http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV5U8kVYS88
i generally don't like to write a post without a strong central theme. it may be because i think it makes bad writing to say three or four unconnected things and even try to wrap up; it seems to me intellectually lazy, and in the latter case, dishonest. it leaves the writer with the feeling that there is nothing truly important to write about (in which case he shouldn't), and i think it leaves the reader with a sense that the entry is an update, more than a true post. around here, we simply don't do updates, and also because an update is a meaningless thing to reflect on and thereafter upon.
which is a pity because i have a few things which i think are interesting, but not compelling. in any case, i will do my best and see what happens at the end. in other words, take it from me, don't hold your breath.
first, then. the song of the week above is inspired by the recent delivery to me of a pair of audio technica cks90s, which replace the ones i lost in the middle of semester one of year four, which makes it late 2011. observe, then, that from late 2011 to yesterday, i refrained from buying a new pair. now that's restraint you can bottle (the reference here is to ni no kuni, an excellent ps3 game featuring studio ghibli and joe hisashi). anyway i plugged in them cks90s and it felt like an old friend, you know. perks you right up. i noticed for the first time the little chukh sound the piano makes when you step on (or is it when you step off) the pedal that removes the dampening thing (i.e. making the thing louder or sustain longer). i haven't got a clue what the technical terms are, but there you go. i did notice, too (and with a tinge of ruefulness), that the sound could be a little warmer, i.e. it could use a little more mid. but there you go. cks90s from amazon, 140 bucks with delivery, and a year send-back, apparently.
and sound does tend, for those of you who are wondering, to be described in various, rather sensuous, slightly non-sequitourish ways: sound can be fat, thin, warm, bright, dark, sparkly, brittle, edgy, etc., as well as the okay, i get that, type of adjectives, clean, full, rich, dynamic, sharp, mild, piercing, smooth, mellow, tight, etc. well there's also the stranger ones, scooped, saturated, almost-breaking-up, high headroom, mid-hump, compressed, etc. i've left out the more generic adjectives, such as sweet, groovy, vintage, classic, glorious, what have you. so you see, sound is a bit of a passion for us boys.
tl;dr (too long; didn't read), if you like a certain sound, go get what you like (if you can afford it).
two. it occurred to me, after reading some random article which isn't really worth linking, that on the premise that our humanly differences (i mean, inter-humanly) have resulted in most of our conflicts, and if the biblical account of the tower of babel is true, then what God did there is a terrible, terrible thing. just flat out awful. recall, humanity (the children of adam and eve) had, after the events of the flood, united as one society, and were building a tower with the purported aim of reaching the heavens. the Lord then caused all their (spoken) languages to be unintelligible to each other, so that they were scattered over the earth. perhaps they would have been better served if some bright mute guy had been around, which interestingly enough, makes this story slightly suspect - so what if we became vocally unintelligible? after all, isn't communication mostly visual, corporeal, somatic?
anyway, consider then, the innumerable wars of difference we have fought. consider the consequential problems of scarcity and unsatisfactory government and insurmountable co-ordination difficulties. we were, in one turn, struck from a utopia (i say this broadly) to a fragmentary feudalistic era, a 1984 of mini-nations, if you will. every piece of harm (and this includes all that racist, sexist, classist, tribalist, etc., bullshit, hell, even religious differences, maybe, although i broadly think that man, being man, would naturally, and rightfully, have come to believe the things he has come to believe in) that we have suffered as a race of men out of our differences has, if babel is true, resulted from a very awful piece of work that God had done. this must be then, the second most ridiculous thing he has done, after the flood. so riddle me that.
this is a link of a video i googled on babel. it illustrates the over-reaction. but remember first the consequences of babel.
i suppose, even if not for babel, mankind might have spread, and become territorially, socially, culturally disassociated. like the birds on darwin's island. so we might have fought anyway. but that's about as likely as saying singaporeans will fight (and i mean fight) people from 福建 in china. well, i guess it's possible.
third. it's been long enough for me at work that, i dunno, i've had to adapt and re-adapt. it's like my friend told me once at soccer, you have to win the ball, and you have to win the ball again. funnily enough, it's quite true, and quite intuitively true at that. anyway i've come up with a list of rules for myself. there's no doubt to me that they're good rules, the question is what balance i'll maintain between doing what i want (which is, of course, important), and sticking to these rules. to be honest, i've become a bit detached at work from the people around me. and that's because it's, i dunno, the nature of the beast, of my beast. as carlin once famously said, people are fucking boring. and let me explain, it's not only that people are themselves boring, it's that dealing with people is also boring. it's true, you know. people are fucking boring.
the rules, at any rate.
stay positiveend. so there. as i said, there's no theme today. go read some achewood.
keep on trucking
sleep before 12
your time will come
beware the 200th hour
