what to expect when you die [spoiler warning]

I thought about what death would be like. I really fleshed it out in my mind, and my heart tells me that my depiction of this event is probably close to 100% accurate. It kinda goes like this:

Lets say that you are walking somewhere and your heart stops. You immediately start pounding your chest, trying to get your heart started, but you fail. You begin gasping for air, trying to deliver oxygen to your blood that your heart will not. You begin to feel dizzy, this causes you to fall down. The asphalt pummels your knees hard, your torso leans forward and you are pitched to the ground, head first. You feel your head bounce off the sidewalk and a spreading wetness on the side of your face. This is when your vision starts getting "watery" and things are beginning to blur. Your body aches, it becomes a terrible effort to move even a finger. As your breathing becomes shallower, awareness of your physical condition and need for air is diminished, and now your brain is completely focused on a last ditch effort to rescue your body from oblivion. Your heart races, pumped with adrenaline, you know you're about to die.

You can no longer see at all, your eyelids close and you feel and hear the pounding in your chest getting weaker. This however, does not concern you, as your attention is frantically grasping towards stimuli via sight, touch, sound but unable to secure any of those. Your attention then disregards external stimulation and begins to focus solely on keeping your thoughts clear. But you lose the ability of thought, you can no longer "think" with words. And you begin to conjure up images of your life. The face of your father, the tree in your backyard, a smudged out frame of an old cartoon you saw as a child. You can no longer organize your visuals, and images become erratic and jumbled. Soon, the pictures in your mind begin to fade, the emptiness grows darker and you completely relinquish the control of being conscious and feeling. You can now sense only on an intuitive level, consciousness is minimal and things such as your awareness of dying, are no longer there. You become an entity onto yourself, like a tiny non-flickering flame floating in the air, no limbs, no awareness of the mortal life you once led, and no capability for critical thought but rather an intution that consumes you deeply. You KNOW which is true, what is false, and everything from the meaning of life to how did they put the caramel into the caramel bar. You know everything, but you lack the ability to appreciate this new-found knowledge, you become incapable of emotion, curiosity, love, hate, fear, guilt.

So, you're floating in space, you know that each and every living, dead and inanimate object are made up of the same energy in which you are created from. You realize that the earthly form that energy takes, is a natural process in the maintainence/order of the universe. You understand that there is no such concept as "time" that everything runs from a pre-determined starting point and to an ending that never ends. Yet you're are at the starting point and at the end, at the same time. You're able to move faster than the speed of light to any destination that you feel "attracted" to. To become a pivotal piece in a delicate structure known as the universe.

Eventually your death will realize you this: there isn't a beginning and there isn't an ending, there is just simply.. being.

Thats my take on how "death" will go. Funny how those that fear dying are the ones that haven't fully thought it out. They probably believe that they'll even have the moment to regret being "dead" let alone being able to say "ah shit, I'm dead, oh man this is fucked up. FUCK... me."

In the end, nobody would care. You're dead. You wouldn't have to absolve or redeem the decisions you made in life because there wouldn't be a heaven or hell. Do you think giant globs of energy have a sense of morality? Do they care that you killed someone? That you didn't go to church on Sundays? That you enjoyed pinching your nipples while watching pro wrestling?

Eventually (for some unknown reason) you would become solid again. Whether its as a plant or a rock, or an animal, or a newborn baby you wouldn't know, and you wouldn't care. Physical forms are merely a representation of matter that energy has created, E=MC² you bitches.

My biggest fear isn't death at all. Having to go on living if I should become a quadriplegic, or ending up as a vegetable is. I like living, I want to enjoy it as long as I can. But not if the highlight of my day consists of getting goop through my feeding tube. Not while I'm shut off from all my five senses in a void of nothingness and being unable to move. That would just suck.

my stepdad has issues

I've been finally given the self-confidence of voicing a controversial opinion in our household. Is my stepdad bloody retarded? YES, YES HE IS.

This isn't a cruel, over-reaction on my part, its my response to individuals that are secure in their ignorance. People that are content not to learn, to be curious and inquisitive individuals. People that take their intelluct for granted.

I present to my audience, an exhibt of the evidence accumulated within a mere fourty-five minutes in his presence:

- asked me to come help him because his computer has no sound
- I search for signs of a problem with the sound card
- fifteen minutes go by
- I then show both palms outward while simultaneously shaking my head
- stepdad turns on speakers
- sound plays
- I begin to search for a sharp object to forcefully jam directly into his eyeball

kindly review what occured afterwards:

- stepdad rambles about downloading a program and encountering a virus
- blames me for not telling him that you can get viruses from things other than looking at porn
- I happily feed his delusion
- I assert that yes, looking at porn, particulary gay porn will likely result in a virus
- spend several minutes comparing computer viruses to actual STDs
- continues to search for Kazaalite to download
- stepdad rambles about how shitty the computer is
- mentions its my fault for not knowing that attempting to install a dvd burner would fry both his hard drive and the video card
- reminded him that he installed the dvd burner, ON HIS OWN
- reminded him that only professionals should attempt any hardware installation
- remindied him that porn = virus and that its difficult to tell which girl on his monitor has a virus and which doesn't
- Kazaalite gets installed, stepdad starts looking for polish music
- retells again, in an agonizingly slow-- you-heard-it-for-the-first-time -- monologue, the story of how he got a virus from a program he downloaded
- finishes retelling the virus story, and again relishes my presence with stories of how sucky his computer is and how I shouldn't be rolling my eyes whenever he asks for help.
- stepdad throws in a cheap shot about my using his dvd burner and that I "owe" him
- whilst I try and sneak out of the room, stepdad calls "The sound is gone! Come back!"
- realized just how helpless he really is
- I then investigate the simplest shit first
- showed step dad how to adjust the volume in windows media player by using the "slider"
- reminded him again, to actually read the stuff that is on the screen
- reminded that being able to use a computer is a learning process
- reminded again, that he's driving a car without knowing how to change the oil or use the shift
- reminded again, that learning comes from a genuine desire to understand the computer
- reminded again, that I know where he lives
- cheap shot I wished I could have used: "dont be so quick to call on me next time, try using one of the three brain cells you have left, first"
- slap the back of his head six times
- walk cooly away, like the Fonz

Is this not a definite case of severe and profound retardation? Uhm, I mean with my stepdad.

The art of being stoned...

There's a certain amount of grace that is achieved when under the influence of pot. In addition to being aware of the most miniscule sensation; I've also been able to realize some very subtle truths. Truths that have previously been denied my understanding (and appreciation of). For instance, while watching Donnie Darko: Special Edition (booyah!)-- which again comes as my highest recommendation of a "perfectly crafted" movie-- I noticed just how intricate and involved directing and writing a movie can be.

In my ruminations, I understood and was amazed at being able to pick out these tiny elements of believabilty in its acting/writing. Take for example, a small part near the beginning where Drew Barrymore's character (high school teacher) walks through the hall with a stressed out look. The camera then shows her about to enter a classroom where she inhales deeply, lights up her eyes and shines with self-confidence before she enters. Its subtle things like THAT I'm noticing (and loving) right now..

For the most part, I sometimes can't really tell who's a "good" actor and who's a "great" actor in the sense of actually being especially proficent. But while stoned, these things are made readily apparent, if not blatantly obvious. I think that the guy who plays the father in Donnie Darko-- while he doesn't have a whole lot of screen time-- is the one with the most numerable, and is the most adept at pulling off all the little "gestures" that signify realism to the character. The body language is dead on for the situation, and it actually feels like you're watching real people and not seeing actors try and mime a genuine human being.

Speaking of miming, I have found what is undeniably the coolest mime ever. Even cooler than a cryogenically frozen Vanilla Ice. I'm talking about David Armand of Hollow Men, which is a new show on Comedy Central. Click this biznatch and see what I mean.

Best Mime Ever



So yeah, the ability to recognize and process every little variable that you encounter is an awesome effect of weed. You are fully concious that it took you around two seconds to exhale your breath, that you looked to your left and felt a tiny sensation of some indescribable sort on the back of your neck, etc. You start feeling "feelings" that you've disregarded a thousand times, but only becoming aware of just now.

Its pretty cool. And no, I'm not a pothead. *coughcoughDoncough*

So, thats my awesome observation of the day. And remember kids, crack is whack.

the hand that feeds you

I'm a little late with this, but last night I saw NIN's new video for "The Hand That Feeds You" and I was ... doh.. blown away! Its nice to hear that Trent is pushing NIN into a new direction but still retaining the cool as $#*&&! quality that made his previous records so memorable. Just listen to that honkin synth, wow. And the guitars are so crunchy you can practically taste the salty nuts, definitely some superb stuff.

Here's the torrent for the video

You'll need Bittorrent to download the file, I recommend Azureus

And uh.. er, no circus for me tonight, I read this thing in the paper that animal activists are going to protest and I realized they make a pretty good point, why should we see animals exploited for entertainment? Especially when you know that the elephant made to stand on one leg probably had its ass kicked a few hundred times before he got it right. So, fuck the circus. I see plenty of circus-like shenanigans at work, one of my co-workers is going to jail for two months because of a crack deal gone awry, now that beats watching some guy walk a tightrope any day of the week.

Go buy the Incredibles.

dinky cell phones and other mundane chatter

Well here she is:



Look at that thing, notice how it silently mocks the viewer by saying "you know you want to hold my sexy body in your hot, heavy hands.." and sort of snaps its fingers in your face? Thats my new phone. And damn, this is one light piece of technological wizardy. I'm afraid I'll end up washing my jeans and finding my phone beeping during the wash cycle, its ridiculously easy to lose this thing.

Thats compared to this behemoth:



That there is about 2 pounds of brute cell phone force, which served me for the better part of nearly six years. Few people know this, but I pioneered the popularity of cell phones by being one of the early adopters. Yep, friends were like "wtf would I need a cell for? I only talk to my granny on weekends!" but not me, I was all like "hey if you should one day drive your truck into a ditch and get stranded when its -40 below, you'll be glad you bought this" and believe me, I've driven into plenty of ditches to realize the value of these things. Ah those fond memories of me playing Snake on my green-black colored screen while waiting for the tow truck driver to arrive, some memories are irreplaceable.

But not cell phones. After enduring years of people gossipping behind my back about how crappy my Nokia is, I decided to fight back by purchasing the studly and sevelte, Sony-Ericsson T637. Because the only way to get respect from consumer whores is to be a consumer whore. Never mind the fact that all I need is something to dial numbers with, no, I need 65,000+ colors, over-priced shitty Java games and 3,037,923 options that I'll likely never use. But as I was saying, I've grown tired of being the po' guy in my clique, and I'm upping the stakes. Also, I'm tired of feeling my brain tissue bake from all the radiation that thing was putting out.

So the T637 has all these fancy gimmicks in it. Camera (shitty), bluetooth (useful for wireless headsets/driving/computer connectivity), 65,000+ colors (nice), Java games (eh, but I got Q*Bert and Backgammon dammit!), picture caller-ID, etc, and it also massages my penis when I set it in vibirate mode, so yeah, I guess the switch was worth it.

Guess what? Work sucks. I gotta go get ready for my long-ass commute, but now I can spend the next 5 hours transferring over my phone contacts and making crappy doodles with my phone's uh.. doodle-making prog (?!?) so its all good.

Grrr.. I still need to tweak the page's html..

The sweet scent of charred flesh ...

Yay, today is steak night, like it is every Monday evening in faboolous Fort McMurray. Steak, blehhh.

Well that one day off came and went pretty fast, it depressed me. Fight Night 2 that I was so excited for, turned out to be another EA "minor fix" sequel, with nine horrible rap songs on it and NO custom soundtracks. How the game got 9s in various reviews is completely beyond my level of comprehension.

Then of course, teh w33d was my good friend of the evening, he and I watched the O.C. together for about five episodes. I've never seen the O.C. before and I've got a pasty Japanese bud who literally creams his pants at the mention of the O.C. For the first couple episodes I was hooked, this was excellent scripting and had some pretty interesting characters, especially the evil momma who's Marissa's uhh.. momma.

My favourite character is definetely the lawyer dude. Some of you may know him as THE KING of real estate in American Beauty. I just love his dialog in the O.C. thats MY body and mind you got there man.. God cheated me.

And here he is, the KING of real estate, Peter Gallagher. (I just like putting pictures on here, duh)



And the realism in the O.C. is like.. omigod. I've been watching movies lately from the point of view of a "screenwriter" and its easier for me to appreciate solid writing. They have to account for so many subtle little things, it still puzzles me how a script like that is banged out by some pimply dude at his computer. Its a formula goshdarnit, and someday I'll figure that shit out and make million$.

But it got staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaale and oooooooooooooooooooold so quickly and at around episode five I realized its just a cheap, fluff teenage opera with drugs and sex to spur the plot along. Its certainly no Six Feet Under, which I consider to be el magnificato (how the hell you spell that I dont know) from season 1 to season 2, episode to episode. It also doesn't need to throw tragedy after tragedy to keep its audience interested, no, it pontificates, ponders, and propells itself RIGHT IN YO FACE the way a good drama should be. Not exploiting its characters so needlessly and dismissing a huge plot point in favour of a new one without properly fleshing out the consequences of the prior plot thread. Eh, maybe I'm being overly critical, I still have a 1/2 season left to go before I lay the final smackdown on my opinion. I may not consider it Days Of Our Lives for teenagers with A.D.D. after all.

Sooo.. my lovely assistant at work today (Natasha) and I may be going to (wait for it) the CIRCUS next weekend. Yeah, it sounds as gay in text as it probably will end up being in person. But I don't care, I'm just sick of spending the past few years just doing .. NOTHING as far as "life experiences" go. I haven't even banged a hot Asian broad, and thats on the TOP of my to do list! (psst Jer, hook me up with your cuz). So thus, the circus we will go. I can just totally imagine the happy, serene look of contention on my face as I relive the joyous wonders of being five years old again. Heh, who am I kidding, I'm gonna get stoned and watch the elephants poo on the stage.

Well thats about it, again I'm anticipating my single day off in about four days, I'm likely to end up spending my day airing out my naked cawk while in a drunk stupor, never underestimate the de-stressing qualities of sheer unabashed nudity, it beats the hell out of Vicodin.

Stay tuned for my next dramatic update, where I will reveal to you all which new cell phone I ended up purchasing to replace my beloved six year old Nokia. You won't want to miss this folks.

Laaaaaaaates.

Blergghhhh

I was right, the pizza did suck.

One more day... one more day to go...

*sobs*

blah blah blah blah argh fuck kill

not a whole lot new today, the most exciting thing that happenned was the announcement that we will be getting FREE PIZZA tomorrow afternoon at lunch. Judging from prior experience, I'm fully expecting some greasy ass disgusting "pizza", that doesn't deserve a place in the garbage can, but in dire need of cremation!

adage of the day:

"its all about ass, either you kick it, or you lick it."

the snot man cometh

I'm sicccccccck. Sunday night I started getting the "sniffles" and I knew that waking up in the morning with a puddle of snot on my chest wasn't a good sign. So here I am on my second day off fighting the ravages of the Asian chicken flu or whatever it is I'm afflicted with.

If being sick was bad, being sick in a desolute camp 5 1/2 hours from home is even worse. Where's my momma bringing me chicken soup? Wahhhhh! I want to order in a pile of super-spicy chicken wings (which usually guarantees my recovery) but nooo.. I have to eat food here thats just a notch above pablum instead. At the very least, having something to do would cheer me up a bit, I just finished reading the only book I brought along -- American Gods by Neil Gaiman (excellent novel btw). And I don't have a tv. Just a CD player and a headfull of dreams *sniffs* oh, and this internet kiosk that I only have ten minutes left on.

To add insult to injury, I can't even recuperate in my room. I have two neighbors who both work night shift, and with how thin the walls are in this place, I'm fairly certain that if I even blow my nose, they'll both kick down my door and stomp me in the nuts until my ballsack ruptures. You see, they NEED their sleep.

So I'm sauntering off around camp, like Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven minus the helping people part. I usually doze off in the smoking/tv lounges, and play a few games of Adams Family pinball. Then I'll get a cup of tea, wander around a little more, doze off for a bit, let out some random moans, cough up a little phelghm, etc. Its so thrilling to be alive.

I wish I had the Xbox with me. Today marks the release of one of my most anticipated titles of the year, EA's FIGHT NIGHT ROUND 2 ! *farts in excitement* I really enjoyed the hell out of the first one and its innovative use of Total Punch Control as well as the rag doll physics and I'd be a complete moron if I wasn't excited about its sequel which includes (for the first time) online play!! *farts in excitement again* Sadly, EA decided NOT to include custom soundtracks as an option, so once again I'll be forced to turn off the nine mediocre rap songs that are known as EA TRAX. Damn you EA, where's my fucking metal?!

Anyhoo.. I can't wait untill Friday, because thats when I get to go home for the weekend! Except that I only get SATURDAY OFF and have to take the long, gruelling bus ride back on Sunday afternoon. But thats the life I'm cursed with for now, and someday that acerage with the monkey butler and English sheepdog will be mine. Then I'll laugh and laugh at how great my life is.



peace.