Thoughts, current events, and such
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Luke" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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02:02 pm
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Thoughts for the day...
Today is a thoughtful day, for some reason. I've had a few lightning bolt moments that I think are worth recording.
{Cam}
There is no right play style, but there are a whole lot of wrong ones.
Role-playing is, in large part, wish fulfillment. If you have fun playing characters who do something in the context of the game*, regardless of what that something is, then you probably have fun doing the analogous thing in the context of your life.
* A context which is often, by necessity, very different from the one in which we all live. No, killing bad guys doesn't mean you might be a psychopath - just that you like to beat the bad guys and help the good guys win.
{Biology}
The current paradigm of biological research, whereby we mess up a gene/protein and then study the effects to understand that gene's function, is inefficient. It's like studying musical theory by randomly cutting the strings of instruments in a symphony, to understand how the instrument interacts with the whole. Instead of studying how broken instruments disrupt harmony, we need to study how functional ones work together to create it.
Intelligence didn't design life; life evolved intelligence. Evolution's stamp is in every part of us, even the way we think.
Studying life as it is now to understand how the underlying mechanics of life itself is akin to sending a toddler to grad school, or learning to read by studying Shakespeare.
Phylogeny != evolution. E. coli is no more and no less evolved than we are. To understand how we are all connected, we must look backward as much as outward.
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09:04 am
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Meta-worry
Something's bothering me. I'm waking up in the middle of the night, remembering the feeling of having a dream that bothered me without remembering what the dream itself was. It's nagging at the back of my mind. Not a fun feeling.
I'd like to figure out/remember/recall what it is, so I can deal with it. Hopefully that happens soon.
Current Mood:  annoyed
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11:44 am
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Ah, the joys of science...
When grants dry up, jobs disappear. I've got a few months before it becomes critically important, but I guess it's time to start looking for jobs in the event that Hart's grant isn't re-upped by the NSF.
A grad school app is looking much more attractive now, also.
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02:12 pm
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On a heavier note...
Wow. Haiti got hit hard by that quake.
I really hope that we get some doctors, (un-)construction workers, and rescue personnel there with a quickness. Those people really need it, and they're only just about 700 miles out from Miami.
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09:31 am
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Seeking advice...
Recently, I've noticed an odd trend about myself that I'd like to change. If any of you have advice in that direction, I'd appreciate the help. What I've noticed is this:
I like to constantly be challenged in some area of my life. If I'm not being challenged then I will create a situation that is more challenging for me, to light a fire under my butt and get me working. Even if that means falling behind on my work for no good reason, just to make life more difficult. But at the same time, I value consistency and contentment, as well as being challenged - I like to not stretch myself too thin, but it seems like a part of me wants to be stretched thin.
Any thoughts on how to resolve this contradiction, o great friends of mine?
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09:36 am
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Ah, Brit Hume...
Showing so much of what's wrong with Christianity as practiced in the world today, by displaying religious intolerance, ignorance, and selfishness all at once.
Buddhism doesn't offer forgiveness because it has no concept of sin against a higher power. Instead, Buddhists seek forgiveness and make redress to those they wrong on earth, and let the supernatural effects of their actions - whatever those may be - take care of themselves. Right Action isn't following the rules set by a higher power, it's simply doing all you can to help and all you can to avoid harming yourself or others.
Further, Buddhism is practiced by hundreds of millions of people in some of the harshest places in the world. It's first principle is that life is suffering, and everything else is a lesson on how to deal with and overcome that. I can't think of another religion that so directly addresses the pain and suffering of the world, as a symptom of a problem that can and should be solved. To say that it's incapable of offering help in times of trouble is a tad ignorant, in my humble opinion.
*eyeroll* Oh well. I just had to get that brief rant out, because it's been held up in me for days. As it turns out I'm still plenty stuck in Samsara, because I still care about silly things like that (albeit only a little).
EDIT: Since folk haven't heard about what I referenced, and since I wasn't very clear... here's a link!
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09:04 am
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Recipe experiment: chicken & wild rice roulade
I had a recipe idea pop into my head while coming into work today. I thought I'd share.
( Chicken & wild rice roulade )
So, food aficionados on my LJ/facebook... whaddya think? I haven't tried it yet, so it's entirely experimental, but I think it might be tasty. I've also got plans for stuffing an acorn squash with a similar dirty rice concoction, but using cranberries instead of the onion and bell pepper.
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11:50 am
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Factcheck amen!
I love some of their old material. You can just feel the "are we honestly doing this again?" coming off of this article...
Born in the USA
That was, I think, the third time they were asked to provide additional proof of President Obama's citizenship. And they did, fulfilling every legal requirement and even going beyond that to show his birth announcement in the local paper on that day. I just happened to come across it, and thought my listeners in the 'blogosphere' (lol...) might enjoy it. :)
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01:56 pm
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Brief update
Am sick. Have been so for a few days. Don't expect much out of me for the next day or two.
Been thinking about oWoD, and have no idea what I'd like to play. People should sell me on ideas, so I can be a part of something neat. :)
Comments screened for the latter point, just to be safe.
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03:13 am
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oWoD...
How do I feel about a return of oWoD Vampire? Deep down, in my heart of hearts, beneath the clutter and the noise...
... I really don't care. I'd like to see it done well if it's done at all, but I'm not going to get invested in any particular outcome or upset if things don't go my way. The club will survive, and the game will go on. Having seen the results of my survey, that much is clear. So I'm allowing myself the luxury to sit back and daydream about the fun I might have, rather than getting wound up over the fun I might not.
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12:41 pm
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Gripegripe...
A brief gripe, since LJ seems to be the place one puts those sorts of things.
It bothers me when people use MMORPG, gamer, or l33t terminology ICly to describe magic or the working thereof. It oughtn't to be "buffs" or "aggro" or "DPS" or "DoT" in character, even if that's how you describe it OOCly. The material should be treated ICly with a little more seriousness than that, since that sort of talk reduces its significance in the mind of the player to something like "push button, get prize. Do math, win game."
Bah. Back to working, now.
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11:28 am
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Ahh, factcheck...
I'm brushing up on my health care policy knowledge before I go home for Thanksgiving. My mom and my stepdad tend to want to 2-on-1 me on political issues when I'm home, given that they are both fairly conservative and I'm fairly liberal. I don't really care for Democratic Party boilerplate, but I do care for facts, so I've been reading up on Factcheck to get my facts straight.
I came across a lovely article called Twenty-six Lies About H.R. 3200. It reminded me why I love Factcheck so much. Some choice tidbits...
"This chain e-mail claims to give a run-down of what’s in the House health care bill, H.R. 3200. Instead, it shows evidence of a reading comprehension problem on the part of the author. Some of our more enterprising readers have even taken it upon themselves to debunk a few of the assertions, sending us their notes and encouraging us to write about it. We applaud your fact-checking skills and your skepticism. And skepticism is warranted."
and,
"A few readers alerted us to the fact that a state representative in North Carolina, Rep. Curtis Blackwood, published a version of the e-mail in a newsletter to constituents, telling them that while going through e-mail, he came across 'some interesting information on the Democrats’ big health care bill, H.R. 3200. … While this is federal legislation and not state, the topic is of enough significance that I thought many of you would be interested in reading it.' We’d refer Rep. Blackwood to our special report on viral messages titled, 'That Chain E-mail Your Friend Sent to You Is (Likely) Bogus. Seriously.'"
I don't want to get into the list of assertions, since it's long and only of limited interest out of context. It's a good read, though, as it enables readers to inoculate themselves against the misinformation flying around about health care.
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02:34 pm
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Killboxes, Appeals & Scene Freezes
So, I've been looking in on a thread on [us-sc-st]. The thread is about how to handle scenes that result in appeals. Since 95% of those are killboxes, I don't feel bad stating that that's what the thread is about.
( Killboxes, Appeals and Scene Freezes )
Tags: camarilla
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10:25 am
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Finding the fun - Vampire: the Requiem edition
Alright, so, this past weekend at ICC I didn't play Requiem at all. I just couldn't find the energy to play my character, nor the motivation to get involved. On thinking about it, the reason is that I've only got a few activities in game that I find fun and none of them would have happened at ICC. This is not a fault of the game, I don't think, but rather it's a fault of how I'm playing the game. I'm doing it wrong. Having realized this, I'd like to figure out how to do it right...
As a player, I have found that I derive my fun from exploring the setting, interacting in a mostly cooperative way with other PCs, being given moral and intellectual challenges to solve, and engaging in honest, open, IC debate. All of these activities are very prevalent in my favorite WoD game, Mage, but I have yet to find a way to get them out of Vampire. My last PC, Mercury, managed to be fun to play because he wasn't really geared toward the Requiem setting - he was a Mage PC with a Vampire sheet, really.
So, how do you find that sort of fun in Requiem? What sort of PC should I play, in order to actually enjoy myself within the parameters given above? Is my current PC - a Dammitic Rabbi-Bishop within the Sanctified, meant to be a theologian and quiet influence-monkey - a fit for this, or should I make a new one? I'm willing to do most anything that I can (barring Top+ approvals, because I can't get those while an AMST) to have fun, because I like seeing my friends and I enjoy role-playing. I just realized that I was trying to fit a round peg into a square hole, and that might just have been the source of my disenchantment and malaise toward Vampire.
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08:59 pm
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Return
Back from ICC. Some good, some bad, some ugly. Will share more later, since I've got ideas burning up my brain the need to be written down before I go to sleep.
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07:02 am
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ICC
Atlanta, here I come!
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09:11 am
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Wow...
Either Sarah Palin has some hidden brilliance that I'm not seeing... or she is just bound and determined to screw over the Republican party in New Jersey York.
She's endorsing a conservative third party candidate in a previously Republican district, in the middle of a tough race with a strong Democrat. Not that I think she's influential enough to swing the race by herself, but boy howdy she's sure helping the Democrats out with her special brand of political good sense.
EDIT: Whoops! Wrong "New."
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10:26 am
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Alignment Shift
It's weird to look back and realize that your values and basic moral framework have changed over time. The things I care about, the things I don't care about, the things I consider important and/or trivial... they've changed. Principle/belief is much less important, choices/consequences much more important. People are more important, ideas less important.
Hmm. It's odd to think about, considering that values and morals are the basis for how we organize our reality.
Ah well. It's near to lunch time now, and I've got other things I ought to be doing. More time for introspective posts later. :P
Current Location: LSU
Current Mood:  introspective
Current Music: NPR's Morning Classics
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09:20 am
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Stupid Criminal Tales
Alright, I've got a bit of a story to tell, about ineptly attempted mugging and amusingly stupid criminals. So...
( Most. Inept. Mugging. Ever. )
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10:50 pm
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Dude, wtf?
Obama Postpones Meeting with Dalai Lama
Okay, I get that we owe China money. We also want to improve trade relations, push them to treat their own people better, and to move toward a free and democratic state... but failing to remind them how far they still have to go, by choosing not to visit with a man emblematic what's wrong with China as it is now, doesn't help.
Seriously, Mr. President. You're killin' me here, dude.
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