Humanity: 4414 BC - May 21st 2011

[wednes]

Contrary to the drunken conversations I've been having since high school, I will be going to my day-job tomorrow even though it's the day before The Rapture. Granted, a Friday night shift promises to be largely devoid of actual work. And I'll be coming home to stay up all night and write. Or wandering the desolate earth, looting and crying out for my lost opportunities to bond with a non-mexican named Jesus. Either way, I'll be working on The Finster Effect.

To paraphrase a movie I like:
This book is so goddamn good, it makes my heart hurt.

Still have not figured out the source of my podcast audio issues. Garageband produces stutters in the vocals, like the reverse of a skip--repeating a small segment of the vocal so it sounds like a stutter. Sometimes it does it two or three times in succession. I don't understand it. I don't know how to fix it. And I'm tired of it making me look like a chump. The Apple Geniuses were NOT aptly named in this case. It's not my recorder, it's Garageband. It's not related to memory, or disc space. Anybody have any ideas?

Are you guys aware of Poe? Not the goth horror guy, but the sister of the guy who wrote House of Leaves? She's a singer, and I love her. Her voice sounds like Sheryl Crow, but not annoying and not singing about being drunk, or on the beach, or drunk on the beach.

Anyway, if I'm wrong and this Saturday really *is* The Rapture, I'm going to feel very silly. Eternal torment for refusing to kowtow to the HDIC (Head Deity In Charge)? That's like a forever version of a bad customer service situation. Oh, so you refuse to believe in me just because there are no concrete signs of my existence? So...you're letting the fact that I've hidden myself from your kind for hundreds of years get in the way of the blind obedience some of your people claim I require? Well, then that's the last time I try to bring salvation here!
And being stuck on the earth while all the godly pious types ascend? That's gotta feel like having to stay at work after your shift ends because of a tornado. Really? I don't even have to be here anymore and I'm still here? Hmmm...nice cars around here. I'd probably be a pretty good driver if there was no one else on the road.

Comments

[dancingwaves]

Poe's album, Haunted, was released in conjunction with House of Leaves and has the same delicious creepiness...

[wednes]

*nods* Yep, I have heard this. It's a great album, though I have not yet bought the book. H says I shouldn't buy any more books until I read some of the ones I have stacked around the apartment. ;-]

[dancingwaves]

I should probably abide by that rule. I try. Really, I do. But, it just doesn't work.

[wednes]

I try to, but then garage sale season comes...

[dancingwaves]

... which makes it so difficult. The "but it's only [enter amount here]..." never seems to go over well...

[dark_mark]

Using fear to shut down questioning leads to concentrated power, which provides the ability to increase fear...

This is one of the most powerful social instruments of our species, and it is at the heart of every power grab, war, ethnic/religious/territorial/etc conflict in history.

The only thing that doesn't make sense is why anyone would set a concrete date that, when passed uneventfully, would serve to reduce the fear they had been relying upon.

[wednes]

Agreed.

I must say, I'm feeling a bit less gleeful about mocking the fauxpocalypse now that I've read today's news. That woman killing her kids with a boxcutter out of fear of Gods wrath makes the whole thing a lot less hilarious. Not to mention all those people who blew their kids college funds on billboards so the apocalypse could get plenty of press.

[dark_mark]

Most of the time, natural selection seems to favor the unthinking, obedient groupists. Every once in a while, it works the other way. I think it proves that, at least for right now, there may still be room for the rest of us.