

And speaking of ridiculous things, there's a commercial they play down here in Texas that I need make everyone aware of. Perhaps you've seen something similar. I don't know, but it's the apex of ridicularity (yes, I invented a new word) that should be identified as such. Every city I've lived in has always been overrun with poorly produced public access commercials for desperate lawyers looking to get your lawsuit and provide settlements for car crashes and other such accidents. Opportunists of a sort and as much credibility as the televangelist who sells "miracle holy water".

Speaking of religion, it's no secret that Houston (and Texas in general) is rather strong on the religion front, especially in the form of Christianity. I can't explain why the Jews and the Muslims decided not to migrate towards the Gulf State but that's beside the point. What I find so absolutely fascinating is the telelawyer (another word I inventd) firm that prides itself on being "a good Christian law firm". Huh?

Apparantly your faith in Christ determines your quality as a lawyer. That's not a knock on Christian lawyers. I just don't see how religion has anything to do with procticing American law. Do you?

Stick a fork in me...

I know a girl who "loooooves" her pets.

I had a friend in college who claims that if you're going to sodomize a sheep (or barnyard animal of your choice) you're better off doing it up in the loft of a barn. Just push that sucker to the edge and it'll push back, afraid it's going to fall off.

We always hoped he was joking about that.

That's about all my brain can come up with at 4 a.m.

Happy Thought of the Day/Morning: Last shift of the week...unless you count the half day I'm putting in tomorrow. Maybe not happy, per se, but definitely content

Incredibly Photogenic Family Picture of the Day:

Mental movies make me muse

Last night I had a dream. I've decided to start telling everyone about my dreams. Not all my dreams, of course, because there are just some things that you don't need/want to know. I tend to have vivid dreams, most of which make absolutely little sense. Truth is, it's this total lack of coherency that makes me so interested in, and proud of, my nocturnal escapades.

Over the years I've wondered if dreams are, in fact, our brains trying to communicate with us while we slept. Of course, if that is the case then with whom (or what) exactly is it trying to communicate? If the brain is the thought center of our bodies then, by producing dreams, it has done nothing other than to create images for itself to experience. Are dreams simply the screen savers of our minds?

Dreams do come from the mind. There's no way of refuting that fact. Unless you can somehow prove that dreams are transmitted through space from the spaceship that hides behind the sun I accept them as unique manifestations from the organ that defines my sense of self. The brain, of course, is like a certain swamp-dwelling green ogre: layers. What you see is not always what you get. I truly believe that what we experience as a conscious being is far from the full depth of what our brain is capable of. Like any complex device, there are internal mechanisms that are hidden from view and are only important in the sense that they make the system fully functional. They don't need to be experienced directly. In the case of the brain, though, I think it is possible, albeit unintentional. Is it possible that dreams are simply these layers, the unseen parts of our minds, finally getting a chance to sneak out in the night and make themselves seen?

Not that they typically make any sense. Perhaps they're not supposed to. I can only imagine the mess of neurons and unconscious drivel that create the ridiculous thoughts that do make their way to my consciousness. So I'm not surprised that, when I dream (and it happens quite often) they are bright and fantastic and utterly nonsensical. I enjoy them because they appear to make no sense yet I can usually glean some type of message, usually fabricated after the fact by a conscious mind trying to remember what it had experienced in the night. Dreams are the mind letting go, allowing all types of thoughts to prance across the mental landscape, free of their daytime confines.

I've heard some people say that dreams are simply the brain releasing all information it no longer needs. A dump of non-critical data. If that was the case then I'd expect dreams to be even more random than they already are. Just the fact that I see discrete images within a context makes me believe there's some order to the process, not just a cascade of discarded neural overstock.

And speaking of discarded neural overstock, it's now almost 6am and the shift is coming to a close. Only one more night until my week is over. Kind of. I need to put another half day in on Sunday.

But I told you that I would describe last night's (day?) dream, so here goes. I had gotten a puppy. The thing was absolutely tiny. Like a chihuaha, just not as ugly. It reminded my of a friends miniatue pinscher. It was living in my apartment though I neglected to tell the management who requires a security deposit and increased rent in this situation. To make a long dream short, I took the dog outside and got caught by the two management ladies. Now, I didn't recognize the women though their faces were quite clear in the dream. However, the point is that I should be allowed to have a puppy in my dreams without the fear of being yelled at. It sucks to have a dream ruined by two fictional people yelling at me.

Mind-boggling thought of the day: It turns out that any judge who makes a ruling against right-wing Christian values is labelled as either 'left-wing secularist' or 'activist', regardless of the fact they might be a registered Republican who was appointed by George H.W. Bush. And they say liberals have an agenda...

Burning the midnight oil

I was looking through some of the recent hits to my blog (yes, I AM watching you) and I noticed that someone came here through a Google search for sleep shifting (or something related to it). Since there seems to be so much interest in it I've decided to give you a step by step instruction on how to properly adjust your body for working through obscene hours of the night. This will go on the assumption that your shift begins around midnight on a Sunday.

Friday night: Party it up because the week ahead of you is going to suck. You'll be waking up and going to sleep at odd hours of the day and, due to this fact, your body won't know what to do with itself. Outside of work (and even this is questionable) you'll be useless. Have a good time tonight because it'll be your last opportunity for a while.

Saturday: See Friday night

Saturday Night: Don't forget to stretch because it's going to be a LONG night. The objective of this night is to stay awake as long as possible. I generally aim for 4-5a.m. I typically don't have a problem with this seeing how I'm very good at keeping myself busy with either movies or random projects to do around the apartment. The impressive part is that I do it entirely without the aid of caffeine. Don't drink it normally and I see no reason to start now. The key to staying awake: NO ALCOHOL. That might be obvious but if you think staying out late by hitting up a huge party is a good idea, think again. It might keep you awake but considering that you're already asking your body to adjust itself to odd sleep/wake cycles, you want to treat it as nicely as possible. Stay away from the booze.

Sunday Morning: Sleep in, but not too late. Make sure you're still tired through the day.

Sunday Evening: Take a nice, long nap. A few hours if you can. This should give your body that final chunk of rest it needs to make it through your first shift.

How you sleep after this is up to you. I end up staying awake for an hour or two after work and then putting in 7-8 hours of sleep during the day, but I also have no trouble sleeping in daylight so everyone will differ on this. The key is to make sure you get enough sleep. No point in putting more strain on your already tired body.

Now, wasn't that interesting?

Random partial lyric of the day:
When I'm deep inside of me
don't be too concerned.
I won't as for nothin' while I'm gone.
But when I want sincerity
tell me where else can I turn.
Because you're the one I depend upon.

When in doubt, do nothing

I had a relatively major epiphany today (other than once again realizing that working the midnight shift is only as good as the drugs used to keep me awake). Maybe you share this trait, but I've always questioned my motivation for doing just about anything in life. I'm talking about everything from what to study in college to how much toothpaste to put on my toothbrush. As you can imagine, it's enough to drive a man insane though having an overactive brain does have its benefits, most of which I'm still trying to ascertain.

I bring this up because I feel that I differ from the general population when it comes to this and it's especially pronounced during this time of year. While others are out cramming the shopping malls and outlets force feeding their car trunks with generally superficial expressions of love, I do what I can to stay out of their way. All philosophy aside, I become a hermit this time of year mostly out of self-preservation. I've inherited my father's inability to be crammed in a mall surrounded by people for any period of time longer than what it takes to buy one thing and get the hell out of there. Granted, this usually results in more trips to the mall because I can only buy one thing at a time so I'll let you revel in the irony. In the end, however, I have my peace of mind and the will to continue living so I can't complain.

My point is that this time of the year prompts everyone to feel a need to come up with incredible gift ideas for everyone they've known since pre-school and expose themselves to the respective stress. I say that we should focus less on the holiday season and extend our gift giving throughout the entire year, giving when the mood and inspiration strikes us. But gift giving is only an example. Truth is, I tend to rely on this philosophy in most aspects of my life. My epiphany stems from the fact that I was finally able to put this in some sort of context. It's one thing to live a certain way but to actually define and make sense of it is an entirely novel experience.

Before I go on it's critical that I introduce one particular term to this discussion: entropy. As anyone who has taken a high school science course (and remembers more than throwing frog parts across the room) can tell you, entropy is (in its simplist form) the measure of disorder within a system. Nature, being the incredibly intelligent force that it is, prefers a system with high entropy (high disorder) much like the malls on Christmas Eve. Accordingly, a system can go from a state of high entropy to low entropy, but not vice-versa without the addition of energy. For example, in nature, a building cannot build itself without the aid of man, though, given enough time, it will come down through natural forces. Nature prefers that building to be a pile of rubbish because that is a less energetic state. If that wasn't clear enough, think of your body. Do you think it prefers to be standing or lying down? Lying down, of course, because that requires less effort.

Let me bring this back to my original discussion. I realized that I govern my life by a rule of high entropy. That's not to say that I aim for disorder. I actually abhor disorder, a trait that probably contributed signficantly to my foray into engineering. What I do tend to lean towards, however, are low energetic states and a more naturalistic lifestyle. Clear yet? No, I think not. Simply put, I try not to fill my life with those things that aren't necessary. The more things I have, the thinner I spread myself out with activities, the further from my most natural state I become. Don't confuse this with sheer laziness. In fact, I'm quite an active person, whether it be physically, socially, or culturally. Ok, maybe not so heavy on the social part, but I do what I can.

Maybe by now you can see why this was such an epiphany. I have no doubt that you're reading this, scratching your head, and realizing what sleep deprivation does to the mind. In the grand scheme of things, assigning the word 'entropy' to my thought process means very little though it now gives me a way to describe it to others. Everything I do is based on the underline assupmtion that I'm looking for the simplist way of completing the objective or performing the act and rejecting any contemplation of going for 'bigger and better' which, usually, is neither. Keep it simple. Low energy states. Entropy. Perhaps it's not the clearest metaphor. Perhaps it makes sense to no one other than myself and a handful of philosophical physicists. But it's enough to give me a little more awareness of my thought processes.

Now I think I'll go lie down.

Random image of the day:

The man can do no wrong

I just saw King Kong tonight. That has to be, without a doubt, the quickest 3 hours I've spent in a movie theater. I'm not saying it's the greatest movie ever made but it was a damn fine way to spend my evening. There were some scenes in that movie that made my jaw drop, both for it's incredibly special effects and from the creative brilliance Peter Jackson and the rest of the WETA team possessed while making this movie. The acting is, at best, a minimal part of the movie. The visuals immediately draw you into the story and do an incredible job of not only stunning you with their realism and general "holy shit!" factor but actually become the main vehicle for telling of the story. The emotions are carried through in words but in subtleties in voice and facial expression. Noami Watts' acting is only surpassed by the emotional saturation of the face of King Kong. I know the dude was only computer animation, but they nailed it. The depth of soul of Kong in this movie makes you not only forget he is not a real creature, but makes you hope, deep down inside, that perhaps the ending of the story will change and the creature's life will be spared this time around.

It's a long movie but I definitely think it's worth taking the time out to see it. Quality. Peter Jackson is on a role. I can't wait to see what he plays with next.

Ranting of the day: What kind of jackasses take their small children to a 9:40pm showing of a 3 hour long movie with an obvious high level of violence? You have to know that there will be no way to keep those kid's mouth shut through the entire movie. I wanted to just turn around and smack the parents (smacking the kids would've been a little too harsh). I don't know whether to chalk it up to sheer stupidity (could they have not realized it would be an issue) or plain selfishness (they really wanted to see the movie, regardless of the effects on their children and all the other patrons). I'm guessing it's the latter but I couldn't say for sure. Either way, it's annoying especially when it's during a particularly intense scene. Moral of the story: Leave the kids at home. I don't want to hear'em.

And I quote:

"This is the first time in 10 days I haven't had to feed a fish."

My apologies for the lack of entries. I'd like to say it was due to me having a life, but then I would just be lying. I have been incredibly busy with random life occurances which have left me with little or no time to write. I miss it, I really do. Heck, now and then I actually come up with things I want to write about and that you may actually enjoy reading! Gotta jump on that train when it comes my way but so far I've just been eating track dust. This is partly due to my recent introduction to sudoku but mostly because of my immersion into the world of improv comedy. And you thought being funny was just a hobby...

Of course, that is just a teaser as it's past my bedtime and I really like my sleep. Stay tuned for those topics and more! Really, this weekend, I promise. Now that the holiday season (read: Christmas) is approaching I'll have less and less to do seeing how all my Christian friends will be fleeing the state to see their families and my lonely Jewish self will be stuck in Houston. The good news is that I'll have nothing better to do than write an entry or two. Plus, I'll be working the midnight shift (again) next week which might afford me the opportunity to drip my mental saliva on the keyboard and share with you the thoughts in my head that only make their appearance during the wee hours of the night.

Key words for you to look out for: Improv, sudoku, high school reunion, EWB, and Germany. If I don't cover all those in the next few posts, give me a little kick and I'll get to it.

For your general viewing pleasure, I leave you with this:


And what blog entry would be complete without a little karaoke?

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