The Former Glory of the Tiki Room

We went to Disneyland a couple weeks ago and went on all the rides I remember from my childhood. In particular, we took an hour off and decided to go to the Tiki Room.

For those of you who don't remember, the Tiki room in Disneyland is a Hawaiian themed attraction with a house full of singing birds and other oddities. It's a completely automated animatronic show and I don't think the show has changed since it was first created in 1963.

Well, when I went there two weeks ago, I was very disappointed by what has become of the show. The wooden faces on the wall, and the wooden drummers were in deep disrepair. They were often stuck or not moving when they should have been chanting and drumming in time with the music. Some of the birds were not working, and it felt like the place had been really let go.

The hostess was a fairly standard Disneyland employee. Fun-loving, sarcastic, and her enthusiasm obviously forced since we could all tell she had been doing this for quite a while. Plus she was forced to wear this really out-dated dress that look kind of forced and almost discriminatory in its appearance.

But what really struck me was the four main bird characters: Jose, Micheal, Pierre and Fritz. These birds spoke with caricature voices of the various ethnic groups that their names belong to. Spanish, French, and German, and I don't know what Micheal was supposed to be. This may have been a cultural revolution back in '63 to include the "various ethnic groups of the world" in this Disneyland show, but listening to their voices and their expressions in 2004, it almost seemed racist. Jose the Spanish parrot spoke more with a Mexican caricatured accent and it seemed plainly despicable. And the German bird sounded like he could only talk about Lederhosen, Sauerkraut and Wurst. Ja Wohl!

But maybe I'm reading too much into this. Perhaps we should just view the Tiki Room as a historical curiosity of the legacy of Disney invention. But it just doesn't have the same enchanting effect that once did when I was young.

I think its years are numbered.

My Life at a Glance

I suppose I owe it to some people to periodically update them on what I've been doing with my life. I think it's been fairly interesting lately and hopefully you will too.

I'm currently at University of Southern California in Los Angeles studying for my Ph.D in computer science. I haven't been accepted to the Ph.D program yet, but I expect it forthcoming in the next month or so. Until then, I'm just a lowly Masters student.

I finished my first semester last December. Semesters here are 4 months long and you only have three per year. Fall, Spring, and Summer. I'm currently in the Spring semester which will end in May. I got all A's in my classes last semester and hope to do the same this semester. I don't really have any plans for this summer, but I'll wait and see what my situation is before making any decisions.

For the first time, I'm actually starting to worry about money. My savings is finally drying up and I don't have the funds to make it through this semester without finding a source of income. I've noticed that this has caused a general level of anxiety in my life and affected the quality of my sleep. Supposedly I have found a job working for a professor in his research project, but I don't know when he'll have the money to start paying me. This makes things uncertain. I also didn't get the job I was hoping for working in the lab I donated all my free time to last semester. The director of that lab just didn't have any money to give me. But I guess you don't always get what you want.

But not all is bad. I'm still having a lot of fun learning new things at school and working on projects that push the fringes of human knowledge. I'm still doing robotics, but I'm not sure what part of robotics I want to work on. Right now my research project is on self-assembly in space where robots are supposed to build large complicated structures in space without the assistance of humans.

I suppose the biggest news and probably shocking to some of you is that I am finally getting married. Now, this isn't a sudden hasty decision but has been in the works for about a year now. I just haven't mentioned anything about it to hardly anyone because that's just the kind of person I am.

So what are the details? I met her in the summer of 2002 when I went to Korea and taught English. She's a native Korean woman who was also working at the same school as I. We spent a lot of time together during that summer, but when I left to go back to the United States, I expected to never see her again. However, during email exchanges while I was in Oregon, we decided that we should get married since we were such a good match.

We are currently waiting for her visa to be approved by the US embassy in Seoul, South Korea. She will probably be coming to America in May sometime after school ends for me. After that, we'll be having a small wedding in Portland in which you're all welcome to come.

Technically, this is our second wedding since we had an unofficial non-legal wedding in Korea right before Christmas so all of her relatives could participate. Keeping it unofficial made the bureaucratic hurdles easier to jump through for obtaining a visa. Dates are not set yet since we don't know when the visa will come through, so I'll keep you all informed.

A Special School

I can't take credit for this piece. I reproduced it from here

My life ended three days after my fifteenth birthday. As often happens when a life or even the world ends another life or another world will take its place and existence will go on, and that's how it passes that there is still a person wearing the name and matching the physical description and carrying the memories of the life that was lost. But make no mistake, my life ended three days after my fifteenth birthday.

That was the day I was awakened at four in the morning by two very large men who asked me politely to dress and then grabbed me and put me in handcuffs. While my parents watched passively I was dragged into a van and then to a chartered jet and then to the island of Jamaica, and made a member of a special tropical Hell.

You might ask what drove my parents to have me committed to the School. I asked myself that a lot over the next three years, and I'm pretty sure I know. I was too perfect. I made mostly A's and the third highest score my high school had ever seen on my entrance exam. I never did drugs, drank, or hang out with anybody; I was always at home. I was on the computer a lot, and while my parents probably thought I was playing games I was actually trying to master the deliberately obtuse computer language Brainfuck.

And nothing was ever good enough for them. The one time I got a C in History (I hate rote memorization) they hounded me for months. They complained that I sometimes forgot to take out the trash. I was picked on and I was a loner, so I kept to myself, and my parents picked on me so I kept a lot back from them too.

Nothing in my history has given me much cause to like people so I became a student of how they turn bad. I read Colin Wilson, I read Sade and Neitzsche and I even flipped through Mein Kampf. I became a connoisseur of hate propaganda. I read King and Koontz and the Goads' Answer Me! and I read some pretty disgusting stuff online that required me to lie about my age in order to access it.

If my life had not ended three days after my fifteenth birthday, if my parents had allowed me to simply mature into my obsession, I think I would have become a pretty good social scientist or criminologist. I might have become like Colin Wilson, who wrote at obsessive length and in gruesome detail about crime for his entire life but never showed any sign of wanting to commit a crime himself. I might have been a quiet loner, archiving the data to bolster my basic axiom that humans are, when you get down where the short hairs grow, just plain not very nice.

But I didn't get to mature into my obsession. Three days after my fifteenth birthday the darkness with which I was obsessed came for me, and my life as I knew it came to an end.

---

I knew all about the School, since it was among the evils I had catalogued. I had a pretty good idea what they would try to do to me, and if I hadn't known my life would have still ended but in an entirely different way.

They market themselves as a "behavior modification facility" and it's an accurate title, but their methods are more down to the Viet Cong than the American Psychiatric Association. They had taken everything from me and would make me as uncomfortable as possible without killing me. (A couple of times in the past they have even fucked up the "without killing" part, a factor I had to consider.) The only thing I had left was my mind, but that in turn was what they wanted.

I knew there would be rituals I could exchange for a little comfort -- rituals designed to wear me down, to make me doubt myself. Rituals well proven to erase the old personality so they could build up a new one to their liking, a personality that would be compliant, subservient, respectful and fearful of authority.

What they wanted from me, literally, was my soul. I decided while I was still on the jet that I wouldn't let them have it.

I had to think about it. It was a big decision. They would hurt me, a lot. They might even kill me, if only by accident. The thing was I had developed a huge distrust of all things human, and I didn't want to lose it. I didn't want to be supplicant and worse, I didn't want to be stupid; I was smart and I knew it and it was the one thing I had to call my own when the jocks were pushing me around. If I lost my curiosity and drive what would I be? I decided there at the outset that I'd rather die than become the drone they would try to make me.

So the plane landed and they gave me the drill. I'd start out at "level one," not allowed to do anything without permission -- talk, go to the bathroom, look out the window, anything. There was also no privacy, even in the bathroom where my "buddy" would make sure I didn't do anything untoward, like masturbate. Even though it made sense this little detail astonished me. I imagined the pervert sitting in a comfortable office in Utah who decided with the stroke of a pen that thousands of teenagers under his care would not be allowed to have orgasms. Their vision was breathtaking.

The overt rules concealed a network of secondary rules which were only implied, and much more sinister. You couldn't trust anyone or become trusted by anyone since the rules required you to narc any unpermitted behavior you observed. (I once read a story by Norman Spinrad set in a dystopian future where "any act not permitted is prohibited," a terroristic state of affairs that prevails at the School.) Yes it was a simple matter to proceed up the levels, if you were willing to sell your soul. If you were willing to undergo "sessions" where you spilled your most intimate secrets to be ridiculed, if higher up you would become complicit by handing out demerits yourself to those at lower levels.

Unlike most captives of the School I was already familiar with brainwashing techniques before I arrived and I saw right through their bullshit. Unfortunately that didn't change the fact that I was under their "care." Their major sanction for uncooperation is "face time," lying face down on concrete with your arms tied painfully for hours, days, even months on end. I foresaw doing a lot of face time.

Theoretically face time is only for wild, out-of-control behavior, but in reality it's for anything that pisses off the staff. I got my first taste of it on my second day and I don't think it's for anything I did; I think it's because my family host considers it a point of pride to make all new recruits cry, and I didn't.

I knew from the outset that my secret weapon was my dignity. I knew I couldn't shame people who are shameless torturers of children, but it wasn't about them; it was about me. They could apply any ridiculous sanctions for no good reason and this was beyond my control; but if I could shrug and simply endure the discomfort and quietly cooperate with the things that weren't important, it would be a tremendous victory.

On my second day at the School, lying on my face with my elbow nearly dislocated, I realized two important things. The first was that I could take the torture if I had to. I could take it to save my soul. If I simply alternated between a little face time and level one I could survive. I'd have a lot of time to think, but thinking is something I do well. Blind people learn to organize their thoughts without paper; I might acquire a similar discipline and extend my understanding of algorithms.

The second thing I realized was that I would never forgive my parents. They were suggestible and I knew, having seen it online, that the School's literature was slick. While they weren't evil people they had a responsibility, and they had fucked it up unforgivably.

On my third day I sat and did my mail-order lessons. (cheap bastards couldn't even be bothered with teachers, despite charging P and M over $30,000 a year for incarcerating me.) I raised one or two fingers depending on whether I needed to take a piss or a dump. I tried to get used to my "buddy" watching me wipe my ass. I didn't say a word. Late in the afternoon my case worker visited me, a truly despicable piece of human trash whose name I have erased from my memory.

It began to occur to me that I could cultivate a taste for masochism. I wasn't naturally disposed to enjoy pain but it might be better than crushing boredom.
"Well, you seem to be adjusting better than most, Brian. A little face time helps the attitude, doesn't it?" I shrugged and shook my head.
"Come on, you can answer freely, I'm your casey. Along with your family members here, I'll be deciding whether you move up the levels, eventually to graduation. So you should be open with me."

"I have no intention of moving up the levels."

"Come on, the rules are simple. All you have to do is follow them."

"I don't feel like it."

"That may change."

"It may or may not. Time will tell."

"An unusually poetic thought for a School member. But time has told many times, and you'll find life at level one gets old pretty quickly."

"In some ways, I've been at level one my whole life. I think I'll handle it okay."

"Come on, a smart lad like you will want to occasionally venture an opinion."

"I don't see why. Doesn't seem like much of a privilege to be allowed to talk to people who are running a brainwashing camp, and their toadies at the high levels."
Not surprisingly, that got me my second day of face time on day four.

---

After a week I was told I should write a letter home. Just like that; typical of the place's attitude, subtle as a brickbat over the head. It was obvious that P and M had been inquiring. So I wrote them a letter:
Daniel and Margaret:

I won't bore you with tales of how awful this place is, since I'm sure they will assure you I am trying to manipulate my way out of the situation. And so I would be; life itself is manipulation, each organism trying to get the best position for itself in life.

I have given much thought in the last seven days to the question of whether I can ever forgive you. And sadly, I find that I can't. It's not about the treatment here so much as the being dragged out of bed and hauled off to a foreign country at the behest of people you once trusted. If I can trust you that little, even if you were sending me to Club Med I'd have to avoid you for the rest of my life.

Looking back I see I made a terrible misjudgement. I thought you were not monsters. Now that I am paying the price I vow it is a mistake I will never make again.

Please do not write again. You are dead to me.

--Brian
That got me three days face down on the floor, and I'm certain they didn't send the letter. Not that it mattered, because the intent was sincere and the content didn't change a week later when they asked me to write another one.

---

Of the three years I spent at the School the middle year, when I was sixteen, was hardest. The first year I lived on rage and the last year I lived on hope, knowing they had no choice but to release me on my eighteenth birthday. (They tried to tell me they could keep me until I was twenty-one but I knew that was a lie.) But the middle year was very hard, and sometimes I'd falter in my meditation or find myself crazy with addled lust.

If I'd been incarcerated at thirteen or fourteen instead of fifteen I think they would have gotten me. But I was stronger than I knew and I was as exceptional as I thought and after awhile, never seeing level 2 became something of a badge of honor.

I saw three Fun Days, when we are "allowed" a little "freedom." Actually a little free-acting is demanded of us before our parents show up. The place is cleaned up, much more so than usual. (The filthy conditions aren't just cheapness; they're part of the overall brainwashing thing of making you "uncomfortable." Also, the unpermitted adjustments which are necessary, like hoarding the inadequate supply of toilet paper, make everyone vulnerable even if they've reached level 3 or 4.)

I spent my Fun Days looking out through the chain link at the beach as my parents begged me to get with the program. They were obviously hooked deep into the School's cult, spouting their little code words and parroting the same bullshit my casey did. Eventually I'd start talking, and shortly thereafter the "interview" would be over because I'd basically restate the topic of my first and every following letter home. I was done with them. The only good thing about the ongoing train wreck is that I knew it was bankrupting them.

Although I had formed the theory that it would be a good idea I never was able to cultivate a taste for pain. I was able to learn to drive it out of my mind. As Nietzsche said, "whatever does not kill you makes you strong." I became very strong indeed at the School, but not in the way they wanted.

Since I'd always had a problem with rote memorization I made a project of memorizing every aspect of the School. I memorized all the workers and their names and practised recalling them at will and in as much detail as possible. I memorized the layout of the place. At first it was very difficult, but eventually I got the trick. Before I left I had memorized nearly all the other prisoners, too.

---

The School director affected scorn as he teased me with the airline ticket, but I could tell he was as genuine as a used car salesman. He was losing an income stream, and he wasn't happy about it.
"We've advised your parents to cut you off if you don't graduate the program," he warned as if it was important. "You'll never inherit, you'll be on your own."

"I've never planned to inherit since my third day here," I said. "I'm an adult now and I can honestly tell you to go fuck yourself. As for my parents, as I've written in every letter you've demanded I write, I'm through with them."

"Well, you may find it hard to make your way in the world without their help."

"I know, this little adventure sabotaged all my chances at a real education. Don't worry, I'll deal with it."

"You'll be back."

"You know, you may be right."
He thought that was an admission of weakness and he smirked as he handed over the ticket and the fifty dollars. But it wasn't weakness, it was a very dark truth.

---

The School had advised my parents to put me up at a hotel for a few days with just a little money and no car, a different kind of leash. I took the room and refused to meet with them. I wandered around town and tried to figure out what to do next.

I happened to run across a tree crew cutting down a fallen oak. It's an interesting truth about the economy that shit jobs are never in short supply; somebody will always underpay you to do hard physical labor. It's the lack of jobs that pay enough to let you buy a house and raise a family that get the economists all in a lather. I found the tree crew foreman and asked if he was hiring.
"We're always hiring, but you look a little frail for this job."

"Mister, you wouldn't believe what I can put up with. Will you at least give me a chance?"
I had always been afraid of heights but the School had taught me that I could overcome fear. I learned quickly and on my very second day I earned overtime, $18 an hour for working as the dusk closed in.

My parents showed up as I was packing to move out of the hotel room.
"We were wondering if you'd reconsider," Daniel aka Dad said.

"No. I have a job and I just rented a place and I'll be fine."

"But we hate to see you wasting your potential. You could still go to college if you complete the program."

"You wasted my potential. I am just picking up the pieces. And if you ever come near me again I'll get a restraining order to keep you away."
Whatever does not kill you makes you strong. I could never have told my parents that before the School.

---

I had nightmares. I went to the library and looked up the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and three cherries came up. None of the treatments looked very effective. I thought about it and realized that the one lesson the School had taught me successfully was to face my fears. Every night I meditated at length, focusing on one of the employees whose faces I memorized. I made up elaborate deaths for all of them.

The nightmares didn't stop, but they became manageable.

At the library I noticed Internet terminals. I was far from being able to afford a computer and broadband Internet access but I could get an hour for free just by hanging around. I started hanging around a lot when I wasn't cutting down trees. I found a huge amount of information online about the School and its sister Schools around the world. I found a number of victim support groups and one time for long minutes I contemplated joining one.

Thinking of my nightmares, and how they always ended now, I realized that this was not the way to deal with things. I was meant to confront my demons, not to complain about them or run from them but to duke it out, mano a mano whatever the odds might be. I was the owner of a great power. I had successfully resisted three years of brainwashing, as I watched hundreds of other kids fold up. This was not a thing to be taken lightly.

I wasn't spending much money and soon I could have bought a computer, but I bought a gun instead. I also had some pictures of my parents blown up to life-size and I brought them to the shooting range where I used them as targets as I learned to use my gun. At least one good thing about the School is that, unlike a real prison, it doesn't encumber your rights. Seven days after filling out the form I was the proud owner of a brand new Glock pistol.

I mastered it quickly. I have always had a knack for machines, and this turned out to be true even for machines of death.

---

I made the decision to become a criminal easily, but not without some sadness. I had important things to do which would not be financed by cutting down trees, and I needed the time and energy.

I heard the ghost of Colin Wilson whispering in my ear about the criminal shortcut, and I politely asked his forgiveness. Colin had not envisioned the thing that had been done to me. I researched everything and acted boldly when necessary. I became skilled in the arts of false documentation and I practiced the casual theft of things like cars and boats. I decided not to learn to fly; if I was going to become Repairman Jack then the paper trail would be too thick.

Being a successful criminal requires you to understand things, but moreso it requires you to understand people. Which is easier, hot-wiring a car or simply driving off in one whose engine has been left idling? I became a student of what people do not notice. I learned disguise. I learned to make myself invisible.

I learned Spanish.

I took what I needed only from those who could afford it. When you are a criminal you walk like a god among men; everything is potentially yours to command. Of course there is a flipside to this, and most criminals are undone because they forget to be careful. I was very careful. I had developed a wonderful memory for detail thanks to the School and I could collect opportunities for future action simply by walking down the street and noticing things.

---

I wrote a script which polled a government website for flight plans filed to and from the little airport nearest the School in Jamaica. It ran quietly for me on one of the computers at the library. One day I checked in on it and noticed a charter was due to depart soon from Lakefront Airport, only a few miles away.

If this was what I thought it was, I could not let it happen.

I hot-wired an old beater I found in the parking lot of the local mall and drove out to the airport. I quickly found the plane; it wasn't hangared but neither was there anybody around.

Whatever you have been told about airport security after 9/11, let me assure you it doesn't apply to small private airports. I knew enough about aviation to spin a good yarn but nobody even confronted me as I wandered around the parked aircraft. Acting like an admirer I schmoozed up the plane scheduled for Jamaica, and as I inspected its three-point landing gear I snuggled the gun up to one of the rear tires and blew it out. (This wasn't the Glock registered to me; at this point I had many untraceable guns.)

After that I puttered around one of the nearby aircraft as if I was the owner. Eventually a little procession arrived, the pilot followed by two burly goons and a handcuffed teenage girl between them. When the pilot saw the blown tire, a great altercation started. Clearly he was unwilling to fly with it that way, and equally clearly the goons wanted to get in the air ASAP.

I strolled over casually.
"Problem, guys?" One goon pointed at the tire.
"You know anything about this?" he snarled.
"As a matter of fact, I did see something." I pulled the gun and shot him in the neck. Before his co-goon could react I wheeled and shot him in the neck. Then I wheeled and drew a bead on the pilot.
"Please, man...I'm just flyin' 'em."

"How often you fly handcuffed teenagers to Jamaica, mon?"
I gave him a few seconds.
"You shouldn't work for evil people, mon. Your deeds come back on you." And I shot him. Knowing this was a momentous act, my first murder, I troubled to notice my feelings. And I had never felt better. I had wiped a giant dog turd off the foot of humanity, and mentally I patted myself on the back for a job well done.

Then, calmly, I got out my handcuff key and unlocked the girl's restraints. She was understandably upset, and I had fucked up; she had seen my face. I'd have to change my appearance and assume a new identity.
"You killed them," she said, and it wasn't an accusation. Her tone conveyed wonder. As it possibly should have.
"They were evil people intent on doing you great harm. I have come back from where they were taking you. You don't want to go there."

"What do I do?"

"Run, and don't get caught until you are eighteen. Trust no one. Steal what you need from those least likely to notice. Don't go to a relative, no matter how well-meaning they are. If your parents are behind this they can have you sent anyway."

"I don't have any money. I don't have anything."

"One way or another your life as you knew it is over. It's your choice whether to let them turn you into a nightmare-plagued zombie or resist them."
To this day I don't know how it ended, if she evaded her pursuers or get sent to the School anyway. I do know that the ambush made only the local papers, and nobody made the connection with the School. I suspect it cost the School a few bucks to keep it that way.

Since I'd compromised my identity I didn't bother going home. I could get everything I needed again in short order, and soon I was a different person living in a different American city. And the gun which had killed the "escorts" lay at the bottom of the Mississippi River two hundred miles upstream, where I was confident it would never be found.

---

I read the survivors' accounts faithfully. Always my destiny hung in the air as I visited the library. I could have afforded a computer of my own; I could have afforded a Beowulf cluster of them, but I rarely stayed in one place long enough to justify getting a broadband hookup. And most libraries have Internet access.

I considered recruiting helpers, but my basic distrust of people was too great to let me take that route. What I wanted to do required an army, but it would have to be an army of one.

I made it to Jamaica on a stolen yacht, which I abandoned at a point on the island far from the School. I stole a speedboat and bobbed offshore until my calculations told me the hour was right to revisit the School.

There had been a little employee turnover but jobs at the School pay very well on Jamaican terms and for the most part I knew who to kill. I was methodical and efficient. I knew they would hear and become aware; some of the students were too complicit to cheer me on, and there is no such thing as a "silenced" firearm that is really quiet. So I planned my route to make use of the chaos. When the workers affected to be prisoners I recognized them and picked them away. The staff were used to dealing with compliant teenagers on overwhelming terms, and against me they had no defense.

I made my way back to the speedboat, to yet another part of the island, where I had identified another yacht ripe for stealing. In two days I was back in the USA.

---

I had the first sleep without nightmares since returning from my first visit to the School.

---

I smiled and thought of other Schools in Mexico, Samoa, even the northern USA, and I began to formulate plans.

But first, I prepared to visit my parents.

Studying at 5am

I woke up at 4:30am today for no particular reason. This is happening quite often lately. I think the combination of a hungry kitty in the morning and the fact that my mind is racing ever since I got back to school, conspire to allow me to sleep for pure physiological reasons only.

Last night I prepared my presentation on Marcel Schoppers' 1987 paper on Universal Plans. I had a lot of fun researching this since I studied related papers and its criticism as well as talk to the author directly. Working at NASA JPL now, he was kind enough to answer my questions via email, and I obtained wonderful insights about research work in the trenches. Of course, he doesn't do research anymore, since he got fed up with it.

This morning I'm reading about a theory of evolution of the brain by Michael Arbib, one of my professors teaching my Brain Theory & AI class. This class is quite interesting but also quite difficult. There's so much new terminology like 'cerebellum', 'amgydala', and 'basal ganglia'. Fun!

There and Back Again

7:00am - Woke up to the meowing and harassment from Bean. Pushed him off the bed a couple times and finally threw a blanket at him to make him shut up.

8:00am - Alarm went off. Immediately Bean began meowing insistently that I feed him. I got up and walked to the kitchen while the blood was rushing out of my head. Gave him a scoop, reset my alarm and went back to bed.

9:00am - Alarm went off. Reset it to 10 and fell asleep.

10:00am - Alarm went off. Reset it to 11. Tried to go to sleep. Bean began harassing me again, and I realized that I needed to go to the lab to work today. Got up. Ate cereal. Drank coffee. Listened to the radio and answered my email.

11:00am - Got in the car and drove off to Marina del Rey where the research laboratory was.

11:45am - Signed in at the desk, and took the elevator to the 8th floor.

11:50am - Took the elevator to the ground floor and signed out after realizing that it was Labor Day and no one was there. Drove back to my apartment.

12:30pm - Got home. Ate some lunch. Drank 2 cups of water. Ate a handful of Cheez-It's and 2 granola bars.

1:00pm - Wrote the schedule of my day on my web log.

Transitional Sunday, End of the Month, or (Last Day to Be on the National Do-Not-Call List)

First things first. Remember to get your phone number on the National Do-Not-Call List to keep telemarketers from calling you at home. August 31 is the last day to do it, otherwise you'll have to wait a whole 3 months before further entries will be put into effect. The website is www.donotcall.gov.

So I am now living down in Los Angeles, and going to school at University of Southern California. I have 4 classes. Brain Theory, Foundations of Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Control & Learning in AI, and Chinese 1. I can say that it's quite a load. The last one, Chinese, I'm just taking for a fun diversion to keep my time here always interesting. Maybe some day I will go and visit China and put my new skills to use.

Today was a day of doing odd jobs. This morning I took out the trash and the recycling that has been accumulating on the table in my new apartment. My new roommate has been out of town all weekend, so I have the whole place to myself, with the exception of Bean. I cleaned up a bit in my room, but I don't have a vacuum cleaner yet to suck up the crumbs and other filth in the carpet. There's still a pile of dishes in the sink that I've been neglecting all day. I think I was too busy spraying ants and doing my laundry to get around to them.

Every day I've been getting on my bike and riding on over to the campus. It usually takes me 10 minutes from my apartment to get there. This time, I decided to ride my bike over to the hardware store to buy some pegs for the bookshelf that came with the apartment. The store is well past the campus and I decided to take an alternate route I've never been on before.

It's interesting to note the changes in the type of people you see on the streets as you go from block to block. I live in a neighborhood with a high concentration of blacks and latinos. The closer to campus you get, the more they start to thin out and things become more populated with students. Sunday was especially interesting because I got to see the numerous church communities in action among the Mexican and El Salvadorian immigrants.

After I reached the hardware store, I kept on riding my bike north up the street where I knew I would eventually reach some Korean communities. I knew it was far, but I had plenty of time and was interested in seeing how the food was in LA. Things were mostly El Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Mexican almost the entire way. All the stores and restaurants were advertised in Spanish. Gradually, you began to see Korean Hangul interspersed among the Spanish.

One of the striking things that I found very interesting that I never saw in Korea was that many of the Korean businesses make investments in security cameras, bars, and security guards. This is something I never ever saw in Korea because it's such a safe country. Nevertheless, I found a reasonable-looking restaurant and went in.

There were several dishes advertised in English, but most of the rest of the menu was in pure Korean. It was about twice as expensive as the same dish in Korea, but I think it was worth it to have the same taste, style of restaurant, and atmosphere as you would find in Korea. I ordered the kimchibokumbap which is a spicy fried rice mixed with cooked kimchi. Very good. It cost me $7.

I rode my bike back to campus to check my email. I momentarily considered going to the library to watch a movie. The library has a colossal collection of DVDs and videos and a room full of players and televisions in which to watch them. All of it is free of charge if you have a library card, which I do. You can get old classics or recent popular films. Yesterday I watched "The Last Emperor", which was about 4 hours long and the library closed before I could finish watching it.

Finally, I came home and tried to fix my internet connection which has been inoperative ever since I bought the service. I think I finally got everything resolved and I am now here writing this on the web with Bean lying on the desk with me, carefully supervising the operation.

A Casual Korean Existence

Things are going well. I'm earning some cash now teaching middle school brats English. The cool thing is that they're actually good students and I don't have to spend much time playing babysitter. It's only a 7-day job since I'm filling in for a normal teacher while he visits his sick mother.

I'm actually getting more money than I thought since the dollar is real low right now. I originally forecasted a $650 take but its turning out to be a $720 take after the currency has been transfered. That should about cover my plane ticket.

On saturday I went to the Korean countryside and had quite a ball. We went to see the nun temple but if you've seen one temple, you've seen them all. The highlight was just walking around and exploring through the underdeveloped area.

The Korean peninsula consists of lots and lots of hills. Where the hills meet, there's usually farms and houses there. The spaces between the hills are mostly flat from the hundreds of years of farming. Currently you'll find old houses, shops, restaurants, and lots of new construction.

I've seen lots of really crappy looking houses. I can see that they wouldn't be that bad to live in if that's poverty. The thing I don't understand is how these people can make a living. Sure the farmers have a livelihood, but it's a really tight market on the peninsula. Farmers use every sliver of land to grow crops on. You'll be surprised the places you find a little garden.

Telemarketers-be-gone

The FCC started a new national do-not-call registry for those who do not want to receive telemarketer calls.

You can sign up easily at http://www.donotcall.gov/.

I highly recommend signing up since you won't be afraid of you picking up your phone anymore. The list becomes active and binding on October 1st, but you can sign up before that.

This list makes an exception to "political organizations, charities, telephone surveyors or companies with which you have an existing business relationship." But most of the riff-raff will be gone.

Tell your friends!

Jacob

This Boy Needs a Home!

This poor troubled boy is going to be homeless! His negligent father is going to be leaving him for a month without someone to look after him. If no one has the heart to take him in during this time, poor Bean will be forced to work the streets to fund his catnip addiction! Surely there is someone who will save him from this terrible fate!

Anyone?

Accepted!

I finally received a letter in the mail confirming my admission to the University of Southern California. I was accepted as Masters student. I was rejected as a Ph.D. student, but all the credits I earn as a Masters student can be applied towards a Ph.D. if I get admitted later at the same school.

It certainly was a great deal of stress on my part. They were the last school to make any notification about my status. I was calling the department office about 3 times a day trying to get into contact with someone. No one seemed able to answer the phone, and when they did, I got promises of information that never materialized.

My future was uncertain, and I didn't know if I should follow up on the offer I received at University of South Florida. I was neglecting it because I would have rather attend USC instead. Now I get to attend a university that's very strong in robotics. I'm very excited about going, and I can't wait to meet some of the professors of whom I've read about in books and papers.

Although, I'm not too enthusiastic about living in Los Angeles. I suppose I can get used to the heat and smog. It's a fair trade.

Ideas for My Graduate Thesis Work

These are some ideas I've been throwing around for a while that I might choose to do my graduate research on. Many of them are just superficial ideas that may or may not have much depth to them. All of them are related to robotics and AI.

Modular Reconfigurable Robotics: This involves collections of robotic units that are all interconnected. With a collective effort, they can metamorph themselves into complicated and useful forms such as snakes, walking legs, chairs, velociraptors, etc.. The challenging part of this new field is how does the robot make decisions on how to move its parts around to achieve these new forms? Additionally, if some of these individual parts would break or go bad-- as they are guaranteed to do if you have units up into the thousands-- how do you deal with these dead limbs? Do you treat them like tumors and eject them from your body or do you just work around them?

Robopsychology (or Robotic Psychological Disorders): First pioneered by a severe female scientist in one Isaac Asimov's famous science fiction novels, this field doesn't actually exist. Rather it's a hodgepodge of research of AI researchers and psychologists examining what exactly it is to be a thinking being. I would like to take it a step further by examining the AI systems in use today in academia and the real world and catalog all the various psychological disorders and insansities these systems have suffered and research their impact on people and other AI systems around them. I think it would be fascinating to contrast this with human and animal psychology theories and see what emerges. Currently most AI systems are delusional since their entire world view is represented internally and are incapable of comparing it with reality.

Robotic Sexuality: This idea popped into my head after I saw the Tickle Salon. It's basically a robotic brush that massages your body autonomously. The map-making and kinematics of the project are very interesting, but the sexual undertones of the demonstration are unmistakable. It occurred to me that there's a whole field of knowledge to be had that's been relatively untouched for decades in AI and robotics research. Sexuality is a very broad and complicated term in and of itself with things like gender roles, gender identity, sexual orientation, fetishes, biology, and a whole mess of other things that I can't even begin to list. It would be fascinating to see how these things might be applied to disembodied or robotic entities. Of course, there's a reason a lot of this research hasn't been done before. Funding for research of sexual-related topics is scarce to come by and publishing papers on the topic could give you a reputation that you would prefer to live without.

Robotic Asteroid Mining: Something I've been peripherally studying for a couple years now. The basic idea is that there are lots of valuable resources to be had in space such as metals or hydrocarbons. What makes them so valuable is that they are already in space instead of on the surface of the Earth. The cost of launching materials into space on rockets is enormous and the effort involved in procuring resources off-world may be worth it. The problem is in the risk, time, and cost of the operation. Believe it or not, it's far more cost effective to travel to an asteroid and bring resources back to the Earth over a period of 1-2 years, then it is to travel to the moon and bring resources back in 2 months. But it's still too high of cost in general. One of the possible options of making a feasible mission would be to send a robotic prospector and excavator. The cost-savings in not sending a human are several orders of magnitude, but they increase the overall risk of the mission. The key is how do you make an effective and reliable semi-autonomous robot (or robots) that will carry out the mission in an environment you have no control over and little initial knowledge. It's not as easy as it sounds. There's a whole slough issues such as dust in the gears from the asteroid, not falling off the asteroid in a microgravity environment, weathering the harsh change in temperatures as the sun comes over the horizon every 30 minutes (or 10 hours, depending on the body), and other numerous hazards that I won't go into.

Mid-Spring Term

Wow! It's been a long time since I wrote on here. Approximately 3 months. Well, you're probably all wondering what the heck I've been doing lately.

For one, I'm finishing up another year of school. The interesting thing about this year is that it hasn't been an incredibly important set of classes. About half of the classes I took this year wont count towards any degree I'm pursuing. A partial reason for this is that I changed my mind halfway through the year about what I was going to do. I had fun though! I don't regret taking any of the classes I did, and I learned so much.

Next year I'm going to graduate school to begin my pursuit of a Ph.D. in computer science. Specifically, I am going to study robotics. I've been accepted to the University of South Florida and I am waiting to hear from the University of Southern California. Though I was rejected for the Ph.D. program at USC, it is very likely that I will be accepted as a Master's student instead, though I will be able to apply all my earned credits to a subsequent Ph.D. program. If accepted, I will definitely be going to USC.

The current classes I'm taking this term are Artificial Intelligence, Computer Data Structures, and Modern Physics. I'm really psyched about taking physics since it's something I've wanted to do for about 4 years, but never had the time up until now.

Work is progressing on my robot project, and I'm very excited that things are starting to be put together. For a long time, things seemed like they were going nowhere. However, now that we have parts to work with, I've been able to delegate duties to the team members and get things moving. I've found that one of the better strategies is to serve as a supporting role in other people's tasks because it keeps me involved in the design process and keeps the person I'm working with motivated. The website hasn't been updated in a month but you can visit it here.

Winters at the Vet

I've had to take my cat, Bean, to the veterinarian an awful lot lately. The first time I took him was for having worms. He got a supplement and I found that he was quickly becoming overweight. So it was time to regulate the food and keep him on a strict schedule.

A couple weeks later, he still has worms, so I take him back to get a shot. While there they give him some vaccinations, and I found out he gained weight up to 15 lbs! Oh brother.

After a couple days I noticed that Bean started to have swelling on his stomach where he got his shot. He was also really sore. So it was back to the vet. Luckily they didn't charge me anything and gave him some anti-allergy medicine which quickly made him feel better.

After about 2 weeks, a bump is still there, but not as big. It doesn't hurt Bean, but I took him back to the vet today just in case. They told me that it will go down gradually, and just make sure that it doesn't get any bigger. I also asked them to weigh him and he was down to 13.8 lbs. The diet is working! They didn't charge me for that visit either.

The diet consists of feeding the cats less food, but more often. We tried feeding Bean once in the morning and once in the evening, but that didn't seem to work since he quickly exploded to 15 lbs. So feeding less food in a day spread out over 3 times in a day seems to be working well. Bean doesn't complain as much and he seems to be slimming down gradually.

Emerging from My Dark Hole

I realize that I haven't updated my website in quite some time. I assure you that it wasn't completely deliberate, but I did purposefully set aside my involvement when finals were soon approaching.

You see back in mid-November, I had two really huge things taking over my time. The first was preparing for finals, which was no small feat. The second involved finishing my graduate school applications and taking the GRE test. The GRE is an entrance exam into graduate schools akin to what SATs are to undergraduate schools. Combining these 2 things together, I was left with virtually no time for anything else beyond eating, sleeping, the occasional shower, and the amount of time it took to throw things on my floor whenever I came home.

After finals were over, I was kind of in a daze. I spent the next few days indulging myself in alcohol, movies, books, and computer games. But soon the desire to do something productive overcame me and I began doing the research I wanted to do during the school term but did not have the time to do. I kind of lost myself in this as well and usually spent my days alone with the cats since my roommate took off for Iowa. I came to town for a couple days for Christmas, but that was the extent of my contact with the outside world.

It's been a week and a half into the next school term. School isn't as exciting as it was last term, but that might be because I'm taking a much lighter load this term and am not under constant pressure to get things done. I have more free time, but I'm spending that working on my robot project that I started last term. Last term was planning, but now we're doing some actual building. It should be interesting.

Pie at 1am

Last night I was driving around town aimlessly, with no intention of going anywhere in particular. I had just got done watching the last showing of "Harry Potter", a much needed break and retreat from reality. Suddenly, it struck me. I need pie!

Without warning, I was a man on a mission. Where do you find pie in the middle of the night when every sane-minded person has gone to bed, or is completely drunk out of their mind. There was only one answer, and it was Shari's!

Yes, a 24-hour establishment that serves home-cooking, courtesy of Mexican immigrants, just like your dear sweet Ma used to make. Where else would you want to go?

Driving into the parking lot of Shari's, my heart sank and a bad taste developed in my mouth. Nearly all the parking spots were full, and it looked like there was a line waiting to be seated. The place was crowded. I was expecting a nice, relaxed, low-key pie consumption event. But it was not to be.

The pie gods had seen fit to deprive me of this one satisfaction. Waiting 10 minutes before sitting amongst loud-noised heathens was too high a price to pay. I had to go without. There was no other option.

Sullenly, I drove home grumbling to myself. It would be another 3 hours before the caffeine wore off, and I would be able to sleep. But that's okay, because I would do what I do every night. I would have a backgammon marathon! ....... err, I mean do dance aerobics! .... err, do homework!

Illicit Business

As we all know, college is expensive. You must pay for tuition, student fees, beer, books, food, rent, beer, and clothing. All these expenses certainly add up, and holding a part time job at your local 7-Eleven just isn't going to cut it.

I personally have felt the bite of fascist student fees supporting everything from Religious Cults to the Porn Viewer's Club, all posing as legitimate student groups. And tuition rises? All the result of commie free-market liberalization!

But all this political undertone aside, the Man is putting me in debt, and I have to do something about it. I've been forced to turn to alternative forms of income.

I started simple by digging up my old midterms and finals and selling them to the gullible freshmen for a marked-up price of $50. Of course, the tests are useless since new ones are drafted every year, but I neglected to tell them that.

After a while, I realized that all my cheater-wannabe customers were under the legal drinking age. I also surmised that they would be willing to buy cheap, watered-down alcohol at a ridiculously marked up price! Thus, began my new career in boot-legging in the dorms. I made weekly rounds, selling everything from whiskey, beer, schnaps, tequila, and Korean soju. I've had a couple close calls when my customers were a little over-zealous in their consumption, and subsequently jumped out windows, harassed the dorm staff, and pissed on peoples cars. Luckily, I used a secret code name in my dealings, so that the police couldn't trace any of those incidents back to me.

Did you know that you can make a fortune as a male-stripper? It's true! All you have to have is tight abs, firm buttocks, a meaty bare chest, and dashing good looks. All of which I have none. So, I've been forced to work in the "budget" strip bars. With some talent, you can take a hairy back, limp and flabby muscles, and shriveled testicles to your advantage. I've pioneered and patented this special move called the "Gorilla" which I dare not reveal here hence it be stolen!

Finally, I realized that the most money could be made by selling school children highly addictive drugs. I got an entire kindergarten class hooked on heroin. They're funding their habits by literally raiding cookie jars and sneaking Pop-Tarts to school. I take the Pop-Tarts as initial payment but have them write IOUs so when they're older and can earn money, I'll be literally raking it in.

Well, perhaps this doesn't completely finance my goal of getting an education and living the American dream. If I'm ever going to fulfill my dream of becoming a social worker and helping people, I'll need a lot of money and a lot of drugs to do it. So the big BIG money is in blackmail!

Ever since I discovered who *really* killed Kennedy, I contacted and extorted money from him. The unfortunate thing is he's been blackmailed by a hundred people all ready. By this time he was really experienced with this, and put me on the "standard package" which involves a payment plan, stock options, and a trip to the Bahamas. Unfortunately stocks are useless, the money doesn't come in fast enough, and I'm allergic to the sun.

As you can imagine, all this work during the school year can really cut into your free time. Perhaps I might just consider cutting back on my expenses. Looking at my budget, the biggest sink for my money is my compulsory gambling. I keep buying Keno tickets and spending late nights at the Bingo hall. I can't stop now! Sooner or later I'll win the big one and all my finance problems will be over!

Cat Olympics

I woke up last night with several cats in my room. They were having an Olympics competition, competing in various arenas. They had the 100m dash running from my roommate's to my room as fast as they could.

There was the stalking tournament, a recent addition to the games, where they attempt to gain the "advantage" by surprising your opponent when he or she is distracted by a piece of string. Points were awarded based on success of ambush and artistic impression in the maneuver such as the pounce and the preceded butt-wiggling.

They also had the judo competition where you try to pin your opponent to the floor. A number of extra rules have been added to the cat version which include clawing, biting, and pummeling your opponent senseless when you have him pinned to the ground. Extra points are given to the one being beaten if he escapes and quickly returns again for more punishment.

In the midst of the judo competition, I realized that I was trying to sleep, and I couldn't have Olympic games going on in my room at 1am in the morning. I was forced to call off the games and postpone them until morning. Winners will be declared next week.

Caffeine Hallucinations and Evil Spirits

(Disclaimer: No evil spirits were harmed in the making of this journal entry.)

My days have been 16 hour blurs. Some might say that I'm very productive in this span of time. Others would argue that the sleep deprivation and the high caffeine blood levels induce a frantic feedback loop that spirals one down into madness and depravity.

Looking up from the depths, the view isn't that bad from down here. Sure, you lose touch with reality. You forget that there's a world out there beyond the next assignment, the next project, and the next cup of coffee. But interesting things happen in this state. You can accomplish things that you couldn't otherwise.

Forget about a being "balanced" and leading a healthy lifestyle. Several times, I've caught myself only drinking coffee from morning to the afternoon. I simply neglect to feed myself. Additionally, I only eat about 1.5 meals a day. My biggest meal is usually lunch. I gorge myself on as large a meal as possible. On either side of lunch, I pad it with a light breakfast and/or a light evening snack. That seems to be enough to keep me satisfied.

This kind of diet isn't possible with an "active" and "healthy" lifestyle. I spend more hours sitting in a chair, back hunched over a table, while clutching a pencil in my arthritic hands, than I do standing up or walking. Exercise? Forget about it. The most active part of my day is rush-walking across campus to my next class.

My home is now the library, and the buildings I have my classes in. My only time spent at my apartment is the 45 minutes before I go to bed, 7-8 hours of sleep, and 45 minutes before I leave in the morning. My presence in this apartment is barely felt. It's a good thing that I have a roommate otherwise this apartment would fall quickly into disarray with the cats running amok.

I am now up an hour later than I should be, and I'm going to feel the punishment in the morning. That is, until I get my next cup of coffee.

The Burden of Fame

I picked up my Nobel prize this morning. It was kind of a hassle really, but the press would have been hounding me all day if I didn't do it. I had to get up 30 minutes earlier than usual, so I could make it class on time.

The Oscar, I told them to send by mail. It just wasn't worth showing up in person and to then be lavished with expensive dining, drinking, and beautiful women. I mean, who wants all that?

The Emmy I got last year, I gave to my cousin. He was having more fun with it in his mouth then I was having it over my fireplace along with all the other honors and trivialties. Maybe some day he'll grow up enough to realize that sucking on a statue isn't very fun and will have the decency to pass it along to some other toddling, pewking crap-factory. I'd like to think my Emmy is out there doing good.

Now, don't ask me about Pulitzers. Okay, you asked me. I have 7 or 8. I kind of lost count. I stopped paying attention to which of my masterpieces they bestowed the honor upon after that year they gave me a Pulitzer for a very provocative piece I published in the Want Ads, demanding $300 for an used Buick when it was clearly only worth $150. After that, Pulitzers kind of lost their meaning to me.

Sure dining with politicians is fun, but do you know how annoying it is to have them constantly asking you for advice? And I've turned down the presidential nomination at least 5 times by now. When will they get the picture that I'm trying to lead a quiet and normal life?

So you want the answer to life's question? Tough! I'm keeping it to myself. I realized that the world isn't ready to know. Do you know how difficult it is to keep a secret like that? No, of course you don't. That's why I envy your ignorant and simple lives. I wish I could just own a van down by a river and spend the rest of my days in solitude without the press, the public, the politicians, and the Illuminati chasing after me.

Real-time Food Court Drama

I sat there staring at the cup of water on the table. Why was she drinking only water? Why didn't she order some food or soda?

I told her about the heavy drinking last night with Jeffrey and how I was really hung over this morning. I also mentioned my midterm 2 hours ago in which I most likely failed. The physics teacher is a fucking asshole, so it wasn't my fault if my grades are low. He hates me. That's all there is to it.

Running out of things to complain about, I asked her how her day was. She began blabbering on about something. She mentioned Saturday and my mind began drifting off to this weekend when I was going to drive to Salem with Jeffrey to catch a party. Most likely there would be lots of beer and lots of sleezy women. Of course, I'd have to be as tactful as possible, so Michelle wouldn't find out. Which brought me back to the present with her finishing something about her stupid dog's skin condition.

"That reminds me, this Saturday I'm going with Jeffrey to Salem to catch a party," I interrupted. Here it comes. This Saturday? she asked. "Yeah, this Saturday." Aren't you forgetting something? "No. What am I forgetting?" It's only our 3 month anniversary! "You actually keep track?!"

She began hassling me about "not caring" and about this being "typical." Our voices had begun to raise, and by this time we were attracting the attention of several people around us. I thought about saying something, but the bitch was embarassing herself! It wasn't my fault.

The cup of water still sat on the table, untouched for several minutes.

Things were starting to get out of hand. She began going on about "re-thinking our relationship" and "spending time apart." I decided I needed to straighten things out a bit.

"Look, I can have dinner with you on Sunday. This is nothing to have a hissy-fit about." She glared at me, gave me the stink-eye, and said, excuse me? Obviously she wasn't responding to reason.

I noticed the cup of water again, and it began to take on a new meaning for me. A feeling of blandness like our relationship had been.

I don't think I can do this anymore, she announced.

What's this? Is she trying to break up with me? "What do you mean?" I asked.

I think this relationship is going nowhere.

At this point I stopped hearing what she said because I was so infuriated. She, break up with me? How dare she! After all I did, dating her when no one else would. I was doing her a favor! And now she's throwing it in my face. That ungrateful bitch!

Looking up again, I started to notice tears falling down her cheeks, onto the table, just barely missing the cup. The bystanders who were previously watching us, were now ferociously trying to mind their own business, while giving me brief glimpses of contempt.

"Fine," I said. "Fine. Fine. Fine!" She wasn't worth this much trouble. I didn't have to put up with this shit.

We sat there for a minute in silence, as if trying to figure out what to do next, very aware of the cautious eyes all around us.

Suddenly infuriated, I grabbed my bag and yelled, "I'm going!" Doubly infuriated that I didn't find something more spiteful to say, something to make her regret ever breaking up with me, something that would leave her crying each night for weeks to come, I smacked the cup and splashed the water all over her.

I marched out of the building and down the hall to the lobby. My sullen expression slowly began to assume the form of a grin. I was feeling quite satisfied with myself.

I waited for a few minutes and sure enough she began walking up the hall to my position, a bemused expression on her face. The farce was over and we were reaping the benefits from our performance. She laughed, holding up a business card saying, "Some guy from campus ministries gave me his card and told me to come in if I wanted couseling!" How perfect could it have ended?



We talked it over, laughing quite a bit, discussing our technique. "I think that was a nice touch splashing the water like that," she said.

"Yeah, it made me look like a real asshole didn't it?" I wondered if this fiasco might follow me around campus. I thought it would be very fun if it did. I was now back to being single, having only had a 5-minute relationship before it finally crumbled and burst into flames.

Although, I think I'm going to miss Jeffrey and our nights of getting drunk and chasing sleezy women.

Fake Relationships

I'm not feeling very inspirational today. I'm mostly a little tired from all the homework I've had to do. Add to it that none of my project team members showed up to our scheduled meeting today but me, only 6 hours of sleep last night, and one less cup of coffee today, and you have a college student who is very tired and unenthusiastic right now.

One of the things that I am enjoying right now is my club involvement. The only 2 clubs that really involve any activity are the robotics club and the drama club.

For the robotics club, I've taken on the role of facilitator for project planning. Basically, I'm planning tasks that help organize the design ideas and put them in a deliverable form. This contrasts sharply with the workshop tinkering that was going on before. This has been going on for several months as far as I know. Regardless, we have some very smart people on our team



I also have the drama club which, as you know, I've been planning guerilla theater events. Last event was street preaching about a fake religion in front of the library. That was a lot of fun, but the next event is relationship break-ups in public places. We plan to have couples get involved in loud and dramatic discussions in some place with a lot of people with much screaming and yelling and finally a clean cut as the two walk away in fierce anger. It should be fun.

We plan to do our first break-up tomorrow.



And this is me taking a picture of my cat at 5:30am in the morning. Who can guess what book that is at the bottom of the picture?

Holy Noses and Happy Russians

It's been an interesting couple days for me. Actually, it's been an interesting couple weeks. I am now a member of 4 clubs. This includes the OSU's American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), OSU's IEEE the electrical engineering society, the Masque and Dagger Theater Guild, and the Society for Robotic Visions at Oregon State (SRVOS), or better known as the Robot Club.

In fact, I just got done with a SRVOS meeting. We were discussing and organizing our project goals. Apparently they've been working on this robot for several months last year, but it's been slow going. I decided to take the opportunity to apply the skills I'm learning in my design class and help these guys organize their goals and objectives. So far it's been really productive, but there's still a lot of work to do. We haven't even got around to design ideas yet.

This morning was rough for me since I stayed up to 11pm doing homework. This may not seem late, but I have to get up every morning at 6am. I got up, bumped my alarm 15 minutes ahead and got in some extra rest.

Last night, toiling away at the local Shari's, some Russian guy walks into the restaurant, speaking very little English and orders himself some food. Now what would a non-English speaking Russian be doing in a small-town Shari's at 11pm at night? He ordered his food and took about 45 minutes to finish his meal. Apparently Russians are a lot more patient about their meals than we Americans. They take the time to savour the food. We Americans try to shovel it down as fast as we can, so we can make that appointment we're already late for.

Remembering my 3 years of high school Russian, and one term of college Russian, I felt tempted to try and speak with him. I don't think I've ever tried to apply my Russian knowledge before. Whenever I encountered a Russian speaker, I was always too embarassed to attempt conversation. However, having spent 3 months in Korea and not speaking a bit of Korean somehow changed my view on things. I wanted to talk to him to make him feel more welcome rather than practice my skills.

So I tried, and he was genuinely very happy to talk to me. We didn't really talk about anything significant. I had a very difficult time understanding him, but I'm used to having big gaps in conversation and resorting to body language. Being that I told him my Russian-equivalent name, Yakov (Jacob), he began using the endearing form on me, Yasha. I expected there to be a certain amount of formality in our conversation, but there wasn't a bit. I was immediately his friend, and he must have shook my hand like 10 times.

This was the conclusion to an interesting day where earlier I found myself out in the sun, wearing an aluminum foil hat, tissues in hand, preaching to the masses about the All-Nosing Joe. You see, I finally executed the plan of covert guerilla acting that was hatched less than 2 weeks ago.

Aaron, my partner in crime, and I were supposed to meet in the cafe at 1pm. I was supposed to bring the fliers. I printed out 400. He was supposed to bring the aluminum foil beanies, the boxes of tissue, and the Groucho Marx glasses. We each were supposed to wear conservative church attire.



I got to the cafe about 30 minutes early, so I tried to spend the time studying. Unfortunately, I couldn't focus because the realization that I was actually going to go out into the courtyard and proselytize a non-sensical religion was beginning to take it's toll. But I had planned ahead and was already prepared.

5 minutes before Aaron arrived, I snuck into the bathroom and did 2 shots of Korean soju. That stuff hits you hard and fast, and the anxiety immediately went away. I was definitely ready to go outside and make a complete fool of myself. To do what had to be done for the good of the theater! The show must go on!

Aaron arrived, and we took our stuff up to the 2nd floor of the library where we rented a storage locker for the occasion. We began assembling our religious paraphenilia which consisted of cheap-ass big-nose glasses that we had to adorn via rubber bands because they were too small, aluminum foil beanies to protect ourselves from psychotronic mind control, and boxes of tissue made into duct tape necklaces to offer the lost souls so that they might "sneeze and be saved." We took each other's picture before venturing out into the sea of heathens.




Out in the courtyard we began passing out fliers, handing out tissues, and preaching things like "Joe is All-Nosing", "Joe Blows", "All Hail Joe", "Sneeze and be Saved", and "Salvation Blows!" "Can you smell Joe?" I would ask people menacingly as they walked by desperately trying to mind their own business. Occasionally I had revelations and felt compelled to preach to the entire library at once. My sermons were short and to the point and left those in the audience in silent contemplation.

My co-conspirator, Brother Gumby, was far more enthusiastic than I was and felt compelled to run around the whole of the courtyard giving flyers to people who spent the extra 30 seconds walking around to try and avoid us. In fact, he was such a maniac, he got rid of his entire 200 fliers while I had only handed out 80. Perhaps I was too filled with the smell of Joe to focus on the task at hand.




It is interesting to observer the responses of normal people from the perspective of the proselytizer. Responses varied from completely ignoring us, verbally rejecting offers of informational fliers, silently accepting the fliers, taking the fliers with interest, smirking, and enthusiastic amusement. However I was a bit at an observational disadvantage since I couldn't wear my glasses during my performance, so I couldn't gauge people's facial expressions. According to Brother Gumby, he got a lot of dirty looks, but I suppose that's expected from people who cannot smell the divinity of Joe.

After we ran out of fliers, we went back inside the library to get our stuff and go home. I think the best part of the whole experience was when we were walking up the stairs, I saw one of our fliers crumpled up and discarded on the floor. That discarded paper gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction that a job was well done. Some poor sap had read that flier, been completely annoyed by and didn't even give it the decency of a proper disposal. It was good work.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to obtain pictures of myself in the act, but hopefully those will be forthcoming since I know that at least someone took pictures.

Dances with Chickens

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar. I see them, stand up and ask, "Is this some kind of joke?" They look at me, disappointed, and leave. Some day soon, we will rid the world of all bad punch lines.

The weekend was fun. I went to the beach to see one of my old friends' wedding. She got married and the 3-month old kid was in the ceremony too. It's been a while since I've been in a church.

I'm wearing a tie right now. Last night I searched the internet to find tie-tying instuctions. It took me about 20 minutes to practice it enough to finally be able to do it properly. Now my tie looks nice and sharp. It's going to be an interesting day.

Now I have to go cut some paper. More later.

Extreme Crocodile Frisbee Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday was a very extreme day. I was so busy, I couldn't even think. I had extreme coffee from 7-11 at a steal of 69 cents! Then I rode the bus to school at an extreme speed of 25mph. Those buses are so crazy that they have to cap the top speed to 25 so one of the bus drivers doesn't take some hapless pedestrian's head off.

Then I got to the campus, finished my coffee earlier than usual and ordered another one. Usually when I drink that much coffee I start getting sick, and sure enough I was in a terrible state that I began to walk around like a maniac, screaming maniacal nonsense, and feeling like my head was going to explode.

I went to my one and only class and planned to spend of the rest of the day reading and doing homework. However, the pounding in my head and the sensory-enhanced crowd in the cafe room made it very difficult for me to complete much. After about 4 hours, I completed 2 homework problems and had read about 20 pages.

However, at 5:00pm I went to the first drama club meeting of the year. Surprisingly, the experience greatly enlivened me. I was expecting a terrible lot, but I felt much better afterwards. After that, I ran as fast I could to the IEEE meeting which started 10 minutes after the drama club meeting ended, and was totally on the other side of the campus. Showing up late, I signed my name on the roster, stayed for 20 minutes, and left as soon as the pizza arrived. I wasn't very hungry and I still had lots of homework to do.

Today was a lot more coherent. The thoughts of despair and impending suicide had stopped, and I felt more enthusiastic about school again. 5 engineering classes in one day can take its toll. I wondered to myself this morning if a normal human being can absorb that much technical knowledge in one day. I'll never know, of course, because how can I remember what I forget?

Classes ended, and I headed to the computer to check email. I got a couple strange emails from friends ranting and raving nonsense about me being dead. Which makes it doubly strange since why would they email me and offer their condolences if they thought I was dead? Well, I try not to ask too many questions about my friends since I might get answers that cause me nightmares.

Tragedy at the Pier

Something terrible happened yesterday. I completely forgot to do my mechanics homework, and it was due yesterday. Of course, this isn't surprising since I'm dead. Yes, that's right. I'm dead.

You see, last night I was also involved in a botched drug deal. I was supposed to meet Escobar down by the docks to pick up the new shipment. I came there offering him $50 million for the lot, but he wanted $60 million. I thought I could dicker him down to my level, but he didn't want to budge. Getting a little annoyed, I started getting verbally abusive just to show him that I meant what I said.

A word to the wise: never talk back to a Colombian drug lord. Before I knew it, the guns were out, and they were pointed at my head. Just realizing that I left my gun on the kitchen table, I silently cursed my selective memory. I tried to be all righteous and play against his morality. I dared him to shoot me. I told him he'd be accomplished a lot shooting an unarmed man. I tried to injure his pride or his conscience. Heck, anything that had a set of values in that head of is.

This again is where I sorely miscalculated. This man had killed before. Before I knew it, the first bullet hit my chin and shattered my jaw. I can only remember the agonizing pain, but somewhere along the way I landed on the ground and was staring into the barrel of a pistol. I tried to say something, but what was left of my mouth was ground beef.

The second bullet went through my forehead and out the back through the floorboards of the dock, the bullet lost in the water below me. I was instantly dead.

I think I was lying there for about 6 hours before the morning dock workers discovered me and called the police. They took some photos and hauled my corpse-ass to the morgue. I'm now lying comfortably in a freezer waiting for my next of kin to be contacted to identify my body.

It's kind of embarassing for my parents to find out about me this way. I mean, I very rarely miss a homework assignment. I would have preferred telling them over the phone instead of some coroner-- who I don't know-- handing them the unfinished assignment found in my pocket. That's life I suppose.

Wake Up!

I woke up this morning with someone yelling at me, "Come feed me!". It was 4:30am. I tried to ignore it and go back to the sleep, but the voice was persistent. "I need service!"

I turned in my bed and squinted at the clock. Yes, it was indeed 4:30am. I then began scanning my room for the source of the voice. There was no one there. Only my cat, Bean, was sitting there looking at me intently. I asked him what he wanted. He meowed at me. He always avoids the question.

I decided to roll over and go back to sleep. I'll just ignore the voice. Soon, I was about to fight a dragon with my wand and assortment of magical spells. I told the apprentice to take my horse and retreat to safety, but he retorted, "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

Realizing that I was still in bed, there was no doubt that the voice came from within my room. I sat up this time and looked around, but only saw my cat. It was now 4:45am. I sat silent for a long time waiting for the voice to repeat itself, but Bean kept interrupting the silence with his persistent meows. Likewise, he didn't seem to be unnerved by the strange voice in the room. I was beginning to suspect that I was hearing things.

A bit unnerved, I rolled over back in bed, and silently waited for the voice to repeat. During this time, Bean felt compelled to crawl all over me and make lots of noise. With cat paws on my head, and cat butt in my face, I stealthily waited for the perpetrator to repeat itself. Despite my near-ninja skills, it turned 5am and there was not a peep in the room.

Now completely unable to sleep and a cat lying on my head, I decided there was no use in trying to go back to sleep. I grabbed my glasses, turned on the light, and went to feed the cat. Maybe I can get some early homework done this morning.

More Korea Pictures

Since I finally have broadband access, and I have time, I thought I'd show some more Korea pictures from where I left off.



This is a huge spider I saw munching on a praying mantis sized insect. I saw a lot of these spiders, but it was a while before I found a live one of those green insects it's chewing on. A very unique insect.


This is one of the first things you see at the Buddhist museum I visited near Icheon. The entire courtyard is stocked full of statues and sculptures.


These are supposed to be fish. Fish have special meaning in Buddhism in that their eyes are always open, which symbolize constant studying. That's something I can definitely relate to.


I guess you could call this postmodern buddhist art. I have no idea what it symbolizes, but it's a fairly modern sculpture. I have a feeling this was made by the museum's owner's wife's brother's second cousin who is an aspiring artist. The museum curator probably took it out of family-obliged pity.


Finally, one of the many Buddhas all over this courtyard. This just happened to be in a secluded corner of the park nestled into an alcove of ivy.

I'll post more later.

The Making of a Hole Puncher

I completed my shop project today. Well, it's almost complete. The punch shaft to my hole puncher has a well-rounded and smooth edge, so as a result, my punching is kind of impotent. I need to take it back to the sandbelt and sharpen the end.

The process was laborious and time-consuming, specked with moments of incredible frustration. Having a computer and electrical background, working in the machine shop is a very new experience. For one, every single piece of equipment and part is measured in English units. Spending my years working in the la-la land of metric and ideal quantities left me ill-prepared to work with 16ths, 32nds, and tolerances of +- .005 inches.

The shop instructor kept getting exasperated with me because I could never remember the things he tried to show me. He would show me something on a machine I'd never seen before, working with a material I have no experience with, describing in terminology that is completely foreign to me, and get upset when I start doing something wrong. Of course, whenever I try to ask a question, he gets angry and talks over my inquiries.

Despite these frustrating experiences, I know for a fact that I learned quite a bit. I now know what a reamer, a lathe, a mill, threads, a 2-fluke center mill, and what a bevel, a countersink, a burr, and a chamfer are. These are not things I knew about earlier this Monday.

Now I have a nice and shiny, sand-blasted holl puncher that's barely usable. An ASME project competition is coming up soon that I'll have to participate in as part of a class objective. The goal is to design an efficient machine to lift a bucket of "ore" up a ramp and dump it into a repository using only the potential energy of 2 liters of water. I have yet to start brainstorming on the project, but I'll get my opportunity next week.

The Divine Sneeze

Since the end of last term, I've been planning with a friend to be a little more "active" on campus this year. Specifically, I mean to stage on-campus altercations, such as protests or street preaching. But it's not quite what it seems. In a meeting I just concluded, next week we plan to preach on campus about the Almighty Joe and the Divine Sneeze, a completely made-up religion with its own absurd rhetoric.

This is an attempt at something that can best be called guerilla theater. If you look on the internet, you'll find that some people use this term to describe "underground theater" or plays with large political overtones. My meaning is nothing of the sort. In fact, it is a complete attempt to bring as much nonsense into a public place as possible.

We're going to start out small. This business with the Divine Sneeze is only our pilot project to see how well it works. After that, we'll attempt much larger projects with several people involved.

I think guerilla theater can best be described as bringing the stage to the people and involving normal people in the play without their knowledge. The whole purpose is something of a social experiment, as opposed to an artistic motive. The details are still in the works, but I'll describe more about what we're planning to do as soon as it solidifies.

Hey Buddy, Why Don't You Wear Your Coat?

The weather in the early morning is below freezing, with ice on my car windshields, and fog in the air. In a makeshift attempt to scrape the ice off my rear window, I use the sharp edge a pop can, but I only succeed in putting scratches in the window. Great way to start the day.

Then on my way to school, listening to the radio and driving through the fog, I get lost and think I miss my turn. The fog makes my surroundings seem strange. I was on the right street, but I just didn't go far enough. I end up turning and getting even more lost. It takes me about 15 minutes to figure out where the hell I am and drive me to where I want to be. That's about 10 minutes longer than it needed to be.

Even though the weather is very chilly, I take my black trenchcoat off and carry it on my arm. The very act of walking overheats my body. So having no coat provides an excellent equilibrium with the cold air when performing any kind of physical activity. While walking across campus, some girl takes it upon herself to criticize me for not wearing my coat. Hey buddy, why don't you wear your coat? I don't know, I reply dumbly. Are you from Alaska? No, I say. I'm from here.

I can't help but contrast this with my experience in Korea, where I had to wear shorts every day, and keep an applied wind on my body in the form of an electric or handheld fan. The absence of these conditions always led to profuse sweating. Back here in Oregon, I'm likely not to sweat again for 6 months until Spring comes around.

Horror Stories in Shop Class

Last night I had my first shop class which will continue for three more days until I get certified to use the workshop on my own for class projects. It's an evening class from 5-9pm, which makes you a little eager for the whole thing to be over.

Most of the large power tools are designed for working with sheet metal and other materials. Walking around the shop is a bit frightening since it seems that some or all of these devices could rip your head off if you touched a wrong button.

So the shop manager gave us a tour of all the equipment with simple demonstrations of their use if possible. Of course, with each power tool, he felt obligated to tell a horror story about each one when someone got injured by it. For instance, there was the guy trying to drill a hole through a piece of sheet metal and was holding the piece steady with his stomach. When that drill got halfway through, the sheet metal began spinning with the drill like a top and sliced open the guys stomach. Not too deep, but it was pretty bloody.

Then there was the guy who cut the skin between his thumb and index finger with a bandsaw. He ended up getting 42 stitches to close it back up.

And finally, my personal favorite was when a guy wanted to drill a hole in this really thick piece of metal. The metal was probably 2 inches thick. He picked a drill bit the size of a coffee cup, maxed out the drill speed, and without any idea about what he was doing, began pressing buttons randomly. As luck would have it, he flipped the switch that caused the bit to auto-descend, spinning at max speed, and hit the metal. What ensued can only be described as loud screeching, sparks flying, billowing smoke, and fire. The student desperately tried to halt the drill, but it continued to descend no matter what he tried. In a complete panic, the student fled the scene and disappeared completely for an entire day. The drill eventually halted when the bit broke in half. When someone found him the next day, he wanted nothing to do with the shop and it's power tools after that. So there were no injuries, but still an exciting story nonetheless.

Then there was the story about the previous shop manager complaining to the administration that he wanted a new saw for the shop. They repeatedly denied his requests. One day when he was returning the saw to the shop from another operation on campus, the forklift he was using to carry it mysteriously jammed one of its levers and sent the lift and the saw into the brick wall. The saw ended up going through the brick wall and it was damaged beyond repair. No one believed him at first that it was an accident, but his story was so convincing that the insurance company believed him, and they paid for a brand spanking new saw. Whether it was an accident or not, I leave to the judgement of future historians..

Waking up With 2 Cats on Your Legs

I woke up at 4:30am. Approximately 1.5 hours earlier than I wanted to. This may have been the cause of lack of bed space due to sharing my bed with 2 other very large and very heavy cats. Pleading with my body to sleep for at least another hour, I woke up at 5:30 and proceeded to shower.

Having so much time before I needed to take off, I scrambled to put an extra hour into my computer games, games that I will probably never play again after a week or so due to the school workload.

Putting my coat on and loading my backpack, I stood in the front doorway dumbfounded and kicking myself for not remembering that it rains in Oregon. Of all the things I brought down from Portland, I forgot to pack my umbrella, and now I was faced with the prospect of standing in the rain for 15 minutes waiting for the bus.

Screw this. I hopped in my car and found a free parking spot relatively close to campus since it was only 6:45am. Plenty of time. I walked to the bagel store to get some cheap coffee and proceeded to inject it intravenously. Classes start 8am.

My GOD! What have I got myself into? I'm taking 5 classes which are all highly technical engineering classes. I just took 3 back-to-back, and I'm already starting to feel dizzy. In 30 minutes I have 2 more classes that are back-to-back, and I'm wondering if I overdid it this time. Even though I'm only taking 17 credits, I have absolutely no breather courses like "Film Studies" or "Introduction to Contemporary Stupid Stuff." We'll see how it goes.

For now, I'll just keep it cool, go with the flow, and try not to take things too seriously. It's only my entire future at stake here.

Update

I just added a mailing list feature to this website. For those of you who I added to the mailing list, this is an example of what an update will be like. For those of you who I did not add to the mailing list, you can add yourself by going to the mailing list page and adding yourself. Or if you think that's too hard, you can always email me at everistj@ucs.orst.edu and tell me yourself.

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Not in Korea, Day 1

The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. It's not entirely true that this is the first day that I've been not in Korea. In fact, it's an outright lie. I've been back in the States for 11 days now. I've moved back to my university town of Corvallis, found a new apartment, collected my cat from the friend who was catsitting him, and am now killing the time away until school starts again on Monday.

All the waiting is boring me to death and it's just like all the waiting I did before I left Korea. And like Korea, I've been indulging myself in frivolous hedonistic activities such as computer games, reading books, and buying ice cream. *shudder* I'm eager for classes on Monday, so that I'll finally have a purpose in my life again.

My new roommate herself has 3 cats of our own, so in our tiny cramped apartment, we have 4 cats! Our apartment is like the Serengeti except without the wildebeast and zebras. Not to mention the crocodiles and elephants. Or the rolling grassy plains and torrential floods. Just a pride of lions that are always running around the house and getting into things they shouldn't be.

I am currently waiting for the cable guy to come on Thursday to install our broadband internet access. Once I get that, I'll finally be able to publish mountains of more pictures from my trip in Korea. Until then, you'll just have to suffer.

Korea, Day 86

My adventure here in Korea is coming to a close. I have 4 more days left before my plane leaves on September 17th. I know I haven't been writing a lot lately. This is mostly because I've been counting down the days until I leave. There's not much to do when you have no job, and you're tired of being a tourist.

Yesterday, I went to Beomeosa temple which is here in Pusan. The temple, like most Buddhist temples in Korea, is situated on a mountain, or large hill. Nearly all Buddhist temples are in the mountains because Buddhism was persecuted in the Josun dynasty in favor of Confucianism. Despite the dynasty's strong attempts, Buddhism still remains an integral part of Korean society today.

Beomeosa is one of the largest temples in Korea. It attained this status by having a large amount of shrines, a beautiful site, and being very wealthy. Beomeosa consists of one main temple site, followed by a dozen temple branches all over the mountain. To get to one of the branches, you have to hike up the mountain on a boulder path. Along the way, you see lots of calligraphy embedded in the landscape by monks in centuries past. Even the boulder path is impressive. One wonders how many man-hours it took to put those boulders in place to create a feasible hiking path.