Convergant Divergent Definite
As a kid I was probably unhealthily enamored with those "choose your own adventure" books. After taking a couple of precursory goes through one of those books, I'd map out a tree figuring out which steps lead to which results so that I could take the best and most adventurous trip through the book. The really interesting endings though as far as I was concerned weren't the good ones that could be accomplished through various routes, I was mainly interested in the novel endings, the endings that were only navicable by way of a discrete set of decisions. When I was about sixteen I had a class that we built an off-line web page in, instead of writing a page about cows or trucks (give my class-mates a break, we grew up in central WI, there really wasn't much more than cows and trucks) I wrote my own choose your own adventure story and embedded links in the illustrations as a navigation tool. First of all, I wish I had that computer disk today. Second, the process of mapping first and then writing instead of reading and mapping was a revelation to me. Additionally, in high school I got involved in this field biology thing were we, for the dnr, sampled the macroinvertabrates in the eau plain flowage as a method of determining organic polution in the river system. What you do is you take a mesh net and collect the water dwelling invertibrates, put them in a jar with some formaldehyde and then figure out which order, genera and species they are by using what's called a dichotomous key. The point is that the key and the books are really much the same thing, you follow a set of directions which converge and diverge based on a set of decisions. A contemporary definition of insanity is repeating the same steps expecting different results. What then I counter is taking different paths to the same results. Furthermore, what does it mean then to define those paths.
"standing at the bottom of the step/if I tilt my head a little I can look up her dress/I'd be willing to bet that she'd move if she knew/so I'm going to tap her on the shoulder and give her a clue" - Slug
-Erasmus
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
3rd swing
I was discussing the upcoming election with my roommate and the issue of "a vote for nader is a vote for bush came up." He, being a Minnesotan, was first afraid of the Jessie V. effect, that enough people would vote for a "novelty" canidate and he'd actually get elected. While not out of the realm of possibliities, this situation is far from probable especially considering the fallout that is associated with Nader's involvement in the last election. Now, while nader's politics are completely weird as far as I'm concerned, the issue really is not his politics, but the possiblity of a legitimate third party ascending to power in this country. While I'm not the first to suggest such a party (K_raus what the address of that guy who writes the decemberist?) a socially inclusive, fiscally conservative party would be real refreshing to my eyes. That much said, a swinging thrid party endorsement could be an extremely powerful tool - consider the nader issue in the last election, people voted novelty and it's likely that the Republican won the election as a result, conversly if a legitimate third party were to put backing behind a canidate (assuming concessions were made to that party) in an election year like this it could mean the election. I'm not sure that this is a better way to run the government (three parties), but it's an intriguing hypothetical lense to view the current election through as John Kerry starts to ouline his intended policies and GW Bush defends his decisions and direction.
politics.
-Erasmus
Monday, March 29, 2004
Content contention contentment.
I've thought quite a bit about this blogging thing, content and such lately and while I think tara has it right, I'm not so sure that I've got it down yet. What started as an exercise in writing has become more, I started writing in a sort of uninhibited glaze I've lost some of that and thus lost content and unforseen structural difficulties. The point of inhibition is pointless.......... I shouldn't have any and this isn't really even me writing here, so maybe this disclaimer will keep me mindful of what is and what's not.
Glass breaks (hope it's not silvered)
The Ramblings of a real wired kid,
Erasmus
Enter.
I met with invigoration this weekend. For those of you who know consider the vigor renewed and the intent resolve that revolves around this man. I often wonder how a nominal conversation with old friends can make such an impact, but suddenly redeemed is again renewed. New connections, new possiblilities in my world, my brain, wherein the spidering thoughts end, turn sharply and predicate the novel possiblities that have chilled a bit in a brine that preserves, but not without consequence. The consequence is that old resolutions have taken on a new twist, absorbing salt and the dregs of memories seeping in, redisributing flavours.
Consider it accomplished.
-Erasmus
Friday, March 26, 2004
Yo,
Today, I'm all about what I need to do today. I need to pick up some new music because I'm just crying pissing cacking sick of the tunes I've got to listen to in the car now. I need to get real agressive getting some other vocation lined up I've been kinda sitting back on that while things have heated up lately at my current work, but this week I've built and assurance that either I'm going to have to get crazy aggressive building my buisness (which is realistic in the real-estate industry) or find a new game cause I've got to win and I'm pretty much drawing here as of now.
Anyway, today I'm gettiing my links, comments....etc up and running, let me know if something's not working for you.
Hell yeah,
Erasmus
