We Can't Stop Here... This is Bat Country.: April 2012

Quick idea for the day. I’m rereading Microsurfs because when I was thinking about my favorite books yesterday I realized that it was my favorite book, but I remembered very little about what it was that I actually liked. I was just reading some of it now while I waited for everyone else to get ready (early mothers day surprise day, back at home for the day,) I came to a part where the protagonist in the book was talking about a blank-spot in his brain for remembering acronyms, and it made me think about how I always say I have really shitty memory. When I think about it though, I don’t really have bad memory, I think I just say that because when I forget things I feel really bad about it so I blame my ability to remember things in general.

Just a thought.

So today I just have a mishmash of thoughts, my blog hasn’t been getting enough love lately. This is going to get a little geeky, so, be forewarned.

30B430

My sister made a list of all the things she wanted to do before she turned thirty and she suggested I do the same, this is what I was able to think of so far. (The last one on the list is more of a joke though. I bear no ill will towards our delicious aquatic friends.)

Go to Japan. This has been a goal for a while now, but I think its a very attainable goal over the next five years. Overall though I’d just like to travel more.
Go sky diving
Move into a building that has more than one room.
See Greydon Square live
(This is going to sound gushy,) I’m not really the type of person who thinks about getting married but one of the only things I’ve ever really wanted was to find someone to be happy with, so I’d like to have a least met someone by 30.
Become a proficient guitar player.
Expand my iTunes library to over 1TB, (and not by just mass-downloading, I want to find that much music that I actually like)
Run a full marathon
Drive across Canada
Become a half-decent gardener
Stand atop of a small waterfall with the water rushing between my feet, the cool water keeping me alert and ready, my fist cocked back in a ready position, ready... to strike. I will wait for hours until the time comes, day and night if need be. In a moment of inevitable victory, I’ll punch in salmon, like the angry fist of a god, right in the mouth.

Science

Its interesting to me when I look back at my conceptions of physics and science and compare them to how I think about the topics now. All my life I felt like both topics were far out of my grasp and that any effort invested would have been a waste, but now that I’ve taken a recreational interest in them I feel like it really is something I could master if I put lots of time and effort into it. I think I blame it on my early science teachers, they were never encouraging or inspiring, maybe things would have been different if I had Bill Nye in grade 9. The more I read up on the cosmos the more I love it, consider this: do you realize that when you look up at the stars you’re effectively looking back in time? All of those points of light that you see from so far away are just photons that were emitted millions and sometime billions of lightyears away. My understanding of all the details are a little hazy but process is crazy- two hydrogen atoms smash together in the core of a star and instantly fuse together, the light from that reaction bounces around in side the star for a couple thousand years and then rockets out at the speed of light when it reaches the surface. Then it flies through space for a couple millions years and as you look up at the star those photons bounce into the cones at the back of your eye, your brain perceives and your conscious admires it. That light came from so far away, we perceive it as something thats happening now, but the stars that emitted that light did so millions of years ago. Its pathetic fallacy to think that the photons would consider themselves lucky to be involved in perception, but if I was a wave of light I’d be happy to be admired. I’m *really* geeking out here but the more I understand about the universe the more I fall deeply in love with it.

On the other hand, my budding love of science ruins movies for me. I was watching the 2009 Startrek movie and the part where Nero drills a hole in vulcan to drop the red matter (whatever the fuck that is...) is rife with errors. First of all, why drill the hole? If he has infinitely dense matter that could trigger a singularity, he could just drop it in the atmosphere, gravity would do the rest. Second, even if he did get it to the center of the planet, the planet wouldn’t neatly collapse into the singularity, all that matter around it would explode outward at first, then collapse back in. The reason for this is because even though black holes are infinitely dense, all that matter wouldn’t be able to fall into the black hole at the same time. This is why we have supernovas instead of stars merely blinking out of existence. THIRDLY, even if he did drill the hole, and even if the planet didn’t immediately explode like a miniature super nova, the gravity on the planet would become incredibly high. There is no way Spock would have been able to walk around on the planet looking for his mother. Him and everyone else would become instantly liquified and then pool up in a puddle of green Vulcan blood in the lowest area of the room. And this was just 5 minutes of the movie too…. And Vulcan doesn't even have a moon, what the FUCK JJ?

OK, sorry, no more trek talk.

Get on you dancing shoes.

Music time people, got some new stuff, got some old stuff, got some really offensive stuff that I’m not sure why I like but I still think is gritty and hella catchy.

Odd Future - Oldie

Catchy, gritty, probably not something you should listen to Dad.