What is the sound of one geek clapping?

Something occurred to me while watching an episode of House M.D. I think that the reason that this show is so popular is because deep down, everybody longs to be able to do what House does: we all would love to be able to speak our minds without thought as to what the reaction would be. Or perhaps with that in mind and yet not caring.

This isn’t much of a stretch to figure out, really. It’s quite obvious that this is why the character of House is so appealing. It’s not his looks or his limp that does it (well, maybe, for a select few), and it’s not his caustic personality. It’s simply that he knows he doesn’t have to worry about whether people are going to be offended by what he says, and while I personally think that the character acts the way he does to intentionally get those reactions out of people, the end result is the same: always to the point and intensely direct.

Part of me thinks that the world would be better off if we were all a little more like House. We would always speak our minds and be direct, and nobody would have to read into subtext anymore. But the other part of me knows that this is Real Life and that people in Real Life are wimps and have skins that are far too thin. I think that the funny thing about it is the fact that even if people were being truly direct, other people would still try to read between the lines to see what they really meant.

But is diplomacy really any better? What benefit is there in delicately tailoring every word so as to remain PC at all times? I’m reminded of George Carlin’s bit called “Euphemisms,” in which he makes a comment about how the direct and up-front title “shell shock” turned into the pansy-ass PC illness called “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” All of the emotion gets taken out of it:

There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either *click* snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago.

Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue.

Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.

Then of course, came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I’ll bet you if we’d have still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.

Probably not a huge surprise here, but I think he’s right. At what point do we stop being direct in order to sound, well, nicer? And isn’t it not okay that we do this?

Maybe we don’t all need to be like House, but maybe a step or two in that direction wouldn’t be so bad, either.

I’ve had headaches all my life. That’s not saying much, as lots of people get headaches, except for the fact that based on the descriptions (and what my stepfather has told me about them), mine are all migraines. Though not always severe, they’re almost always localized to a pretty specific spot on one side or the other of my head, sometimes both and usually centered around a temple. It hasn’t ever really been much of an issue; most of the time if I take something, it goes away or at least lessens to the point where I really don’t notice it.

I know that some people have absolutely debilitating migraines. I don’t happen to be one of those people, so I consider myself lucky. I had a friend who a couple weeks ago woke up one morning and was half blind in his left eye; after trucking himself to the Emergency Room he was told that he had an “ocular migraine”, which meant that it was affecting his vision without giving him a headache. I, personally, never experienced a headache that was affected by vision.

Until last week, that is.

I had a fairly standard headache, sitting somewhere around my left temple, and apart from the throbbing, it was something that I could fight through. I took some Advil when it got worse, but didn’t really think much of it, until I went to the kitchen to get a drink of water.

The blinds in the office windows were all open because it was a gorgeous day out, and the sun happened to be at just the right angle to reflect off all the cars in the parking lot. Right into the window. And into my eyes.

And I swear to all that is holy, the inside of my head screamed. Actually screamed. I’m not kidding, I actually heard a noise. My headache flared up so quickly that I almost had to sit down for a minute.

Here’s hoping that I never have to go through that again. I’d take a hundred mild headaches in a row in comparison to that one flare-up.

I don’t consider myself to be especially brave, courageous or dedicated. And in general, I’m pretty disappointed with my government. But there are certain times when I feel really, deeply proud to live in the U.S.

Saving Private Ryan was just on one of the movie channels, and I have to say, when I watch the end of that movie, that’s one of those times. That movie never ceases to provide an opportunity to turn on the waterworks.

I know that this is just a bullshit post, and I do have the intention on writing some meaningful stuff in the near future, but lately I just haven’t felt very motivated.

In the last week, two related dates caught my attention (thanks to the Wired RSS feed) that made me think a bit. The first was that on February 13, 1633, Galileo arrived in Rome to face his trial for heresy, for his statements that the Earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around.

The second happened today, via the same feed: It’s Copernicus’ birthday today. The very man whom Galileo was defending in that trial, and his birthday falls in the same week. I found that to be fairly interesting, for some reason.

That, coupled with a link that a friend posted today about a book on Harry Potter for Christians, started getting me thinking about self-reliant thinking.

As in, there seems to be absolutely none of it going on nowadays.

We’re a race of beings with the capacity for the most incredible feats of intelligence, yet we still cling to the age-old instincts that informed our decisions back before we could even be called humans. We routinely fall back to herd mentality, especially when the comfortable things in our lives become threatened. Independence is a virtue best left to the animals that fall behind during the chase. It’s definitely a defense mechanism, but it runs completely counter to the ideals of being human.

Thinking about that Harry Potter book, I can’t help but want to scream at the top of my lungs: If you aren’t sure about whether your children should read the Harry Potter novels, don’t buy a book that tells you whether you should or not. READ THE HARRY POTTER NOVELS YOURSELF AND MAKE YOUR DECISION THAT WAY.

Why do we constantly have to rely on others’ opinions when we can form our own perfectly well?

Screw narcotics. You want to really feel like you’re drugged? Try insomnia. It’ll mess you up but good.

On an unrelated note: You may have noticed that I haven’t written anything in a couple weeks. Essentially it’s because I try to sit down and collect my thoughts on any given topic and end up thinking of about five more topics to write about, at which point I go on sensory overload and decide not to write anything at all. The funny thing is, if I wrote about everything I’d like to write about, I’d never get any work done. And since I’ll never make it as a professional blogger, I figure it’s probably better to go to my job rather than write.

Or maybe I’m just one hell of a procrastinator. But hey, as the wise woman once said:

Procrastinate now. Don’t put it off. — Ellen DeGeneres

When I headed out for work today, the weather was warm (warm enough that I considered shedding the inner lining of my coat). It was sunny and what the weatherpersons would call “mild.”

Which means that when I reached the bottom of the stairs, I was not expecting ice.

Yeah, that’s right, you know where this is going.

Needless to say, I ended up flat on my ass, my keys skitting across the ice and coming to rest alongside my car. At least they managed to make it there without coming to any harm. So in short, yeah, I’m a little bit sore.

Well, at least one good thing resulted from the mirror coming off in my hand: Today somebody came by and replaced my windshield. :)

I tell ya, having full glass coverage was the single smartest thing I ever did when I bought car insurance.

There are times when you should recognize that the Fates don’t want you to leave the house. Here are some things that should have made me stay at home this morning:

1. I overslept by two hours.
2. My uvula was swelled by about 100%, making me practically choke every time I swallowed.
3. When I tried to unlock my car, the weather was so cold that the door lock was frozen (though all of the other locks on the car were fine), so I had to climb in from the passenger side.
4. I tried to adjust my mirror—only to have it snap off in my hand. I’m now driving with no rear view mirror until I can figure out how to reattach it in this freezing weather or find a friend with a warm garage that will allow me to work on it. Maybe I’ll just take it into a shop and pay somebody to do it; at least then I can’t screw it up.

If any of these things happens to you when you wake up, take the hint and just go back to sleep until the next day. You’ll thank yourself later on.

I went down to the waterfront of New London the other night so that I could take some long exposure photos. After nearly getting arrested by someone I believe was a Homeland Security officer because I was trying to take photos of the Amtrak station, I moved on to less… offensive… subjects. The result of that is shown here:

All photos taken with a Canon AV-1 on Kodak Gold 100 film.

On Friday (my Saturday, for those of you keeping track) I headed back to my old stomping grounds in the New Haven area because I needed to get to the tax department and pay off my car taxes so that I can renew the registration on my car by February. While I was there, I went to the ever-so-awesome IKEA because they had a specific item I was looking for: one of those magnet strips that you put up on your wall and hang your knives on it (they make a kitchen look so… sophisticated). Target had one, but I didn’t like the way it looked and it was three times the price, so I waited until I was going to be in IKEA territory.

IKEA is one of those stores that you have to be careful entering, because not only will you find what you’re looking for; you’ll find about five hundred other items that you need but didn’t realize you needed. I also bought two new pillows for the bed and a new bookshelf, which I had been telling myself I was going to buy but was wary of spending all that money—they had exactly the one I was looking for, and it was only twenty bucks so I snatched it right up. I was THIS CLOSE to buying a nice big bit of artwork to hang in my living room, too, but I couldn’t justify spending seventy dollars for a low-quality reprint on canvas of a photograph that just wasn’t original (it was admittedly beautiful, though; if only it wasn’t completely mass-produced). Plus, I promised myself when I moved into this place with its enormous amounts of wall space that I would put my own photography on the walls, and that’s what I’m going to do. But it goes to show just how dangerous it is to enter IKEA.

It’s like that with two other stores for me, too: bookstores and Best Buy—it doesn’t matter what I’ve gone in there to buy, unless I’m very careful, I’ll pick up at least one other item. While I was on my way to West Haven on Friday, I was listening to Talk of the Nation: Science Friday on NPR, and heard the host talking with a guest named Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is the director of the Hayden Planetarium. He had this book out called “Death by Black Hole” that sounded completely fascinating to me, and so I stopped by the Barnes & Noble near my old apartment and picked it up. And also, I picked up Stephen King’s book “On Writing,” which I’ve been telling myself to read for ages now, since I fancy myself an amateur writer.

So by now, you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with the subject. Good question, dear reader. One of the funny things about items purchased at IKEA is this: they never provide mounting hardware. The bookshelf I bought came with a little strap that you attach to the top, which then gets attached to the wall so that the bookshelf doesn’t come toppling down at the wrong moment. Not a bad idea, I thought to myself. Here’s the funny thing, though: It came with a screw to attach the strap to the bookshelf—but no screw to attach it to the wall. How odd. Likewise, the knife strip came with no mounting screws at all.

So today, before I could install all of this hardware, I had to make a trip to Guy Heaven: the Home Depot. Basking in the glow of power tools and taking in the scent of sawdust, I made my way over to the hardware section and picked up a small box of drywall mounts and a box of fifty drywall screws. Seriously. They don’t come in anything smaller than that. Granted, the box only cost me four bucks, but I only needed three of them. While I was there, I picked up a small pocket level—after all, wouldn’t want that knife strip to be crooked. So it appears that the inability to buy only the thing I intend to buy extends beyond books and electronics equipment. Go figure.

So I spent a portion of my evening screwing things into walls. Makes me feel like a real man.