Florida Lotus

Tomorrow will be better.

Tomorrow I will be better.

Today I must be better for

Yesterday’s me.

Unfortunately, I and anyone else in the United States are allowed to say anti-Semitic things. If you don’t agree with that, then you don’t believe in free speech. If you don’t believe in free speech, you should stop using it to belittle mine.

www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-…

Was wondering why the cat litter and dog food has a 10% tax, while my food had virtually none.

Federal, State, County, City, Tax.

www.zerohedge.com/economics…

The growth market only grows if there is more to consume; instead of quality the focus has shifted to decomposing products that must be replaced by “newer” products so that the market can continue growing. Relies on infinite growth, unsustainable.

On another note, feudalism and sexism and slavery are ugly, but without them we would never have reached modern society. Burning our history isn’t the answer; acknowledging and learning from it is. I don’t know, just a thought.

Teenagers, by definition, already have their own troubles of finding their place in society. In the 21st century? Good luck. Adding gender… dysphoria (Not as a political term, but honestly it’s the best way to describe the confusion and perceived social pressure) is just adding kerosene to the fire. Pushing it as an agenda is sure to get results in confusing times.

*Knowing what you want when everyone else is clueless puts you at the top of the pile.

If you truly are LGBTQ+ whatever else terms, then you should know it in your bones, not because that’s what other people are doing. The age of conformity. (How many times do I have to say this? Surely this is the last time I will speak about this.)

The prose is good, and the story is interesting and told in an interesting format, but personally it falls flat. It’s not super memorable, and it’s only at the very end of the book that we actually reach the main conflict.

The book is more about the individual character’s conflicts, and is told in a way where each character influences the story and passes the torch to another character to continue the story until it reaches our first character again, now an old grandmother. Which I think is the main message of the story: each person has their own arc and choices and regrets that affect the grand story.

It’s interesting that each character has a decision they regret; Holly regrets leaving Jacko, Hugo wonders if he could have had love over immortality, Ed regrets leaving his family and causing the deaths of his handlers, and Crispin Hershey regrets exacting veneance on his critic by putting him in a foreign prison for three years. Unfortunately, getting invested in each character’s story only for them to literally disappear (magically) or die gets tiresome, and the main payoff is that at the end of the story, Holly is able to send her granchildren somewhere safe, while she is left to die in Climate Change hell.

*Writer inserts modern culture war themes into literature in a semi-feasible way that isn’t too painful to read.

Red Snapper’s Prince Blimey is just a masterpiece. There isn’t one bad song on here. In fact, they’re all good songs. Imagine BadBadNotGood’s third album, but they slowed down and used electronic effects, like Silver Mt. Zion’s “He Has Left Us Alone…” . This stuff moves. And the effects aren’t overt, they’re the bass to lead guitar. Emphasis still on jazz, it’s a tempo piece with heart.

www.zerohedge.com/geopoliti…

Libraries and thrift stores have to be the best resources for finding CDs and DVDs. And books.

Huh, my post disappeared. Reposting the basics.

There’s no reason to be happy, but we are.

There’s no reason to believe in anything, but I do. The only thing I know is that I know nothing, so why should I believe in anything? There’s no reason to believe in what I believe, but what reason is there to believe in anything else? Or to believe in nothing?

Like a critic, you can’t take yourself too seriously, otherwise you risk becoming a violent radical or a spiritual degenerate. Balance.

And also, following up the idea of a good critic, a media critic’s purpose is to offer a unique view of media to the benefit of the reader and their followers. As long as the critic writes what they honestly think consistently, like-minded people will follow them because the critic spends time to find the things that the critic values, and therefore what their audience values.

Like in writing, when you write for yourself, eventually you’ll find a niche of people who identify with you, however small.

It’s like Rent, but bad. Not worth watching.

The characters seem hell-bent on making me hate them, and while it makes a dumb protagonist acceptable, the dance numbers are shunted into the film in a disorienting fashion. Are the song parts hallucinations? Parts of the plot? Or are they giving us perspective from inside the mind of the main character? What is going on? There’s no expanation until the song parts are such an obvious distortion of reality that the only way it makes sense is that it is seen from the viewpoint of the idiotic main character. In which case, what is the point of this visage, when it doesn’t affect the plot in any way?

Additionally, the majority of the film seems dedicated to women in the nude or singing about you know what. Did I mention Weinstein is listed in the credits? When the only good part of the film is based on showmanship, it’s kind of disheartening to see such a display.

The only part I like from the film is that of the husband Amos, the normal guy who chooses to protect his faithless wife and never gets recognized. Of course, he’s a side character.

It’s like Radiohead decided to try being Godsmack. The guitar riffs are awesome, but the singing and lyrics… not so much. Must every song be about sex? The worst part isn’t that it’s bad, the worst part is that it’s so close to being really good. I’ll have to look at their other work, especially that of Dave Navarro, the guitarist.

In order to actually understand the material, you have to try and explain it to someone else. If you can’t put it in your own words, you don’t understand the material. It’s better to know that you don’t understand the material than to find out on exam day.

Most straight-A students will never get this edge, or even practice it. It doesn’t make you the best, it just makes your study skills better than grade A students.

It may be silly, but doing it on your own, who cares if it’s silly? The psychological aspect of refusing to be stupid is what makes learning hard. Like refusing to accept help and acknowledge you don’t know anything. Like learning to farm, or take care of chickens, or learn anything in life. Get over being stupid.

Test Post

It seems like it’s harder to get along with others when they have fundamentally differing views. Maybe it’s always been hard, it’s just that I’m more different now. I could assimilate, but that would be losing. Life is hard. But life is the best thing that ever happened to me.

• Don’t leave the car in neutral.
• Don’t leave the car in neutral.
• Remember to park the car.
• You can’t do a u-turn in a parking lot without reversing.
• It’s better to be safe than sorry. If the git behind you is a prick who doesn’t like to slow down, they can pass or change lanes. Most people aren’t pricks.
• It’s okay to go a little further than planned if you can’t change lanes. You can always turn around. You can’t reverse a car crash.
• At least where I am, most people drive faster than the speed limit, rendering it useless. Unless you’re going faster than everyone around you, it’s unlikely that you’ll be arrested. IDK, people.
• Slow people keep on the right. Especially on highways.
• When backing out onto a highway, make sure there are NO cars in sight.
• Did you park the car?
• When parked on a hill, you should theoretically turn your wheels towards the curb. You should engage your parking brake.
• Most accidents occur in parking lots and in five-minute trips. Slow down, be careful.
• You have a blind spot that your rearview and side mirrors can’t see. Turn your head before you merge.
• At a stop sign, stop. Come to a complete stop for one mississippi.
• At a yield sign, yield. TURN YOUR HEAD TO LOOK.
• Slowing down earlier is better than later. Stop before turning ideally, especially on steep shoulders. “It’s not a golf cart.”
• Don’t roll over the car, ever.
• And make sure you park the car.

I will probably add more to this.

There’s a sickness in the air that can’t be described, can’t be touched, can’t be felt. It glides off of our tongues in that harmlessly harmful fashion. How can we speak if we don’t know? How can we know if we don’t speak? And all that comes out of our black voice box is hot air. In, oxygen. Out, dioxide.

I’m choking on the nothing in my mouth, I’m fed by military rations of forcefed propaganda, I am withered by a lifetime of silence.

I saw a flower outside my window, and I knew that it was beautiful, it was so beautiful that in fact I can not describe it, and all I know is that I want it to be black, in your perception, in your mind, in your imaginary eyes.

I saw no flower, but did you? Did my words and ideas create a sight a sound a smell out of nowhere, nothing, out of the letters on the page?

I like Sage Francis.

Fun story today: while I was trying to get my driver’s license, I found out my middle name on my SSN doesn’t match my passport, which means I can’t get a driver’s license until they match. Meanwhile, at the SSA, I just got a replacement card, so I can’t get a new one until next week, and in order to change my name I need to get my birth certificate, which was the precise reason I tried to use my passport and my replacement card.

But you know what’s funnier? I don’t use either of my middle names, and they were given to me by family we don’t talk to anymore. One last p.i.t.a., eh?

(Wow, first world problems.)

Can science give the same sort of meaning and happiness to a person’s life as religion?

I think that the death, or rather, the murder, of the idea of a god or greater good or higher responsibility and purpose, as well as that of tradition, ideals, virtues, and general hope could be at the root of our societal and spiritual decay.

“Stick the food pyramid, or whatever they’ve updated it with on the fridge and point at it sometimes.”

• jennlately.com/worldscho…

Just realized: Grade teachers are essentially workers on an assembly line. You get handed a piece of work, are expected to perform X function, and then pass it on to the next person, and hopefully you’ve got a complete, functional human at the end.

What if you need time?

My painting station:

• Lighting. I have a floor lamp that sprays light directly down, so my hands don’t get in the way. Get multiple sources of lighting if you can, that evens out shadows, but if one source is too bright it can create shadows
• Water-pot. I literally use an old can of beans. Same can every time. Just put water in it.
• Palette. I use a wet palette made of paper towels and parchment paper, and it holds my paints and allows me to blend when necessary. Useful for thinning out paints.
• Paper Towels. Have a couple handy to wipe off mistakes, dry your hands, dry and wash your brush, wipe extra paint off your brush, etc.
• A handy-dandy table. It’s nice to have one slightly higher than usual, because your hands rest on a higher surface closer to your eyes, but it’s not necessary.
• Optionally, get a microscope. This will ease the strain on your eyes. The one I have only increases the strain on my eyes so…
• Optionally, a miniature grip. These are pretty cheap, and allow you to hold the model comfortably without touching it.
• And, seating and entertainment. Playing some music or a movie in the background is nice and gives me a sense of time (spoiler, I don’t have one!) Additionally, good seating is good. You’ll be sitting there for hours if you don’t get up. Be sure to change your posture once in a while, or you’ll be seeing the therapist often. Stretch your hands, get up, relax your eyes.

For travel, I pack my miniatures and paints in a fishing tackle box with foam, and keep my brushes in the wet-palette box along with parchment paper. It’s pretty easy to find paper towels, at least for me. And for a pot you can use whatever cups you want, but I like the can o' beans. I don’t know why, don’t ask.

But yeah, that’s my paint situation. Ciao!

Pardon my photos; I can’t get the lighting just right. Should probably set up a station or such.