10,501 Forum Posts by "Evark"
Ahhhh, the luxury of being a Patriots fan. I don't even have to watch football this week or next.
Technically: I was born with pyloric stenosis so without surgical intervention I would not have seen my second month of life.
But that's something I don't remember, so when I think of the sickest I've ever been, there are two situations that are tied:
- Mono. Holy shit. I spent a month straight of waking up, going to work exhausted, barely making it through the work day despite unlimited free coffee, driving home, and passing out. I was sleeping 14 hours a day and still couldn't feel better. Finally subsided after 3-4 weeks of zombieness.
- Some sort of stomach bug I had in Hawaii. I couldn't eat anything all day and despite being in 75-80 degree weather and wrapped in 4 blankets, I was shivering and trembling from the pain and feeling cold.
I'm a pretty firm believer in the idea that any food somebody has professed disliking due to taste or texture is probably due to a preparation poorly suited to their taste. For instance: eggplant is fucking delicious, but when it's not prepared properly (as is OFTEN the case), it will have a terrible mushiness AND a gross rubber-like consistency on the skin. But when it's cooked properly it's fucking awesome.
That belief is reinforced when somebody refuses to eat a certain food and they can only cite the one time they tried it and it was gross so they never touched it again.
Having said that: Fig Newtons. I found a worm on one of them once in elementary school and it traumatized me for life.
The best writing prompts are often something that you notice about existing work. I've had things such as:
- Write a character piece from a work of writing that you enjoy from the perspective of a secondary character
- Write a poem that invokes in the reader the five senses
- Imagine a world in which something you take for granted is a scarcity. Write about it.
Restrictions can be annoying to unimaginative writers, but your better students will usually rise to the challenge and surprise you.
We have the same eyes.
Yours are blue and mine brown and
just for each other.
I have this cropped to fit on my iPhone 6+. Took the photo a couple weeks ago after Thanksgiving at my parents'.
I don't drink tea. Coffee sends
wakeful earth to my
nose. Smells, like mornings; alone.
[http://www.today.com/health/longevity-loma-linda-town-may-hold-secrets-long-life-1D80353425] Light reading to get you started on thinking about longevity, also what prompted this topic.
Firstly: are you interested in living as long and healthy of a life as possible? The idea of longevity is that it's not only the quantity of years that are important, but the quality of those years. You must be proactive about the steps you take to lengthen your life.
An interesting component of the article I linked above is that many people cite spirituality as a major component that is key to a longer life. As someone who largely lives life as a staunch believer in people, culture, society, and progress, but otherwise absent any relationship with "god" (I self-identify as an atheist), it's hard to understand the necessity of a spiritual outlook on life.
Do you think faith is a necessary component in living a long and healthy life?
It makes sense on a certain level. But I wonder if the God part is necessary. Is secular faith possible and if so, enough?
Genuine originality isn't impossible to achieve, it's just impractical. Like, if I wrote a song in a musical scale I invented with tonalities that work in a logic system I made up with lyrics from a language I made up that I sang exclusively with farts and burps... it'd be original as fuck and nobody would want to listen to it nor derive any meaning from it. People would just hear it as noise.
Most creative works are like that. You've gotta have some basis for people to interpret what you're trying to get at with your creativity. Otherwise, the end result is useless. Not that use is the be-all end-all of determining a thing's value.
But even when evaluating originality, we've got to attempt to compare it to something first.
I think the statement is a truism, but I don't think it's meaningful because it's just a reminder that nothing anybody does exists in a vacuum. Like... where do you draw the line? I'm a human and all the things that have ever been done were human things, so is nobody original simply by belonging to humanity when they've done the thing they've done?
Modern chess styles weren't solidified until the '60's, really. Even if he were a student of Chess, he probably wouldn't stand a chance against me. I wouldn't tell anybody I played him, but I would definitely take the match. Who wouldn't? You've set up the scenario so that there's nothing to lose.
At 11/30/14 07:44 PM, Raab wrote: Memento
Yes. I knew there was a reason I liked you.
Memento has the best ending of all time. Why? Because it's the opening scene of the movie. The entire movie is played in flashes from the end towards the beginning (you remember where the current scene opened and then when the end of the next scene reaches that point, it moves to the next scene).
The movie's form follows the main hook of the movie: by playing it backwards to forwards you're stuck in the same mindset of 'can't remember anything' and 'having to investigate to figure out where you are currently'. It just worked so well.
By the 'beginning' of the movie, the explanation for the events that had been set in motion was provided. The movie was made before everyone knew what Christopher Nolan's style is... so it'll actually surprise you, unlike all his newer movies.
I've done a few open mics and group-based mini-concerts. Always covers because I don't feel confident in my performing to develop the originals I've got kicking around in development. I want that to change over the next year. Once I settle in I'd want to find a band that'd let me sing and write lyrics and only do occasional rhythm guitar.
Performing is so much fun when you're on. I hate it when I don't sound good, though.
This reminds me that I haven't put anything up on Newgrounds in two full years. My playing is so much better and my repertoire is so much broader now that it's silly. I think over winter break I'll start throwing up some songs.
At 12/12/14 10:58 PM, BrenTheMan wrote: Just because I'm not perfectly thin and healthy doesn't mean I don't know anything about nutrition. I've studied this stuff a lot.
I want to point out that the reason why the vegan lifestyle tends towards a want to inform other people is because it's not just knowledge of nutrition, but serious lifestyle changes to reap the benefits of that knowledge. It can be frustrating as somebody who has made a significant dietary adjustment to hear other people offer you advice on how to abandon your change to fit their views. Doubly so when it feels like they are making dietary suggestions without obviously following a lifestyle of prioritizing their own health.
At least, that's my projected understanding of why vegans tend towards informing people of the benefits of veganism and the mindset behind it. I can't speak to Shauna's motivations.
The most consistent regret of the melancholy elderly is that they squandered their time or potential on things that didn't reward them, but felt good to them on a more instantaneous basis. Basically, you should make the most out of life because it will fulfill you at a personal and spiritual or social level. If you don't, you won't develop an ultimate contentment with your life. Instead--a deep-seated fixation on the waste.
I never understood salad dressing. If I have to drench a salad in some saccharine bullshit, how good are the ingredients in the salad? Why bother eating it? A good salad with a good mix of decent, locally produced vegetables can be SO FUCKING GOOD on its own or with a splash of oil and vinegar. Or some feta cheese. Mmm.
So yea, I'm with you on loving a proper salad. But, give me a hot food meal any day of the week. I'm 200lbs if I don't eat all day: I gotta have something more substantial. Though the post-workout salad is probably the best feeling ever.
My taste in music has branched out very much since the first time I heard that song, but I still come back around to loving the shit out of it every time I remember it exists. So upbeat.
When I dumped my bike at 25 miles an hour on a corner and opened a 5" x 2" road rash hole on my arm, I laughed at how stupid I was and finished walking to the gym to workout and lift weights with the open wound. I cleaned and dressed it when I got home.
I also cry when movies or books are sad enough. I'm an enigma.
It's blatant prejudice that misappropriates irrelevant science to justify murdering or sterilizing innocent people.
Pop music has to be catchy, so without the high/neutral tones, it's not as accessible to as many people. There are some rap artists who are in that range (but I don't think that's what you meant). Start looking through stuff centered around modern rock branches. Mike Doughty comes to mind (Soul Coughing). You can still find artists that do that, you just have to look in the right places.
He's gotta figure out what works for him. Sometimes, you go for it on pure body language cues, sometimes they throw themselves at you, and sometimes you can negotiate them down from $150 to $100 flat, other times you ask them if they want to kiss you.
At 12/9/14 11:47 PM, NippleManOfMilk wrote: It is not necessary for everyone to comply with the set of standards, only the majority. There will always be a group that doesn't fit in.
Just because there always has been something doesn't mean there always has to be. As for the rest of this paragraph, I don't think I can muster anything else other than how absurd it is. Obviously, minority demographics have ideal 'uses' that aren't 'to be hated'.
I don't see us moving together, I see us drifting apart as the lines blur. Even if we are moving towards mutual respect, if the foundation is rocky, then it will only be temporary. Though I suppose all things are, the goal should still be to make it last as long as possible. The foundation is rocky because we are too individualistic. All it will take is for a "fuck unity" movement to pickup enough weight and we're set back a couple hundred years.
There's a balance of individualism, communalism, and worldliness in our culture. As the 'worldly' grow, I would imagine things would stabilize in quite a nice way with a unified purpose that doesn't have a need for a scapegoat / pariah group. Plus, as I said initially, having standards is all well and good when you're still above them. Those things change whether you like it or not.
The standards either need to be made more solid as in "this thing is this thing" and so forth. Or disposed of and replaced with standards that are solid. If the standards we have now are flimsy enough to be open to interpretation, then why shouldn't we blow them away? If the standards aren't set in stone, then yes, they should be either changed, or preferably, strengthened.
You can't remove interpretation from standards. That's the human condition. We've spent a lot of time as a species doing things the way you describe. But it's only been as we've moved towards more inclusiveness with the entirety of our population that we've made the social and technological leaps that we enjoy currently (as part of the broad middle and upper class of the world that western society cultivates).
At 12/9/14 10:07 PM, GingerGymnast wrote: Um... i think you think too much.
And I have to use the dictionary again to understand your post.
You sound sort of lost in the relationship world. You probably have to go out and date a whole lot to get a solid idea of what you want.
These are all true things, the questions are kindof rhetorical. I'd like to think that I know what I want, but I was trying to get at "what are the (my) standards for 'success' with the ladies?" Finals week's probably got me frazzled, combined with:
But you're dating someone right now, aren't you?
We broke up a couple weeks ago.
Standards are all well and good until you're a member of the group that's fallen below them.
But here's the thing, as human beings, our experience is impossible to fully separate from the reality. So, how do you set standards that are effective enough that everybody can follow them in the way you describe? By making them as inclusive as possible. Which, it seems, is the direction we're moving towards as a culture, completely the opposite direction of a 'breaking apart'. A union of mutual respect.
A possible existing standard is the judgement of the worldwide community. Which, you say shouldn't ever change. If that is the case, how would they accept your proposal in the first place? Or should they all change to your approved standards and THEN never change again?
I'm about this tall: [Holds out arms at maximum length]
(Fun fact: these actually correlate. The differential between your height and armspan is known as your ape index)
At 12/7/14 11:33 PM, GingerGymnast wrote: lol you struck me as the ladies man. I picture you as some bad boy with a leather jacket and a motorcycle who liked meeting women.
I love meeting women. That post was mostly the result of a recent limerence more than an actual appraisal of how I am with women. It's hard to say, really. How does one rate oneself on the basis of others' perception? I have been told I fit in the mold of 'conventionally attractive', but how does that factor in to the sort of women I want to attract? Do I even know what kind of woman I want to attract? If I do, is that even the sort of woman I would be happiest with?
At 12/8/14 02:35 AM, NeonSpider wrote: This is true too. Although for me some of the women interested in me I'm interested in and some of them I don't want. But really part of my interest is dependent on their interest, because there's really no point pursuing anyone who isn't interested. Yeah, there's some extremely slight possibility someone might be "secretly interested" or could "come around" if pursued, but why even bother playing games when there's others who are legitimately interested and if someone's truly uninterested it's rude to bother them like that.
It depends on the woman. There are people that want to be convinced that the person that's interested in them is a good mate for them (typically, heteronormative women more than heteronormative men), but there is a fine line between courting somebody who's just not sure yet vs. putting your efforts into somebody that is absolutely disinterested completely. I think it's something you learn to recognize with age.
Then there's the awkward moments like when a married woman is making advances while her husband is right there, rofl.
He could be into that sort of thing, either bisexually or as a fetish. I would always assume as such if a married woman is making advances right in front of her significant other.
Same as anyone else, really. Women interested in me who I don't want and women I'm interested in who don't want me.
At 12/1/14 09:40 PM, Shauna wrote: Oh dear God no. Aint no one I care enough from here to do that. Unless...ya know...you do favors? >_>
Ehhhh Ehhhhhh?
Absolutely. We're talking about picking up milk on the way home from work or something, right?
Haha, I support this idea. Average out the half-year awards we had running for a few years.
