A Rubik's Cube Experience

It is a simple plastic cube, three high, three across and three deep, with white, red, green, orange, blue and yellow stickers adorning the sides. The faces twist and turn, scrambling the colors to unsolvable non-patterns--or so it seems.

The Rubik's Cube is really not all that difficult to solve, if you know what you're doing. However, if you don't know what you're doing, the Rubik's Cube can be most infuriating. The passage that follows is the process as I attempt a theoretical Rubik's Cube in my head.

"Okay. Twist here, turn that side there, and I've got three white blocks in a row. I complete the whole white side of the cube. Then I realize that even though the side looks right, my corners are in the wrong place.

"Alas. I shall try to fix it.

"First things first. Get the corners in the right places. Oooooooookay. Let's move this one over here. Turn it this way, rotate it up. Aaaaaaaaaaand now there're i've got three wrong blocks. Alright let's switch it back.

"How do I get back to there? Dammit I wish my memory were better. I must remember to drink some ginseng. Wait--I won't remember that if my memory is already bad. Such a conundrum. I love that word--conundrum--rolls nicely off the tongue. Lots of 'uhhhh' sounds.

"Wait! I've got to fix this cube. Okay. Concentrate. What do I need to do? I have no idea. I've got most of the whites on one side. Damn I sound like a huge bigot. Whites on one side and colors separated. Or maybe that's what this Rubik guy wanted me to think. It's his cube anyway. Maybe I should just let him fix it. That seems like a pretty good idea. I'm fed up with this anyway.

"Hold on just one second. I am not going to give up on this that quickly. Let's get down to it.

[Some time elapses]

"I HATE YOU, RUBIK CREATOR DUDE!! Why do you torment me so?? I try to fix your stupid little cube, but it just messes itself up even more! Stupid colored stickers looking so scrambled at me. I hate you too.

"Wait... Stickers? AH HA! I will make you right again, Cube of Rubrik.

[More time elapses]

"WOOHOO I fixed a Rubik's Cube! Kind of. I use fixed because the colors are right, whether the underlying blocks are in the right place or not. Now just don't move the blocks and everybody will think you're a complete genius. Hehehehehehe. They will never know the truth..."

That's about how solving a cube goes, before you know how. Afterwards, it's more like, "Okay, so this piece is there, [turn spin rotate turn rotate] aaaaaaand now we're done. That was fun. Let's do it again!" It really isn't that interesting. But oh how it is addictive.

Anyway I lost my inspiration, so I'm done for now. More later!

Some Random Thoughts

Certain things smell terrible when you burn them. Examples are plastic, hair, and random signs that are burnt in the dorm fireplace with the flue closed. Other things don't smell bad, but I can't seem to think of any of them at this late hour.

I like beef. It tastes very good. Unfortunately, it contains high amounts of cholesterol and is relatively unhealthful (I believe that that is the right term, as healthy implies its own state of being, but I could be totally wrong about the whole thing).

Nalgene bottles are ridiculously strong. I played baseball with one a few years back and it didn't break. I guess that it wasn't really baseball, but rather just hitting a nalgene bottle as hard as I could with a baseball bat. The point is still relevant however, because the bottle stayed intact.

A ficus makes a room considerably more friendly. Vegetation in general makes things seem more hospitable. It's because everybody likes nature, and domesticating the nature to suit your home makes everybody like you. (It totally doesn't work like that, but we'll leave that statement just because I don't feel like deleting it now, and would rather just write a long explanation for my stupid sentence.)

Airplane "In Case of Emergency" announcements are underrated. Nobody pays attention to them (including myself) because everybody's seen them too many times. The flight attendants' routine is quite amusing, though, and worth imitating to amuse the people sitting around you. You can also pay rapt attention through the presentation and ask lots of annoying questions, just to piss everybody off. (I've never done this, but it seems like a good idea.)

Santa Claus is a stalker. He sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good. I mean YOU, by the way. You, the person reading this now. Specific to you. He doesn't know this about anybody else, but has chosen you because you chose to read this blog.

It would really suck if the shit hit the fan. There would be fecal matter all over the place. It would take some serious carpet shampooing and wall scrubbing to get the poop out and I expect the smell would remain.

Moses was probably ripped. I feel like it probably takes some serious muscle to part a sea. He also supposed his toes were roses. They weren't actually roses. He supposed erroneously.

Goldfish shouldn't be smiling back at you. They're about to be eaten. If I knew that I was created with the sole purpose of being eaten later in my life, I would not have a permanent smile plastered on my face.

Tattoos are a dumb idea. Most of the time, you get old and wrinkly and they look really bad and you regret youthful mistakes. This is particularly important for people who get tattoos in awkward places like their biceps, which look like garbage when the muscle tone is gone. Also when the tattoos have no particular significance to the people.

Rain is severely under appreciated. It feels really good if you don't mind being cold, and it provides water for the vegetation and for us to drink. It also makes things smell good, (which is actually kind of gross, because that pleasant smell is funguses releasing their spores,) and makes puddles to jump in.

That's all. I just logged some of my more random thoughts from the past few minutes. Hope you enjoyed it. Don't particularly know why you would read it in the first place, but if you did, I hope it didn't bore you too much. Santa's watching, so pretend you liked it even if you didn't.

The Merits of Carpeting

Carpet. A wonderful invention. Whether it came before or after sliced bread does not really matter; it is still one of the greatest things.

Personally, I like carpet a lot. Hardwood floors can be nice, but carpet has a certain charm that hardwood lacks. It's cushiony, and easy on the feet. It never gets too cold, so when you hop out of bed on those cold winter mornings, it isn't such a shock from your warm, soft bed.

Beds, on another note, are amazing as well. Getting out of bed is the worst part of my day. If it was possible to stay as comfortable as it is while in bed and continued about my daily business, I would never get out of bed, and become fat as my muscles atrophied. Then I would end up like those people on the Discovery Health channel who get fork-lifted out of their homes to go to the zoo to get MRIs and hospitals to get their stomachs stapled.

But I digress.

Carpets also are a convenient way of moving dead bodies (or so I've heard). What you do is put the dead body at one end of the carpet and roll up the carpet, so it looks like it's just a rolled up carpet with nothing in the middle. It's like a human cigar, but you can't smoke it because it's too big (that's what she said?). However, you need a sufficiently large carpet, not attached to the floor. If you roll up a body in a doormat, somebody is going to see it sticking out the ends, unless you're disposing the body of a midget.

Flying carpets are very cool as well. Though not as common as the Persian rug or wall-to-wall carpeting, they are highly regarded. Fuel-efficient, these carpets are a highly convenient way to get from Point A to Point B. Typically, you avoid all the traffic, as you are flying, but it can be awkward during the migratory periods of birds if you happen to encounter a large flock.

Cynics would argue that rugs are not as great as I have suggested. They are, in fact, lying. There is nothing wrong with rugs, but only with the people that misunderstand them and treat them poorly.

For instance, nay-sayers could provide the example of what they call "rug burn." I say it is the human at fault. Carpets are soft and forgiving. It is the humans who inflict pain on themselves by attacking the carpet with excessive force. The carpet is gentle, and likes being caressed, as does anything else.

Another example is vacuuming. Pessimists say carpets, like other floor surfaces, have to be habitually cleaned. I say we are at fault. If we humans were not such beastly, messy creatures, we would not have to clean the things we soiled.

Carpets are great. They should be instituted in places where they are not, as they make for a more pleasant walking experience.

On another note, I'm bored. I wrote about carpets because I was in need of inspiration, and as I looked around the room, I saw my carpet and was like, "Wow, carpeting is really cool," so I wrote about carpets for the last few minutes. It probably wasn't the best way to spend my time, but let bygones be bygones and sleeping dogs lie. Rolling stones gather no moss, and it's hard to find a needle in a haystack, unless you're a super powerful electromagnet and it's a steel needle.

Hope you enjoyed my inane musings. I'm not sure if I even did. Anyway you just wasted a couple minutes reading the result of my wasted time. Congratulations, you are now a more enlightened person. Or slightly stupider. Not totally sure which.

A Conversation

"So, what's going on?"

"Not too much. You?"

"About the same. Who are you?"

"I'm a voice in this kid's head. You?"

"The same. Except a different voice. Kind of surreal, isn't it?"

"Indeed."

"Why is this kid writing down a conversation he's having with himself in his head? He must be a total nut-job."

"Nah, I think he's just super bored again. Like, the last time he was this bored, he created this blog to log his thoughts. Maybe he's just doing that again now."

"Ahhhhhh, I see. So we are yet another diversion from this guy's essay that is as of yet still incomplete. We should do something about this."

"I agree. But what can we do? We are merely nameless voices in abstract space being transcribed to the internet for random people to never read! We have no power over the productivity of this person in which we are unfortunately trapped."

"Au contraire, my hypothetical homie. We have ultimate power over his actions. However, he also, by the same logic, has control over us, as we are his conscious thoughts. What we really need is his subconscious. Where is he??"

"Probably chillin in the back of his mind somewhere. You know how he is, all brooding and secretive. Always hiding."

"Indeed."

"I concur."

"Did you just concur with me agreeing with you?"

"Maybe. What's it to ya?"

"You're an idiot."

"Maybe that as well. What point are you trying to make?"

"I have no idea where I'm going with this, but I feel like you don't either, so it really doesn't matter. What should we talk about now?"

"I like pie."

"Everybody likes pie."

"I disagree."

"On what grounds?"

"Not everybody likes pie."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is."

"No it isn't. I have never met anybody that does not like pie."

"Are you sure?"

"No, but nobody I know has refused pie when they were offered it."

"Then you don't actually know that everybody likes pie."

"Yes I do. It is physically impossible to refuse the deliciousness that is commonly called pie. It is a wonderful creation and should be loved accordingly."

"I don't like pie."

"Liar. You're eating a pie right now."

"Maybe I am. But I don't like it."

"Then why are you eating it?"

"Because it's there."

"That's the dumbest reason to eat pie ever."

"If it is, then why would people ever climb Mount Everest?"

"Because it's there. Maybe you've got a point. But after you eat it, it won't be there and you wouldn't have had to eat it."

"Yes I would've."

"No, because after you've eaten it, it's no longer there."

"Yes, but it was there while I was eating it."

"And after you've eaten it, there's no proof that it was ever there in the first place. How am I supposed to know that you've eaten a pie you didn't like or want if it's no longer there?"

"You don't need to. What is important is that I did it."

"That's not important at all. You ate a pie. You don't like pie, yet you continue to eat it only 'Because it is there.' You sound like a complete idiot."

"Maybe I am."

"No, you definitely are."

"Fine. I am an idiot."

(This is a transcript of a random train of thought that just happened to occur while I was writing this blog entry. I don't necessarily believe any of the things said, nor do they reflect my normal thoughts or actions.)

I'm Bored

So I'm totally uninspired. I'm supposed to write an essay for one of my classes, but I have absolutely no motivation to do it right now. As a result of my lack of motivation, I have instead created a blog for myself to log my thoughts.

On another note, I will probably regret creating this at some point when I post something that reflects badly upon some aspect of my personality, and it's out there for all of you to read. I must be careful of what I post.

Back to the point: Who is going to read this? I really don't know. There are a great number of pointless blogs out there, and though I don't read any of them myself, I now have one. You, whoever you are, are reading this now. I may or may not know you, but what's important (not really, but we'll just say that it is,) is that you are getting a deeper glimpse (not really, but that's ok too) into who I really am.

So, my essay is a creative exercise, which would ordinarily be amusing, like writing this blog. However, for some strange reason, it isn't amusing at all. This temporary diversion may or may not become something that I regularly update, as it may or may not become something you regularly read.

I'm totally getting off what I was going to write about in that last paragraph, so here's a new one:

Symposiums: why must people discuss things? I think people should have interior monologues with themselves like I am now, online, shared with the rest of the wired world. It would make it much easier for me to write an essay along these lines than a structured symposium on the nature of Pleasure, with arguments that are not my own. Alas, I must follow the rubric to get a decent grade. Oh, the woes of structured education! Why must we follow rules?

"An excellent question," you might be thinking. (I know that I am.) Rules allow us to have some semblance of order in our lives.

"And why do we need order?" is the reasonable response, I believe.

I don't know. Maybe I'll answer that later. But for now this train of thought is getting a little too bizarre for my liking so I'm going to start over.

I'm JDub, and I've just created this blog in my efforts to procrastinate even more from writing my essay due on Thursday. You are reading this blog and getting rather bored with my meandering thoughts, and may even stopped reading at this point. If you have, you won't know what I'm typing now so this really doesn't matter. If you haven't, however, already lost interest in my stream of consciousness, (for some reason that is beyond my comprehension--even I'm a little bored with myself by now...) you will continue to get more of the same until I feel like ending this little online escapade.

Which would be right about... not yet.

Hummmmmmmmm...

Actually, yeah... That time is about now. I'm done for now. Maybe I'll write another one later, maybe I won't, but for now, I'm done.