Link field

Some people ask me, "hey Brian, what would happen if I inserted this code into my web page:
"{h6>Links{/h6}{ul} {li}{a} href="motormouth/'>http://www.motormouth.com!">Motormouth Johnson{/a}{/li}{/ul}, except with <> instead of }.

And to them I say, "you will get a beautiful link field just as I have. Just look at my...errr....where the fuck's my link field?"

Well folks, the trick isn't having the code. It's what you do with it, or more importantly where you put it. I have inserted this bit of code all over my bogger template and nada so far. Also, the search bar doesn't work. Don't even try the search bar. It cannot find page www.motormouth.commonstro/. That pretty much sucks.

Good morning.

At least the trains will be on schedule

The other night something came to my mind that I was hoping that I could share with all of you. That question is this: should Bush get re-elected, what do you think he will be like?

I ask this question primarilly to the Republicans who keep burying their heads in the sand, or whatever it is they are doing. Bush has started a war without provocation, led the country into a recession, cut spending for every academic program not related either to business or law (in my own field, it is now harder to enter a literature Ph.D. program than law or medical school), and single handedly destroyed our nation's reputation world wide. Add to this the American citizens who have been locked up under the Patriot Act, and the invasions of privacy which that act either threatens or achieves, the placing of Haliburton at the head of our army's chain of command (Haliburton was giving the orders to American soldiers in the Iraqui prisons), not to mention the acceptance that Enron's business practices are not worth troubling the legal system over. Oh, I forgot, he also bungled the intelligence that would have prevented 9/11. But enough about Bush now. I want to talk about the soon-to-be Bush.

A president's first term is generally a sedate one. They do not wish to make too many waves for fear that they will not be re-elected. It is under the President's second term when real things start happening. Without the worry of re-election, the President may then act in ways that are not as popular with the American people. Can you, for a moment, imagine what that would entail. Republicans, as you scoff at the previous paragraph knowing full well that I am at least partially right on the President's list of "achievements" so far, but yet still, comfortable in your decision to vote republican anyway, I want you to think about the future President George W. Bush, the one that knows he's going to be inevitably out of the white house, no matter what. Without the "restraint" that he's shown so far, what do you think he's capable of?

How fares the Monstro

Oh, I'm doing okay. Let's see. I got a teaching job for over Winter Break. I will be teaching Men and Women in Literature, or is it Man and Woman in Literature. I don't know. In any case it's an internet class, so on top of everything else, I'm trying to figure out how to use the school's internet information supply system known affectionately as Pegasus. I'm thinking of using the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, as the university sort of frowns on Packets, and in any case, my students will actually be from seven or eight different colleges, not necessarilly in the same area, and thus the idea of where to pick up the packet could be somewhat daunting.

I'm going through Doom 3 withdrawells, which is strange because I have yet to play Doom 3. My computer isn't powerful enough, and I simply cannot justify buying a more powerful machine while I am still in debt from the move. So, no Doom 3. However, in anticipation of Doom 3, ID software recently released Doom, Doom 2, and Final Doom on an XP friendly format for $10, which I bought. I will not tell you where for I am still ashamed that my consumerism got the better of me. I also picked up a copy of the newest Tomb Raider for $10. I realize that $20 on video games seems like a lot of money considering the ammount of time that I spend playing video games, but realize that what I actually purchased was the quelling of the desire to purchase Doom 3, $49 for the game, $700-1,000 for the new computer to play it on. Anyways, I don't have the time to play Doom 3. That's what I keep telling myself, over and over again, until the crying stops.

Classes are going okay. My Hawthorne/Melville has gotten significantly better since people in the class started talking. I even got in an argument with some guy over the E word. In one sense, I was very happy to do it, since I can't stand the universe sized brush that big fans of existentialism tend to use to paint the philosophy over everything, and I'm not going to say it's not fun getting into the philisophical dick measuring contest. "Sartre, eh? Well, what about Camus? Uh huh, uh huh... Kierkegaard!" I cannot thank Roger enough in that capacity, because Kierkegaard is to the philosopher's argument what a papery rock would be to Ro Sham Bo. No one's read him. No one can counter him. And when they start talking about their godless universe they have to agree that all their foundations are Christian in argument. Damn you, non-french father of existentialism!

On the other hand, it was just pretty much me and the other guy arguing and the rest of the class looking bored. Here's how to have that argument. Guy 1 brings up existentialism for two reasons. A- he has a point to make related to existentialist thought (big deal). B- he wants to say something that no one else will understand in order to make himself look simultaneously smart and beyond challenge. Guy 2 comes along (me) understands extistentialism and challenges guy 1. Guy 2 does this because A- Guy 1 got it wrong, B- Guy 1 cannot be allowed to gain in stature by spouting pseudo babble gobbely gook, C- Guy 2 will take on heroic stature by making guy 1 look foolish even as he tries to make everyone else look foolish. This, of course, only works if Guy 2 is willing to act like, "well, I wasn't going to go there, but since you did, you might as well get it right." God, I'm so pretentious.

Not much else to report. The death of Maxwell shook us up pretty bad, but I think we've recovered enough to know that we want another cat, and so we're going to get one from a no kill shelter pretty soon. This is, of itself, a moral dilemma. On one hand, you want to support the no kill shelter so that it can continue in its business practice of not killing animals. On the other hand, you know that if you went to a shelter that euthanizes, you are essentially saving an animal's life by bringing them home. That's a hard one to find the middle ground in. Anyway, this Saturday, we should have a cat.

What's with the fish?

Yes, I've noticed that some of you are particularly dispondent over the fact that I have replaced the portrait of the Avatar of the bloody handed Kain, and general leader of the Eldar Craftworld army with...well, to be quite honest, a fish.

First of all, let's get something straight. My avatar, the miniature that I use as the leader of my army, is solidly one of the best miniature's I have ever painted. I don't know why he's so cool. I think it may have a lot to do with the fact that the miniature itself is damn cool. Regardless, a miniature like the avatar is difficult to paint, and so, as a painter, you either rise to the task and paint the bastard well, or you fall, and you paint him red. I think I did a pretty fine job.

Nevertheless, is that who I am? I think not. I am Monstro, not Avatar of the Bloody Handed God. As such, I felt it high time to have a picture of me that was more befitting to my role as would-be destroyer of all the would-be Pinnochio's of the world. Now I realize that you see the fish and you think, 'would be destroyer?' But yes, would-be destoyer. The elegant and simple fish that swims in his bowl regardless of the rise and/or fall of civilization. Truly, this is Monstro.

Not buying it? Well, me neither. Actually, the fish is called a "Monstro." That's its type. As in, "what kind of fish is that?" In any case, I like its underscored nature. It's like if you took a picture of just some ordinary woman and you used it as the cover art for a CD called, "The Best Looking Woman in the World." It seems to signal irony or something like that.

Or maybe this: maybe, the fish is a representation of my own experiences at UMass Amherst. I used to feel like this, but now I feel like the fish. But that's not really true. There was a point where the fact that every one of my fellow classmates came from serious colleges, like Harvard or Notre Dame, and that still is true. Nobody is from a CSU, but so what? It's pretty much business as usual in the classroom. Nothing's changed there (sadly). So, having been a big fish in a small pond, I should find myself now a small fish in a big pond, but I'm not. Let's say that I'm a medium sized fish now. Give me a couple of weeks.

So, I think I'm back to the underplaying of the whole massive whale attacking the falsehoods of the modern world. Yeah, that's where I'm going with this. That and I was getting tired of the Avatar.

The damned call to me

Jason, first of all, no: Erik is not reading my blog. Maybe he is reading
yours, but he expressed disdain for all things bloggee to me on the phone
not long ago. Plus, he added that my lack of grammatical accuracy pretty
much irritated him to the point of not being able to take my blog. Whether
or not that means that he also does not read your blog, I do not know.
Erik sometimes has this inability to unwind and read something just for
what it is. The rules, all powerful, have been broken. How dare I for
having not heeded their lofty edicts? Perhaps I should proofread more
carefully.

I suspect that when Erik gets a faster, and more reliable, internet
connection, he may come down from his perch and dabble in the dribble here.
I hope, any way, because well...I miss Erik. Despite his occasional
elitism, he's a good ship. And having lived with me for a year and a half,
is more capable than most of getting my "humor." Hey Erik, if you're
listening, you can't get ye flask.

As for the rest of W.A.S.T.E., wonder powers activate, who the hell knows?
Dirk disappears. I'm used to that. But occasionally he reappears. So far
though, who knows? Jen is doing God knows, but given that she always
argues that the main reason she only sends forwarded e-mails is that she
hasn't the time to write originals, I asume that she does not have the time
to read my musings.

Andy. Again, no idea. Andi-o, where are you? Mrs. Joqua-Zinn, if she
receives my e-mails is equally silent. Maybe I should send something out
on the big e-mail. Write by W.A.S.T.E.. I think you know what I mean. To
tell you the truth, I'm actually surprised that we haven't heard from any
of our fellow Tristero. Except for Roger. Roger is the S. in W.A.S.T.E..
In a constant state of silence, and it is perhaps for him that I have the
most concern. Any news of Roger's welfare would be gladly appreciated here
on this side of the glass walls of Monstro's aquarium.

As for the desire of all you sinners for me to retake the test, uhmm...
what? Do you want me to lie next time? I pretty much answered all the
questions honestly in the hopes that I would end up in one malbolgia or
another, but alas, I (and my wife) are bound for the purifying fires of
Purgatory. Hate the game, not the player.

But as many of you have pointed out, how does such a thing happen? Well,
let's look at the design. Realize I'm not bound for Dante's Inferno--that
is, a Hell of Dante's design. Well, I'm not evil by Dante's standards and
it's as simple as that. Am I a virtuous Pagan? No. Am I lustful? Not
really. Am I gluttonous? Here we have some concern, but I'm really not a
frivolous consumer. I don't really buy things I don't intend to use. I
intend to read those books. I will use those paints, etc.. I like food
sure, but it's not like I obsess about it, so...

Let's go a little lower in the planes. I'm not exactly greedy. I spend my
money, but as I point out, I don't tend to spend my money on trivialities.
I have been known to pay my bills, etc.

I'm going to skip level 5 for a moment because I think it the most likely
destination for someone like me, and some commentary is needed as to why I
don't end up in the wrathful circle.

At level 6, the city of Dis, we find the heretics. If I am wrathful at
level 5, the subject of much of my wrath is hipocricy in ethics. That is
to say, that I detest the heretics. Hell, atheists I can take, no problem.
It's people who claim to be Christian, like good ol' Dubya, and who then go
on to start wars and lock up innocent people. All I can say is enjoy
Geryon and your lead coat.

Level 7: violent. I'm not violent so I pretty much avoid this circle of
Hell. You have to be a murderer or a thug, and I'm not much of either.
Note: video game violence doesn't count because the Hell is designed by
someone before the invention of computers and such. Keep that in mind.

I am not Fraudulant. Sometimes I'm a little too honest (as when I
condemned Bush to Hell), but I'm not much of a liar, and circle 8 is for
liars, be they braggarts, rumor starters, or flatterers. So...

Circle 9, the inmost sphere from which the expression, "cold as hell," is
thus derived. Well, I ask you--Jason, Avram, you want me to re-take the
test. Well, am I a traitor? Have I ever betrayed my loyalty to you? I
ask.
I never did the Kenosha, kid.

So, back to level 5 for a moment. Level 5 is the circle for wrath and
certainly I have wrath, but keep in mind that in Dante's world the desire
to see sin punished is not wrath. If you claim that some jack ass is going
to burn in the fires of Hell for their complete lack of virtue, that's not
really wrath. Remember that Virgil was happy when Dante kicked the sinner
in the head. That's the very lesson that The Inferno is meant to deliver.
Faith then, in Dante's world at least, is not about forgiving evil. The
desire to see someone get what's coming to them is actually holy. Both of
these conditions, retribution and forgiveness, in regards to Dante's vision
of holiness, are not yours to give but God's. Therefore, you cannot forgive
nor can you punish. You must ask for forgiveness and hope for punishment.
Go through the proper channels in your desire and you end up in Purgatory,
at the very least. Take matters in your own hands and you end up in circle
5, or even worse: circle 9. Forgiving those that God will not forgive is
the sin of the satanist--traitors to God.

Well, there you have it. My analysis of the process thus far. I could lie
if you want. I'm tempted to se if I can get into the Pardiso, but then
again I already have my Beatrice.

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new and frightening technologies

I am writing this blog from my office hours, or more accurately, office
hour. What I'd like to point out is this, I'm e-mailing this blog in.
That's right, I'm sending an e-mail to my blog in the hopes that it will
post, and if this works, won't that be nice.

You may, of course, ask why it is that I don't just log in to blogger.com
and do this thing. Good question. The computer I'm using is a lynux
machine and therefore has some problems with the whole text box area.

But that is not the point of this blog. The point of this blog is that
everybody's blogs seem to have better toys than mine. People have side
bars with links. I WANT SIDE BARS WITH LINKS. Oh, to have a side bar with
links. Frickin' Tom Kafafian of Tom Kafafian fame has a frickin' message
board (http://www.tomkafafian.com/nebula/). I can't even get my e-mail to
include links. He has street people. I WANT STREET PEOPLE. I want flash,
and mpegs and jpegs and I want the sound of souls screaming out in torment
whenever my site opens, or maybe someone reading allowed one fish two fish
red fish blue fish. That would be cool also.

But no. I must rest uncomfortable in the knowledge that my site will
forever be void of all those cool little bells and whistles. You know what
would be cool. Well then, I'll tell you. A file directory kind of thing
that opens up when you click on my archive. I mean how obvious is that.
You click on Sept 19-26 and it gives you the names of the blogs that were
archived between the 19th and the 26th of September. The Recent Posts
don't even match the archive, and the search function doesn't work.
Clearly I need help.

Someone help.

On a different note, Erik has left the country fleeing various criminal
investigations involving goats and home made (and of questionable taste)
designer salt licks. Well, good on ya Erik, or whatever it is they say in
Scotland. Drink some scotch, eat some Haggis, wear a kilt, play the
bagpipe, and watch out for the wee little people.

I'm out.

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The White Blog

Every now and then I get a bug up my ass to write something intellectual. This is one of those times...

I have thinking recently about color. It's not hard to see why. But I think its an interesting notion to look into the properties which we call color and wonder at the strangeness that ensues.

I begin this investigation actually with a reference outside of color to music where I must have some sort of mental block because, as anyone who knows anything about music and has tried to explain it to me knows, I am unable to differentiate between the terms. Basically, beat. I understand beat. But if you say 3-4 or 4-4, or any other combination of numbers, I will not understand what you are getting at. In fact, I am so bad that if I try to tap out a beat, say left, left, right. I can only do it if I'm not thinking about it, and as soon as I become conscious of my hands tapping something out, that something will change.

Tone, scale, and note are absolutely unknown to me. I can tell when music becomes more shrill or more bass, but I have no corresponding language to describe these changes, and worse yet, anyone who I ask about these particulars always manages to give me an explanation which, to them, seems simple, and to me, might as well be in latin. I don't have a clue what they're talking about. I don't know what a quarter note is. I can tell when there is harmony; I cannot tell you in any way how harmony is achieved. I am absolutely void in the simple alphabet by which the complex language of music is constructed.

Now imagine for a moment a transformation of one medium, the auditory, to another, the visual. If there were a person with a problem like mine in the visual, they would be unable to discern the difference between say, shade, brightness, or color. So that confusion might occur between two visual objects as to definition. True they do not appear to be the same, but the person suffering from said condition, would not be able to describe the difference. Perhaps they see green as a shade of blue. Perhaps, what you describe as light red, they call orange, etc..

Well, as a matter of fact, this condition does exist. And notice, I'm not talking about color blindness here. That would be the translation of one color into another, say red into green, and I'm not talking true color blindness either, the inability to see color at all so that the world appears as a series of grey scales. What I'm saying is that the language by which colors are described are sometimes confused, and sometimes altogether different in some people than you or I am used to.

Case in point, during Vietnam, our forces painted our tanks a camouflaged green which had worked during previous conflicts. However, the Vietnamese had been taught since birth that the color we were thinking of as "green" was "blue."

Okay, so they called "green", "blue." Big deal, you say. But it, in fact, was a big deal. The Vietnamese saw a big blue tank moving through their green jungle. We thought we were hiding. We stuck out like a sore thumb. They might as well have painted the tank bright red.

What I'm getting at isn't that the words were different, but the actual meaning of the words, the categories that the words meant to delineate were different. It's an interesting phenomena to say the least that in the minds of the tank drivers, their vehicles were hidden, and that in the minds of the Vietcong, the vehicle was obtrusively giving away its position. That is not a case of 'I call green "blue" and you call green "green"' but something far deeper in the process of the human mind.

Keep in mind that what seems up for grabs in regards to color is different from that which really is up for grabs. What seems up for grabs is that the ability to differentiate one color from another allows you to pick out articles of clothing that will compliment each other. What really is up for grabs is the fact that the most readily available method of analyzing the world is vision, and vision acts by color. Your most solid interface between you and the world around you is an inability to differentiate one color from another. It is no small thing to say that the categories in which you differentiate are arbitrary.

So, I want to put this in reference to a specific color, and that specifically is the color white. If you are an artist at this point you are scoffing at me, because clearly, white is not a color. White is the absence of color, if we are talking about pigment. Of course, if we are talking about light, white is the culmination in equal proportion of red light, yellow light, and blue light, and is thus the mixing of all colors that create white, but white itself is not a color.

Already, I've set up two possible definitions of white. But both are absolutely absurd. White is a color, the absence of color is "clear" or "transparent", but the color of the paint that comes out of a can of primer is white, and it is as simple as that. When I paint white over an area on a miniature, I am covering a color, not un-coloring it.

Let me try this another way. So completely is our acceptance of this color theory, even if we do not know the theory in question, that we exalt white over other colors. That is to say that you may have a green or red stain on your clothing, but never a white stain. Nothing is stained white, but rather bleached white or faded to white. We understand that there are no shades of white--grey being considered a highlight of black--or a fading of the color black.

A blank page is white. A sheet of paper that is red is not considered blank, but is instead just red. When you read these words, you see the letters as an outline of where the colors should be. As a painter of miniatures and most recently, of halaquins, I understand implicitly the rules that goven the color white in our minds.

I will explain...harlequins are colorful. They are the killer clowns from outer space of the Warhammer 40k world, and as such they are vibrant and multi-hued. The trick in painting harlaquins, as I've said before, is not in multiplying checkered rows on the miniature's leg, but in managing to use an excess of color without rendering the miniature ugly by that excess. One of the tricks I've attempted to use in this fashion is to keep the number of colors to four or five, and that has worked fairly well, but still this can be problematic because often areas of the miniature overlap. A mask, with a visor, sits on top of an undersuit and all in turn are crossed by a forelock of hair. Since all four must be of a different color to make the particulars distinct, four colors are required. Some areas of the miniatures actually require five colors which only creates greater complexity in the color scheme. After all, the trick is to make the miniature look good and not gaudy.

But here's another trick. For no reason in particular, white is not considered a color. Do not for a moment use the old trick that colors have shades and therefore white is not a color, because black is generally considered a color and it has no shade. Black highlights to gray, and white shadows to gray or blue (depending on whether you want cold or warm white). So, artificially white is given shades, but then, everything about shadow and highlight is artificial when it comes to painting. All of those areas that are shadowy or highlighted must be painted as such. So...Not a good criteria.

But back to my point. When I say that a harlaquin has to be painted four or five colors, I am not counting white. White can always be added to a miniature without ever seeming to be too much. It, in effect, does not add to the number of colors that the viewer must consider in determining whether or not the miniature is visually balanced. So that a miniature that seems to have four colors actually has five, a miniature that seems to have five colors six.

Another interesting position behind white, in regards to painting, is that white is the only true undercoat. Red is only red when it covers white. When it covers black it is maroon. Yellow cannot cover any color whatsoever except white. If yellow covers green then it creates light green, even if the green has been completely painted over. This brings up a strange point. What we call red is more accurately red-over-white. what we call blue is more accurately blue-over-white. If these colors cover a different color then they are themselves rendered into a different color. Same paint but not the same color. And therefore, everything we understand about color derives from our ability to not think of white as having a shade, having an ability to stain. In short, our definition of color proceeds from the first assumption that white is not a color. Otherwise, we'd think of every color as a stain version of white.

I leave you with that. I'd like to point out some mechanism by which this definition has made it into the heads of all the human beings on the planet, but I have no idea what causes this condition. I'd like to say that it arises out of human reason's dependence on what it sees and therefore on light, and that seeing is just a detection of derivations from the color equilibrium that produces white in light, but let's face it--that equilibrium is entirely based off human reason's decision as to what parts to measure and what scale to use in that measurement in determining equality. We for instance, do not take into account "colors" that correspond to wavelengths of light above and below the visual spectrum. If they are not in equilibrium, the light can still be white.

Likewise, there's always the evolutionary approach. White is the snow that covered the Earth during the ice age, the greatest period of human evolution, and therefore, color differentiates ice from things that aren't snow (and may consequently be either food or predator, both with the same level of importance when trying to survive an ice age). Or we could look into white as it plays its part in mythology--the color of divine virtue and of death. But who the hell really knows?

That's all I got, so I think I'm done.

Oh yeah, one more thing. What color is he?

Population: Tire

Apparently, our little community is beginning to grow. Let's see there's Jason, Avram Hooknoobie, my wife, her side of the family: Julie and Steve, Tom Kaffafian, of course, and now Corbin!

Greetings Corb, glad to have you aboard, but we've got to do something about your name. In the magical world of bloggie land, we've all got a handle of sorts, so... how's about Herr Schutzenfest? Es ist gut, nein? Well, I'll let you do the work. Nonetheless, may I suggest getting one of these blogger.com thingees. It makes things particularly easier. The site controls all the settings and you don't have to store it on your home page, you just link it up, and everything works. Just something to think about. I, myself, have server space because of comcast account and I just use it for storage so that when I want to post a picture, I can just link up to the space I have and I don't end up eating up MB with a webpage. Anyway, just a thought.

For those of you who don't know Corbin, he's a great guy, an artist, a writer, and an all around straight shooter. Plus, he has mad spatial relations skills. Him and Jake pretty much were the masters at packing a U-Haul, and let me affirm that we packed all 26 feet of the U-haul. Hell, we packed my Saturn, which we towed behind the U-Haul, and though I am pretty good at making things fit, Jake and Corbin had nigh-god-like powers when it came to this endeavor.

Anyway, hertzliche wilkommen to you.

Dis'd by Dis

Well, as has become the blogational past time, I too have taken the test to determine which level of hell I will belong to. I took the test preparing my best, "Why do you W.A.S.T.E?" (Dante/Pynchon reference) and then I was judged. Here are the results:
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

So, there you have it folks, I'm not going to Hell at all. I want everyone to marvel at just how not-evil I am, remembering of course, that I carry around a pack of empty cigarettes to show to people who want to bum off me. Evidentally, that's not worthy of eternal damnation.

Some advice, I think I slipped through some sort of loophole in the system. I answered honestly, but still...something must have gone wrong, and I should not be held as example by the rest of you sinners, who I am better than, and who deserve to, and most likely will, burn in a lake of fire, unless you throw off the shackles of your false idols and start worshipping our lord and savior Jesus Christ toot sweet (or however, you spell that--damn Frenchies, they're going to Hell too I'll bet).

And by Christ, I of course mean Zeus, son of the titans, father of the Gods. Live well, my Delphites, for not but Hades awaits us all.