|
Umuri
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Steven
Gender: Male
Interests: Computers and Electronics, Listening to Choirs, Kendo, International Music, Playing in Band, Sleeping, Eating, Skating, Swords, Combat, Religion.
Expertise: Taking anything apart to learn more about it. Bending the rules, Corny Humor, Getting out of sticky situations, Making a fool of myself, Making the worst possible comment at the worst possible time, repeatably.
Occupation: Computer related
Industry: Computers (Hardware)
Message: message me
AIM:  dss612
MSN: black4_of_bs@hotmail.com
ICQ:  63232924
Yahoo:  black4_of_bs
Member Since:
12/28/2004
|
|
|
1. Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana
on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the
stairs and start to climb toward the Banana.
2. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with
cold water. After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same
result--all the apes are sprayed with cold water.
3. Turn off the cold water. If later another ape tries to climb the
stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water
sprays them.
4. Now, remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one.
The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his
horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and
attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be
assaulted.
5. Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it
with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The
previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.
6. Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one
makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes
that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the
stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.
7. After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes
which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced.
Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
"BECAUSE that's the way it's always been done around here." | | |
| This is to the greatest man I've had the pleasure of meeting... and to hope that someday I'll be man enough to stand in his... no... To to hope that one
day I can be the person that he would have been proud to have followed him.
A man who never turned or stopped at difficulty.
A man who never backed down, no matter the reason, if something was correct.
A man who can look ahead and go towards the future, sure in the path chosen.
A man who never second guesses.
I was able to keep enough of what little i was able to learn to keep me together this long... but along the way I forgot to keep going.
I would never second guess a decision already made... never waste time over things that can't change....
but I forgot the most important thing was to keep going forward.
The most important thing was to not only live your life, but to make it yours.
It is not enough to let the world come at you, but you must make your own world.
I'd forgotten this in so many years of surviving... of keeping others together.
But if you only fix the world you're in, you can never focus on making your world yours.
This is my tribute to the greatest man I've ever known...
This is my regret that I was not able to learn more from him while he was here.
Or to show him how much i've done in with my world.
He was there to pull me out of my hole... to give my the power to live one more time.
He allowed me to keep living by believing in me, by sharing his life with me so that I could believe in him.
The greatest gift he ever gave me... was my own life.
He started it.. and he prevented me from ending it.
And entrusted that power in me so that i'd survive his last wish in this world.
With that gift... this is what I have to show.
I have my friends... not just one or two, but many. Many that I'd trust with my life, with my future. With my hopes and dreams.
I have someone i can care for. Reguardless of where future takes me, I have someone I can believe in, who i can put my effort in, and who believes in
me.
I have a family who i can protect and be there for.
And finally I have myself...
The greatest hardship I ever faced in life, was finally being old enough to duel with you as an equal, and you are no longer there.
To finally be able to learn and improve, and not have a master to teach.
To never be able to prove to you I could beat you.
I wear this smile because I know I have no limit.
Even if I lose today, or tomorrow, or for the forseeable future,
I will win eventually.
I've taken your smile, and I think i finally understand what it is.
I was never quite sure, whether it was sarcasm, stubborness, or just
being a general asshole.
But i think I've finally understand all of what you meant.
I wear this smile not out of skill, or knowledge, but out of pride.
Because that is the one lesson I was old enough to learn,
even though it took me this long to finish the lesson.
"A man's pride is his greatest asset...
Stand tall, never look down. Look no one else as superior."
Pride in myself,
Pride in what i've done,
Pride in what i've learned.
I think i understand it now, and so this is for you.
I've taken your smile, and made it my own.
I've used what you gave me, and built a life out of it.
And now i've learned your last lesson... and will carve my own future with it.
I haven't surpassed you yet,
but I finally feel i can start trying.
Thank you, Sir.
Thank you, Dad.
| | |
| Religion is trash.
Or rather I should say trash is religion.
Now wait, here me out on this.
If you think about it, you can find religion perfectly expressed in trash, the garbage we normally throw out.
If its good trash, it gets sent a place where all the other trash hangs out after it dies, which is a good place and where it belongs. We call this trash heaven, or "The Landfill".
If its bad trash, it gets sent to a place of fire and destruction, where it suffers eternal pain as it is reduced to ash and spread over a wide are. We call this trash hell, or "The Incinerator"
If it has been good trash but does not believe in the trash heaven or hell but instead is buddhist trash, it merely gets reincarnated as new trash, hopefully to lead a better life through "Recycling" until it at one point reaches trash nirvana, which is just another name for the landfill again.
Atheist trash doesn't really care what happens to it because it dies anyway, so thats all the trash you see literring the streets that never makes it to the landfill, the incinerator, or that is recycled.
| | |
| Alright, it's time to play the morbid media circus drinking game.
This game can be played immediatly after a morbid event that the national media circus will cover, and is best to play in the 24-48 hours timespan after it happens, but can be played later. It's not much fun earlier because the media needs time to make stuff up and get their wonderful "expert advisors" into place to explain to average joe american what really "happened", and what "they were thinking".
For those who don't know, the tragedy this time around was a shooting at I believe Virginia Tech. A very unfortunate situation, my heart goes out to those involved. However we now have the opportunity watch the media circus in anction. So without further delay....
Take a drink IF:
1. Jack thomson talks on any national network.
1a. If he blames the violence on video games
1b. Without any evidence whatsoever
2. If anyone comes on national news and speaks of a "suspected terrorist link"
2a. Due to circumstantial evidence, such as friends or religions of ex-roommate's brother.
2b. If they mention that it was because he "Once had a beard". <- You laugh, but this was said on cnn national news as evidence that a person was a terrorist. If ya doubt, ask and i'll show you the clip.
2c. No evidence at all.
3. If the national news says that the person is asian and shows a cop cuffing him to the ground (That was a reporter)
4. Your university institutes a worthless policy that does not help security at all and the measures are unrelated to this incident in that the incident happened in a different manner.
5. Your public school system institutes a worthless policy that does not help security at all and is unrelated to this incident.
6. The news show contains 5 minutes or less of actual information for every 30 minutes of discussion of the incident.
7. Every time the incident is used to promote a tangent using a logical fallacy.
Take two drinks if:
1. The national government institutes a worthless policy that does not help security at all and is unrelated to this incident.
2. A "forum" on gun control is held on a news syndicated talk show.
2a. 5. In the "forum" on gun control, you do not hear mention that virginia
tech recently shot down a bill allowing certain protection personel to
carry defensive weapons.
3. Jack thomson is on said news syndicated talk show, and talks about GTA.
4. President Bush decrys the act and uses it as an excuse for illegal domestic surveilance.
5. Religion is involved, anywhere.
6. Police describe as an "isolated" incident.
7. Any public group in your general area releases a new bulliten of "self defense" or "social awareness" seminars.
8. Your business institutes a worthless policy that does not help security at all and is unrelated to this incident.
And i think that's about all I can be sarcastic about tonight. The media circus is being slow on this one, but it's already getting pretty disgusting. Feel free to post your own so we can get a more complete list. Or flame what a horrid person I am, that always works too. But if you can't laugh at the media circus, then that means you take them seriously. And that, my friend, is scary.
Peace
| | |
| Here's an interesting thing about life, some may know it already, some may not.
There are three types of life.
The living.
The dying.
The existing.
Your life is in one of those three states, or not at all. Which state it is in is mostly up to you, but everyone has their triggers.
My life tends to be a happy existence most of the time, punctuated by a few spurts of life.
What's kind of odd is that there's a interesting trend growing. existence always passes through small instances of dying before it hits living crest again. Even though it's been contained to the very few minutes when the conscience tries to sleep, so the walls are down enough to let it, it's still there. And it still sucks. Notice it's there, wake up and go back to existing till it's safe to sleep again. Who knows, usually dying goes away while I'm living, but as life changes you never can know.
But as I've said, It seems time to start living again. With any luck this spurt will last more than the usual couple of days, but who knows. You can't predict life, and you usually can't bend it to your will.
That's where most people seem to lose their intelligence and their wisdom. They try to bend life. They look at a situation and go, "Oh poor me, Oh this sucks, There's nothing i can do about it and it sucks! What so ever am I to do? If I only did this differently, if I only had known, if I only could read his/her/it's mind!"
Don't. Just don't. The trick to staying existing or living is to remember that you cannot predict life, and that you cannot bend it to your will. It can conform to your will, and you may affect things so that it is more likely to flow into a shape that is near your will, but if you try to bend it, you will waste time and life.
For everyone who is out there worrying, don't. For everyone who is out there grieving, don't. For everyone who is out there who doesn't know where to turn, don't.
Life is out of your control, and that's how things should be. What you have in your control is whether you are existing or letting yourself die. If you stay existing, you can work hard to make living happen, but don't be sad when it doesn't. Because there is no point worrying when you cannot change anything. Waste of time, waste of energy, waste of life.
I read my friends, and they remind me of this, so in a way I have to thank you all for keeping me existing. But in turn I must remind you the same thing i always have. Keep living, keep existing. That's the only way for life to be worth it. Don't shortchange yourself by letting life slowly kill you.
This is to Nick, This is to Brian, This is to Amanda, This is to David, among others. This is to everyone who can't make sense of their lives and keep running across trouble, and to those who have forgotten how to keep living.
Wake up guys. Life is too short, don't make it shorter. Our lives have been too short, there's very little history to it, and therefore very little set in stone. You can't predict the future, you can't bend life. But with so little path made, your lives can still go anywhere, so do what you can to give it a chance to go the way you want it to.
I will never regret anything i do while living. And I do not allow myself the luxury of letting myself die. That is the only thing you are allowed to regret, and the only way you're allowed to regret it is to let it remind you not to let it happen.
Bad shit happens? Take it and run. Don't worry about why it happened, other than to prevent it gain. Don't worry about what you could have done to prevent it, because it doesn't matter now. Just learn and go on. Work towards the future. Because it is our future, and If I make it there and you all don't.
I will be VERY pissed with you.
Peace
| | |
|
