Art Attack Central
Fixing stuff, myself included…
Search Parameters?
What are we searching for?
There’s always something that’s been lost; perhaps it’s only a phone number on a small piece of paper, or is it that you can’t remember you mother’s birthday, or the zip code for the IRS, your social security number, your mind, or maybe the new name you’ve been given by the Federal Witness Protection Program (FWPP). 
The FWPP, now there’s something to talk about. It just occured to me that all those 404 (file not found) errors are probably connected in some nefarious fashion to this dubious program. Yes indeed if you can’t find it, it aint been lost it’s been “relocated” by “the men in black”. How about having 404 error, or Dead Duke of URL engraved on your tombstone. “All lost URLs please report to the relocation center.”
Where’s all this coming from?
Spent this morning configuring the site atomz search engine; but can’t seem to figure out how to make it index the text in the body of the documents not just the meta tags on the pages. Anybody with knowledge of the particulars of this process please leave a comment, or send me an email. I will be eternally grateful, showering you with praise publicly, or personally whichever you prefer.
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Day After Yesterday
The latest bulletin from the front suggests that all good people should imediately move three steps to the right and one step forward in order to arrive early for wherever it is you happen to be going. Going to the nut house? Going to the beauty parlor? Going out of your mind? Going out of your way to be kind to strangers? Yes, in these days of “neverendinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng” bagel sandwichs one can never be too sure of where the cream cheese is. Do not attempt to take control of your wayward browser; the god of fortune cookies delights in giving out empty fortune cookies.
Have you ever gotten an empty cookie?
Yes it was a long time ago; I got two in a row. At the time I feared the worst of luck was surely about to descend upon me. However, days went by, and I remained unscathed by the forces of darkness. Just when I was about to give up my foolish notion of being tracked by bad luck, I stumbled upon an old journal entry. Here’s what it said, “If you ever get an empty fortune cookie don’t look back!”
Whatever did you think it meant?
It meant that when the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west.
Duh, so what?
It means I haven’t a damn thing to say today of any value; it means that today is the day I pay for the empty fortune cookies. Blogger was down yesterday due to hackers/crackers so we don’t have any micro ads on the main blogger page. This to is obviously due to an empty fortune cookie, because I just purchased 8000 impressions (my christmas present to myself).
“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.”
— Albert Einstein
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Oxytocin
Did you know that oxytocin is a pituitary hormone that stimulates muscle contraction and sensitizes nerves. Dopamine stimulates the production of oxytocin. Fewer oxytocin receptors create less attachment in relationships.
Why are you getting at?
More rationalization from the front lines of the love war zone, or perhaps it’s only annoying paranoia rearing it’s ugly head. Whether former, or latter it most likely doesn’t matter, for what it is, is what it is, or as my favorite quote says, “wherever you go there you are.”
Must you always write in code?
There is something pleasing in writing things that require at least a perfunctory knowledge of ciphering. After all if love is not an enigma, then what is?
A little plain English please?
Here’s what’s going on: On Thanksgiving and Christmas I invited my lover (of almost a year) to spend time with me and my family; my lover had prior “tradional” engagements. So? Well I say that to myself…so?, but what nags me about it; what I can’t seem to rationalize away is this: why is there no, “but perhaps you would like to come with me…do so and so with so and so?” NOT… so I’ve decided to do away with some of my oxytocin receptors and thus be on my way to a more balanced relationship!
“Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.”
— Albert Einstein
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Christmas 2001
When I was a little kid, late on Christmas afternoon we’d leave all our presents behind, except for the new scarves, hats and mittens (“don’t forget your mittens,” Laurie Anderson), and we’d walk up and over the hill to my best friend Trish’s house to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. We’d sing happy birthday and eat birthday cake as the sun sank over the small lake behind the house.
Isn’t that kinda boring for a little kid adventure?
You’re right, and that was certainly not the best part of Christmas from a little kid’s point of view, unless you happened to be a very religious little kid, which I was not, and I didn’t know any religious little kids. However, I had to go to Sunday school every Sunday throughout my childhood and adolescence; sometimes I went to the drugstore down the street from the church and played the slot machine instead. This flagrant disregard for the rules has plagued me all my life; the tiny guy in my head has always told me not to follow the rules to closely. Not following the rules led Trish and me to heat the dead dog. No, not beat a dead horse. Heat a dead dog.
Heat a dead dog?
Initially we started off with smaller animals and with a different approach. The first animal we attempted to bring back from the dead was a crow. We found him behind the hedge directly beneath the large picture window which looked out over the South River. Obviously the poor misguided fellow had tried to fly into the house, “kerplunk” and down you go. Our first thought was of a funeral; we found a shoe box and lined it with black velvet, then we gently placed the crow in the coffin, but the crow was still warm and the only obvious injury was a somewhat wobbly neck. It was at this point we realized that with a little effort we might somehow revive the crow. The effort was small indeed; we placed an aspirin in his beak, closed his beak around it and placed what had now become his hospital bed in the shade under a fir tree. We checked his condition for three days before we returned to our original plan for a funeral.
But, what about the dog?
The crow incident happened in the spring; it was the winter of the same year that we found the dog. That year was colder than usual in the Chesapeake Bay area, and the entire South River was frozen solid. After school we played and skated on the edges of the river. We found the dog late one afternoon, frozen solid like the river and lying against a cement seawall. Trish already had a dog named Mike and I had always wanted a dog, but my father wouldn’t let me have one, because he’d been bitten by a dog with rabies as a child. Well this golden retriever I thought would be perfect; once she was thawed out my dad wouldn’t be able to resist her good looks, One significant problem was that she was heavy, and thus difficult for 2 small girls to lift over the seawall. We met at the seawall religiously (perhaps I was a religious kid after all) for 4 days, and tried in vain to heft the dog now known as Goldy up and over the wall. On the fifth day we enlisted the help of our friend Joanny; she brought her wagon just in case we were successful. Perhaps it was the availability of her wagon, or the extra help in the hefting that finally allowed us to get Goldy over the wall. Into the wagon she went and then the thee of us headed up the hill to Trish’s house. The destination was predetermined by the fact that Trish’s house had a large heat register in the floor. Goldy had been happily thawing out for about an hour, when Trish’s mother got home from work. She was kind considering the circumstances. She called the SPCA, and she told us they would be much better able to take care of Goldy once she thawed out.
Why do we Blog?
My lover asked me last night, “why don’t you just keep a journal?”
Why would I want to put “everything” out there on the internet for all to see? Is it because in my heart/mind I’m an exhibitionist? Is it because I have to think a little more before I commit and hit the publish button? Do I really put “everything” out there, and if not why not? Actually I think that for me blogging is somewhat constricting; I don’t put “everything” out there. Being someone with a tendency to push the limits, which is probably why sometimes I’m a non-recovering alcoholic rather than a recovering alcoholic, I would have to say that the constricting/restricting nature of my blog adventure is a positive Band-Aid on an open wound.
Oh my, where are you going with this?
Whenever I have the opportunity to jump on a swing, my instinct is to swing higher and higher. Legs pumping air, arms pulling hard against the chains the swing meets my every challenge. I always stop before the swing enters what I imagine would be a continuous loop around the fulcrum of time. Yes I know it’s an odd idea, a swing around time, but just imagine that instant between going up and coming down that instead of coming down you continued to go up and around. I remember one of my favorite things as a child was jumping car shadows. There is a moment when your body is off the ground and the car shadow glides uninterrupted below your dangling feet; that is the moment when time stops.
What do you mean time stops?
It’s not exactly that time stops, but rather that time is suspended. Suspended in such a way as to allow you to perceive a tiny piece of it. All those pieces strung together add up to time minus the invisible space in-between time and my experience of time.
Okay now you’ve lost me
Yeah, I think I lost myself as well. But, isn’t that the case that you would find if you traveled forward in time; you would have a difficult “time” remembering who you are without the continuity of time as a guide.
FYI: there are 2 meanings for the word Balthazar 1. one of the three Magi. 2. a wine bottle holding 13 quarts (12.3 liters).
Rationalizing
Well, forget the “glorious details”; I spent a great part of yesterday trying to make an audio tutorial for interface design work as expected on Barrysworld.net. NOT… so, I figure anyone coming here through Blogger is not going to care if my other pages aren’t complete as of yet. Rationalizing, in a heartbeat/artbeat I can do that with my hands tied behind my back.
Why is it so easy to rationalize?
Because it’s human nature to seek an explanation. We especially like explanations that fit with our point of view, or coincide with our expectations or wishes. Furthermore, we like those explanations to find no fault with decisions or choices we’ve made. Our first inclination is not necessarily Occam’s razor (the simplest of several hypotheses is always the best in accounting for unexplained facts).
What’s wrong with rationalization?
All at once
If your inclination is always to provide yourself with the explanation most closely aligned with your point of view, then you may miss the opportunity of traveling to far off places and destinations of great mystery, because you are too busy keeping your ducks in a row. However, if your inclination is to entertain all the possibilities (a universe juggler of sorts), the world retains it beauty, and you may find yourself moving in streams of flowing colors around brilliant islands of elegantly constructed theories, which may or may not be true. The view from the position of the juggler is vastly improved by his/her ablility to keep it all in motion, while deciding which ball to stop on. I think I’d better add another hat to my list: psuedo philosopher.