tags: random
1997
November
- 1997 Nov 10
- Running Down on Rails
When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around.
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1998
November
- 1998 Nov 2
- Uncertainty Principle
You know this [uncertainty] principle really sucks, 'cause everything is always shifting, shifting. You can never get a handle on things, like picture this:
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2000
August
- 2000 Aug 22
- Weird Shit Floating around in My Mind
I've got to do better than this, at least fifteen minutes a day, maybe.
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October
- 2000 Oct 27
- Scrawlings
I am so tired. There were things I would like to scrawl down. If only it were possible to write while driving.
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2001
August
- 2001 Aug 22
- Semi-Charmed Kind of Life
Random Chance strikes again. (In the end, I suppose it all evens out, and nothing changes. It sort of frightens me thinking about what sort of horrific situation I’d be in if I didn’t have this meager sort of luck.) If I had met him just a couple of years ago, I would’ve been a writer for sure, damn the consequences.
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2002
January
- 2002 Jan 23
- What Day Is It?
Randomness percolating in my brain.
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2003
June
- 2003 Jun 22
- Question
The sequela of a random phone call.
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July
- 2003 Jul 3
- Fatal Exception Error (Shut It Down! Shut It Down!)
At some point I may require some Haldol.
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September
- 2003 Sep 19
- blogging – a retrospective
Rebecca Blood is one of the original A-listers on the blogosphere, back before Blogger even existed, and you pretty much had to roll your own blog engine. Going backwards in time on the blogosphere always ends up causing me to go far and wide as well, though, and I find myself in very strange corners of the web.
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2006
March
- 2006 Mar 12
- the finest in disturbing hyperbole · Read more…
- 2006 Mar 16
- HOWTO: create a horcrux
Now I haven’t read Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince yet, but I stumbled upon the concept of the Horcrux randomly following links. The concept is familiar to any J.R.R. Tolkien fan, and clearly, there is at least one way known to create a Horcrux.
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April
- 2006 Apr 10
- random thought
OK, I admit it. I’m weird. But I’ve been reading up on the Roman Empire lately for no good reason. (Maybe it’s because it’s Holy Week, and I’ve been thinking about Rome and it’s relationship to Christianity, specifically Roman Catholicism.) And you know that saying, “All roads lead to Rome”? Well, with all the driving I’ve done this week going home and back, I’ve realized that all freeways lead to Los Angeles.
· Read more… - 2006 Apr 24
- northbound on the I-5
As I was driving to work this morning, I thought about how it’s been a while since I’ve been up to the Bay Area and how long it’s been since I’ve seen my friends from college. Immersed in this reverie, I almost passed my exit, and I thought about just driving all the way up the I-5, past L.A., down into the Central Valley, out to the Bay.
· Read more… - 2006 Apr 27
- random links
I am randomly scouring the net. You’d think that using del.icio.us would satisfy my need to bookmark random sites that I will likely never visit again (a technology that I wish had been available when Netscape had first come out—you should’ve seen the madness of my humongous bookmark file.) Alas, that is not to be. Of course, a sideblog would probably work better, but, I’m too lazy to write code right now.
· Read more… - 2006 Apr 27
- pretty colors
This quiz reminds me of one I took a while ago which now apparently defunct.
· Read more… - 2006 Apr 30
- inspiration
Three things today:
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May
- 2006 May 3
- personality tests revisited
(Inspired by my cousin J)
· Read more… - 2006 May 7
- bed-ridden for science
Once upon a time, I randomly blogged about NASA’s study about the effects of prolonged bedrest, something I would’ve totally participated in if I hadn’t been in med school at the time, but apparently one of the test subjects has her own blog.
· Read more… - 2006 May 15
- impossibilities: imagine this kind of society
I just thought about an imaginary society that decided that it was a bad idea for the wealthy to become powerful, and for the powerful to become wealthy. I think this idea came forth when I heard how former Governor Jerry Brown (now mayor of Oakland) was decried as a hippy for not wanting to live in a mansion and not wanting to drive an expensive car.
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June
- 2006 Jun 5
- less portentious than that
OK, I didn’t mean to make my last post sound ominous. Maybe it’s because tomorrow is June 6. (You know, 6/6/06. I don’t think the Devil really gives a damn about the vagaries of the Julian and Gregorian calendars, so it probably doesn’t have any significance to him, although it may very well have significance to some Satanist or nihilistic terrorists a la Columbine.)
· Read more… - 2006 Jun 12
- giggles
- 2006 Jun 24
- simple pleasures, small magics
Before work today, one of my chief residents was on one of the alternative music stations in town, which was bizarre and very cool. She won an hour to guest DJ and she broadcast her own playlist.
· Read more… - 2006 Jun 27
- one perfect sunrise
The irony is that I am always looking for the sun precisely where it is not.
· Read more… - 2006 Jun 28
- last words for a long, hard day
Oh. so. tired.
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July
- 2006 Jul 23
- return of saturn and other miscellany
This particular existential crisis all began over dinner at Tantra in Silver Lake. (Tantra is this hip quasi-Indian restaurant with excellent hipster ambience, which I enjoy in this snide, ironic, too-cool-for-this sort of way.) Joce was in town very briefly—I hadn’t seen her since my (naturally) ill-planned trip to the Big Apple some nine months ago. Joce was the de facto leader of our little clique back in college, and we all had some interesting adventures way back when. Chriscelle, another of my friends from college who is actually the one that I’ve known the longest, came out as well. I haven’t seen her since December. (I am a terrible friend.) She had recently started dating some guy, and somehow, the talk turned to my social life (or the lack thereof.)
· Read more… - 2006 Jul 24
- diametrically opposed beliefs
I recall a quote from F Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” There is coda to this quote that is often ignored, but unfortunately I’m too lazy to look it up. I’m fairly certain that it has something to do with brain damage, though.
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August
- 2006 Aug 1
- sleep continues to elude me
Man, all that caffeine was a serious mistake.
· Read more… - 2006 Aug 2
- in complete disarray
I guess I need to start entertaining the possibility that I may very well be going insane.
· Read more… - 2006 Aug 2
- cultivating stillness: the art of not wanting revisited
I stumbled upon this book entitled Cultivating Stillness in the Eastern Religions section of Borders and immediately felt peace descend upon me before I even opened it up. It is a Taoist text, but with a little more mysticism about it.
· Read more… - 2006 Aug 2
- oh god. morning
My brain is on fire.
· Read more… - 2006 Aug 4
- overcaffeinated
Don’t ask me why. I decided to drink a four pack of Red Bull. Hence, I am finding it extremely difficult to sleep.
· Read more… - 2006 Aug 8
- opening a random box of memories
It’s the little things that I remember with the greatest poignancy, most of them existing only in my mind. She would likely be shocked and disturbed by things running through my crazed brain.
· Read more… - 2006 Aug 12
- weddings and funerals
One of my cousins whom I grew up with just got married today, and I remember sort of zoning out, thinking about the possibility of someday getting married, which I find utterly ridiculous since I’m not in a relationship.
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September
-
- 2006 Sep 9
- maybe i’m a mutant
Beast
· Read more… - 2006 Sep 25
- time
It’s 2 a.m. and I can’t sleep. I’m not feeling well, physically speaking.
· Read more… - 2006 Sep 29
- coastline by moonlight
In this shadowed hour, I find myself contemplating the nuances of timing.
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October
- 2006 Oct 11
- swirling
Oh, what was it I had meant to say? There are a million thoughts careening through my addled brain at this benighted hour, and I sit here tongue-tied like an idiot.
· Read more… - 2006 Oct 13
- sheer madness
So I like to blame all this on damned cats. Now I’ve got nothing against cats, per se. I kind of like how they’re not literal ass-kissers like dogs are (and I am a dog person.) But the problem is that I’m deathly allergic to them, and on Thursday night I got a double dose.
· Read more… - 2006 Oct 20
- surrender is not an option
Saying “I give up” solves nothing.
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November
- 2006 Nov 1
- trapped in my own consciousness
Hat tip to my cousin J who has a thing for these things.
· Read more… - 2006 Nov 2
- excuses, excuses
The easy way out is to say that I’m tired, that I’ve been at work all day, and I just don’t want to deal. And it’s all true, I’m not making it up.
· Read more… - 2006 Nov 7
- new
Excuse me sir
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I’m lost
I’m looking for a place
where I can get lost
I’m looking for a home
For my malfunctioning being
I’m looking for the mechanical music museum - 2006 Nov 7
- random words keep seeping through
She was right, though, I can’t lie.
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She’s just one of those corners in my mind,
And I just put her right back with the rest.
That’s the way it goes, I guess. - 2006 Nov 8
- synchronicity
The whole thing about things coming in threes. Again it’s one of those misconceptions that the pattern recognition machinery of the mind foists upon us, but enough about that.
· Read more… - 2006 Nov 10
- synchronicity revisited
Now that I understand the Laws of Probability a little better, I recognize that most coincidences are meaningless, or even more likely, most coincidences become significant in my mind only because my attention shifts for one reason or another.
· Read more… - 2006 Nov 10
- like a thief in the night
It’s 4 a.m. and I’m heading up to L.A.
· Read more… - 2006 Nov 10
- not really synchronicity
I caught the tail end of “Just Like Heaven” which is set in San Francisco, features Reese Witherspoon as an ER resident who works 24 hour shifts and ends up kind of undead, and is titled after a Cure song (and which Katie Melua does a pretty good cover version of.)
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- 2006 Nov 13
- traipsing around north county
And the way I feel tonight
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I could die and I wouldn’t mind
And there’s something going on inside
Makes you want to feel makes you want to try
Makes you want to blow the stars from the sky - 2006 Nov 16
- sick but less twisted than usual
Be my friend
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Hold me, wrap me up
Enfold me
I am small
I’m needy
Warm me up
And breathe me - 2006 Nov 18
- filipinos
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- 2006 Nov 20
- fragmentation and the retrospectoscope
…less and less of this makes any sense. I all of the sudden had to ask myself, what exactly am I hiding from? Why do I hide behind the shadows and the walls, cower in the dark spaces, and the corners? What was it that happened, that made me want to disappear, never to be seen again?
· Read more… - 2006 Nov 21
- fragmentation and the paradox of social networks
Mostly, I like the fact that it’s not MySpace.
· Read more… - 2006 Nov 26
- my mind is not broken, it’s just seriously sprained
I don’t know. This night, this night, my brain is filled with a foggy void. I don’t know if it’s just fatigue, just this irregular sleep-wake cycle that keeps me spinning in hopeless circles.
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December
- 2006 Dec 2
- the words are exploding in my head
I don’t know anymore. There are a million things that I need to say in a particular order, and it’s all coming apart at the seams. There’s just too much information out there, it’s like looking for a way to pick up one molecule of water at a time out of the ocean, making sure to pick each one up in a particular sequence.
· Read more… - 2006 Dec 2
- sleep?
Apparently not tonight.
· Read more… - 2006 Dec 12
- where am i going? where have i been?
Kind’ve lost in transit right now, not sure what’s up, what’s down, what’s left, what’s right. Just going with the flow, fast and free on one hand, slow and languid on another, the eddies and the swirls drag me to the bottom of the deeps.
· Read more… - 2006 Dec 13
- i should’ve known it right from the start
There is a good kind of tired, and a bad kind. The good kind lets you know that you had a good, full day, that you were productive, that you made fairly decent choices. The bad kind is like getting kicked in the face after you’ve already been shot a few hundred times. (I am thinking of the Jersey tollbooth scene in “The Godfather” with James Caan.)
· Read more… - 2006 Dec 16
- procrastination is like masturbation
It may be fun for a little while, but then you realize you’re only fucking yourself.
· Read more… - 2006 Dec 19
- fatness and the tragedy of efficiency
Being a Person of Greater Mass™ myself, I understand the discrimination against fat people. (I think the epidemic of anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder among women is another thing entirely, and very bizarre and disturbing, but that is another tale in the telling. Seriously, though, there are way too many women who are either healthy or dangerously underweight who continue to claim that they’re too fat, and sometimes I have to repress the urge to send them all to the inpatient psych ward on the grounds that they are a danger to themselves.)
· Read more… - 2006 Dec 19
- life, death, trifles, and the fading sunlight
I read an intern’s blog post about a patient dying, and it sort of recentered me.
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2007
February
- 2007 Feb 10
- a summary of the year thus far
A lot of random little things have happened in the past month and a half that have really sent my brain reeling. In some ways, it feels like Christmas was just a little while ago, when I was wallowing in an irrational, meaningless episode of depression, and ever since it’s been an emotional rollercoaster.
· Read more… - 2007 Feb 14
- head in the clouds
I suppose I’m still in a phase of mental regression. For the past five weeks or so, ever since my cousin died and I went on vacation, I’ve found myself trying to recreate my childhood. Playing video games. Obsessing about fantasy worlds. Re-exploring Middle Earth. Even screwing around with emulators, trying to play old-school cRPGs from way-back-when. The Bard’s Tale. The Shard of Spring. Final Fantasy I.
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March
- 2007 Mar 27
- one step closer to singularity
I’m starting to find MySpace increasingly tedious because of the sheer amount of comment spam and the number of fembots constantly requesting me as a friend. That and none of the people on my friend’s list ever respond to any of my messages, but that is another rant entirely.
· Read more… - 2007 Mar 29
- effluvia from my leaking mind
Lately I’ve been once again been able to remember what I’ve been dreaming. For the longest time I’ve been having dreamless nights, which, while not very interesting, were probably for the best. I remember from clinical neuroscience that most of our dreams are violent and/or depressing, and this one was no exception. For some reason I was really pissed with my brother. I can’t recall the reason in the dream at all, but the sense of hurt and anger was quite vivid.
· Read more… - 2007 Mar 31
- ground zero: the death star
The problem with conspiracy theories is that you can pretty much twist any piece of data to support your claim, and anyone who disagrees with you clearly is part of the conspiracy as well.
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April
- 2007 Apr 7
- robot chicken: office fighter
Oh, I wasted my life.
· Read more… - 2007 Apr 13
- time machine for sale
(From my cousin <a href=http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=168884724&blogID=252744646&Mytoken=81CA045D-AC19-40AE-9094629B0A9D31E23647227" title="myspace">J™)
· Read more… - 2007 Apr 21
- weariness
It’s been a long while since I’ve had to work seven days in a row. In of itself, that kind of schedule makes me cranky. Add to it the fact that this included two overnight calls, and that’s approximately 120 hours of work. Fun times.
· Read more… - 2007 Apr 21
- even snoop dogg knows…
…that there is such a thing as context.
· Read more… - 2007 Apr 29
- my daemon
If you haven’t yet read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, you should get cracking. The Golden Compass is coming out at the end of the year!
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May
- 2007 May 3
- early morning awakening
I’m not quite certain what compelled me to get out of bed at 4:45 a.m. I didn’t even set my alarm. Supposedly, early morning awakening is one of the cardinal signs of depression. Meaning I still haven’t beat this disease.
· Read more… - 2007 May 5
- definition of insanity
Listening to: “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” by St. Etienne
· Read more… - 2007 May 8
- already tired
How is it that I did almost essentially nothing today, and yet by early evening I’m already exhausted?
· Read more… - 2007 May 9
- the witching hour
It’s 1:30 a.m. and I just woke up about half an hour ago. Ever since I finished up my last call month for this year, I’ve just been exhausted. I suppose I have about a month of sleep to catch up on. But this makes my sleep schedule completely screwed up.
· Read more… - 2007 May 11
- happiness, the continuing elusiveness of
Now I realize that happiness in of itself is a rather empty goal, reserved for victims of unusual strokes, the congenitally mentally incapacitated, and the clinically deranged. You lesion a few tracts in your brain, and you can be permanently happy until your dying day, singing “zippy-de-doo-da” out of your asshole, your face guaranteed to freeze with a rictus grin. I can see it now, a corpse grinning maniacally in his/here casket.
· Read more… - 2007 May 12
- fuck
Well that was unsatisfying.
· Read more… - 2007 May 12
- returning to normality (normal for me, at least)
We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem. — Tricia McMillan AKA Trillian from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
· Read more… - 2007 May 12
- the parable of the cave
I have come to realize that the living room of my apartment resembles a terrorist command center. I have three computers and four LCD screens, seven speakers plus a subwoofer, a TV, and a receiver as well as all the requisite cables and hubs and what not in here, because (1) I couldn’t fit it all in my room anyway and (2) the first rule of sleep hygiene is to only use the bedroom for sleeping.
· Read more… - 2007 May 13
- unwell
Is this aching in my belly anxiety or dysentery? One wonders.
· Read more… - 2007 May 13
- journey "don't stop believin'"
I woke up at 3 a.m. for no good reason and couldn’t get back to sleep.
· Read more… - 2007 May 15
- wtf
I’m feeling sick to my stomach for some reason. I don’t know. I don’t know.
· Read more… - 2007 May 15
- there is clearly something wrong with me
Man, that was an incredible waste. Three hours down the drain just to get a stupid RSS widget to work in MySpace. I wish that Myspace would just let me crosspost to their blog engine, but noooo.
· Read more… - 2007 May 17
- crossing my fingers
The last time my sister graduated, I was seriously in love with S. While in the back of my head I suppose I always knew it wasn’t going to work, I had been doing a good job ignoring that particular fact. Naturally, when I got back to Chicago, everything went to hell, and I went into a patented downward spiral.
· Read more… - 2007 May 21
- i tried
…and as Homer Simpson warns, this is the first step to failure.
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June
- 2007 Jun 1
- fucking with my circadian clock
It’s past 4:30 a.m. and I really, really, really should go to sleep.
· Read more… - 2007 Jun 14
- the future is now
I once had a dream about blogging, being irritated with the emergency department, and the planet Pluto. Somehow these elements randomly came together tonight for no particular reason, and I got this eerie feeling that somehow I can dream about the future. This isn’t the first time this has occurred, and it’s not just some déjà vu weirdness. Unfortunately, my dreams about the future are never useful.
· Read more… - 2007 Jun 20
- little thoughts
This week is starting to really get to me. I only have to work for two more nights before I get a weekend.
· Read more… - 2007 Jun 21
- solstice (my voluminous blogroll)
I literally skim through 400+ RSS feeds a day. I kind of wonder where my limit is. The point where it starts to feel onerous, and that I’ll never ever get any real work done.
· Read more… - 2007 Jun 25
- trolling the board
A few small gems that made me laugh out loud that I found while looking for potential admits on tonight’s emergency department board:
· Read more… - 2007 Jun 26
- more disorder
- 2007 Jun 29
- the etymology of "gorked" and its cognates
Gorked is a word we like to throw around the emergency department and the hospital wards from time to time. In our general usage of the term, it basically means someone who is non-responsive, generally comatose (as opposed to mere altered mental status/delirium.) In some ways, it has an iatrogenic connotation to it, as it is sometimes used to describe patients who are inadvertantly rendered unresponsive due to excessive dosing of medication (although the more common terminology for this condition is snowed) or unresponsive because of a bad clinical outcome, such as massive stroke, brain hemorrhage, post-code brain (so called because this is what tends to happen when they call a code blue [cardiac and/or respiratory arrest emergency] and it takes more than 8 minutes to get you back, meaning that there is bigtime hypoxic-ischemic brain injury—no oxygen or bloodflow to the brain), or post-bypass brain (which is usually a lot more subtle, and usually has psychiatric qualities to it, but occasionally, someone who gets a coronary artery bypass graft—abbreviated as CABG and affectionately pronounced like “cabbage”—gets gorked.)
· Read more… - 2007 Jun 30
- better lucky than good
The Fool is an auspicious card, depicting potential.
· Read more… - 2007 Jun 30
- dissolution
July cometh. A new year starts.
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July
- 2007 Jul 1
- where are they now?
My sister informs me of the fates of a couple of child actresses from the Shelly Long movie ”Troop Beverly Hills“ [IMDb][Wikipedia]
· Read more… - 2007 Jul 3
- pivot
I would say that it’s a sense of foreboding, but I don’t want it to all negative like that.
· Read more… - 2007 Jul 3
- then maybe not
Not so still, perhaps. But just as hopeless.
· Read more… - 2007 Jul 6
- insensate
I find it interesting that I searched for the word insensate and Google’s adsense popped up the following:
· Read more… - 2007 Jul 7
- so sick
Maybe I just need to get into a rhythm. Usually I look forward to the summertime, never mind that I rarely get time off anyway. But I just feel, I dunno, bleh.
· Read more… - 2007 Jul 9
- the epitome of pathetic
OK, folks, I think I’ve reached a new low here. I opened a tin can of beans with a hammer and a screwdriver. Supper of champions.
· Read more… - 2007 Jul 9
- random epiphanies
Now I’m not one of those sad-sacks who comfort themselves with the idea that “everything happens for a reason.” Lots of things happen for no good reason. Irrationality rules the day most of the time, and if everything in the universe were really premeditated, then God would have to be a psychopath, no question.
· Read more…
September
- 2007 Sep 5
- mind trace
- 2007 Sep 5
- commentary for the day
That last post was actually quite painful. Who knew that sifting through six years of blog posts could evoke such bathos?
· Read more… - 2007 Sep 7
- the downward spiral
How did I get here?
· Read more… - 2007 Sep 9
- overstimulated
Not sure why, but my brain feels like its full right now. There are like 100,000 thoughts spinning through this absurd skein of neurons wound up tighter than you could cinch a piece of string around Kate Moss’s waist, and I’m just paralyzed.
· Read more… - 2007 Sep 24
- recent mistakes and bad ideas
It was probably poor planning to drink coffee at 9 p.m. and expect to be able to sleep.
· Read more… - 2007 Sep 26
- anticipation
For no good reason I woke up at 4:30 a.m. today without any prompting from my alarm clock.
· Read more… - 2007 Sep 27
- last thoughts of the day
My mind has been everywhere today. I suppose one of the good things about getting older is that there is a wider field for my brain to wander. I could probably keep myself usefully amused for several days just letting my thoughts meander.
· Read more… - 2007 Sep 27
- my mind is on overdrive
The problem I have with overly optimistic philosophies is that it seems to discount the seriousness of human suffering. I mean, seriously, try getting someone who, after 10 grueling years of intensive chemo, followed by an equally grueling course of bone marrow transplant complicated by graft-vs-host disease, just had a relapse of leukemia—try getting them to watch “The Secret” and see how perverse and even insulting that is.
· Read more… - 2007 Sep 30
- 92 days
…left in 2007. Where does the time go?
· Read more…
October
- 2007 Oct 2
- movement while staying still
I have yet to determine when the ideal time to have my last cup of coffee is. I feel like if I don’t have it before 6 p.m., I’m totally going to fall asleep, but if I have it at 7 p.m., then I’m going to be awake all night.
· Read more… - 2007 Oct 5
- obviousman strikes again
Truism #31415: No one likes being called an asshole. Especially when they deserve it.
· Read more… - 2007 Oct 8
- sun stricken
Where have I been? What have I seen?
· Read more… - 2007 Oct 16
- there and back again
So like the absent-minded fool that I am, I left my psychotropic medications in L.A. Because of the terrible, terrible withdrawal side effects, I was compelled to pick them up after finishing work.
· Read more…
November
- 2007 Nov 12
- play
Not sure where exactly this entire weekend went. My mind feels like it’s been liquified, and I’m not sure if I’m coming down with something, if I’ve grown allergic to my parents’ dog and my sister’s dog, if I’m suffering from really severe caffeine withdrawal, or if I’m quite possibly losing my mind.
· Read more… - 2007 Nov 28
- a theory of miracles
I thought to myself this morning:
· Read more… - 2007 Nov 29
- coping with existence
Not sure what exactly changed this evening, after I gave up with lying in bed, weary, defeated. Maybe it was the odd impulse to write this line on a random scrap of paper:
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December
- 2007 Dec 9
- always struggling with inertia
Am I growing set in my ways? Or is it just that I really hate this time of year, and the night feels like a smothering weight crushing me into the ground?
· Read more… - 2007 Dec 11
- the longest road
Just when you thought it couldn’t get lonelier. Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any more difficult than it already is. There will be no resting on any laurels. The road ahead climbs up steeply, into the forbidding vault of the heavens.
· Read more… - 2007 Dec 21
- documented higher risk of mortality
It's official. I have hypertension, which is more simply known as high blood pressure.
· Read more… - 2007 Dec 31
- teaching a computer to read your mind
The crux of the eternal static versus dynamic typing debate is just how much are you willing to let the computer (or more accurately, the language implementers) decide what you mean. Those who favor static typing tend to favor explicit direction over implicit intuitive understanding, and strictly-defined categories and hierarchies rather than free-for-all tag webs and interconnections. The static typist immediately recognizes that the computer (specifically, the compiler or the interpreter) is a non-intelligent entity that must be told exactly what to do, or else you're liable to saw your own foot off. The dynamic typist, while not delusional about just how intelligent the computer is, is willing to have a little more faith in the language implementers, believing that they will do the Right Thing™ with the input that is fed to them.
· Read more…
2008
January
- 2008 Jan 13
- plans
It's 3 a.m. Usually not the best time for making plans and changing directions.
· Read more… - 2008 Jan 23
- disoriented to time and space
I've been rifling through my own blog entries and trying to index them. That's one of the things that I liked about my old hacked-together system (see exiled by fate, foobar, lunacy, and congestive soul failure) that Blosxom lacked. And while Wordpress, Simplelog, and Mephisto all support excerpts, I haven't really used them. (I suppose that'll be the next project once I get through the several hundred entries I posted through Blosxom.)
· Read more… - 2008 Jan 25
- small epiphanies
At this moment, I'm right where I want to be.
· Read more…
February
- 2008 Feb 4
- acute gastroenteritis
Man, driving 6 hours while you have the runs sucks. And the Grapevine is closed.
· Read more…
March
- 2008 Mar 1
- only now, at the end, do i understand
A movie (that I have yet to watch) produces a memorable catch phrase that is destined to be used and abused to no end, and which has already spread across the blogosphere like the way wildfires spreads through San Diego County:
· Read more… - 2008 Mar 1
- flashback (the hazards of having gone to berkeley)
A week ago, it was sunny and warm, and I headed up to L.A. I was wearing my "Barack the Vote" T-shirt that my sister gave me for Christmas. I didn't realize I was running on empty until I got to Carlsbad, so I got off the freeway and stopped at the nearest gas station. All of the sudden, I got self-conscious about wearing the shirt. North County San Diego is notorious for being rabidly right-wing, and I wondered if anyone would react. But I finished filling up my tank, got back in my car, and got on the freeway. Somewhat fittingly, the next song my iPod decided to play was "Get Together" by the Youngbloods.
· Read more… - 2008 Mar 2
- uncool
Well, that was a little creepy. Some dude started knocking on my door around 3:55 a.m., calling out for Greg or Martin. I wonder if he was just so trashed out of his mind that he thought he was somewhere else completely. I did contemplate whether he would try to crash through my door, and figured that the only two thing I could fend him off with would be my kali sticks and my wrought iron coat hanger. I ended up not being able to go back to sleep and just camped out in the living room playing on my laptop with my kali sticks at hand. Stupid drunk people.
· Read more… - 2008 Mar 12
- the long stretch
Man, I thought I was done with these. I don't have another day off until nine days from now, and I'm already exhausted. I ended up being stuck at work until 7:45 p.m. today. I knew I should've just gone home and gone to sleep, but instead I went to Tommy's and had a chili burger, which guarantees that I'm going to have a rough night of GERD symptoms. So I'm trying to postpone that moment of lying down supine.
· Read more… - 2008 Mar 31
- swears like a sailor
Apparently, I'm a foul-mouthed bastard.
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April
- 2008 Apr 3
- random quotes gleaned from the web
Twitter is an exercise in simulating Brownian motion in a network. It's kind of like the example of the drunkard trying to find his way from the bar by choosing a random direction at each intersection he crosses. Or, technically, I guess, it's a random walk on a graph, where instead of merely choosing cardinal directions, you could just as easily choose walking through a tunnel, down a diagonal, or up a freeway on-ramp.
· Read more… - 2008 Apr 4
- hoping against
I have this fantasy that if I hold my breath and Valsalva real hard, that nothing will come in through the emergency department that they'll call me about.
· Read more… - 2008 Apr 8
- inspiration and sacrifice
So talking to S has inspired me. And reminded me of all the things that I've given up to follow this path that I'm on.
· Read more… - 2008 Apr 14
- small tasks; simple promises
Even as I grow torpid and still, I remember that I promised myself that I would see the ocean today, come hell or high water. The temptation to just crash out on my bed is immense, but I know I will be a lesser person if I give in.
· Read more… -
- 2008 Apr 18
- brain splat
What is going through my head?
· Read more… - 2008 Apr 19
- sacrifice
If I could guarantee the happiness of a certain someone whom I think is the coolest person in the world at this point, I would sell my soul at a pinch. No matter how much misery I must endure, if I know that she is happy, then whatever I suffer will be bearable.
· Read more… - 2008 Apr 19
- fortune telling
There is nothing external to yourself that can tell you about the future, because you already know what's going to happen. And if you don't know it now, you'll never know it.
· Read more… - 2008 Apr 30
- serendipity never disappoints
So apparently I've had this song sitting on my iPod for years, literally, and Sunday was the first time I ever heard it.
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May
- 2008 May 6
- color me frustrated
I first found this test (or a variation of it) back in 2002 while I was in the throes of studying for Step 1 of the USMLE and dealing with the fact that E didn't like me in That Way™. I'm not sure if this test is even vaguely validated by any sort of study, but it's entertaining nonetheless. I can already tell that it's highly susceptible to the Forer effect, but whatever. You can find meaning wherever you want to. That's what the human brain does, after all.
· Read more… - 2008 May 6
- risk-benefit analysis
It all comes down to this: how much does this matter to me? If I can't survive without it, then I've got to reel in all my lines and just aim straight for the target. Do-or-die. No quarter given.
· Read more… - 2008 May 15
- infectious diseases and other medical conditions as a source of band names
While I was writing a consult note today, I was highly amused by the word "mucormycosis." There is something lyrical about it's dactyl-trochee stress pattern. "Myxomatosis" (which features most prominently as a Radiohead track from Hail to the Thief) is also a dactyl-trochee combo.
· Read more…
June
- 2008 Jun 4
- like the weather
The weather really does make me want to crawl back into bed and call it a day. I'll try again tomorrow.
· Read more… - 2008 Jun 5
- to a crisp
I am thinking that 26 years of formal education can really burn a guy out. I'm like beyond slap-happy. I'm this close to raving lunacy.
· Read more… - 2008 Jun 7
- time
The problem is that if you think too far ahead, everything always ends in disaster. This is the ugly reality.
· Read more… - 2008 Jun 10
- unlooked for
Just when you think all is lost, sometimes you're pleasantly surprised. After struggling futilely to find some kind of jerry-rigged solution, sometimes all you have to do is turn the power off, and then turn it on again, and miraculously, everything else takes care of itself.
· Read more… - 2008 Jun 21
- mining time
Skipping merrily along the random fractured paths of the Internet, I somehow found my way from the sad fact that Cody's Books on Telegraph and Dwight has closed (hat tip to Jamie Grove to the revelation that such a thing as a Twitter political debate exists, and that it sucked immensely (with commentary penned by the lovely Jennifer Van Grove) From there I discovered that there is now a patron saint to Twitter: tweetjeebus.
· Read more… - 2008 Jun 22
- apocryphal medicine - episode I
My dad relates this anecdote to me:
· Read more… - 2008 Jun 24
- worn down to little bits and pieces
It is weird to observe new beginnings without actually being part of it. Like when A+E first got together, for example.
· Read more…
August
- 2008 Aug 20
- smooth sailing = FAIL?
It occurs to me that each of the previous board exams I took have been taken under somewhat adverse conditions.
· Read more… - 2008 Aug 21
- dyssynchronous ventilation
Questions that had answer choices that all had something wrong with them, leaving me to pick the answer that seemed the least wrong.
· Read more… - 2008 Aug 21
- in fits and starts
So I finally met my neighbors the other day, after living next to them for several months, and hearing all sorts of snippets of conversations as they smoked their cigarettes outside my open window. It's kind of funny that I plan on moving out at the end of the month, but, oh well. After four years of living in this pit, I'm about ready for a change.
· Read more… - 2008 Aug 23
- 8 minutes
I'm not sure where I pulled the number '8' from, but it may be from pathology class from the second year of med school. 8 minutes is the amount of time you've got before the lack of oxygen starts causing permanent damage (such that if you do manage to restart the heart and/or reopen the blocked vessel, you may actually cause even more damage than what has already been done—so-called reperfusion injury.)
· Read more… - 2008 Aug 24
- faze/phase
Bewilderment spins mercilessly around my heart
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weaves/binds/patterns/stitches, embedded like magical runes
threads of fate, minutest of imperfections becomes a message
that I cannot decipher, much less interpret
September
- 2008 Sep 7
- a frank assessment
Now his failure is complete
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—Darth Vader
October
- 2008 Oct 13
- crux
I don't know if it's just the time of year. Maybe it's the waning sunlight, heralding my impending succumbing to seasonal affective disorder. Maybe September has never been a good month for me, and October is always about trying to figure out where I went wrong.
· Read more… - 2008 Oct 19
- random walk through spacetime
I've been thinking a lot about the trajectory of my life lately. I haven't really come with any good answers, and I feel like I'm working against the ever-ticking clock for some reason. It seems like the only time I can really make definitive decisions is when I'm put on the spot. Otherwise I just end up ruminating endlessly over increasingly worn-down ideas without ever coming to a conclusion.
· Read more…
2009
February
- 2009 Feb 28
- retrospect
In these silent moments, I wander my thoughts
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the wrack and ruin of the years gone by
the tumult and the despair
the small victories, the trifling triumphs
in all this havoc, I marvel at
how Time consumes possibility
like a ravening beast, it rends apart Chance
rasping the meat off its bones,
reveling in blood and spent breath
and inevitability is what it excretes
Fate is the spoor of Time
April
- 2009 Apr 11
- watching the sun set in the rear view
Most people complain about the smog in L.A., but, perhaps disturbingly, the smog makes for some pretty spectacular sunsets. I was driving southbound on the 405 earlier today, passing through Orange County on the way to San Diego, and here, the freeway veers eastward, putting the sun in my rear view. The sky looked like it was on fire.
· Read more…
May
- 2009 May 10
- the subjunctive mood
The month of May always, always makes me think of possibility. It is, I suppose, merely a function of the lengthening of days. The sunset continues to inch further and further north, and closer and closer to 8 pm, while the earliest rays of dawn encroach upon my dreams earlier and earlier.
· Read more… - 2009 May 13
- fuggedaboutit
I haven't been sleeping well lately. Which sucks, because how I feel when I wake up pretty much dictates how the rest of the day goes.
· Read more… - 2009 May 18
- endure
The hill loomed before him. His legs began to ache, and maybe there was even a little numbness in his fingers. He was just terribly out of shape. To put it bluntly, his body was a shambling ruin, encased in pounds upon pounds of fat. He drew deeper, sharper breaths. The cold air raked his lungs, sort of how he imagined an aerosol of glass would feel, only he knew he was exaggerating as usual. Sweat beaded, then trickled down his face.
· Read more… - 2009 May 25
- wandering
Would it be the mountains? Or the sea? It had been a long time since he had seen the south-facing beaches, so he decided it would be the sea. He would go west, west toward the sunset, following the ancient road leading out of the city, the King's road, though no king ruled any longer.
· Read more… - 2009 May 25
- what is gone is gone
He found it strange how an old song that his dad always used to listen to on his cassette player had embedded itself so deeply into his brain that when he heard it again, it instantly took him to a time and place he could scarcely remember, a past that never was, memories that had faded into a story, into lore, more akin to fantastic fiction than to anything he had actually lived through.
· Read more…
July
- 2009 Jul 9
- traces
Betrayal? What was there to betray? Abandonment? But what claim did I have, what duty did she have?
· Read more…
August
- 2009 Aug 26
- drought, flames, ashes
When is the right time to write? It never seems the right time when the words come. Paper, pen, or even keyboard, touchscreen are never in reach when the words bubble up, unlooked for, unheralded. And before I can write them down, they evaporate, like a single cup of water spilled heedlessly upon the cracked, dry earth as the sun beats down mercilessly.
· Read more…
2010
April
- 2010 Apr 6
- random completely out-of-context thought on a slow tuesday afternoon at work
It's not much of a sacrifice, to hold back so she could be with the better man, if there wasn't any chance she'd be yours anyway.
· Read more… - 2010 Apr 11
- fantasy genre mashup
Because I read all four existing books of A Song of Ice and Fire right before I started playing Final Fantasy XIII, I keep wanting to call one of the characters in the game "Jon Snow" instead of just "Snow".
· Read more… - 2010 Apr 11
- help, i'm trapped in a disney movie, and i'm not the hero, or even the sidekick
The Americana at Brand is one of those hybrid residential/commercial developments that sprung up like weeds during the housing bubble, featuring high-end boutique shops and restaurants with condos on top of them. They're basically the next-generation mall, carrying on the long tradition pioneered by Southern California, of creating quasi-high-density pseudo-urban experiences in the setting of a private development (see also the Paseo Colorado, L.A. Live, The Grove, Universal City Walk, Downtown Disney, etc.)
· Read more…
July
- 2010 Jul 21
- unspooling ariadne's golden thread
So "Inception" totally blew my mind. A lot of thoughts have been streaming through my head since, and the synchronicity of some of these thoughts have been kind of unnerving.
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August
- 2010 Aug 2
- an idle mind is the devil's playground
So I've been in a weird mood all weekend. Maybe it has something to do with the recent solar flare and the incoming coronal mass ejection. Maybe I'm not getting enough sleep. Or maybe too much sleep. Probably, I'm not getting enough exercise.
· Read more… - 2010 Aug 16
- wandering through these streets
If I dwell too much on it, it does depress me how much I feel like my life has shrunk. This was, to be sure, inevitable. Almost all of my energy is spent working so that when the day is done, I just don't feel like doing anything at all. Because, sadly, whatever remaining energy I have gets spent on the arduous commute home. The East L.A. Interchange is evil, and whoever designed this monstrosity needs to be punished.
· Read more…
December
- 2010 Dec 18
- anti-climax
So I've been completely neglecting this blog, to the point where I didn't even realize my web host had suspended it (I'm not entirely sure why. I thought I was still paying for hosting, but I guess I was wrong.)
· Read more…
2011
January
- 2011 Jan 17
- random song lyrics
If only I had thought of the right words
· Read more…
I could have held on to your heart
If only I'd thought of the right words
I wouldn't be breaking apart… - 2011 Jan 31
- out of context
On these interminable commutes home, truly random thoughts will pop into my head, sometimes riffing off of something my iPod decided to play. I'm not even sure what song it was that prompted these ideas, but now I kind of want to write ti down and see if I can fit it into some story I might write some day:
· Read more… - 2011 Jan 31
- query
is it possible to see at that depth with such clarity?
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to plumb the hidden recesses of the universe with just
the force of thought?
I no longer believe it, yet still I am drawn
to the lofty and the sublime
though still wary of deceit, of confusion
is there wisdom behind the knowledge?
not just comprehension but understanding?
March
- 2011 Mar 6
- if you don't have much soul left and you know it, you still got soul
A few weeks of headaches and listlessness, of palpitations and sleeplessness, of such unshakeable weariness
· Read more…
the painkillers and the antibiotics, the receptor blockers and the immune modulators
make you a little less achy, and little less sore, and the nights aren't as fraught
with tossing and turning, and the fluttery, nervous twirling in the pit of your gut
and that basic fear of worrying whether you even know what you're doing anymore
if the next morning will bring some horrific disaster that everyone is counting on you to fix
and you'll just end up standing there uselessly, hands trembling and nerveless
and the roar of triumphant chaos finally sweeps you away from the sandy shores
drowning you in the dark depths of that trackless sea of despair
June
- 2011 Jun 27
- a thousand folds
My current lack of introspection is starting to alarm me. When you've gotten to the point where you feel like you can't even be honest in your own blog that you treat like a secret diary because hardly anyone reads it anyway, this might be suggestive of a significant lack of openness.
· Read more…
November
- 2011 Nov 30
- where the hell did that come from?
So I'm driving home and all of the sudden my iPod starts playing "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, and the lyrics just hit me:
· Read more…
December
- 2011 Dec 17
- generalized malaise
I'm feeling disconnected and unreal.
· Read more…
2012
January
- 2012 Jan 31
- random thoughts while walking aimlessly through target
I don't really know where it comes from. I just know it's from somewhere external. I did not learn it. I was informed of it. Probably some sort of romantic—or even Romantic—garbage that I came across in high school, about how you can look into someone's soul just by looking into their eyes. How you can identify intelligence by recognizing a spark.
· Read more…
February
- 2012 Feb 29
- time
It's just another day, right? Same as yesterday. Same as tomorrow.
· Read more…
March
- 2012 Mar 5
- the art of not wanting
But everyday I say I'll try to make my heart be still.
· Read more…
April
- 2012 Apr 23
- Epiphany
A duality:
· Read more…
June
- 2012 Jun 8
- it's the way it's put together
So, yeah, up until 1 am for no good reason, except I got sucked into YouTube and the Hype Machine, finding covers and mashups of pop songs that have finally burrowed their way into my consciousness after constant exposure. And it both delights me and makes me a little wistful that I'm not the first person who thought two songs just happened to fit really well together not just thematically (lyrically speaking) but even in terms of key signature and rhythm.
· Read more… - 2012 Jun 18
- what is gone is gone
You can't lose something you never had. And yet, that makes it even worse.
· Read more… - 2012 Jun 29
- music from the land of canadia
As my iPod decides to play some songs from female Canadian singer-songwriters back-to-back, I ponder over how I should probably be ashamed that some of these songs are on my iPod. And I wonder, was Carly Rae Jepsen directly influenced by Avril Lavigne? Was Avril Lavigne directly influenced by Alanis Morissette? Are these the only female Canadian singer-songwriters I actually know?
· Read more…
July
- 2012 Jul 7
- a single letter difference, and too much free time
I found myself thinking about the last section of The Lord of the Rings (that got cut out of the movies): the "Scouring of the Shire" chapter. And it occurred to me that "scouring" and "scourging" are only one letter apart. And while in common parlance, "scourging" just means whipping, I started thinking about the Scourging of Lordaeron in World of Warcraft, where cultists transform an entire kingdom's populace into ghouls and zombies, and so, what if Saruman was a necromancer, and he basically turned all the hobbits undead….
· Read more… - 2012 Jul 9
- years after it was much too, much too late
It's weird how random memories will sneak up on me. Usually while I'm driving, but I suppose that really shouldn't be that surprising since I live in Southern California, and odds are, I'm in my car.
· Read more… - 2012 Jul 11
- the pursuit of happiness is in vain
I'm trying to figure out where this thought came from, trying to tease apart my memory to determine who taught this to me, or how I learned it. For as far as I can remember, I've taken it as a personal article of faith that you cannot really chase happiness. Maybe it's just an extrapolation of the conventional wisdom that you can't buy happiness. But happiness is not something acquirable, certainly not like you can obtain the newest iPhone, or even the acquiescence of corrupt politicians in certain regions of the world of ill-repute. You can't realistically set a goal like "in 3 months, I will be happy", certainly not the same way you can say "in 3 months, I will lose 20 pounds" or even "in 3 months, I will be married."
· Read more… - 2012 Jul 14
- systems of magic
Ever since I heard of Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law—any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic—I've often found myself thinking of how magic would end up being studied in a post-scientific revolution civilization. I know a lot of fantasy authors don't like making their systems of magic explicit, because it inevitably makes it magic less magical (and not making it explicit is also incidentally in line with Tolkien's thoughts on how magic should work: internally logically consistent the way logic in fairy tales and dreams are internally consistent, no matter how weird.)
· Read more…
November
-
- 2012 Nov 26
- I watched too many cartoons when I was a kid
Thanks to my little sister, I became thoroughly immersed in the lore of Rainbow Brite (as well as She-Ra, and less so, My Little Pony) The one episode (two episodes, really) that really stuck to me was the pilot, which was/were far darker and more foreboding than the actual series was—basically explaining how Rainbowland came to be transformed from a devastated wasteland ruled by a malevolent force into an Edenic paradise.
· Read more…
2013
March
- 2013 Mar 29
- clarity
I've been kind of obsessed with this song.
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April
- 2013 Apr 9
- what if?
It took me a really long time to learn this, but I finally realized that asking "what if?" unilaterally makes no sense. Because it doesn't matter if it never crossed her mind.
· Read more… - 2013 Apr 10
- thinking about starting a new blog
I don't know why I thought the domain name highpoweredmutant.com would still be available.
· Read more…
May
- 2013 May 21
- the last gleam of sunlight
There is something about the final brilliant moment of the day, right before the sun dips below the hilltop behind my house, that really puts me in a weird, contemplative mood. My iPod decides to start playing a Hikaru Utada song.
· Read more…
July
- 2013 Jul 29
- i dreamt about the POTUS
So I should write this down before I totally forget: Last night I dreamt that me and Barack Obama got kidnapped by a couple of Filipino gangsters working for the Triad. (Don't ask me where Secret Service was.) We managed to outsmart the gangsters, but had to steal a limo to get away. For some reason no one recognized the POTUS at all.
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August
- 2013 Aug 4
- everything is political
Descriptive/positive statements may or may not be political (although there are those who argue that epistemologies based on descriptivism/positivity are inherently political.) But prescriptive/normative statements (explicit or implied) are always political.
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September
- 2013 Sep 30
- i don't do well with people
So the (perhaps post-hoc) rationale was that I wasn't there to pick-up on women, I was there to hang out with my cousins.
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2016
February
- 2016 Feb 25
- Statistically Improbable Phrases
Ideologically incoherent but Machiavellianly legit.
· Read more…
March
- 2016 Mar 17
- Order and Stability
People talk about "order" and "stability" as if they're one and the same, but order isn't stable. Order always requires energy to maintain. It's the state of maximum entropy that's stable.
· Read more…