Currently In the Phone Booth

In the process of changing my outfit. Metaphorically speaking. Instead of flying by the seat of my pants a la Powdered Toast Man, I've decided to take a more active and substantial approach to this blog. Starting now(ish), I'm going to do research. Yes, my reader(s), actual REASEARCH. Hopefully, this will lead to good things. And we all like good things. Expect something in the next 1 - 7 days. Maybe a week, at the absolute outside.

In the meantime, watch and be amused at this. If you're blind and you've come this far, though, you probably have super powers anyway, so you may find it dull and plebian. Apologies in advance, iDaredevil.

(On the off-chance you are in fact iDaredevil and you're looking for a sidekick, I'm still in the market for summer employment. I'm loyal, obedient, more than a little desperate, and willing to do anything for approval and/or cash. Like a big, dopey black lab that dresses in drag and sits expectantly on a street corner between the hours of 7 p.m. and midnight. I'm also completely unopposed to leather.)


See ya soon, fair citizens.

The Jeffersons

Things will be a-movin' on up. New posts coming soon. Not to a theatre, of course, but here. Because I'm not cool enough to make movies yet.

I Think My Eyes Are Getting Better - Instead of a Big Dark Blur, I See a Big Light Blur

It probably won't surprise anyone to hear, but this isn't my only failed writing project. I've also got a journal - you know, those weird things that came before blogs that look like books, but are filled with blank pages on which people used to, like, actually write words and stuff, with pencils and pens and everything. I bought the thing two or three years ago, and in all that time I've managed to fill about two-thirds of it. Color me ambitious, I guess.

Besides the fact that I'm a lazy poot, one thing that keeps me from writing as much as I might is the notion of what good a journal entry really is in the first place. At (rare) times when I think it could be swell to pen something into the pages of posterity, I often find myself asking ... myself ... What's the point? Really? Why should I record the events and ideas and experiences of my life? Will it help me to make sense of things, to create some sort of closure or context out of the myriad pieces of my world? Maybe. But then, I thought Jesus was the Person to whom I should cast all my cares, commit all my plans - my very life. Is writing down and thinking through all of my existence going to afford me greater perspective, help, clarity, joy, or rest than a loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God?

Not that I don't believe writing things out can be useful. But a journal shouldn't be the ultimate way in which I deal with life. Nor should anything else, on that note, be it drugs, alcohol, sex, comfort food, reading, playing teh vid3o games, watching anime, or whatever other mechanism I might use to cope. (Here's looking at you, music collection.)*

And what does documenting memories and experiences really do for me anyway? Saves them for me to read later, and not much else. I could say the same for photos. So maybe journaling (not a real word), like photography, can just be a fun hobby - something to bring the enjoyment of remembrance and introspection. That's a thought I can get behind. I enjoy writing; for whatever reason, I also like the concept of having some record of myself. And reading over old entries can be an illuminating experience, too - if only to show how much of a self-conscious dufus I really was (naturally, I've changed heaps since then).

For anyone (unfortunate enough to have wasted his/her time) reading this, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Do you journal, or have you been captured by the slimy, writhing corporate sarlacc that is the Interwebz? Tell the ol' ISP what you love to write about. What issues, like mine, have you wrestled with? Do you have a favorite pen, or do you prefer to cheaply outsource the labor of writing to a weaker, subservient sibling to whom you dictate? Let the system work for you, I always say.

... you know, I bet Lando Calrissian kept a holo-journal. Facing the prospect of being slowly digested over a thousand years would give anyone some issues to sort out.


_________________________


*Despite what I said, I'm not in any way a very "practicing" Christian. I made a choice long ago to live my own way, and it's gotten me a lot of strife, confusion, doubt, and worry, mixed in with some momentary pleasures. But despite my choices, I can't bring myself to deny what I once held fast.

Oh the humanity.

Humans are creatures of habit.  If we change then are we no longer human?

This weekend I've felt the humiliating defeat of being turned down for loans after and while listening to news programs rattle on about the need for increased lending and spending.  Now that's irony for ya.

It's an interesting feeling what I've been going through over the past year.  If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say it's like I've jumped into a colossal river.  And after miles of riding it, I've grown accustomed to it, but there still isn't an end in sight.  Especially when my attempts to adjust my course repeatedly backfire, and other problems don't go away as I address them.

If you love your family, you'll make sure no one in it ever gets a Helio.

Pay No Attention To the Man Behind the Iron Curtain

Hey there, kids!

This blog's as stuck as Ronald McDonald's colon. How about a little e-Metamucil action?


see more pwn and owned pictures

All bad puns aside, it's been a while. I hope the last three to six months have treated all (two or three) of our readers well. On behalf of the entire Indigo Seraphim Project crew, welcome back to the blog. :)

Anything arduous, amazing or awe-inspiring occur whilst the Blogmonster slept? What delicious, diabolical developments culminated during the doldrums?

(Remember freedom fighters, alliteration is just one more way you can help fight communism!)

Update!

He did ask her, and she accepted. The second I found out (and to this moment even) I felt a little part of myself crumble in realization that I had in fact lost one of the greatest girls I've had the pleasure of knowing.

I suppose "lost" isn't the correct term, but that is how it felt. Despite being so far apart, I had subconciously held on to some hope that things could always potentially work out, that we could at least enjoy some time together. And when the engagement was confirmed, I felt that hope die.

It's really for the best though. We will continue to be great friends just like always. I kind of like the fact that nothing has ever come between us (as things inevitably do in relationships). She's just the perfect, patient, lovely friend that I can always go to, and who can always come to me without any grudges or walls.

I think that might be the best type of relationship I could ask for. It's rare to have a long term friend with whom you don't have any hard feelings to get in the way of just having someone to talk to. For me she is that friend, and so even though I have to give up knowing her in the romantic sense, I still have what really attracted me to her all along; she's amazing to talk with.

Copy Pasta

Taken from a forum I browse:

II. The Empire

We do not yet know the exact how's and why's, but we do know this: At some point between the end of Episode II and the beginning of
Episode IV, the Republic is replaced by an Empire. The first hint comes in "Attack of the Clones," when the Senate's Chancellor Palpatine is granted emergency powers to deal with the separatists. It spoils very little to tell you that Palpatine eventually becomes the Emperor. For a time, he keeps the Senate in place, functioning as a rubber-stamp, much like the Roman imperial senate, but a few minutes into Episode IV, we are informed that the he has dissolved the Senate, and that "the last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away."

Lucas wants the Empire to stand for evil, so he tells us that the Emperor and Darth Vader have gone over to the Dark Side and dresses them in black.

But look closer. When Palpatine is still a senator, he says, "The Republic is not what it once was. The Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good." At one point he laments that "the bureaucrats are in charge now."

Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. When he mutters, "There is no civility, there is only politics," we see that at heart, he's an esoteric Straussian.

Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. It's a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen.

Also, unlike the divine-right Jedi, the Empire is a meritocracy. The Empire runs academies throughout the galaxy (Han Solo begins his career at an Imperial academy), and those who show promise are promoted, often rapidly. In "The Empire Strikes Back" Captain Piett is quickly promoted to admiral when his predecessor "falls down on the job."

And while it's a small point, the Empire's manners and decorum speak well of it. When Darth Vader is forced to employ bounty hunters to track down Han Solo, he refuses to address them by name. Even Boba Fett, the greatest of all trackers, is referred to icily as "bounty hunter." And yet Fett understands the protocol. When he captures Solo, he calls him "Captain Solo." (Whether this is in deference to Han's former rank in the Imperial starfleet, or simply because Han owns and pilots his own ship, we don't know. I suspect it's the former.)

But the most compelling evidence that the Empire isn't evil comes in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Darth Vader is battling Luke Skywalker. After an exhausting fight, Vader is poised to finish Luke off, but he stays his hand. He tries to convert Luke to the Dark Side with this simple plea: "There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. . . . Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." It is here we find the real controlling impulse for the Dark Side and the Empire. The Empire doesn't want slaves or destruction or "evil." It wants order.

None of which is to say that the Empire isn't sometimes brutal. In Episode IV, Imperial stormtroopers kill Luke's aunt and uncle and Grand Moff Tarkin orders the destruction of an entire planet, Alderaan. But viewed in context, these acts are less brutal than they initially appear. Poor Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen reach a grisly end, but only after they aid the rebellion by hiding Luke and harboring two fugitive droids. They aren't given due process, but they are traitors.

The destruction of Alderaan is often cited as ipso facto proof of the Empire's "evilness" because it seems like mass murder--planeticide, even. As Tarkin prepares to fire the Death Star, Princess Leia implores him to spare the planet, saying, "Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons." Her plea is important, if true.

But the audience has no reason to believe that Leia is telling the truth. In Episode IV, every bit of information she gives the Empire is willfully untrue. In the opening, she tells Darth Vader that she is on a diplomatic mission of mercy, when in fact she is on a spy mission, trying to deliver schematics of the Death Star to the Rebel Alliance. When asked where the Alliance is headquartered, she lies again.

Leia's lies are perfectly defensible--she thinks she's serving the greater good--but they make her wholly unreliable on the question of whether or not Alderaan really is peaceful and defenseless. If anything, since Leia is a high-ranking member of the rebellion and the princess of Alderaan, it would be reasonable to suspect that Alderaan is a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents like Leia.

Whatever the case, the important thing to recognize is that the Empire is not committing random acts of terror. It is engaged in a fight for the survival of its regime against a violent group of rebels who are committed to its destruction.

III. After the Rebellion

As we all know from the final Star Wars installment, "Return of the Jedi," the rebellion is eventually successful. The Emperor is assassinated, Darth Vader abdicates his post and dies, the central governing apparatus of the Empire is destroyed in a spectacular space battle, and the rebels rejoice with their small, annoying Ewok friends. But what happens next?

(There is a raft of literature on this point, but, as I said at the beginning, I'm going to ignore it because it doesn't speak to Lucas's original intent.)

In Episode IV, after Grand Moff Tarkin announces that the Imperial Senate has been abolished, he's asked how the Emperor can possibly hope to keep control of the galaxy. "The regional governors now have direct control over territories," he says. "Fear will keep the local systems in line."

So under Imperial rule, a large group of regional potentates, each with access to a sizable army and star destroyers, runs local affairs. These governors owe their fealty to the Emperor. And once the Emperor is dead, the galaxy will be plunged into chaos.

In all of the time we spend observing the Rebel Alliance, we never hear of their governing strategy or their plans for a post-Imperial universe. All we see are plots and fighting. Their victory over the Empire doesn't liberate the galaxy--it turns the galaxy into Somalia writ large: dominated by local warlords who are answerable to no one.

Which makes the rebels--Lucas's heroes--an unimpressive crew of anarchic royals who wreck the galaxy so that Princess Leia can have her tiara back.

I'll take the Empire.

Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard.

Long live the Empire, bitches.