Wednesday, December 31, 2008

December's Theme: 365 Days


Yet another Christmas has passed, along with another year (11 months for A.M. though...our first anniversary is coming up). We hope you received some nice presents...and if you didn’t, you’re probably not the only one, if that makes you feel better. :o) <-- What a funny face. Haha...ha.

Here’s December’s summary:

May I Please Have Some More? – It’s the same things all over again.
All the Possibilities. – Do you think you have a twin somewhere in the world?
The Murky Road – Maybe history repeats itself...who knows.
looking backwards – A lot can change in a few weeks.
Merry Christmas Eve 2008 – A holiday message for 2008.
Too tired (lazy/unimaginative) for a title – What happens when a person suffers the “blue screen of doom”, daydreams, and reads Oscar Wilde? This.
A Proper Title Should Be Here – The first of a series of articles in an attempt to crack it to 10 articles. Talk about “creative”.
All-Over-Again-Year’s – Attempt article #2. All about New Year’s resolutions and a Big Foot love story.
paint a portrait of a mirror – Attempt article #3. A thorough examination into Dorian Gray.
Where art thou? – Attempt article #4 (I know, I know, it’s the last one). A random blurb to end the year. It’s pretty spot on, since that’s exactly what we do 99.9% of the time in our articles anyway—BLURB!

Ah, and we round up 2008 with a total of 155 articles (you might wanna browse our archives and bathe in the glory of blurbiness). *high-fives an imaginary DD* Hey, your 10-article goal for this month was reached. You were the one who encouraged us--don't deny it!

Happy 2009 everyone! Well, it might not necessarily be happy, but Happy New Year’s anyway. Here’s to next month’s (January’s) theme: Another View.

-the clam.

P.S. The January header banner will come later on.


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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Where art thou?

Don't you just feel so sophisticated talking in Old English? Okay, so maybe it's just me...But to think that many 365-days's (?is that right?) ago, people used to talk like that and live like that. Women dressed up all nice with their fancy dresses and corsets, the gentlemen with their suits and wigs, and all romantics in the air like Romeo and Juliet, where the people lived in a 'kingdom' instead of a 'city'. A kingdom sounds so much nicer than a city...

So digital delay seems really determined to bring up at least ten articles this month, huh? Since I'm feeling up to it, I'll just say ...blahblahblah... and make this the tenth article (hopefully not the last, because then this would make a very sucky last article of the year) of the last month of 2008. (How many of the 366 days do you really remember?)

So here's the thing. I just wrote this fantastical and just snazzy article about a whole new year and the past and blahblahblah, right? Only to have my crazy internet (that's crashing as we speak) delete half of it...just because it felt like it?...and now, I don't really feel like re-writing the whole thing, so I won't. Doesn't that type of stuff just make you so frustrated? Sure, some pretty ahem.interesting.ahem. stuff had happened this year (I won't go into the details; you've heard your fair share). Even so, I don't want to end this year (no matter how bad it was) being p.o.ed at my computer, or spending another night 'in' (again), etc, etc, etc.

So go on. Have a spontaneous 365-days-of-2009. So where art thou on New Years? The best way to start it off is doing something fun, of course. Be it a party, or watching the Rose Parade/Dick Clark's Rockin Blahblahblah...I think that should wrap it up for now. I don't know.

To all a good night,
-my.great.ESCAPE.

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paint a portrait of a mirror

It's come to my attention that our own digital delay has started to write about The Picture Of Dorian Gray in his recent postings, and I'd like to add a little bit onto the subject. I myself am not done reading the book (I get distracted easily), but of what I've read so far it seems to be the kind of book whereas that if I were to annotate it, it'd be sopping wet from my constant highlighter usage.

In the edition I have (the cheapest one I could find at Border's), the preface talks about how Oscar Wilde saw the characters in Dorian Gray as a sort of symbol of himself. Wilde wrote: "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian is what I would like to be- in other ages perhaps."

I found this incredibly interesting, because basically he thought of himself as a person whose talents were so great he wasn't quite interesting; society thought of him as a person who liked to influence others-whether or not it was in a good way; and he wanted to be a person who committed sins for pleasures. The last one, of course, can be linked to the fact that Oscar Wilde was gay. If only he were in our current "age", he wouldn't have been convicted to jail for two years for his "sins".

If you think about it, how Oscar Wilde is able to separate himself into three distinct yet linked in a way characters makes a lot of sense. Everyone has the person they are to themselves, the person they are to others, and the person they'd like to be- three separate characters that are linked, and yet all incredibly different. The person you are to yourself is how you see yourself in the mirror, in your mind, and in general. While others may think of you as smart, you yourself might find you to be an idiot. The person you are to others is basically what you wish others thought of you as. Kind of like who you want to be, except of course you're being much more humble and condescending since the person you are to yourself prevents you from reaching great heights. The person you'd like to be, then, is basically like a god? a dream? a goal that you know is beyond out of your reach? It'd make sense if Oscar Wilde applied this sort of theory into his writing, since the way Basil and Lord Henry viewed Dorian was kind of as if he were above them (especially Basil, who is how Oscar Wilde viewed himself).

You're most cruel to yourself, which makes sense, since Basil is murdered by Dorian. The way other view you or how you'd like them to makes sense, because Lord Henry is much like an artist on his own, only in his way of words and his influence. He's like a step before what Dorian is, which is that of uttermost beauty, turmoil, and amazement- a somewhat god-like being who is worshiped by lesser ones.

Maybe I'm jumping to all these conclusions a bit to early on. To get a better knowledge of all this you should go here. Then you'll understand everything I've rattled on about a little better.

karma police

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All-Over-Again-Year's


(image: http://zuill.us/andreablog/category/t-shirts/)

DD, I feel the same way. Here’s my blabble in the attempt to inch closer to 10 articles this month (#8!).

Have you ever tried coming up with a New Year’s resolution? Aw com’on, not another “I’M GONNA LOSE 10 POUNDS NEXT YEAR!” We all know that you’d be gaining 10 pounds after the holidays rather than losing it (but please, if you’re already 10 pounds…don’t even try).

It’s quite hard trying to come up with a resolution—mainly because you secretly know that you’re not going to be able to achieve it. Truly, if we all think like that, we would get nowhere. Setting a small goal won’t feel as accomplishing, but setting overly-ambitious goals will make you feel worse for not getting it. Sure, I’d like to get this blog to be noticed in the next year. But who’s going to read eight people’s rants about the tiny things in life? Hm, I don’t know…maybe you, the person who’s reading this right now? :o)

I wonder what’s a-coming our way in 2009. Bunches of new music, movies, TV shows, an inauguration, more people suiciding, more Kodak moments, more kids, more arguments, and more awkward silences. It’s always the same things again. We all go through the same emotions again (which includes feeling so happy that you’re about to die because your stomach hurts so badly, and which includes feeling so sad you’d rather bury yourself and imagine no one really knew you). Such as Uncle Bob farting at your birthday once again, and everyone is both laughing and gagging and trying to evacuate out of the unruly place. Or when your girlfriend dumps you because you didn’t buy her enough chocolates. Oh well.

Will we be seeing yet another teen-craze about another mythical creature? Say, some dreamy Bigfoot who tries to confess his hairy love to a unicorn that cannot accept him because he refuses to shave? Pfft, don’t look at me. I’m no Stephanie Meyer. She does it a hell lot better.

Haha, have you seen how this New Year’s resolution thing slowly turned into a love story about Bigfoot? Yeah, the Acquired Minds are all a bunch of side-trackers that wastes your time for a hobby *muahaha*.

-the clam.

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A Proper Title Should Be Here

I am now thoroughly determined to pump out enough article things to push the monthly amount to at least 10, no matter how many I will need. Although I’m pretty sure I shall fail, and that this will probably be the last thing I write for another few years.

When a person does almost anything that could be considered “creative”, writing, painting, making music, they will always put a piece of themselves in it. Sometimes it’s conscious, sometimes it’s not. When it’s not, it will influence them regardless. When it is, then it becomes a little fun. Usually, it’s with words.

A person use words that could mean a lot to themselves, but to someone else, it could mean something entirely different. Obviously this will happen for every song, every sentence, every piece of literature. But of the words are simple enough, and also vague enough, they can be distorted fairly easily. This isn’t a bad thing though, any artist will not always try to instill their feelings onto another very explicitly. Sometimes they just play around with an audience, if there is one.

Let’s take, for example, something I can’t resist using. Tegan and Sara, do this pretty well. They rarely use the words he/she, or names either. I can only think of a handful of times that happened. “hold, out for the ones you know will love you, hide, out from the ones you know will love you…” What?..didn’t that just contradict itself?, almost as much as my sentence structure there did…
Well, for whoever just read it, depending on our mood, our current feelings, what’s on our minds right now, our experiences, our fears, our dreams, everything.

Or “I’m not proud, that nothing will seem easy about me…” well, whatever you think it is. You can take it in a dirty manner or something better, hopefully.

“I won’t regret saying this thing, that I’m saying” saying to who? Saying what?...maybe just to themselves…..sometimes even the context of the song doesn’t tell thing

“I feel the knife going in, I’m feeling anxious, not enough to kill me, I thought it’d happen fast…” well you could take that quite literally, or maybe that’s the kind of thing that’s on your mind maybe a knife could allude to any number of things…
To be honest…the it’s about a dream the songwriter had where she was stabbed but didn’t die..or something…because apparently if you die in your dreams you die in real life, and if that happened in that instance, I’d be pretty bummed out.




I absolutely hate the tone I’m giving off right now. It seems too…weird. It’s kind of disgusting. When I read it in my head, it sounds like a deep, aristocratic voice…which I hate…musta been that picture gray book thing…but I despise it…I wish I hadn’t written in this manner……holysh*tmotherf*ckerwhichwouldkindofbetechnicallyyourdadinawaymaybenotbutholysh*tthereitisagain…..I think that kinda helped….hopefully I can snap out of this

digitaldelay


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Too tired (lazy/unimaginative) for a title

Looking back on this little blog…it seems kind of empty. Then I realized that I was the kind of person who liked to dwell on the past. That, and also that I realized I was also the kind of person who had nothing else to do.

My computer recently crashed. I got that “blue screen of doom”, and I figured that that must be akin to a computer instantaneously combusting. I might have just rebooted Windows (XP, mind you) onto it again, and start all over, but a relative advised that I should just get a new computer, which is something that I’m trying to do something about. Maybe one with a, ha, better graphics card, to perhaps attempt to do that thing nerds do on their computers all the time (no, not that, and if you’re not thinking of that, then, just no to whatever). So, I am relegated to .borrowing. my brothers computer (whose keyboard I just hate, I should say dislike, just with a deep, deep passion) every now and then, although no where near enough.

Thus, in my pitifully un-pathetic boredom, I have been relegated to doing things that I would not usually do on any other given day, which is, anything worthwhile. These mindless, despicable tasks including coming up with a random ditty here and there, reading, cleaning (tidying) up, and daydreaming (although I admit, I do that plenty of daydreaming already).

Although the thing I am thinking of the most here is reading. Ah, it is a thing I haven’t done in much consistency since I was a young lad. Yet here I am, having just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It is a truly magnificent book if not a slightly demoralizing (hooray for dictionary/thesaurus.com, for those of us who are not entirely familiar with the workings of this horrid thing called English) book. For some reason it slightly scared me in ways. But one of the things it said was that wrongs can sometimes creep up on one’s actual outside features, such as the eyes, the hands, etc. Well, being a perfectly logical person, I went, “ What the jhjieu? My fingers are kinda crooked, just look at my pinky fingers! And great ghost of those not in the grave, my teeth are kind of jagged too…” And so, I just figured I was just a really big asshole, at least more so than usual.

Which ends one of my biggest, say nothings (I ..dislike that phrase), of all time, probably tied right up there with all the other things I’ve ever said/written.

maybe i should come up with a proper title from now on, or not....


-digitaldelay


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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas Eve - 2008

It's Christmas Eve 2008 (and A.M.'s first X-mas Eve), and all of the A.M.s wish you a Merry Christmas! Spend it nicely with your close loved ones--it's the one time of the year where everyone can forget about everything else and be happy with what you have and for what's to come. 2009 isn't too far off the corner ;).

Shoo! Stop reading this. You have people to be with!

-the acquired minds.

P.S. Prrrresents!

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Sunday, December 21, 2008

looking backwards

This month is the last month of the year and in approximately a week(?) it won't be 2008. Three hundred and sixty five days seems so long but in reality it passes by without so much as a blink- without giving you time to breathe. These past few months since Summer have been amazing, and I think it goes to show that a lot can change in just a few weeks. Three hundred and sixty five days seems to be just a reminder of how much time you have, how old you're going to be next year, and a canvas for you to draw your life out on.


So what have you been doing this year? What's changed most? Perhaps you don't think you've changed at all, but everyone does- even if it's a little. So look back on this past year and be a little nostalgic, you'll be surprised at what you realize.

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Saturday, December 13, 2008

The Murky Road


(first image: tablet-guru.com - second image: southbaymobilization.org)

Christmas is fast approaching, and so is 2009. What’s there to expect in a new year, really?

We’re already 9 years into the millennia (or, almost). It feels like quite some time ago, and when you think about it, a lot has transpired since then. It’s mind-boggling what 9 years can contain. Just imagine the people today, that are 60, 70, 80 years or more old. They’ve lived through so much happiness, sadness, surprises, shockers, and most importantly, history. It’s no wonder people say the old folks are always the most wise.

To have grandparents is a blessing. The grandparents of today have most likely lived through World War II, the introduction of the television (plus the color television), the revolution of what’s called the Internet, and all the problems dealing with the world. Within a single sitting with a grandparent, you can be filled with all the knowledge of the world, within a real person’s point of view. Not just the facts, not just the details. The real story. You just can’t help but to admire what they’ve gone through for so many years. If you’re 25 years old, and you think your life has been crazy, imagine living that life three times over.


As years grow old, history will grow old too, and fade away. Our knowledge of history will still remain, but people who have been there first-person will no longer exist. That is, unless history repeats itself. The Great Depression was a terrible time for people all over the world, and we hoped something similar would never happen. But look at us. Clueless humans that have led ourselves into a financial mess (you know, technically, none of this would exist if the economic system wasn’t created by our self-proclaimed-smart-humans). Oh, so what? Now we’re going to lead ourselves into another Hitler? How can we be too sure that we won’t? After all, any president in the world right now can just go out and decide that he/she wants to be a madman despot—and probably succeed, at that. Not to spread any negativity here, but that day will come...just as how the day that Earth will end will eventually arrive.

To think about the far future is ridiculous (how contradictory...). Hah! We can’t even handle problems that we have in the present, let alone think about the future—it’s just asking for more trouble and stress.

Whether it’s 365 seconds, 365 minutes, 365 hours, 365 days, or 365 years...it’s constantly counting down, and we have no such time to waste it.

-the clam.

(P.S. That second image is what we must change to avoid)


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Saturday, December 6, 2008

All the Possibilities.

clock Pictures, Images and Photosclock Pictures, Images and Photos

So there are 365 days (occasionally 366) in one year...That's a lot, right? And on one specific day of those 365, is YOUR very own birthday! (Unless you're one of the unfortunate who was born on Leap Year Day or whatever February 29th is called) Wouldn't it be nice if you had that day all to yourself? Sadly, no, because that would mean that there are only 365-ish people in the whole wide world. But we all know there's so much more than that. There are at least a couple billion people living today, am I correct? So if there are THAT many people in the world, don't you ever wonder who out there shares the same birthday as you??

Each day, numerous babies come into the world, but also, that very same day, countless people leave this place...So it's a balanced system, right? The number of babies born each minute, times the number of minutes each day, multiplied by 365 days of the year! (Phew, I needed to take a breath for that..) So you'd be lucky if you had that exact time all to yourself: 10:55:21 P.M. is the official time of birth for this lucky baby. Unless, that "lucky" baby wasn't so "lucky" and another baby was born at that exact time on the other side of the world... I know, I know what you're thinking...It's not really that possible....is it? Well, you never know.

How many people do YOU know that share the same birthday as you?
Oh my gosh! Try playing this game: For each day of the year, find a person you know who was born on that day!

"My day" is coming up soon(:
But, well, I guess that kind of depends if we have the same definition of "soon", right?

-my.great.ESCAPE.

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May I Please Have Some More?

There are 365 days in a year…quite a few if you come to think about it, or maybe you think it’s not very much at all. Every year, we all (technically) age. We all probably meet new people. We all learn new things. We all experience new things. Yet I must admit, everyday seems pretty similar to me. A good proportion of things I do everyday are basically the same. I sadly wake up, get out of bed, wash up, eat food, sleep, sit here on this computer, listen to music, watch movies/t.v., and etc. The times are the same, the numbers I mean. The bathroom is the same. The food quite often is the same repeated sequence. My bed is the same. There are plenty of things that are the same. Each day. Year after Year.

There are plenty of things that change though. Habits can surely change. Maybe after a while you’ll go through your day a bit differently than you did before. Usually though, you don’t really notice it. It just kind of happens. Something big can happen to someone’s life. A death, an affair, a loss, any number of things. These things have the power to rattle someone’s life, but, they’ll eventually get used to it. If not, they’ll learn to live with it.

It seems you leave one cycle just to reach another. A cycle of cycle’s. Never ending…
Not to say that is a bad thing. Perhaps some people thoroughly enjoy their cycles, and the subtle changes each one brings. But I’m sure the majority of us people wouldn’t exactly call ourselves content or happy. Some of us are willing to something about it, others, not so much. Eventually though, with whatever we are dealt, we learn to live with it.

(generally at least…or at least I hope so, because then this all would be a big con)

-digitaldelay

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