I’d Drop a Demot Here, But I Can’t Find My Stupid USB Drive

How fucking pissed have I been today!  I mean damnit, of all the USB drives to have lost, it had to be my navy-blue, semi-transparent drive that holds all my demotivational posters on it.  I had over 300 of them which took months to collect from all over the great Internet cloud.  There were other things on that drive, too, though the demotivational posters are most likely the most valuable items on there… <sigh> I would’ve pulled my hair out over this if I had any, but oh well – maybe I’ll take it out on some expecting warriors in UT2004 later this evening… provided I can get out of the stranglehold that “Sims 3” has over me.

Yes I, umm, purchased the game the day it came out and as expected it is crack on crack.  My goodness, it is SO addicting I want to slit my throat for thinking that I wouldn’t have gotten hooked, but I’m sure that deep down my entire being was like “You got hooked on the first and second game… it will happen again, foo.”  And sure enough, it did.  Fortunately, my boy Eddy got me off the crack to watch an E3 video he linked me to – and thanks to him, I’m now able to type this fine entry to you fine people for your fine eyes to read.  I won’t start talking about Sims 3 because if I do I won’t be able to stop and next thing you know, this entry sudden cuts off at a random point because I ended up double-clicking the sims3.exe in my Games window, which is sitting minimized, but the little blue trophy in my taskbar is staring at me, calling my name oh so softly, asking “May you kindly…?”  Ahhhh, the addiction!  It’s strong!

Alright, enough!!! <unloads a whole clip of bullets from an assault rifle into a Tank> Better, much better… <reloads> Now then, I wanted to discuss an interesting subject tonight, that subject being parallel universes and you and me.  I’ve read quite a bit of material on alternate history so it’s something that I can talk on, perhaps not so much on the scientific plausibility of there being a multiverse, but definitely on the various hypothetical scenarios that would be possible if a single event was changed in history, whether that history be on a global or personal scale.  One reason that the theory of a multiverse is tied to this is because of the concept of paradoxes, which would be a reason why time travel wouldn’t be possible in nature – because if there’s only a single universe then obviously time travel cannot occur, or if it is, nature already has “temporal protection” in place so the past cannot be altered.

But in any event, these types of hypothetical scenarios are great mind benders and can give you a greater appreciation of the timeline we are presently in today.  A great example that’s used frequently to get newcomers to better understand alternate history and parallel universes, think of World War II and it’s outcome: the Nazi’s get crushed, Japan gets nuked and the Allies come home the victors.  However, what if Hitler, the small-mustached man with the Aryan plan, was successfully assassinated before the Nazi’s began down their one-way path to defeat (namely, when Hitler thought it was a good idea to trigger a two-front war by declaring war on the Russians).  That’s what one novel, Fox on the Rhine, plays out, but instead of having you read that, how about this simple question: What if the Nazi’s won World War II?  As you can imagine, our world today would be VERY different, and I’m sure a number of us that simply exist would not in that world because one or both of your parents may have been killed by the Nazi’s as they invaded (or nuked the crap out of) America in the 1950s or 60s.  Or another popular one: What if American Civil War had the Confederates be the victors instead of the Union?  With the CSA (Confederate States of America) and USA side-by-side – and blacks still heavily persecuted in ways that makes today’s racial relations seem like paradise – who knows how many more wars there could have been on top of WWI and WWII (assuming they’d still occur – the butterfly effect would see to that).

If you sat down and really thought about it, there are a lot of worlds where your life would be very different provided one key event in history was changed just slightly (lets not even dive into one awesome What If: Jesus not crucified? OOHHHHHHH SNAP!!!).  How about we take this idea another direction: at the personal level.  There are many events that mold us into who we are today, from our childhood through high school and past old-age.  If one were to think about it, it’s conceivable that you could think of a number of key events in your life that, if they were altered or didn’t occur altogether, you would be a very different person when compared to who you are today.  For me, there are many many points that I can refer to that, if they were changed, I’d be very different.  When I was born I had a cleft lip and palate which was subsequently repaired when I was around 6-months old or so (I still have the Brooklyn Union paper that documented the procedure).  Following that, my parents put me into special programs at Brooklyn College when I was very young so I could learn to speak and everything, as the cleft lip and palate would’ve stunted that part of me if I didn’t go there.  SO, for me, the question is “What If I never got the surgery to repair the cleft lip and palate?”  The circumstances behind such a scenario aren’t too hard to imagine: perhaps they were hard on cash and couldn’t afford it.  But the end-results of that lapse would be certainly dramatic on me as a developing young boy: odds are good the initial friends I made in pre-school and lower school wouldn’t have been my friends; the kind of teasing a child like that would have to tolerate is probably unbearable, so social skills and emotional development would’ve been very altered.  By the time I’d be four or five I would’ve been so different I’d have a hard time recognizing myself, let alone how I’d be later in life.

Another scenario that I’ve played out several times in my life that is easily one of the biggest events in my life: my being left back in pre-K.  Yes, it’s possible, and for me it was possible because back when I was three my language skills weren’t good enough to warrant my moving with the rest of the class… SO they kept me back a year.  However, because of this I met the guys who would ultimately become by best friends in life.  In addition, because of that I met everyone that I know today, from lower school up to college and beyond.  In addition, many extracurricular activities and interests that I have today were planted in my mind by others (directly or indirectly) in one form or another, this subject included.  So What If I was not left back?  Well… that list can go on for a long time… a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time – it’s one of the few personal What If’s that I actually extrapolated out to a good couple of years past middle school, though beyond that it’s a complete toss-up, and even the stuff within what I covered can be subject to change.

So what to take away?  If you thought about all that was said regarding the past and how small changes can have big effects, you probably have more questions than answers.  I know, cuz I’ve been there, and it’ll keep your mind occupied for a long time unless you dismiss the idea of alternate history as nonsense.  But if you have an open mind, it’s a great thought experiment!  The implications of such concepts, though, run far deeper than the hypothetical: it can be used to help govern how you operate your life.

And with that, I must call it a night – all this typing is really starting to drain me.  Or perhaps that’s just the midnight oil burning its last drop.  Or the thoughts of my missing USB drive has finally drained the last ounces of energy from me.  Whatever the case, I’m sure there’s a parallel universe that addresses all of them, along with the one that I’ve decided to go with tonight.

Risk-Averse or Risk-Taker?

You know what’s amazing?  What people will do in order to get what they want.  I will say that generally-speaking, most people will not do what they want to do, say what they want to say, for a variety of reasons, although in the end, all those reasons, in my opinion, collide at one point: fear.  Most people are just afraid of what would happen if they truly express themselves, even if it meant that they would have a ton of bricks lifted off them.  Now, there are many things that we, as a species, shouldn’t do to each other, as it would not be condusive to our future as a species, such as murder (in all its forms, barring self-defense – but I guess we could debate on that justification for murder later).  If someone has an impulsive urge to kill, they should be treated either with medication or with a life-long trip to an iso-chamber at a bigtime prison.  And if they do kill… well now, why keep such negative genetic traits in the global pool?  Castration should be a compulsory punishment across the board for anyone who commits murder, as they’ll be unable to spread their genetic defects to future generations – on top of throwing them in jail.

Hmmmm, I think that’s a subject worth discussing – but not right now!  What a tangent!  It’s great when you get in a conversation that just flows like the stream of consciousness to the point where subjects just switch up on the parties without entirely realizing it… and when you do, you’re so far down the river that you don’t recall what got you there to begin with.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, stop it!  Back on track – this is a rail shooter, damnit!!!

Now, as I was saying, people doing what they want… most don’t.  If I take all the actions I’ve taken over just the last few years leading up to today, I would say that I’ve been shifting to the right of the bell curve – that is, I’ve been doing more of the things that I want to do and not be constrained by my fear of consequences for those actions.  My rationale for where I now stand today is pretty simple: If you feel you’ll regret not doing something, why not do it?  As life’s been teaching me (in heavy doses, I must say), there isn’t enough time to sit on your hands when they want to shoot out and make a painting, grip a steering wheel and drive, or reach out and tell someone how you really feel.  Sure, if you have no doubt that what you won’t do will bother you, I don’t think there’s a reason to worry about that sort of inaction – like watching someone get hit by a train.  The one time I’ve seen the end-results of such a thing (14th Street / 8th Ave A/C/E line about six years ago), the first thing I wanted to do was take pictures… but my camera was dead, so I just stood there and stared at the royally-fucked carcass, half of which was mangled beyond recognition and the other half I suppose covered by two train cars closer to the tunnel entrance.  Quite a site – and a smell – that I’ll never forget.  But that’s more of a situation that one has no control over.  So, if you meet someone that you find attractive, but don’t really care one way or another about them beyond friendship, then you wouldn’t have any regrets about not asking them out on a date because it was never something you were concerned with.

The main problems – and that element of fear – come into play when you are presented with a situation where of the two outcomes presented, one being the easier of the two, but you’d regret not taking the higher-risk outcome.  The problem here is the riskier outcome has a greater payout for success or failure, but then at least then you wouldn’t regret not making that decision.  But then the thought occured to me that one risky behavior can chain into other reactions that could be worse than if you did not take the higher-risk outcome.  Maybe you’d regret what would follow versus regretting not taking the original action in the first place.  A great example of this is cheating on your spouse.  If you take that big risk, then what could happen in the future could be way worse than if you had not committed the high-risk behavior, such as the dissolution of your relationship with your spouse and potentially worse, especially if you have mutual friends.

How does all of this apply to what I was saying about myself?  That can be something for another post, as that can get messy and most likely a much longer read than this.  SO… I will conclude with this fitting quote by Whittier:

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’”

I’ll be back soon!  In the meantime, introduce some Porter into your life.

Post-Purple Zone: Inauguration Day, Part II

To continue where I left off last night (I had to cut my entry short to start watching Lost)…

So after the ceremonies concluded and my housemates returned from the National Mall (they didn’t have tickets), we exchanged stories about our experiences. I let them tell all before I started my rant, as I figured their story would be a much more positive experience than mine. In brief: they left the house around 8:30am to begin their walk to the Washington Monument, their goal being to get a spot on the small hill in front of the monument to sit on and get a nice view of the jumbotrons. One key thing to note about this: when they arrived, they literally just walked onto the National Mall – there was no screening and no police officers anywhere to be found. This absence of authority figures throughout the morning, especially when the crowds got pretty dense (practically shoulder-to-shoulder standing room) left them a bit nervous. Much like those Tunnel People that were stranded underground with not a single police officer or Secret Service agent to monitor the actions of others, anything could’ve happened out on the Mall, and it could’ve been worse there, since apparently nobody was being screened for anything as they got on the grassy fields. As many have said in several blogs, major news articles, and on Facebook, it was the good nature of the roughly 2-million people (the Tunnel People included, as well as the Silverbacks and Blue Ticket holders (was a name coined for them too?) that prevented anything truly horrible from happening. And if you really wanted to see just how amazing us Tunnel People were during our multi-hour stint on I-395, check out this video; these are the group of guys I mentioned in the previous post. Seriously, this kept SO many people’s hopes up during this time…

So after exchanging stories, we brewed up more tea while listening to the Inauguration Day events as they unfolded on CNN. Fast-forward a few hours: I’m at another friend’s house out near Dupont Circle for dinner when I’m told that I can go to the Youth Ball! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT? But it’s friggen 7:30pm! Talk about an 11th-hour invitation! So as my friends (who already had tickets) jumped into a cab to first hit up the Mid-Atlantic Ball (to pick up the Youth Ball tickets), I ran like mad to the Metro station, got home in what seemed like record time, showered, changed, and slapped on an expensive suit that I’ve worn only once before that evening. By this time it was around 9pm, the time that the Youth Ball doors would be swinging open, so I spent a couple of minutes figuring out how the hell I’d get out there. Ultimately, I decided to drive, which really wasn’t THAT bad – I just had to keep my iPhone out between my legs as I drove so I could constantly reference the map if certain streets were still blocked off, which many were. The only reason why I drove was I figured that I’d find street parking near the Youth Ball, which I did! By 9:50pm I parked the SUV about 5 minutes walking distance from the Ball, on Decatur Street NW. And it was there that I waited to hear back from my friends… and after about 10 minutes I dropped a text message asking what the deal was. The response: “The Ball’s been delayed and is not opening till 10:45pm.”

Whoa… WTF?! Seriously? What was originally a no-brainer decision now became a choice between getting to work on Wednesday with barely 2 hours of sleep and possibly a hangover or bailing on the Youth Ball altogether. By 10:15pm my friend and I spoke on the phone: he was gonna stay at the Mid-Atlantic Ball till 11:15, which was when Obama was supposed to show. After some thinking, I quickly decided to screw the Youth Ball and try to see if he could get me in the Atlantic Ball. However, once I got close to the convention center it was clear that I wasn’t going to find any parking within a 10-block radius of the place… and by 11:30pm I decided to just call it an evening and go home. My friend and I talked a bit while driving down the re-opened 395 – he was fairly upset that I decided to drop out of partying, but I ultimately chose my job over this… it wouldn’t have been that way if everything started on time damnit!!

…So that pretty much concludes my Inauguration Day: started at 5am with high hopes and ended at 12:30am with some disappointment and a little regret. I forget where I read about the Youth Ball online, but apparently there were also hundreds of people stranded outside for that too! And unlike us Purple, Blue, and Silver ticket holders, they paid their way into the Ball (mostly), so being unable to enter and paying $75 to get in must’ve been way worse for some. And I guess to be fair, I know there were thousands of people who paid way more just getting to DC and booking hotel rooms for Inauguration Day, only to be given the shaft, so I feel your pain too.

Hopefully the outcome of the Purple Tunnel of Doom, or PurpleGate as I’ve seen it described, is a much better Inauguration Day in 2012 (in terms of crowd organization – IMO the 20th was pretty flawless overall) and, oh, the distribution of fewer tickets!!! So with that, i wish you all a good night… and for those that haven’t told their Inauguration Day story from the Tunnel People, post it somewhere for others to read! Or better, send it to your Congressman.

Merry Christmas!

~Trevor~

Close This Webpage…

…Because now, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be touching upon a subject that so many of us take for granted, but when infringed on ignites the very fires that drove our ancestors to form this United States to begin with:

That subject, dear readers, is the subject of free speech.

Now for those that know me (and apparently all those here that don’t – yes I am addressing you this Monday evening), you know how I am as a person when it comes to wording things, where I stand on a wide variety of subjects, how I feel about certain people (and certain types of people), and why I am the way I am.  I personally enjoy expressing myself, no matter what the circumstances may be or the subject being discussed.  Sure, I don’t always speak up, and in some cases I don’t say a word even if I should.  However, when in the company of some good friends and family I tend to always open up, have a few good laughs, and make a lewd comment every now and again.  When in the company of those that enjoy the art of debating, I enjoy bringing up those “sensitive” subjects that most don’t like to talk about, such as genetically engineering humans, the fate of African nations, the discussions on various religions, and the purpose (or lack thereof) of mankind.  Oh yes, I will rip your religions to pieces, reduce your people to footnotes in history, and make your preconceptions of “the sanctity of life” meaningless – and enjoy it.  Whether or not I’d win the debate is always in the air, and I don’t always win them all, but in the end, I enjoy myself.

This freedom of expression, of course, easily carried over to this blog, where I tend to let the words flow freely through my fingertips and onto the monitor for all to read.  I was never ignorant to the fact that I knew I was leaving the door open for complete strangers to read my thoughts and impressions on this still-new city that I’ve moved to.  Even though I originally designed this blog for all my friends to essentially keep track of my whereabouts in leiu of my drastic increase in future workload (thus making it a challenge to keep up with everyone in Jersey and NYC), I already knew that by making my blog totally open, I’d get some people that would get offended by some of the things I’d say.  It happens: some people are just more sensitive towards various subjects than others, which is ok.

My strong beliefs in free speech and expression were put to the test for the first time today, as a blinding interrogative light was shined into my face, a line of human silhouettes in the background and a lone female friend sitting on the opposite side of the table I was seated at.  The interrogators: my job.  The crime: posting questionable materials on my blog of an offensive nature about my job.  The message, when it was delivered to me over IM (and eventually to my cell phone), blew my mind.  I was seriously at a loss for words, as I didn’t think that anything I’ve posted was against any of the non-disclosure agreements I’ve signed.  Being that I’ve read my job’s employee manual from front to back at least twice (for other reasons), I was very confident that I adhered to the policies in question.  Alas, apparently I was not.  Without going into details (as that would get this entry flagged as well, no doubt), the blog entry I’ve removed was one that offended some people and was requested that I had it removed.  Congrats, Noah, you were right on this one – I guess I owe you a dinner once I’m out of debt!

After much consideration, I did remove the blog entry, as well as went through the rest of my blog to make some minor changes, but for those concerned about that, the changes only related to my job – nothing else.  Because I am -NOT- censoring a damned fucking thing, especially when it has nothing to do with work and everything to do with the idiot drivers in DC, the description of a full moon shining into my bedroom, and the sound the wind makes when passing through the leafless branches of a tree near Jefferson Memorial.  If I talk about how it would just be dandy if we glass over all of Israel and Tehran so we can end 2/3 of the world’s problems, I’ll damn-well have that conversation!  If I want to discuss the latest episode of Maury, where a Hispanic woman was on for the 12th time, bringing Guy #’s 20, 21, and 22 to be paternity-tested – and how fucking hilarious it is when all three are not the father – I will talk about it!

The three things that “are not to be discussed in an office environment: politics, religion, and sports” will be discussed here (well, maybe cept for sports, unless it’s NBA Jam) and with gratuitous detail.  Enough detail to make anything labelled “TMI” look sanitized.  Free speech is meant to be used in both extremes: being able to express the most innovative and ground-breaking ideas and thoughts while at the same time being able to say some of the dumbest, most foul things one can think of.  I’ve done a fair amount of both, and that isn’t going to change here.

Another thing that I want to address is the apparent misconception of me where my dedication towards my job is concerned.  Although I wasn’t able to talk with those human silhouettes personally to address this, I will bring this up here, as I feel that some people assumed some things about me.  In short, those assumptions are flat-out wrong.  I am a very dedicated worker – anyone who’s ever worked with me, past and present, can attest to that.  In regards to my present position: I am very satisfied with what I am doing, and still feel honored that I was tapped for this new opportunity in DC.  I enjoy what I do and I’ve been looking forward to the new challenges that await me when January 1st rolls around and my workload really begins to pick up, maybe even to the point where I’m working 50 or 55-hour weeks.  I know I’m not going to complain because although I may be flooded with work, it is work that I enjoy.

I know I am repeating myself, but here goes: if you find anything I type offensive, do one of the following actions:

• close the webpage,
• open a new webpage,
• turn off your computer,
• hang yourself on your ceiling fan with your mouse cord and possibly keyboard and power cord for reinforcement (if you’re a fat slob)

Seriously, this same argument applies for offensive music, videos, books, and video games:  If you get offended by my blog, stop reading it. If my blog has you attracted to it like a horrible accident on the side of a highway, that isn’t my fault, now is it?  Can’t stop looking?  You feel kinda bad that you are looking, that you shouldn’t, but you are anywayz?  In the words of a famous plant, “Tough titties, kid.”

And in the words of two really obese black women on MAD TV, “I am through!”