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This is Too Good
May. 4th, 2012 08:12 am"Mark is made of rocks, pens, and awkwardness. With a dash of GAME OVER."
From this. Find out what you're made of.
From this. Find out what you're made of.
(no subject)
Nov. 5th, 2007 11:44 pmIf you comment on this post, I will choose seven of your interests, and you will have to explain them, as I have explained mine.
Abraham Heschel: is one of the founders of modern Reform Judaism, and an all around awesome guy. I don't feel comfortable summing up his philosophy, but he wrote some very impressive things. My favorite of his works - and the thing that got him on my interests list - is The Sabbath, where he identifies Shabbat as a 'palace in time', a recurring temporal locus of spirituality that serves to disconnect humanity from finite material existence and connect us to infinite temporal existence. It's a short book, read it, and you'll understand.
C.S. Lewis: Despite actually being Jewish, I never experienced the anger that most young geeks have to work through around C.S. Lewis. Sure, The Chronicles of Narnia are thinly veiled (did I say 'thinly'? I meant 'barely') Christianity, but who cares? His Christianity is loving, expansive, and beautiful. I also appreciated the part at the end where he wrote that all prayers for good go to Aslan and all wicked prayers to to Tash. In Christianity, that kind of thinking takes balls, and I can't help but respect it.
Communism: I can't help but wish that this worked. It doesn't. It's shit. But I wish it worked. There is something very attractive to me about an economic system that exists for a reason, that has a theory to it that is more than 'some people win, some people loose.'
Transhumanism: This has always attracted and repulsed me; the idea that humanity might change enough that we might no longer qualify as human. What happens if technology (usually, though I've seen fiction that explored this idea in the context of magic) allows us to live forever, exist in more than one place at a time, swap bodies at will, and so on? What I think makes me odd among people fascinated by transhumanism is that I am most fascinated by what remains the same. Love will always be love, faith will always be faith, no matter what we do to ourselves, and that's interesting.
Imaginary Friends: I had imaginary friends when I was a kid. I had three flying goldfish named Dappo, Nappo, and Pappo. I have always found these constructs neat. We create them as kids, give them fleshed out personalities, talk to them, and play with them. Who are they? Where do they come from?
Sex: Sex is one of the most powerful forces in life. It's a need, a body hunger that can twist or transcend all but the most determined application of our vaunted human reason.
Steampunk: Man, is there anything sexier than goggles, ray guns, and giant, ornate, steam-powered giant robots? Maybe there is, but not a lot. OK. I'm going to give a real answer. What I like about steampunk is the juxtaposition of futuristic and anachronistic, and of hard-science appearance and plot-science. It's the same reason I like science fiction in my fantasy, heroism in my horror, and peanut butter in my jelly.
Abraham Heschel: is one of the founders of modern Reform Judaism, and an all around awesome guy. I don't feel comfortable summing up his philosophy, but he wrote some very impressive things. My favorite of his works - and the thing that got him on my interests list - is The Sabbath, where he identifies Shabbat as a 'palace in time', a recurring temporal locus of spirituality that serves to disconnect humanity from finite material existence and connect us to infinite temporal existence. It's a short book, read it, and you'll understand.
C.S. Lewis: Despite actually being Jewish, I never experienced the anger that most young geeks have to work through around C.S. Lewis. Sure, The Chronicles of Narnia are thinly veiled (did I say 'thinly'? I meant 'barely') Christianity, but who cares? His Christianity is loving, expansive, and beautiful. I also appreciated the part at the end where he wrote that all prayers for good go to Aslan and all wicked prayers to to Tash. In Christianity, that kind of thinking takes balls, and I can't help but respect it.
Communism: I can't help but wish that this worked. It doesn't. It's shit. But I wish it worked. There is something very attractive to me about an economic system that exists for a reason, that has a theory to it that is more than 'some people win, some people loose.'
Transhumanism: This has always attracted and repulsed me; the idea that humanity might change enough that we might no longer qualify as human. What happens if technology (usually, though I've seen fiction that explored this idea in the context of magic) allows us to live forever, exist in more than one place at a time, swap bodies at will, and so on? What I think makes me odd among people fascinated by transhumanism is that I am most fascinated by what remains the same. Love will always be love, faith will always be faith, no matter what we do to ourselves, and that's interesting.
Imaginary Friends: I had imaginary friends when I was a kid. I had three flying goldfish named Dappo, Nappo, and Pappo. I have always found these constructs neat. We create them as kids, give them fleshed out personalities, talk to them, and play with them. Who are they? Where do they come from?
Sex: Sex is one of the most powerful forces in life. It's a need, a body hunger that can twist or transcend all but the most determined application of our vaunted human reason.
Steampunk: Man, is there anything sexier than goggles, ray guns, and giant, ornate, steam-powered giant robots? Maybe there is, but not a lot. OK. I'm going to give a real answer. What I like about steampunk is the juxtaposition of futuristic and anachronistic, and of hard-science appearance and plot-science. It's the same reason I like science fiction in my fantasy, heroism in my horror, and peanut butter in my jelly.
(no subject)
Oct. 1st, 2007 10:49 pmTagged ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kalliplokime
In the 8 facts about yourself, you share 8 things that your readers don't know about you. Then at the end you tag 8 other bloggers to keep the fun going.
* Each blogger must post these rules first.
* Each blogger starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
* At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Likeladypimpernel, I beg your indulgence on those things that only a few people know. I talk about myself, well, a lot.
1. I am incapable of listening to a song more than twice or so without strange, half-mocking mostly-nonsensical versions of the lyrics playing in my head. For example: "if I eat babies then will you still call me superman? If I'm alive in hell will you be there holding my hand?" or "we're not gonna vibrate/no, 'cause we'd rather migrate/we're not gonna vibrate anymore..." The mutations get worse the more often I listen to the song.
2. I anthropomorphise objects to a frightening degree. My bicycle has a name (Summer). Yesterday I held a short funeral for the alarm clock I'd had for six years.
3. I will sometimes leave small mysteries unsolved for the sole purpose of giving myself room to imagine what the truth may be. Real examples include the well, but oddly dressed man who, about once a week, reads an entire newspaper on the bench at Kepler's and never talks to anyone or buys anything (so maybe they can't see him) and the really ominous looking "by appointment only" business storefront that just opened on El Camino, complete with a mystical looking sign that in no way advertises what it is they do.
4. I still can't read books about the end of the world after a series of dreams I had in middle school about being the last human being left alive. I am too afraid that the nightmares will come back, and I find the topic intensely uninteresting. For example, I have never read - and probably will never - read Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. At heart, I am a gamer and a fantasy fan - I only like it when the world is almost destroyed.
5. I have a morbid need to understand the beliefs of strange and destructive groups. I think it's my version of a fascination with medical anomalies. If I hear about an end-of-the-world cult murdering people on subways or something, I need to know why they think this is a good idea, or it eats at me.
6. I have a really hard time not finishing a book once I've started reading it. I will consume utter crap rather than quit halfway through. I often read the last few lines of a book when I am a chapter or two in, and after reading the last line of a book, I will usually go back and read the first line again.
7. I often speak to myself out loud when I think no one can hear... and when I do, I'm usually trying out dialog for a story or game.
8. I can eat a nearly infinite amount of pizza. Not all at once, mind you, but I can happily eat pizza for almost every meal, for many, many days at a time. There is no other food I can do this with.
I tagamydala, spellbinder87, factitiouslj, 2_ragged_claws, faerykat, currentlee, homais, and ilunas.
kalliplokimeIn the 8 facts about yourself, you share 8 things that your readers don't know about you. Then at the end you tag 8 other bloggers to keep the fun going.
* Each blogger must post these rules first.
* Each blogger starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
* At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Like
ladypimpernel, I beg your indulgence on those things that only a few people know. I talk about myself, well, a lot.1. I am incapable of listening to a song more than twice or so without strange, half-mocking mostly-nonsensical versions of the lyrics playing in my head. For example: "if I eat babies then will you still call me superman? If I'm alive in hell will you be there holding my hand?" or "we're not gonna vibrate/no, 'cause we'd rather migrate/we're not gonna vibrate anymore..." The mutations get worse the more often I listen to the song.
2. I anthropomorphise objects to a frightening degree. My bicycle has a name (Summer). Yesterday I held a short funeral for the alarm clock I'd had for six years.
3. I will sometimes leave small mysteries unsolved for the sole purpose of giving myself room to imagine what the truth may be. Real examples include the well, but oddly dressed man who, about once a week, reads an entire newspaper on the bench at Kepler's and never talks to anyone or buys anything (so maybe they can't see him) and the really ominous looking "by appointment only" business storefront that just opened on El Camino, complete with a mystical looking sign that in no way advertises what it is they do.
4. I still can't read books about the end of the world after a series of dreams I had in middle school about being the last human being left alive. I am too afraid that the nightmares will come back, and I find the topic intensely uninteresting. For example, I have never read - and probably will never - read Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. At heart, I am a gamer and a fantasy fan - I only like it when the world is almost destroyed.
5. I have a morbid need to understand the beliefs of strange and destructive groups. I think it's my version of a fascination with medical anomalies. If I hear about an end-of-the-world cult murdering people on subways or something, I need to know why they think this is a good idea, or it eats at me.
6. I have a really hard time not finishing a book once I've started reading it. I will consume utter crap rather than quit halfway through. I often read the last few lines of a book when I am a chapter or two in, and after reading the last line of a book, I will usually go back and read the first line again.
7. I often speak to myself out loud when I think no one can hear... and when I do, I'm usually trying out dialog for a story or game.
8. I can eat a nearly infinite amount of pizza. Not all at once, mind you, but I can happily eat pizza for almost every meal, for many, many days at a time. There is no other food I can do this with.
I tag
amydala, spellbinder87, factitiouslj, 2_ragged_claws, faerykat, currentlee, homais, and ilunas.
