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I think I may be near death at the moment.
I went to bed around 3:00 AM this morning, only to find myself awake at 5:00 AM and completely unable to sleep. I lay there for two hours before giving up -- I just didn't feel tired.
A bit later I went to Lowe's to buy some vegetation killer for my increasingly ill-conceived front yard rehabilitation project. I spent an hour or so spraying it all over the place and breathing in the delicious fumes.
Afterwards, I found myself sitting on my couch with a pounding headache and a general dislike of everything. I watched TV, played some video games, and made a couple phone calls to try and schedule a meeting, and after four hours of this I thought maybe I could manage some sleep. So I took my body and rested it in a horizontal manner on the top of my bed, closed my eyes, and desperately tried to relax my mind. Eventually I somehow managed to succeed, and slept for a couple hours. I woke up feeling even worse, and realized that I hadn't really eaten anything all day...
Problem is, food seems pointless. I recognize a bodily need for sustenance, but there is no desire within me to consume food. I forced myself to drink some milk in the hopes that it would create a desire for chewable nourishment, but so far no go, and now I'm strangely aware that my stomach is cold. My brain feels sluggish, my eyeballs are clutching wildly at my eye sockets in a hopefully non-futile attempt to stay inside my skull, and I can't quite shake the feeling that life would be better if I didn't have a head.
So I think I've learned a valuable lesson: Don't attack nature. Now, if I don't die, I can put this life lesson to work. From now on, nature is my Internet, and I will love and cherish it, letting it run free and unshackled to express itself in ways both beautiful and ugly, both tragic and joyous, both terrible and sweet. The bad will come with the good, but I will learn to selectively filter it without destroying it, leaving the awful and rank for the white trash living down the street. They seem to like weeds quite a bit, just as some people enjoy the darker corners of the Internet... and who am I to judge?
Resolution: pull up unwanted foliage and plant it in neighbor's yard.
So nature, how about it? Do we have a deal? Can I have my well-being back, please?
One fine, sunny day, Tommy went walking. As was sometimes the case, he decided to take the scenic route past the county prison. Being frequently beset by a crippling depression due to his lot in life, he would often further punish himself by looking in on that world that he so longed for, but that was so far out of his reach. And on this day, as he passed the majestic bejeweled towers, the blindingly blue lake, and the fabulously manicured grounds of the county prison, his eyes slowly teared up. Yet, it wasn't until he spotted the inmates in the midst of rehearsals for "Oklahoma!" that the tears began to flow. And as Tommy continued walking and the prison grounds were about to disappear behind the cusp of a hill, he caught a glimpse of a few inmates engaged in a magnificent re-imagining of an episode of "My Little Pony". That's when his self-pitying began to change.
As Tommy ran down the hill and back to his home, and as the overzealous soloist's "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" cadenzas slowly faded behind him, Tommy's despondency was morphing and solidifying into a firm resolve to change his life. By the time Tommy returned home, he was determined to get sent to prison.
The next day, preparations began. They would have begun the same day, but he had laundry to do, plus his dad called and he always talked for too long... So preparations began the next day. It wasn't easy to get sent to "the slammer" (oh, how Tommy loved the way those fancy words sounded in his ear!), but it was possible -- those men in orange jumpsuits playing with strange smelling, miniature plastic ponies were proof enough. It would no doubt take some planning and study, but Tommy would find a way. He had to.
In Tommy's society, prison is vastly different from those in our society. While the main purpose remains the same (the containment and "rehabilitation" of those who have committed crimes), the methods, architecture, landscaping, treatment of the inmates, and even the "qualifications for admittance" contrast sharply with what we are used to. In Tommy's society, prison is paradise. It is like an upscale spa, only it is funded by the state and the "clients" rarely go home. Of course, people are often killed in prison, just as they are in upscale spas.
The main problem that Tommy faced was that he wasn't quite sure how one got into prison. He began asking friends and family about it, but the answers were all very similar: "Come to think of it, I'm not really sure... but I sure would like to go there some day. It must be wonderful!"
Interrogatories directed at the judicial system were equally unhelpful. The judges themselves couldn't recall ever sending anyone to prison, but spoke with thinly veiled desire to be confined there -- they, of course, could not condone the thought that prison is wonderful.
Friends, family, teachers, mailmen, cops, hobos, mayors, veterinarians, judges... no one knew! Tommy was completely nonplussed, and sought desperately for some way to plus himself. After an exhaustive search, and just as Tommy was about to lose all hope and give up... he lost all hope and gave up. It appeared as though there simply wasn't any way to get into the "big house" -- the words sounded hollow to Tommy now. For Tommy, it was just "prison" from now on...
Some weeks later, a letter arrived at Tommy's home:
"Hello, good sir! We've heard tale that you desire entrance to the county jail! We admire your limited persistence, and have decided to present you with a limited stay! We hope you'll enjoy it!!!!"
Tommy was ecstatic! In a matter of a few hours, he found himself standing within the gates of the clink. As Tommy stood there dumbfounded, the inmates gathered around.
"Oh, drat!" one of them exclaimed, "I suppose I had better organize a quilting session to welcome our new friend! Why didn't anyone tell us beforehand, so that we could be ready? No new friend should be without a quilt. We had best be welcoming, after all."
This was heaven.
As the days went on, Tommy grew happier and happier. It was even better here than he had imagined. Pudding was always available for enjoyable consumption, for instance. Also, every other Tuesday was improv night. Tommy really sucked at improv, but he still found extreme bliss in it, and the other inmates were condescendingly kind.
As the weeks went on, and as Tommy started adjusting to his new life, he began to view things with a more critical eye. One day in particular, Tommy found himself engaged in a conversation with one of the inmates.
"See, people speak differently outside," said the inmate. "They have a different accent, and a different way of putting words together."
Tommy nodded in agreement.
The inmate continued: "They also use different words. For instance, in here, we often just refer to television as 'TV', and automobiles we call 'cars'. Outside, they don't understand these cute colloquialisms."
That didn't sound right to Tommy. He didn't nod this time, but didn't indicate disagreement, either.
"I sure am glad we aren't confined to their limited forms of expression... nor their awful, incomprehensible accents!"
Tommy grew annoyed. He was one of those from the "outside", but he was obviously perfectly understandable, and was quite proud of his frequent use of the word "TV" -- he probably used it too often, in fact. He doubted that this convict even knew that he was an outsider; probably the convict believed Tommy to have been transferred in from elsewhere.
A later conversation with a different prisoner proved more aggravating:
"It's really quite amusing," he said. "Those bumpkins outside are so quaint and naive." He looked expectantly at Tommy, but seeing a glint of anger in his eyes, the convict quickly exposited: "They simply have no idea how to keep their dairy products cool! Long ago, we developed the technology to store milk, cheese, and even various meats at cooler temperatures than the surrounding area, thereby increasing their usability lifetime. We can even freeze food to keep it bacteria-free nearly indefinitely! Those louts outside don't... they don't... hey! Where are you going?"
Tommy had stormed off. He was furious! This was too much. Everyone here seemed to think himself better than anyone on the outside, and not one of them had ever even met anyone from the outside. See, in the time that he had been here, Tommy had discovered that all of these prisoners were born here. The reason no one knew how to get into "the joint" (the euphoric sensation of pronouncing these words was gone) was because no one had been sent there in decades! At first, this was just a minor (though slightly frustrating) point of interest, but now it just added to Tommy's aggravation at the inmates' hoity-toity attitude.
They had no concept of what life was like outside. They had never been there. All their "knowledge" was hear-say and was warped to make the outside seem full of morons. They fully believed that life on the outside was lame. For his part, Tommy believed this to be the result of years of conditioning prisoners to abandon thoughts of escape -- if things such as refrigerators and water beds don't exist on the outside, and if I can play Mouse Trap and Monopoly on the inside, why would I want to escape? Or maybe it was just the natural consequence of spending one's entire life in an enclosed community where every want and need is attended to. Regardless (or irregardless, depending on who you are), Tommy couldn't take it.
How could anyone live here? Tommy didn't want to feel like he was better than others, unless he actually was better! Nothing seemed worse to Tommy than feeling superior when he was, at best, equal to those he derided. No, he couldn't stay here. All the pudding, improv, musicals, and My Little Pony reenactments in the world couldn't justify the mindframe necessary to stay here.
That's when Tommy decided to break out. "Break out" is probably too cool of a term, since all he had to do was remove a twist-tie from the gate and walk home, but technically the term is appropriate. So, Tommy broke out of prison and went home.
Thus it is that Tommy returns to his life, finally assured that living in the real world is best. And as he thinks back over the events of the last several months, he smiles to himself as he recalls the blissful ignorance of the prison inmates and their complete confidence that they know what the world outside is truly like. From outside, their perception of the world is almost quaint and cute. And as he sees his fellow "outsiders" longingly look at the county prison, inwardly he chuckles, remembering how it used to feel. But now, Tommy is above all that. He knows what life is like both on the inside and the outside. Now he truly is superior.
Yes, Tommy is quite pleased with himself... and completely oblivious to the fact that I have just shared his personal, private experience with you! So who's naive now, huh, Tommy? Yeah, it would seem that you're the one living in hypocritical and judgmental ignorance! HA!
I AM SUPERIOR!
I work on vital statistics software. The software is used by several States to process birth and death events. Perhaps I will talk more about what I do some other time, but it's not important right now. What matters is that we are the "Vital Statistics team" where I work, and often we are just called "Vitals".
From my office, there is a Chevron visible across the street. This Chevron closed down several months ago (how it managed to stay open for so many years is a mystery to me... the place seemed very poorly managed). Naturally, when a building is abandoned it becomes needful for said building to be covered in graffiti, and so soon the local talented midnight artists thoughtfully and tastefully turned this eyesore of a building into a beautiful monument to illegible scribbles. Sadly, the city didn't appreciate such fine art, and so they painted over the tags. But they missed one.
Over the months, the tagging has continued, only to be painted over every time... except for that one tag that still persisted.
One day, my colleagues and I were looking out of my office window with some binoculars (why is not important...), when we decided to get a better look at that one tag that always managed to stick around.
It appeared to say something about "vital". So we got a closer look.
There was some disagreement about the first word -- "ks", "its", "pi s", "ns" -- but we decided that the tagger was trying to pay tribute to us, and to recognize all the hard work that we do every day. And so, it was decided that the words said: "it's vital". And that, of course, is some clever wordplay.
I went over and took a photo of the graffiti (which is where the above photos came from), and I then proceeded to chop the letters out so we could print it as a banner. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to use the full width of the paper roll when I printed it out, so we were only able to make it about nine feet wide, but now we have a glorious banner that proclaims who we are, how important we are, and also shows that we have serious street cred. And even though we have to tell everyone who sees it that the first word is not "ks", we still feel pretty special... and also vitally important.
Here's how it looks as you enter our section of the office
I can even see it from my office
Here they are right outside my office window - I apologize for the poor photo, but I had to hurry and they flew away right after I snapped this shot.
The pad has fifteen letter keys, each of which can generate five characters, plus they all have at least one "function" -- arrow keys, page up, esc, and so forth. So, to type anything besides the fifteen main letters, you have to push one or more of the five "modifier" keys. The most common of these is pressing the space key at the same time as one of the letter keys. So, for instance, you can type an 'e' by just pressing the appropriate key, but pressing it at the same time as the space key produces a 'z'.
The problem here is that there is a built-in delay in the algorithm, so if I'm typing, say, "the pad", it will often come out as "thzpad", because I type the space too soon after typing the 'e', and it changes the 'e' into a 'z' and the space doesn't get output. This happens a lot to me now, and it happened in that last sentence in fact ("it changes the" came out as "icchangegthe"). So there is definitely an upper limit on how fast I will ever be able to type. This error is a common one since the space key is easy to hit, and I can quickly type it after any character, even though I'm not that fast with the keyboard itself. So I need to train myself to be slower with the space key...
Today's typing speed (based on TypingTest.com):
Frogpad: 33 WPM
Standard keyboard: 93 WPM
Well, I finished posting all of the old MySpace blog stories... and now here comes my first real blog post ever. Bleh...
So I just received my new and functioning FrogPad today. What's a FrogPad, you ask? Why, it's a small, one-handed keyboard, of course! I'm using it to type this, in fact... and it's taking a lot longer than usual. It doesn't use the qwerty layout that we're all used to, so I do a lot of hunting and pecking now... plus many of the keys require chording, which doesn't seem to be too bad, but it takes some getting used to. I'm just not used to having to look at the keyboard, and it can be frustrating typing so slowly; when I'm not coding, I can usually type over 100 words per minute (it took me a full minute to find the semi-colon key -- I almost gave up and used lesser punctuation instead).
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I've been typing this mainly to get practice with the keyboard, and it's actually been very helpful. I'm already getting a pretty good handle on where the keys are, although I still have to look at the keyboard a lot. But I'm pretty happy with how quickly it's coming along. :)
Anyway, you may have noticed that I mentioned that this FrogPad is functioning. See, i previously received a FrogPad that had a minor malfunction... the Bluetooth pairing button didn't work. Try as I might, I couldn't get the pad to enter discoverable mode. Eventually, I tried too hard, and I accidentally snapped the Bluetooth pairing button off of the internal circuit board. Fortunately, they were very nice about it and replaced the pad for free. Of course, I had to mail it back to them. As my broken keyboard headed back to its makers, and as I watched the tracking info update online, I eventually noticed that it had been "left by doorstep". That made me a bit uneasy, since FedEx doesn't normally leave packages sitting in front of businesses. So I looked up their address on Google Maps:
Not only does that look like a residential area, it also looks like the address is a house that has been flattened! I worried that I had sent this (overly) expensive keyboard to sit in front of some crackhouse, to be misused and unappreciated, and perhaps even introduced to a life of drugs and crime -- which I understand is highly competitive.
And so I lay awake at night, fretting over my poor, lost keyboard. When I managed to sleep, it was filled with nightmarish images of atrocities all committed by a slightly damaged, one-handed keyboard. But then, at long last, the FrogPad arrived this afternoon while I was at work! With much joy, I was able to successfully pair it with my PC at work, and later with my Mac when I got home. And so here I am, several hours later, typing a long and boring report about it... and it's taking FOREVER!!! Hopefully I'll start making some serious progress with my typing speed soon...
Today's typing speed (based on TypingTest.com):
Frogpad: 15 WPM
Standard keyboard: 99 WPM
