September 15, 2002

great and terrible secret

I’ve found it! I have discovered the secret of weblogging, and will now type it here for the betterment of all! No more sorrowful days will be whiled away hacking at lines of code and prying words out of the Ether! These habits will prove to be dead ends when they are met with the shining light of my Great and Terrible Secret!

In just a moment I will stop with the introduction and start with my Great and Terrible Secret! And here’s the best part… I will print my discovery for free! No charge to you, the faithful and faithless reader, for perusing this delicious bit of genius.

Are you ready? Are you ready to be enlightened by my Great and Terrible Secret to Successful Weblogging? Perhaps you should pause a moment and grab a soda, and come back with your mouth full of soda so when you read about the discovery you can spit soda all over the keyboard and buy a new keyboard!

But wait Dane, you say! I don’t want to buy a new keyboard, as my current keyboard works fine covered in syrupy beads of old orange juice, candle wax all over the F- keys and only 99 of its original 101 keys.

But wait Dear Reader, I say! Once you have read my Great and Terrible Secret to Successful Weblogging and Getting Chicks you will be able to buy yourself a NEW keyboard without juice and wax and the unlucky number 99!

So without further ado, I will venture into the mighty realm of the Great and Terrible Secret to Successful Weblogging and Getting Rich and Chicks!!!!!

I read the following!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Site traffic multiplies in proportion to outbound links. Of course quality, focus, information-density and presentation are essential. But all else being equal, a site that links religiously will attract orders-of-magnitude more traffic than a site that ignores the rest of the web.”

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got this from an entry on Dane Carlson’s weblog, for which I will provide a link right here. He has these neat little purple dots that you click on and they’ll take you right to the entry!

Let us all revel in the reflective glory of Dane Carlson, who was ever so wise to link to a website containing such moving scripture that was originally right over here by the smarty mans of Blogads! Today’s Blogad on Blogads.com is: “Advertise on this site to hit a passionate, influential audience right between the eyes!”

OOF! I feel like I have been struck right between the eyes! The influence and power of Ricky Bruner cannot be underestimated! What does he title his masterful thesis on traffic development!

Peak flow: attracting readers by sending them away

WOW! When I worked at Summer Camp and we had this thing called Super Kids for kids with asthma my kids had to blow ‘peak flows’ every night! Ricky is so efficient at breathing he only need utter it once to revolutionize the blogging world!

But let us not forget the Great and Terrible Secret, which is to LINK AND LINK RELIGIOUSLY. I would not have stumbled on this genius had I not found Dane Carlson, who was a wise man to exercise the Secret and link to it! I will be sure to visit Dane Carlson every single day to make sure I don’t miss another link of incredible significance! I will also link to everyone else Dane Carlson links to, as that way I will gain many more readers who will be attracted here because I send them away!

But with all that aside, let us further analyze the Great and Terrible Secret to Successful Weblogging and Getting Rich and Chicks!

“Site traffic multiplies in proportion to outbound links.” Just like how sunburn multiplies in proportion to beaches and Napster multiplies in proportion to crime rate and rabbits multiply in proportion to EVERYTHING.

“Of course quality, focus, information-density and presentation are essential.” Har, har, har, of course!, har, SNORT.

“A site that links religiously will attract orders-of-magnitude more traffic than a site that ignores the rest of the web.” Nevermind the obvious effects religious linking wil have on quality, focus and information-density… THIS IS WHERE THE ACTION IS. ‘Orders-of-magnitude’? Good fucking god, that sounds so vague it can’t possibly be wrong!

And speaking of god, keep in mind that we’re not linking atheistically, here! With religion as the cornerstone of the Great and Terrible Secret to Successful Weblogging and Getting Rich and Chicks and God on your Side, you can’t possibly go wrong!!!!

Just look how far you could go! There’s this awesome site called Weblogs4Hire where they’ll hire you to write a weblog for FREE!

As more organizations realize the value of providing timely, relevant and unique content to their prospects and clients, it is only natural that they turn to weblogs.

Wow! I’ve gone from a useless college hack to an in-demand hipster for organizations in the information-technologies community in a matter of seconds!

There hasn’t been an easy way to connect those people with both the weblog writing skills and specific knowledge and interest to generate a relevant weblog with the ever growing demand for their expertise.

Until now.

Can you hear the trumpets going off in my head! Why the heck have I been doing this for free when I could obviously get hired by a rock and roll company! Who could possibly have come up with such a cutting-edge business plan that is so cutting-edge it went live only two weeks ago!

Guess.

September 14, 2002

north shore delight

While driving along the North Shore there are two distinct houses. One has been there for as long as I can remember. It sits perched high atop a cliff, yet the house’s build is low and sprawling and manages to blend into the landscape quite well. It looks like a chalet that got tossed up the cliff after some ogre finished stamping it down. Its plummage is of brown and other earthy tones that allow it to disappear in the natural splendor of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61. I like it.

A new house has recently sprung from the ground and it is possibly mankind’s foulest creation. It is bedecked with a banal design and three stories of cream Sears vinyl siding. Rather than fading into the hillside, this monstrosity manages to float above the tree tops in a mocking angelic fashion. Its awful displacement will yank your eyes from your sockets and make you rub them with sand in an attempt to dispell the image.

Good god! These visions are too ugly to be real!

During today’s drive up to Tettegouche we discussed the house in question, and finally decided they could make it much worse. Next door they could build a 200-foot neon cowboy who grins and points at the house. At night the landscape would hum and bathe in the blood of Las Vegas.

No. The cowboy would grin at you as he thrusts his pelvis at the house. Duff Man is thrusting in the general direction of the problem!

No. Much worse. The cowboy would have one hand on his hips and the other on the roof of the house. The cowboy would grin at you as he thrusts his glowing red c0ck in a window over and over and over. His gears would grind in a sickening rhythm.

I can’t take it anymore! Even when I close my eyes, I can still hear that damn cowboy fucking the house!

September 13, 2002

for each truth set true

The following is transcribed from a journal entry on June 29, 2002. Seeing as how I ran four entries during the summer, I feel a game of catch-up may be in order.

Andy (a friend from camp who is a meglomaniac and will likely end up ruling the world) proves that self-depreciation is overrated. Sure, it is important to remain humble and not overestimate your importance, impact, etc, but at the same time there is no reason to go spreading more hate, yo. Self-worship and meglomania is the only way to go.

Last week I forgot to do something, or screwed something up, and called myself a moron in passing. One of my campers overheard me and said that there was no reason to be calling myself names. It gave me pause. I’m not supposed to call others names… why the hell should I be doing it to myself?

You can be no more and no less than who you are, and you’ve gotta dig it just the same. If you believe in something (windsurfing, webpages, etc.) do not depreciate it or yourself. It isn’t worth it. Do not establish a heirarchy of nerdy and non-nerdy activities. You have your impression of reality, and it is important that you let it shine through. Do not attempt to filter your passions through another person’s thoughts, as this will always be beyond your ability. Far more important is to accurately convey your own beliefs, convictions and thoughts as truthfully as possible. If you try to negate the importance of something that’s important to you, (“Yeah, I like jazz, but I’m just a music nerd… Yeah, windsurfing is pretty fun, but it’s not nearly as cool as mountain biking.”) you are doing no one a favor. Not yourself, not others.

Many times I self-depreciate to seem non-threatening; because I want people to understand that I am not a mean and scary guy… that I can relate to their impressions of my activities. Well, this is dandy, but it dishonors my own convictions and weakens me as a person. It’s reverting to a relativistic herd mentality in the hope to leave the group (or just ‘others’) satisfied and unthreatened. In doing so, I do not allow them any room for growth, as I merely reinforce any perceptions that they may have previously held about my activity (whether it be jazz, music, writing, webpages, computers, camping, windsurfing, blogging, hot schalaka, etc…). Instead of bringing my own beliefs and expecting others to deal with them, I weaken my beliefs with bullshit statements like, “Yeah but that’s just me… it’s no truth the the nature of existence.”

In a way it is the truth. Jazz is awesome, windsurfing is tough to learn but kicks ass, the internet is an incredible tool for empowering the individual… These are my truths, and in that they are valid. It is not my responsibility to invalidate them in conversation; rather, I should give examples and explanations as to why it is my truth, and why it may not conform to someone else’s truth.

It’s a big pile of relativistic shit, but countless philosophers have said that the only reality is your own; your own reasons and your own perceptions. It is my responsibility to believe in these things, and to hold them up to the beliefs of others to see if they indeed hold weight. It is their responsibility to invalidate my reality, not mine.

Keep it real, keep it jive, but most of all, keep your truths true. They’re all you’ve got, and there is no sense in depreciating them for the comfort of others.

Just a couple of organized thoughts, precipitating out of the entropy of Camp Ihduhapi.

September 12, 2002

Open Letter to Professors

My professors seem amused by my conviction that invading Iraq is a good idea. What makes it all the more frustrating is I’m using the exact same tools my professors gave me, logic and reason, and yet we are arriving at completely opposite conclusions. We can’t both be right, so let’s duke it out, shall we?

What throws me off my rocker is my profs are still hanging on to sentiments that were new when Bush took office. They still think jokes about Bush’s intelligence are funny, and they play it as a subtle justification for their cause. “Our president can’t form a complete sentence, so his proposed course of action can’t possibly be right. Har, har, har!” I’d love to see the forwards that my profs circulate among each other.

“Hey, you get the one with G.W. Bush and all the monkeys? Har, har, har!”

Now, I’m all for political commentary and keeping the president in check, but could you please act like you’ve thought things through a little bit in the past year? I don’t expect you to instantly agree with my rationale, but at least have some rationale of your own that extends beyond “Bush is an idiot.” I mean, damn. I feel like I’m learning all my logic and reason from idiotarians.

And please, if we’re not actually going to discuss the issue, keep the political commentary out of the classroom. When we’re discussing interragatory sentences, don’t use shit like, “Is Bush impeached, yet?” It’s cute commentary that doesn’t allow a counter-argument, but it is incredibly distracting. With the stupid things I have heard over the past two weeks, I’ve had to hold myself down a couple of times to keep from going ninja and beating people up for no reason. Hey, I’m all for questioning my beliefs, as the only way a thesis can become stronger is if it is met with an antithesis.

‘Saddam does not pose a threat. He does not have the infrastructure to build nuclear missiles.’

We have satellite photos that show new construction around old nuclear facilities in Iraq. I doubt Saddam is building orphanages.

‘It’ll be a big mess. We’ll stir up a hornets nest that will require 250,000 American troops for years, just to maintain order in the region.’

A bigger mess than a new crater in New York? A bigger mess than a couple million infected with anthrax? A bigger mess than the dissolution of the free world in the name of Allah? If we’re gonna play the ‘possible universes’ game, let’s throw in all the possibilities, ok?

“If it comes down to it, would you be willing to go over there?”

That’s an appeal to emotion, and has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of a statement.

‘If we invade, Saddam will use weapons against us that he would have never considered using.’

So you at least admit he has weapons. If he would never consider using them, why, pray tell, does he want them so bad in the first place? Once Saddam has nuclear weapons he has the power to do whatever foul thing he wishes, and can threaten us to back off by dangling a nuke over Israel. That’s the situation we’re trying to avoid; an intelligent madman with the leverage to act on his wild fanaticisms.

If this becomes the case we will need to fight him on his own terms, not ours.

Breakaway

Woke up this morning with firm resolve. Blood like steel. The uncertainties had been replaced by absolutes overnight. I caught myself singing a heavy dance beat of unknown origins, and knew I needed to spoon some music in my ears whist sitting here working.

But who? The decision was of upmost importance. Who can sum up my emotions in as many notes? Who captures the American essence that I am so passionate to defend?

The Beach Boys. 1969. Surf bums drivin’ up and down the shore looking for lovely ladies. Spoiled rotten California kids in fancy cars. An example of the Great Injustice of America, given all those downtrodden who were not granted the opportunity to be surf bums? Proof that we need to further our hand-wringing over who has the better culture?

Nope. A beautiful example of freedom and free will. Some people decide to sing about Californ-eye-aye and Surf Camp. Others decide to blow up Jews. One of these has a future. The other does not.

Time will not wait for me

Time is my destiny

Why change the part of me that has to be free

The love that passed me by

I found no reason why

I can breakaway from that lonely life

And I can do what I wanna do

And breakaway from that empty life

And my world is new

We’ve got somethin’ good going on over here. Let’s keep it that way.

September 10, 2002

Remembrance

There’s been a bit of cynical flak floating in the air about the Never Forget refrain. Get off of it, they say. I can’t possibly forget, and with this incessant repetition it just dulls the meaning. Leave me alone. Wipe your eyes, you elitist cur. Your tears do not make you great.

I didn’t have television while at camp all summer, and only a few days out of the week was I able to dig my claws into a newspaper. At college I have no newspaper or television (aside from one with no reception that is used only for PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast). I could get a subscription to the Duluth News Tribune, but I feel that no news is better than poorly written news.

I didn’t have the television on when I left for class that Tuesday morning. When I arrived for philosophy the professor mentioned something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. Again? I asked, thinking of the small plane that had collided earlier. Apparently there were two planes this time, and someone attacked the Pentagon as well. That’s new.

I had class straight until 2:00, so all I could do was build a shell of information from the bits and pieces I squeezed from people. By the time my last class rolled around, the lack of connection to the world was driving me mad. I can’t concentrate. My reality had become unmoored. Hardly anyone is showing up to class today. We had a stupid little debate on foreign policy in American Lit class. Why couldn’t they cancel classes? I needed to see a television, I needed to check the internet. “If we cancel class, the terrorists have already won.” I needed to know what the hell was going on in the world.

Finally I got home and saw the horror that I had only seen in words. I watched the towers fall from every angle in cruel instant replays, but the gnawing didn’t hit until I read the first-hand accounts on MetaFilter.com. My stomach twisted. The tears flowed.

During the weeks following September 11, I had this image as my background. It haunted my dreams, but I needed to see it; it kept the memory fresh. I could hear the papers blowing in the cement winds. Those were words. Those were ideas. Those were people. Yesterday I set it as my background again and just stared. One of my roommates saw it from the hall and came in to look, thinking I was playing a computer game. He saw what it was and left.

The last time I watched the towers fall was half a year ago at Tony’s Fine Food in Spooner, Wisconsin. A WTC documentary came up and I could not pull my eyes off the big screen TV. My parents turned to see what had grabbed my attention and turned back. Something inside me grumbled anew, but no one else in the bar seemed to be paying attention. Perhaps it hurt too much to see again. Perhaps they were deliberately ignoring it. Perhaps the image felt banal and overused for them. Either way, after a few minutes someone came along and switched it over to golf.

It’s gone now. We have forgotten, and I know this because I have forgotten. I have barely reflected on the attacks for almost a year, and it is likely that few carry the thoughts around in their breast pockets anymore. It is no longer at the forefront of our consciousness. We have grieved and we have moved on. We have once again grown complacent, which was the problem in the first place.

But for me the gnawing is back. The pain is real again, and I feel alone. I just stepped out onto the balcony in my apartment, and my roommates were down in the living room watching Caddie Shack. They shouted good-natured jeers at me because I tripped on a book in my room and emitted a pitiful howl. I was at the verge of tears from writing this.

My feeling is different now than it was then. Last year it was a collective sorrow, where I could swing by Sir Benedict’s Tavern and see the same sadness reflected in everyone’s eyes. For how awful I felt, I could always take comfort knowing that everyone else felt the same way. There was a community.

My walk to class is now populated by ghosts.

I am scared again.

Transitional Metaphysics

Ahem. Everything looks and feels the same, only it’s now repackaged under a different name. When soft drink companies try to sucker you into thinking 7-Up doesn’t taste like bland-bubble-sugar-water and would be a tasty change of pace, they at least change the packaging and advertising campaign.

I have no advertising campaign, aside from sticking my finger in someone’s eye and telling them I have a website. At one time having a website was rare and cool, and you could discuss with all your friends how much Phantom Menace is going to rock and how much your Rio 8mb MP3 player doesn’t suck. Now every idiot with a vaporous grasp of HTML and a handful of functioning neurons can throw one together in a weekend. I know. I did it two years ago. I did it again this morning.

As for packaging, this lack-luster being is merely a skin graft from the UMD server. The operation was more complicated than I had anticipated and chewed up 2 1/2 hours of my morning. Many healthy cuts of that time were taken up by stupid things like losing directories and forgetting a ” in a line of code. One time I had to delete a folder, but I unwittingly started the procedure by forbidding myself from modifying the folder in any way.

I had a bagel for breakfast, but I can’t remember if I finished eating it or set it down somewhere and lost it. I get the feeling that my ancestors didn’t climb down out of the trees so much as they forgot to hang on.