2004.09.09
'Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- :
'God damn it, you've got to be kind.'
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?The Vonnegut quote was lurking in KHftCEA for a long time, the Rousseau I saw on a bumbersticker in June.
Resolution of the Moment
I was having dinner with FoSO and her SO (Hmm, guess that would be FoSOSO) and he mentioned that he thought caffiene had all sorts of sociological effects that people tend not to think about...irritability (especially a quickness to irritation/anger) also maybe stuff like faster speech, etc. Maybe I should try giving it up for a while, long enough to get past the headachey part...all the way back in June 1997 I noticed how irrational I was in lashing out at traffic I was stuck in...
This came up last night because I had just ordered what turned out to be a large green tea smoothy, and FoSO mentioned it would keep me up...I guess I had a little bit of trouble falling asleep, on the other hand I was going to bed at like 9:30, feeling a bit tired. Still, I'm always a little startled when I recognize a mind-body connection like that, sort of like the massage chair/gaming thing I previously wrote about.
What experience have people had with giving up caffeine? How does it go? Do you feel smarter or just more dull-witted?
Amusement of the Moment
Lee Fastenau is a guy on the [stella] Atari programming list who is working on his own very cool game Reflex...he has a superb sense of visual aesthetics. It turns out his web site has some other really nifty things, a terrific ASCII Pachinko animation toy, and th3 b35t "English-to-l33t" tr4n5l4t0r 1'v3 533n. But the Pachinko is just so cool and clever...
Passing of the Moment
So, today would've been by dad's 55th birthday. I'm sure if he was around I'd be making the same dumb jokes about the speed limit...
Instead, I'm going to note another passing that I neglected a week or two ago...my Uncle Carl died, husband of my dad's sister. Didn't really take care of himself properly after he was diagnosed with diabetes. He had a tough time of it, raising four sons after his wife died with Lou Gehrig's disease. He did the best he could, but man, Coshocton, Ohio is a pretty weird environment...it was amazing my dad escaped.
So I'll try to have a quiet moment today and think of my Uncle and then my dad.