Sleeping with the Pillows

You are most likely familiar with the Italian-American gangster stereotype. Perhaps you have seen any number of television programs or Hollywood movies depicting the mobber archetype. Having this familiarity allows me to present you with a comparison without needing further background information provided. I think that is nice because it makes it easier to tell a story. Here is my story.

A few days ago I woke up from sleeping all day, which isn't lazy of me because I work all night. Anyhow, I was telling my wife that I think I was still in heavy sleep debt. You see, if you don't sleep the appropriate amount of time for your body each night, you end up owing your body sleep. You go into debt the same as if you don't pay your bills. The debt adds up and can do some real damage to your health. It is important not to go into sleep debt.

What does this have to do with mobsters? Nothing. As I was depicting my lack of sleep in these terms I pictured the Sandman as a mobster whom I was indebted to. I owed him some sleep and I hadn't paid up. I thought it was funny, to picture the Sandman in a Fedora coming after me to break my knees because I hadn't gotten enough sleep. Apparently this is one of those things that is less funny several days later.

Also, I am realizing that I don't really have a story, and my explanation of how I didn't need to give background information in order to make the comparison I wanted to make in the story that wasn't much of a story became highly anticlimactic. And then there is that last sentence that is out of control! The point is, you don't want to cheat the Sandman; he knows where you live and he has the power to make you sleep. Which aspect of the imaginary character works to overturn my allusion even more.

Why would the man who goes around making people sleep get mad at you if you aren't sleeping enough? It's like your barber getting mad at you because you haven't been cutting your own hair. So if the Sandman wants me to sleep and I am in sleep debt, meaning I haven't been sleeping enough, then he'd come to my rescue, right? I think I was going about this thing all wrong. If we look at it like the Sandman is giving me something in return for sleep, meaning I pay him back by sleeping, and then I'm not sleeping, I suppose then my logic lines up and we could say I am in sleep debt to him. In which case if he were part of the mob he might break my legs. But then we need to discover what it is that he is giving me that should make me sleep, only I take it and then don't sleep.

I suppose "being awake" is what he gives me. That's really the only cause for sleep that I can think of. If we are awake, at some point we will be asleep. That's just how it works. Maybe the Sandman makes it possible for me to be awake. Maybe he gives me something called "being awake" and I take it from him, but then I don't sleep enough to pay him back for it. If this were the case then I most certainly would be in a condition of default and I would owe him.

I suppose the comparison works after all. All it took was transforming a lovable mythical fellow from a Hans Christian Anderson poem into some form of monster. A monster who wants people to get enough sleep? Well, that doesn't make sense either. What's so bad about being asleep? Nothing. I love it. In fact I ought to be asleep right now. I got off work an hour and a half ago and it is definitely time to sleep.

Some Things You Don't Know...Yet

I'm not saying I know more than you, but in this case I do.

Item Number 1:

Happiness is on sale for $3.50/lb down at the Shaw's grocery store.

Item Number 2:

I found that generic "candy pieces" in store brand trail mix look a lot like M&M's, taste a lot like M&M's, but don't have the thermal functionality of M&M's. What I mean is that they melt in your hand! I was eating trail mix and the blue candy coated chocolate piece melted blue dye onto my hand skin, that is, the skin of my hand. It was alright though, I was wearing blue jeans. But I had an epiphany, the second M in M&M's stands for "mouth," naturally, the first M stands for "melts." Less naturally is the ampersand which stands for "in your," which doesn't make any sense, but you'll have to take that up with M&M/Mars.

That was ambiguous, the item was about what the M's stand for, not the similarity between the generic candy pieces and the brand name candy pieces, that was just gratuity for you for reading my blog.

Item Number 3:

We built this city on rock and roll. Just kidding, this city was built on a swamp, the real item 3 is that Pat Benatar invented the fist bump, although it really didn't become popular until some time in the last decade. I think sports players were using it for some time in the 1990's, but it didn't catch on to mainstream adolescent Americans until more recently. However, if you watch Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" music video, and queue it up to 4 minutes and 53 seconds you will see that way back in 1983 Pat Benatar used the fist bump to congratulate her dancing gang for defeating the evil night-club-sleaze-ball-cocaine-dealer from Crocodile Dundee II. Mad props to Miss Benatar.

Item Number 4: When the men who weren't wearing pastel colored homespun shirts were defeated in the dance battle on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers I was slightly embarrassed to be a man...a man that doesn't wear pastel shirts and participate in dance battles. Hang on, my logic is flawed. I forgot how this was supposed to go. Never mind it, just stick with the first 3 items and you'll be fine.

Now you know!

But wait, there's more! For a limited time only (I just thought of another thought to share) here is item number 5 of things you don't know yet:

Agatha Christie is a famed murder mystery author. She has been popularized by her plays and novels, many of which have been converted into movies. Two of her popular characters, Miss Marple and Detective Hercule Poirot are immediately recognizable to fans of the BBC. Christie is one of my favorite authors, but I have realized recently that she hasn't written nearly as many books as the publishing company claims she has. They say 80, I say maybe half that. The rest of the books are simply rewrites. This summer I have read 4 Christie titles: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), Curtain (1975), One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940), and Black Coffee (adapted from a play). Each book features the famed Poirot. Three of these four books feature Poirot working with his friend Hastings. Each of these books features a poisoning. Three of them feature a poisoning at a rural England mansion-estate. Two of them at the same mansion! I don't mean to detract from Christie's story writing, I love her books, but some of them are just the same story. I think there was a paragraph or two copied word for word between The Mysterious Affair... and Black Coffee. Incredulous! Whatever; they are great books to read. Lots of fun. Peace out.

Now I Know How the Apes Took the Planet

Taylor and I watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, director, 2011) last night. It was a fine movie, very emotional. It is sad when friends get separated, and that happens back and forth in this movie. If you haven't seen it yet, I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but if you are familiar with the original Planet of the Apes (1968) movie, starring Moses, then you can probably guess where this new movie ends us. Seeing as that it is a prequel (meaning that after having made the remake and it wasn't as much of a success, they thought they could try telling the back story and have a better go at it). Continue reading or don't, I won't be giving away crucial storyline details, just alluding to one aspect of the ending.

You see, I had a dream last night after watching the movie. I had a lot of dreams, actually. The one where I seemed to be part of the family on Full House was rather odd; Michelle had apparently run away at some point and learned about smoking while she was gone, now she was back and Danny was talking to her about her encouraging her friend and his grandfather to smoke. She was the 4 year old Michelle. Very odd. Jesse and Stephanie were trying to cover up a plumbing leak where water was spraying through the wall in a very Three Stooges fashion. I ratted them out to Danny because I didn't want to get blamed for the water mess. I digress.

At one point in the Apes movie we see Will and Caesar at a crucial decision making point. They are in the woods. Caesar is with a lot of other primates and Will is alone. Will is the scientist working on the drug that lead to Caesar's advanced intelligence and ability. Will is inviting Caesar to return home with him, as Will acted as a surrogate father for the chimp. Here is where I picked up the storyline in my dream. Will invites Caesar to come with him and Caesar denies. Then in the background you see something behind a tree that looks like a dinosaur tail. Will gets a stupid grin on his face and says that the Apes weren't the only thing he had been doing research on, and he leaves. Just then dinosaurs come out from everywhere and attack the apes.

I was left to believe that Will had previously done experimentation on dinosaurs, was able to recreate them, and then placed them in the redwood forest to live peaceably away from humans. Now he was bringing the hyper-intelligent apes to do the same thing. It didn't make sense, but it certainly changed the storyline of the movie. It also turned Will into a villain in some ways, thereby making it easier for me to accept Caesar not wanting to return with him, but at the same time, it makes it worse because the apes all were eaten by dinosaurs. I almost thought there was some closure in there for me, but turns out there isn't. So much for that. It is interesting that I dreamt an alternate ending for a movie I had only seen a few hours prior.

In the end, the movie was entertaining, if not terribly sad. But like I said in the title, I now know how the apes took over the planet. I Have never seen the original movie or it's Mark Wahlberg remake from 2001. I've seen a few minutes of both on television, but never devoted the time to either one fully. I am interested to do so now. This movie was able to answer all of the how and why questions very easily. There is the overall genetic therapy drug that is being created, which is how the apes become intelligent and how so many humans die. Then there are the two news headlines that come up kind of in the background about a mission to Mars that gets lost in space. And there you have it, apes take control of Earth.

The end.

1,688 Word Free Write

Once again I have been inspired to write by my old friend Harris Crazyhorse Jackson. That isn’t his real name. His real name isn’t important here, maybe it is, but I don’t typically include last names of real people into my blog, I usually use code names or simply exclude the last name altogether. My friend Harris keeps his own blog, however, and I’m all about advertising for my friends, so I will link to his blog. If you find his last name there, well then, that’s all the better, if you were so interested to know his name in the first place, which you weren’t, but perhaps have gathered enough interest now to actually click over to his blog. Now is when you should do that, here.

Now that you have read the post I have linked to (go do it now if you haven’t) you will see why I am writing. Harris called me out. His intention was to free write 800 words. Somewhere along the line he lost interest or something, and said that it only takes 400 words to expend your mind’s capacity, unless you are Ajax. When I read that, I was quite surprised…pleasantly. I was honored to be mentioned in the blog, and took the challenge to see if it really does take more than 400 words to drain my thought bubble. I tried to leave a comment saying as much, but for some reason the blog didn’t think my Google credentials were sufficient to allow me to leave a comment. Luckily I have my own blog and can leave the comment mixed into the body of this post; mission accomplished.

It doesn’t take much to get me going on one thought or another. Sometimes a TV commercial, sometimes overhearing a conversation in a store, or perhaps a cereal box, but whatever the medium, my mind will spin off like an errant Frisbee at the beach. Eventually that thought gets caught (maintaining the Frisbee analogy) and redirected, lands in the sand, splashes into the tide, bonks someone unsuspecting in the noggin, or drifts weightlessly into the breeze and is carried away into the clouds of oblivion. Typically it’s the first one, or maybe a figurative expression of the second two. Oftentimes it might be the third, and hardly ever is it the fourth. But that’s not true; it’s probably all of them equally, but only figuratively. The only one that could be figured literally would be the first one. Sometimes my thoughts are “caught” (attended to) and redirected, or processed, as in the writings of my blog. I like the idea of something I write bonking someone in the noggin.

Well, I’ve had some ideas lately, and I could blitzkrieg them all here for you, but I won’t because I don’t remember them. I have been struggling to get back into the night shift routine for work. After having half the month of July off for traveling and wedding celebrating, it was difficult to return to the overnight shift. Difficult doesn’t do it justice. I was in pain trying to stay awake. The only way to fix it is to switch completely to be a night person, but I don’t like what that does to people. Think about it, who do you know living on a night schedule that is a healthy and normal individual?

Spiderman tries to do both, be a regular day person as well as a night time super hero. His life certainly isn’t normal, look at how messed up all of his personal relationships are. Batman can go into that mix as well. I think Batman has the luxury of sleeping in and becoming only a night person, thanks to his money; a luxury that Spiderman can’t afford. With being only a night person Batman has the advantage over Spiderman, but it still doesn’t make for a nice life. Seriously, the guy is getting burnt out. Who else? Well I can’t think of anyone else. Except one fellow who I was working with and it didn’t turn out well for him, you can take my word for it. I think it is best for humans to be awake during the day and asleep at night. Unfortunately for many people they have to work at night due to the nature of their job. In these cases I am extremely happy that there are people willing to make the sacrifice, because I am not. However, there are a lot of people working night jobs that probably aren’t as necessary as others. But I don’t know. Work whenever you want I guess. I don’t really care. The point is that I don’t want to be awake at night and asleep during the day, and trying to do both makes you unable to think well, and by you I mean me.

There you have it, 800 words, and the explanation for why I haven’t blogged much lately. But I’m not going to stop there because I had a few lead in paragraphs that cut into my 800 word count of draining my thoughts. I’ll mention one idea I’ve had recently, and then maybe one or two other ideas. But first I’ll mention the one and see where that gets me. Although this one thought really deserves its own post, complete with creative title. I will only mention it as follows, and hope that I will someday soon devote some real thought and energy to it as a unique blog post, the idea is that rather than worry about reducing our “carbon footprint” we worry about reducing our “human footprint,” a term I have made up in my head to represent our individual impact on the people around us. Human footprint isn’t bad, it is life. We all impact the lives of others, just as their lives impact us. Some people have a larger human footprint when they rely on others for everything. Some people have a smaller human footprint when they exercise self-reliance. There needs to be a balance between the two. I think that a lot of the problems in the world could be reduced or solved if we would focus on the impact we have on other people and try to do more for ourselves first, thereby reducing our impact on others, and secondly doing more for others, thereby reducing their impact on us. That wording might not make perfect sense, it doesn’t really to me, but I get the idea I’m trying to convey. I’ll mull it over a little more and devote a full posting to it. I think there is something in there that can be fun to philosophize about. Of course that does nothing for anyone unless someone puts it into practice. We’ll see.

That was a long “only mention” of the idea. So be it. It is a fun thing to think about and it’s got that buzzword worthy language, so even the distracted people who focus on getting an advantage over everyone else can understand. I’ll continue on with my other thoughts, as the well is seemingly still full.

I was thinking about making a chain saw that worked with pulleys. It could be a small housing that you would wrap around a branch or a tree trunk and inside would be a saw chain and a series of pulleys, with cords extending from both sides. You would just pull back and forth on each cord and it would spin the chain. I hadn’t given this much thought up to this point, so I didn’t realize that I have no idea how this would actually work. There was a branch fallen in the backyard that was slightly attached to the tree still, too high for me to climb up and cut it down. I thought it would be nice to have some sort of saw I could throw up there like a rope and cut the branch off. Now that I type it out I don’t think I am the one to invent such an object. Moving on.

What about a rain gutter water filtration system? It wouldn’t be any good for low rain places, but I live in a heavy rain place. Even still, I don’t know that the rain volume collected from a house roof would make much of a dent in the expenses of extracting water from a well or the public water system. People already use barrels to collect rain water from gutters to use on gardens or flower beds, this is just adding in a system of filters to make the water more palatable. I’ve never collected rain water enough to drink it. Maybe that should be the first step in my research and development. Maybe rain doesn’t taste so bad. The survival TV show guys always drink it. I guess I never thought about that either. Why would rain water need filtration? I guess just from running across the rood and collecting debris from that. Really you wouldn’t need much. I don’t remember when I came up with this idea; it might have been late at night, or early in the morning.

I envision pipes running diagonally across one side of a house, two pipes, each one coming from a corner of the house. All of the water collected in the gutters is sent through these pipes into a collection area or into a pipe where it can be used. Inside the pipes would be a series of filters. Gravity would be the force to press the water through. Either the water could then be stored in a tank to use in an emergency or it could run directly into your refrigerator water fountain. I don’t know. Maybe there is something to it, but I guess so long as there is electricity and water being pumped into a house then this isn’t really necessary.

We are now at 1,650 words. I hope you have enjoyed this exhibition of draining words from Ajax’s thought reservoir. Thank you to Harris for the honorable mention of my capacity. I must now work on thank you cards for wedding gifts. The end.

Filler Filler Filler

I'm still settling in after recent life events. It is all good. There is a post I want to do, but I'm not prepared to put it together yet, so I've been not posting anything. Here are some bits and pieces of stuff I've pulled from Facebook conversations with Muffin Man, he said some of this and I said some of it. Enjoy!

-Penguins, those guys will never fly, but the silver lining is that they can do cool belly slides on the snow, ice, or any other slick surface. It's much cooler to evade blood thirsty polar bears via belly slides, than to just fly away like a coward. The more I think about this, the less majestic eagles become.

-What it all comes down to is that your support makes me feel better than a monkey in a banana tree. You are the Mickey to my Rocky in Rocky I and II and part of III, and then you are the Apollo Creed to my Rocky in the rest of III and Rocky IV. I’ve only seen Rocky V once so I don't know who you are in that one in relation to my being Rocky. I’m also not very familiar with Rocky Balboa, but I suppose in that one you are Rocky and I am the light bulb he replaces outside of the apartment of his lady friend. I realize that in each of these comparisons you are being compared to an old, washed-up boxer, and I am compared to the in-his-prime-boxer/light bulb, but it is of no disrespect to you, I simply mean that it is your encouragement and support and suggestions that give me even the least hope of being the champ.
I wonder why my attempts at compliments always end up slighting the person I intended to praise, and then make me look good. My id (not ID) must have tied up my ego and then beat my super ego over the head with the tied up ego. Even though the comparison could be interpreted to make you sound like a skinny old man and a buff, but out of prime man, and then an almost past prime, but still unrealistically buff and coherent man, even though that could be the interpretation, you are the bounce in my step and song in my head, all in a non-Brokeback way.

-I think my eyes are sunburned. My neck, face and arms are. My eyes were out as long as the rest of them, so why not? Plus they hurt a bit.

-All of my socks are the same, black Hanes. Only, I bought two packages at different times, so some of them are less black than the others. They are more of a “blue steel.” It makes it slightly difficult to pair them off. I have to get in the right light. It’s even more difficult when my eyes are sunburned.

-If I could perfectly imitate anyone's way of speaking it would be an old Jewish man from New York, like Uncle Leo, or Kramer's polar bear club friend, "what, you don't want to be a polar bear anymore? It's too cold for you?"

-I didn't get the smoker (Ed: backyard BBQ structure for smoking meat) built today, I don't know how I’m actually going to do that, but I did prep some apple wood so if I get the smoker built and functional, I’ll apple smoke some bacon, and then go to Wendy’s and say "what's up now, Wendy’s?"

-Here’s some fun reading for you, my homework assignment for ethics. We read a chapter about cultural and subjective relativism. It’s a blog type submission, so I read the three posts that were done before mine; they all disagreed with the two things, so I decided to agree with them. But I do feel the way I said, so I wasn't just playing the dickens (Ed: dickens used to be a euphamism for the Devil, I think i mentioned it in a blog post before, must have been around the time of this conversation between Muffin Man and me) advocate.

The question: What are some reasons that you agree or disagree with cultural relativism and subjective relativism? (Ed: the following is directly copied from the student responses, I have not edited spelling or grammar)

student response 1: I disagree with cultural relativism and subjective relativism because no matter whether people believe them or not, moral claims are still objectively true for everyone. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of them or even what I think of them, there are moral truths that are objectively true no matter where you go. If morality was relative depending on the culture you were from, or if it was subjective, then it would cease to exist if our species ever becomes extinct, this is not the case. Morality will always exist.

2: I do not agree with either theory, mainly because I believe morals to be objective. Two disagring persons cannot both be right just because they are entitled to their own separate sets of morals. There needs to be some underlying principle to go by that is not subjective.

3: I disagree with both because it forces us to say that if a person or a culture says that it is right we cannot say a single thing about it. People or cultures can do whatever they like and that is morally right. It seems to me like a cop out. "Do whatever you want and that is morally right" doesnt fly with me.

And from your humble servant, namely Ajax: Personally, I believe in objective morality, but it can't be proven. My perception of reality is all I have. The people I meet are nothing but what I belive them to be. The same goes for everything I am aware of. Likewise, I am to others only what they think I am. All any of us have is perception. If we experience similar events then we might have similar perception, but it still won't be identical. All we know is subjective; therefore we can't proclaim objective laws. Cultural and subjective relativism have to be the way it is. I can't prove that murder is always wrong, but I can prove that certain cultures and individuals believe that way. I prefer cultural relativism over the author's definition of subjective relativism because it represents a group's opinion. That itself isn't always safe, but I'd rather go along with laws prepared by a group of people trying rather than be subject to one person's folly. If we go down it might as well be together, just like if we rise it is nice if we rise together.