So in the twelth grade we had to write some poems for a contest... and at this point in my high school education, I had already stopped giving shit about pretty much anything having to do with school (I had already gotten into UT, etc).

I was cleaning out some crap on my computer the other day and I came across some of these poems. Here is the first one, called "Pat the Fat Cat". Enjoy!

Pat the Fat Cat

Pretty ridiculous. I was (was?) so stupid back then...

Stay tuned for more selections from the Poetic Writings of Brandon.

Depressingly impossible thought of the week:

We assume that every human we see around us-- our friends, family, kids, adults-- experience the same sort of self awareness and sense of existence as we do. In other words, for all 6 billion people on the planet, there's a soul in the driver's seat for each and every one of them.

And most of us also assume belief in some supreme being or beings, so even when all else fails... you at least know there's something out there bigger than you imposing some sort of reason on your existence.

But what if, in actuality, your awareness is the one and only in the entire universe? Meaning everyone else you see isn't a complex and rich personality, but rather is an empty shell that just coincidentally happens to exhibit behaviors that would seem to suggest a soul.

This is not unlike saying the entire universe as you perceive it is nothing more than a lengthy dream, only more life-like than anything else you've experienced simply because you haven't "woken up" yet. This isn't entirely unimaginable because everyone has had a dream of waking up thinking a dream was over, only to wake up again-- realizing you were having a dream within a dream.

Another way to state this idea is to say that your interaction with external events is isolated-- everyone else exists not in the same sense that you do, but rather just in the sense that your perception of the universe imposes their existence.

Could this really be the way things are? Is the universe completely populated by soulless caricatures of intelligence, and you're the only one single awareness that exists and will ever exist?

I really hope not, or it would be one lonely, lonely universe.

It was sometime during the youthful and care-free years of elementary school that my parents bought my sister and me a Sega Genesis. The system also came with Sonic 2... which might be one the best video games ever made... as I'm pretty sure that the hours of jumping and spinning a little blue hedgehog changed my life forever.

Even as much as hearing the shitty FM synth music on YouTube brings back memories... I also have played and beaten almost¹ every Sonic game on the Genesis. When the time of the old 16-bit system came and went, I even downloaded an emulator on my PC and replayed most of the games (or at least my favorite parts). More recently, I played them on my phone with a Smartphone-based Genesis emulator. Interesting how it took dedicated hardware back in elementary school to do now what can be done in software real-time on my phone...

Anyway... I regressed into my childish pastimes of playing console video games and recently purchased a Nintendo DS. First of all... I was amazed at how advanced 7th generation handheld systems are; the DS can pump out 3D graphics comparable to the Nintendo 64 and comes with onboard Wi-Fi... both for ad-hoc gaming with a friend close by or over the Internet to play with people all over the world. Badass.

One of the games I bought was Sonic Adventure Rush... one of the most recent additions to the Sonic franchise. I had high hopes and high expectations; the format was similar to the Genesis games... run as fast-as-hell to the right of the screen, pickup rings, and don't die.

I was happy to see that the new additions Sonic had seen since my first exposure to the series 10 years ago didn't take away from the game and render it an unfamiliar generic platform game-- it was the exact opposite actually. The new game on DS is faster and crazier than its little brother on Genesis... but it retains the same spirit.

There's enough in common with the old game to make me feel like I'm back in the prepubescent and innocent years of elementary school... and that's probably why I love playing it. It provides a small amount of escapism from the quickly-approaching "real life" that is less than a year away. I'm just glad that at 21 years old, jumping off of springs and collecting golden rings still has the ability to entertain me for a while.

Now if you will excuse me... I'm going to go play some Sonic on my DS.

It seems, at times, that I might have an extraordinarily limited perspective of the universe. Considering for a moment the magnitude of shit that exists out there that we will never experience (and could never even imagine experiencing), it seems to dwarf the infinitesimal sliver of existence for which I am an observer.

For example, imagine a perspective where a lifetime is measured not in tens of years, but in billions of years, and traversing across galaxies is as easy as going from city to city for us. You could see the life cycles of stars, the formation of new planets, life, evolution... and truly appreciate the vastness of the universe. We, on the other hand, exist for such a vanishingly small amount of time on such a small little chunk of the universe.

It's also limiting that we are experiencing time in a one-dimensional, collapsed manner. The past is continually fleeing from us and the future is nebulous... but that could easily just be our perception.

It's like we're stuck on a train, with only a rear window, traveling at a constant speed forever. We can always look back and see from where we came, but we have no idea how the track turns up ahead, or even if it will be running for much longer. How ignorant must we look to an observer who can see the track in its entirety? To something not bound by our limited perception of time, its idea of the universe would be quite different than ours.

But maybe it's good that we suffer this "limited perspective" of ours. When you're only around for less than a century, the only appreciable wonder we can experience in the universe is each other. The Earth, the stars, space, and time are not going to give a damn about what you or I do with the rest of our lives, but the people around us will.

Friends will come and go, love, hate, death... all complex and powerful forces that we, in our limited perspective, can nearly get a hold of and experience them as they change and evolve throughout our lives. Could somebody who can skip around galaxies on a whim really appreciate something as delicate and fragile as love?

So maybe we don't have that limited of a perspective after all? Maybe the most impressive things to witness in the universe are the relationships and emotions we experience with others happening right here on this frail little blue marble spinning around one lonely little star...

I'm of the opinion that regardless of your job, you should at least put forth some modicum of effort in fulfilling your duties. Every job is important... from being a janitor to a CEO of a Fortune 500 company; obviously certain jobs are more glamorous and desirable... but that's beside the point.

The thing is, there's no excuse for doing your job poorly... but especially if you have an easy ass job. For instance:

The movie ticket-taker person: An exhaustingly simple job, free from any real stress save standing around for hours at a time. Take the tickets, tear the stub, and say "left" or "right" to direct the movie-going patrons to their respective theaters. Can't really mess that up right? Wrong. The other day, I went to go see Wanted with Anita... and our ticket taker SUCKED. Not only did he not greet us (kindly or otherwise), he struggled to tear the tickets (slowly)... and then left it to our own deductive abilities to determine which side of the theater to go to. It was rough.

Another popular variant is the fast-food cashier that not only rings your order up incorrectly, but then seems upset when they have to get the manager's authorization to rectify their mistake. The best is when you ask for extra ranch sauce and they act like it's the most arduous task ever... sauntering over two feet to the "sauce rack" (or whatever) and laboriously selecting the requested flavor packets before disdainfully slamming them down on your tray.

"Will that be all?" they ask. Yes. That is all. THANKS.

Reading over this post... it sure seems like a bitter bitch fest... so sorry about that. It's also my first post in over two weeks (whoops). But happy Independence Day for us Americans! Woohoo!