hallitosis

goodbye blogspot.

2009-06-24T17:07:00.001-07:00

following the brother to wordpress.

what i've been doing...

2009-06-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

finals are coming around. i must admit that i do not have one ounce of motivation at the moment and i need to change that... i suppose it's a normal feeling for this time of year. aside from this lack of will, i've been shredding with the swan thief almost daily in preparation for a few shows coming up within the next few weeks. yesterday in particular was a notably successful and surprising day with the amount of progress we made. i'm actually amazed at us seeing as how we haven't played the songs in about 5 months or so.

the show in the 15th of june should be interesting... we really shouldn't be playing there due to the types of bands that will be performing (they are notably poppier and lighter than us)... this should make it extremely interesting for the people playing at the show, the people going to the show, and especially us. the 20th will be at the san luis obispo art center and we made it a free show with the hope of attracting a fair amount of people. lastly, the sketchiest and strangest show will likely be the one of the 25th, which is at the infamous z club in san luis. apparently there's a stripper pole on the stage.

-chase

looking through the objects of the past...

2009-05-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

So this weekend, I decided to head back to Paso like I do once in a while. It was a pretty mellow one to say the least... I got back Friday and decided to linger on my parents' supposedly ridiculously uncomfortable couch and absorb netflix instant view for a few hours... This was a large portion of my day along with a miniscule amount of biology (immune systems in animals to be exact). Anyway, as I was heading to bed that night I decided to bust out the ol' senior year Paso Robles High School yearbook. I never thought I'd actually be glad I finally decided to buy one my last year there. The one strange thing that I did notice however was the ridiculous amount of biblical quotes in the senior pictures section. Why didn't I ever notice this when I was in high school? Maybe I didn't care as much; at that point I was still largely agnostic, and I'd even say open to the concept of religion. Therefore, maybe it didn't bother me as much as it does now? I suppose this is just evidence of how I've changed over the years. I've learned to not be afraid to criticize anyone's beliefs; I feel as though this is one of the only ways to make progress in the world. We can't just leave things as they are and allow people to remain comfortable in their own bubble. People should understand that, whether they like it or not, their actions and beliefs do in fact affect more people than just themselves. The other day I read an intriguing essay about the criticism of religious beliefs. Unfortunately I can't recall the author's name, but that isn't important in this case since it's solely about his idea and not any facts... Anyway, he made the point that we never seem to criticize someone's beliefs regarding physics, chemistry, or biology (and rest assured there are still many different "beliefs" of how certain aspects of each function). We simply take in the facts that they are presenting to us and reply with a way that we support or in many cases (and this is crucial to good science and knowledge in general) criticize their hypotheses. Why can't we do the same with religion? I'm tired of belief criticism being so taboo. I don't know what the problem is really, maybe people just take themselves to seriously? Maybe is discomforting to them to be shown that logic can disprove their beliefs. I really don't have the answer.

I wonder what high school would have been like if I was as vocal about my criticism of religion as I am today. I mean, I recall discussing how ridiculous aspects of it were with my friends but we never got into deep conversation with those kids who attended "youth with a purpose" and whatnot. I suppose we didn't have a purpose because we were heathen atheists so... I really regret not being as vocal as I am now in 12th grade A.P. English, where all we did basically was talk about the struggle of beliefs when we were reading The Brothers Karamazov. Anyway, I'm just rambling now.

chase

holy lameness

2009-05-18T18:45:00.001-07:00

is this happening right now? i come home expecting a mellow fucking night and all is well until my roommate gets home and starts blasting some stupid ass world-music-jam-band cacophony. lame. thankfully i'm out of here next month.

this will be finished

2009-05-12T22:24:00.001-07:00

It seems like whenever I start a blog now, I never end up finishing it. That's all gonna change with this one. I'm another terrible blogger, so I suppose I'll just talk about what I've been doing as of late...

Just saw Star Trek and I was pleasantly surprised. I have NEVER liked a single Star Trek movie in my entire life, but this one managed to change my mind somehow. I'm not really sure what it was... Oh wait yeah I am, it was the fact that J.J. Abrams directed it. I need not go in to details with this; if you know anything about me then this shouldn't come as a surprise.

Today was a strange, strange day. The strange part only lasted about 45 minutes but it was strange enough to stick with me for many moons to come. Let me just say that I still smell the formalin on my clothing; I also believe that it has successful embedded itself in my nasal cavity somehow because it is still lingering with me many hours after I left... Yeah that's right, I got to prod around in some cadavers today. Subject 1 was an elderly male, close to 80 or 90 years of age. The strangest part: he was completely devoid of skin. If you've seen the "Bodies" exhibit then you know of the site that i speak. Subject 2 was a middle-aged overweight female (her skin happened to be intact). Surprisingly enough, I didn't really have trouble with the whole situation; the feeling of going to the location of the bodies was actually quite a bit more eerie than actually seeing the bodies. Seeing their figures wrapped in bags was also immensely strange. As soon as the sheets came off however, some feeling of immediate detachment came upon me. I don't even know how to explain it. It's possible that death is such a complex subject that I couldn't really afford to think about it as I was looking; I could merely only focus and become interested in the physical matter that was right in front of me. Still a surreal experience though. At the same time I tell myself that it really isn't so strange or surreal, or that it shouldn't be at any rate. Why does human death affect us in such a strange fashion? It's probably because we immediately relate to it specifically; when we see roadkill, the sensation isn't nearly as taboo or surreal.

Aside from cadavers, I've been making arrangements to move back to Paso after spring quarter is up. Luckily I've secured a place down here for next fall already. Also, I' m once again seeing Mogwai this coming weekend; beyond stoked. I'll try not to have flashes of human meat as I sit here attempting to study (it kept happening during Star Trek tonight).

-chase

new swan thief song

2009-04-24T01:34:00.000-07:00

check it OUT. click HERE

sick, watching there will be blood.

2009-03-06T19:05:00.000-08:00

no words.

the same ol' debate

2009-02-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

Evolution V. Intelligent Design (actually I'm not going to give Creationism a compliment and call it something different to disguise it, so it's still Creationism. And whacky at that.) Click HERE to see it.

parasite

2009-02-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

Brain Parasite Drives Human Culture.

fuckers driving cars and fuckers eating tortillas.

2009-02-25T18:26:00.000-08:00

I wanted to write about these two subjects since they've been giving me a bit of a hard time the last day or two.

alright so two days ago whilst sitting in chemistry, I heard this dick behind me eating really loud. I would have turned around, although I thought about it too long and if I had turned around, I don't know what I would have said or done. Also, my chemistry class is ridiculously crowded so if I turned around even just to see who the asshole was, it would have been awkward to the max. So I stuck it out the rest of the time.

However, I wanted to see just who this asshole was. To find out, it was easy. All I had to do was sit behind where I did the day before and I hypothesized that he would both a) sit in the same spot or around the same spot and b) be eating something again. Well, this guy sits down and straight up pulls out a solo tortilla... nothing else. It always seems to weird me the fuck out when people just eat tortillas or bread or something plain like that. Really? all that noise for a solo tortilla?

on to other things. on my way to san luis today, a car passed me. at the first instant I thought nothing of it. Then I looked at the back of the car a little harder: present was both a "YES ON PROP 8, PROTECT MARRIAGE STICKER" so I was already a little angry, then I saw a license plate border that said "GOD'S MESSENGER." Wow, I probably wouldn't know how to deal with this person if I tried to have a conversation with them. That's all.

goodbye paso robes (kind of)

2009-02-22T18:59:00.000-08:00

I'm moving. Just found out I got the place. Stoked.

-chase

thoughts on the last few days.

2009-02-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

I dunno whether a lot has happened the last few days, or maybe I've just been thinking about it more than usual. It's probably the latter; now that I think about what I'm going to post here, not a lot has really happened... But it's given me some ideas for some reason.

I spent most of the weekend attempting to study, you know, plastoquinone and ATP Synthase (just to name a few). It was basically impossible to do it at my house, my room being filled with countless distractions: books (I can't think about Nietzche or Vonnegut this far into the quarter), guitars (too many, and ones that sound good too), cats (preferably Tiggs but Miguel can get the job done once in a while), and lastly the "Art of Doing Nothing" as my comical, lanky fiend of an Uncle Steven loves to phrase it. So the short of it: I had to get the hell out of that trap if I wanted to get anything done at all that weekend.

I made my way to my former place of work, Joebella Coffee, and got it on with an 8 ounce triple soy latte. Yeah, I'm a douche... I drink soy milk in lattes... But let me explain: I've been so goddamn lactose intolerant since I was a wee bastard that you really don't want to know me if I get a good dose of this 12 carbon sugar. For some reason (for all you scientists out there) I don't really make β-D-galactosidase (enzyme that cleaves lactose into more digestible components) very efficiently, so I have trouble with that. I'll just go ahead and blame it on my parents for no apparent reason. I guess something like 90% of Thailand has lactose intolerance because of the extremely low-milk diet most of the infants receive. Anyway, that's my reason for being a douche bag and getting soy milk.

I had my way with cellular respiration for about four hours and by that point it was time for the place to close. Having nowhere else to go, and hating Paso Robles enough already, I made the trek down to San Luis that I'm far too used to these days. What I didn't think about was that it was a Saturday night... San Luis is kind of distracting and ridiculous on a Saturday. For the sake of keeping some of my detailed thoughts away from the public eye, I'm going to be extremely vague in this next part. So, I went by one coffee shop (shall not be named for the sake of events in the other one) and it was ridiculously crowded so I made my way to the other. This one didn't seem as crowded, however it was extremely distracting the entire time due to one attractive female working at the place and another drinking coffee at the place. Yeah, it's not that big of a deal but I don't want to be an asshole.

The rest of the night was filled with a reunion of old Joebella coworkers and partaking in a viewing of Kill Bill. And tasty muffins. I hit the sack pretty early that night because I had a dick-load of homework to do the next day because of all those distractions.

Sunday was a pretty decent day. It wasn't a normal Sunday; for I was given the gift of taking the next day off due to a combination of Lincoln's and Washington's birthday. Thanks men; I hope you were both as cool as everyone tells me. Of course I didn't want to do my homework at my house so you know, I did pretty much the same thing... Except I hit up the library thinking they would be open until 2 a.m. like they usually are on Sunday's.

Whilst in the depth of the electron transport chain, a small gnome-like man (he probably wasn't that gnome-y, I'm just exaggerating) appeared and informed me they would be closing in five minutes. It was 4:55 and I had only been there for less than two hours. Fuck. Hit up the same place as the night before; hit up Brett, Matt, and Brandon; took part in the usual debauchery and inappropriate conversations to have in public; ran three blocks on Higuera chasing after Brandon; acted like I was throwing up profusely after Brandon and I stopped and severely scared some girl; hit up Tio's; went home; slept.

Monday... I don't remember Monday... Except that I pretty much didn't do any of the studying I should have...

Tuesday. Well, for some reason I only slept four hours the night before so I felt like garbage all day. Drank too much coffee. More electron transport chain and preparation for lab at eight in the morning at the Robert Kennedy Library. Oh yeah, I was severely pissed off at Boo Boo Records for not having the new Appleseed Cast album and I'm still pissed because I went back today and still no dice. There were these girls wearing the same color and style of leather jacket as me and I felt like an idiot. They seemed annoying and lame. What else? Oh yeah, lately I've been parking in the same parking garage on Palm like every day when I go downtown (the newer garage) and I always end up leaving before the hour has passed so I never have to pay a CENT. I'm stoked with this but at the same time, for some reason I feel like I"m being a dick to the guy who's working there. I know it's ridiculous of me to think like this but...

-chase

pre blogging blog

2009-02-18T15:21:00.000-08:00

blog. this is a blog post about a blog that i will blog in a bit. just wanted to let you know.

-chaz

"too many dicks on the dance floor"

2009-02-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

best thing i've seen in a long time.

this is cool

2009-02-04T15:48:00.000-08:00

here's a nice quote which was quoted in one of my favorite blogs: The Religion Virus

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. ... It happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
–Carl Sagan

enough said i think. check out the blog here.

ahhh thank you

2009-02-01T19:51:00.001-08:00

new episode of flight of the conchords just put me in a really good mood. here's one of my fav. songs ever from the first season.

hello, everyone who doesn't read this...

2009-02-01T15:54:00.000-08:00

recent happenings:
- snowboarding solo + collar bone injuries
- being once again addicted to lost
- becoming a master of stoichiometry
- persistently bothered by annoying jehovah's witnesses
* they've come to my house several times as i'm about to hit up my chemistry lecture and i've got a few things to say about it. first of all, they always come in pairs of two's; and always, ALWAYS, the older middle-aged man stays back and doesn't say anything. I end up having to talk to either a female or some douche-y young kid who was sucked into the sickness and ridiculousness of christianity, and religion in general, too early to even make his own decisions. the first meeting was just awkward and i kept my comments to myself the entire time: this lady held up a few brochures of christian propaganda, and asked which one i found interesting.
but of course i was interested in the one that asked "WHO REALLY RULES THE WORLD?" with some cheezy artwork displaying a hand holding the earth. let me give you an example of the logic in this crock of shit: "would satan have offered jesus all the nations of the earth if he (i'm guessing the "he" is satan; your grammar sucks, assholes) didn't own them?" so you're saying that secular governments and rule are the work of satan? i'm confused i guess. maybe you're saying that it would have been impossible for satan to offer anything that wasn't his, and since he offered the nations to j. christ they MUST have belonged to satan!! i suppose i shouldn't be surprised: we all know that religion sees logic only as something that prohibits your faith from manifesting (faith: "strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension." thus logic, or proof, has no place in religion), but fuck you. by the time the second encounter rolled around i was beginning to forget about the vapid christian brochure. this time, it was the douche-y young kid and the old man; of course the old man remained about 6 meters back while the the kid did the talking. he was uncomfortable the whole time and, i believe, tell that i was an atheist just by looking at my beard. he seemed to pretend like he had NO fucking idea some of his cronies had come by at the SAME TIME the week before. they're like fucking telemarketers: he even tried to give me another brochure. to make a long story short, he asked which one i took, if i found it interesting, and if i had a chance to look up any of the scriptures. i said yes: that i found it's supremely devoid sense of logic extremely interesting, that i would never waste my time doing anything christian propaganda told me to do, and that obviously i'm not a religious person so he was wasting his time. also, he had a dead fish for a handshake. that always repulses me. basically, he told me the other people would come around again and ask me about what i had read and what i thought about it. great, i guess i'm going to to checked up on by the propaganda police: religious totalitarian regime. worse than communism and fascism put together. i'd rather be stuck in george orwell's dystopian society than endure religious totalitarianism. and this is what it would be like, assholes would be coming around every week to make sure you read your propaganda. well i hope they come by next week so i can basically just tell them to screw off again.

sick

2009-01-19T15:19:00.000-08:00

who knows what with; one minute it seems like your standard cold with the whole nine yards, and then the next i'm incapacitated with a fever. it's made school really irritating and way more difficult than it needs to be.

bummed and worried.

2009-01-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

This asshole has me worried at the moment. During practice after engaging my new delay pedal, fuzz factory, and fulldrive, it stopped working. I doubt these pedals had anything to do with it ceasing to function (although we were playing at ear-bleeding levels), but you never know. Hopefully the problem is a bad fuse/power tube. If I could only find the time to go buy a new fuse and some tubes I would know...

In other news, school is outrageous as usual. I've been experiencing 19 hour days for the last few, and it doesn't seem like it will be letting up any time soon.

Also, the Swan Thief is producing some killer new jams so be on the lookout. They will be played in a shack near you soon. Yes, I said shack. It's better than whatever the fuck we have around here; there's no venues whatsoever. We'll probably be getting it all on the road this summer, but I said that last year and we never ended up touring so who knows. Hopefully we get it together early on.

Well I'm off to the 4th floor of the Robert Kennedy Library to force myself to be bored with chemistry. FUCK.

recent

2009-01-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

ah good ol' del's pizza dough rolls. thanks for enjoying that za andrew.

brian's version of quatto (total recall. i hope i spelled "quatto" correctly)

quatto (miguel) on his own.

ahh the beautiful highway 33 on my way to go save tim's ass after he left his atm card at home.

this cat is not an asshole. he is my father and my king.

lately:

-slumdog millionaire

-new delay pedals

-biology and chemistry to the max

-shredding 12 bar blues in e with gabe, tom, and john

-partaking in the song "epic fucking jam" written by gabriel ulibarri

- wanting to say "ladies" to any group of females as they walk by me whilst in san luis with gabe and tom (it'll happen eventually)

-d. rowe being completely offensive in any way possible and me finding it strangely hilarious

-taking "the hawk is howling" for another good spin. it always gets me in the mood for a good amount of studying and scientific thought.

-wondering why "certain" people are taking chemistry without knowing how to use numbers.

recent

2008-12-24T23:56:00.000-08:00

progress has been made the last few days... progress of life. as broad and pretentious as it sounds, it's true. i've deeply enjoyed the company of family, cold weather, bad movies, cooking (excellent on my part i might add), severe shredding at the ulibarri residence, red wine, lonely shows at hoover's live consisting of monster eats the pilot, and a good dose of wii tennis and bowling. to say the least, life is good right now; super good.

in events with past friends: i enjoyed a pseudo rave at a residence on lake road. the company of andrew, chandler, brett, natalie, and others... the night was severely cold if my currently inhibited brain remembers correctly.

support

2008-12-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

So far, my moon theory has not been proven incorrect. Last night, I finally managed to fall asleep at the decent hour of 2 (it has been 4 o'clock lately). The moon is now of course significantly dimmer than it has been the last few nights. I'm going to disregard the fact that Andrew, Chandler, and I engaged in a furious game of Lord of the Rings Risk. Of course, as is common with Risk, the game never truly ended and we were forced to end on a stalemate with Chandler and I controlling much of the board.

Isn't it interesting that I can pick one possible crackpot theory, such as the moon, while there are simultaneously thousands of other reasons for my episodic insomnia? I suppose people do this sort of thing all the time in an attempt to make their lives seem more interesting and not only with the hopes of fooling others but possibly with the hopes of fooling themselves. I wonder if I could somehow eventually convince myself that the moon really is the source of all my sleeping abnormalities. The problem is that I just don't know where to start. Another important point: I currently have no evidence that would disprove the moon theory, so at it's current state I suppose it's possible. That is of course assuming that ANYTHING is possible, and that's a big assumption that you probably guessed... I'm not too inclined to believe. Such is the fault of science however: if we are to begin to hypothesize and predict at all, certain subjective and arbitrary decisions have to be made first or nothing will come about. We even discussed this point in my biology class: we assume that natural laws remain constant over time. Sometimes I just wonder if we started out on the right foot when we made certain assumptions in order to pursue science. If we didn't it seems as though we could very well be getting everything wrong. It's highly improbable, but possible.

snow?

2008-12-14T16:16:00.000-08:00

yes, a definite possibility if it stays as cold as it has been. vine street was nearly ridiculous with the thermometer reading 37 degrees fahrenheit. if i hadn't looked down, i would have believed my feet to be missing. it also took nearly 2 hours to find some apple cider... never pleasant.

break has been nice. it's become a habit of mine as of late to stay in bed until about 1 pm, although the last few days i haven't been getting much sleep for some unknown reason. my theory is that it has to do with the fullness of the moon right now. we'll see though; it should be vanishing here pretty quick within the next few days.

I went to a show the other night, no too enjoyable to say the least. I did manage to catch up with some old friends though, which is always nice from time to time... especially when we constantly laugh about when little kids get hurt/fall down... it's seriously fucked up, but the best is when a loose ball manages to intersect some poor little bastard. it happened to me in a brutal soccer game once when i was around the wee age of 8 or so; the ball was wet, i was playing goalie, and it was 8 in the morning so that made it all that much better. when i think about my small self getting smacked with that loose ball i still laugh.

finally decorated the tree today. it's a beast for sure; it nearly doesn't fit in our living room.

i think i might go catch a flick solo at the palm tonight. this movie is playing called Let The Right One In, and it looks to have some potential. hopefully i don't see anyone i know, and hopefully it's actually good.

i've been trying to do some recording these last few days but the lazy dark days are getting to me more and more... i just can't find the motivation.

relief

2008-12-08T15:17:00.000-08:00

today on my way to take a final i scaled down a building and did a backflip off of it. everyone thought it was normal and continued to go about their business. also, during this math final i was pretty frustrated when i finished with one particular problem so i did a jump kick out the window and ran from the university police until i found safe haven in one of the sewage systems. i followed this path until i ended up underneath the administration building at cal poly. by shear chance i managed to foil a terrorist threat at the base of the building. aside from that, i'm pretty relieved because there is no possible way for me to get below a B- in my biology class. I calculated everything last night so just trust me on this one.

what else? well, on my way home i saved a panda. yeah, that's right. on the cuesta grade i'm sure some of you have noticed the really tall eucalyptus trees? well this panda was a long way from home; to be exact he was on his winter break from uni. he thought he'd look for some goddamn bamboo i guess and got the tall eucalyptus confused with bamboo for some dick reason. unfortunately, when he climbed to the top the gale force winds decided to start shredding on the grade. to be honest the only reason i saved him is because i have a special admiration for pandas: they have this pseudo-thumb joint and it's pretty stellar.

so yeah, acrobatics, kicking through glass, high speed pursuits, anti-terrorism, and panda rescue. pretty good day. i had two finals too.

-chaz

thank you

2008-11-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

thank you matter, anti-matter, physics, chance, probability, molecule formation, chemical evolution, the first self-replicating molecules, life, natural selection, evolution, cognition. i wouldn't be here without you. thank you, especially physics, for sound. without you life would be pointless to me.

yours truly,
chaz

a taste of the future

2008-11-27T11:39:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving always seems to be a time of year that gives me this, especially within the last year or two. i've been given this taste through a completely satisfying shred stick sesh with the ol' thieves (the swan thief) last night. somehow, a new 1 minute part for a song turned in to a stellar 5 minute example of the strange mystic powers at work when 4 people come together to play instruments. i'm completely baffled by what occurred. i really don't know how any of it could have come about. it is here decided that i will spend my entire winter break doing absolutely nothing but making sound.

the cure for AIDS

2008-11-21T00:19:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting conversation with my biology lab instructor today.

For some reason, the topic of reptilian blood came up when there were about six of us left finishing up the lab. It's pretty common knowledge among the biological science community that the majority of reptilian blood is extremely resilient and can fight off any number of viruses and infections. One virus that it can eliminate easily is HIV.

I began to question why reptile blood has evolved in such a way to be at a point where it is so resilient to so many viruses and infections. Apparently, mating rituals and lifestyles of reptiles (crocodiles in particular) are particularly gnarly. What I mean: continuous biting during copulation, which at times are potentially fatal. These constant general rituals among reptiles, along with how ancient this class of animals is, is the reason. Natural selection has gradually selected genes for extremely resilient blood through the course of millions of years. Apparently, those reptiles without efficient antibodies and blood makeup in general for these extreme mating rituals slowly died off and we are now left with those who have super resilient blood.

So how does this help us solve anything?

Well, we could take the same course with natural selection in our own lives until some mutations develop. It'd be particularly brutal; human beings adopting reptilian mating rituals?? This would take millions of years to be effective but I suppose we have to start somewhere...

This is of course ridiculous. We should just do a little gene splicing until we get to the point of effectively inducing "super reptile genes" into human genes. This will of course likely require extensive stem cell research, so hopefully our next few years under the new presidential administration aren't as archaic as the last eight.

thoughts late in the night.

2008-11-16T02:19:00.000-08:00

they never seem to be coherent. i find myself circling arbitrary and absurd thoughts, while completely devoid of logic. this post almost seems like the equivalent of having two mirrors face each other. if you stand in the middle you can see the pattern repeating an infinite amount of times until it is beyond microscopic. this post is like that: i'm attempting to use logic to think about my logic (or lack thereof) and in the process i'm thinking about that logic. the pattern continues infinitely.

the middle

2008-11-15T16:32:00.000-08:00

ah the doldrums and monotony that is the middle of fall quarter. work piles up and social life disappears. i saw a movie alone for the first time in about 4 years. i forgot how much more enjoyable it is than actually going with someone.

livid

2008-11-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

i cannot describe how disappointed i am at the moment. with the amount of hours that i spent studying for that test, i should have at least gotten a 90%. i know a B isn't bad, i was just expecting more i suppose.

outrageousness

2008-11-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

the only way to describe my scholastic endeavors at the moment. i'm okay with that though; i know it's only gonna get harder from here on out but i'm hypothesizing that all of this (at times) tedious work will all be worth it. a plus: biology is ridiculously fascinating. as is such, i haven't had much of a weekend aside from studying for a new bio midterm. the brother and honorary sister are in town at the moment, so aside from the usual antics i haven't done much else besides solidifying the distinct differences among bacteria, archaea, and protists. this test seems like it's gonna be a beast... hopefully i'll come out of the den alive and with some grade-a loot in remembrance of a job well done.

sincerely,
chase c hall

today

2008-11-06T00:35:00.000-08:00

Today I saw a side of people at school that I never see. For one day out of four years, the majority of conversations that I heard around campus were actually involving politics and not entirely egocentric. So thanks you guys; you've kinda restored my faith in our generation. However, whilst seated in my Monday and Wednesday showing of Sociology 218, I continued to hear smearing remarks by bitter conservatives behind me. First of all, what are you doing in a sociology class if you're conservative? Second of all, get off your patriotism judgement pedestal. If I got a new guitar every time I heard someone accusing Barack Obama of being unpatriotic, my collection would easily rival a combination of Sonic Youth guitars and Pete Townshend's. Really? All you've got to accuse him of is not wearing a flag pin or expressing his analysis of the national anthem (I doubt that second one is even mildly true)? Maybe you should try educating yourself and at least attempt a valid argument before you open your mouth.

Secondly, I read some blog news about Elizabeth Dole today that really disturbed me. Not really surprising though but here it is. I'm particularly disturbed by the fact that atheism is still looked down upon.

but of course...

2008-11-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

i suppose having a president we actually like has it's price... it would be too good to be true to have both barack in washington and prop 8 disintegrated. maybe we do live in a universe that seeks natural balance?? i'm probably just being a dickhead right now.

you know the weather is changing when...

2008-10-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

1. people start to bust out their unnecessary clothing. take for example, my experience downtown san luis obispo today; I wasn't surprised to say the least.

Profile: middle-aged, likely ex-hippy female.

Place: pizza solo

Situation: Just got out of an insipid sociology lecture. at this point i was needing sustenance. hadn't had pizza solo in a while; gave it a go. little did i know that i would witness the likes of mystic garb on a middle-aged, ex-hippy female. precisely, the sweater was thickset and of the thickest, most uncomfortable weave imaginable. The enigmatic graphic: classic Yosemite-style wolf art. Fantastic.

The arcane panorama did not end there, for the subject also donned an upsetting pair of calf-high leather boots complete with the leather straps hanging off.

all of this was, to say the least unnecessary.

bye.

this week I...

2008-10-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

- stared at moss for three hours in lab.

-dreamed/hallucinated that a massive spider was coming down over my face whilst sleeping. it was one of those weird "dreams" where you aren't really dreaming but you're not seeing what's really there... that probably makes no sense. anyway, i saw it while i was sleeping and ran across to the other side of the room to turn a light on (of course not the one next to my bed).

-in my sociology lecture, listened to some lame girls behind me talk about sex for 5 straight minutes during our break.

-played fable 2 for far too long.

-got scrutinized by some asshole who said he did "acid." he wanted a ride to los osos. we said no (me, brett, and matt). not only that, but he used it as a way to talk to some girls behind us because he said we were too cool to hang out with him. well, let's address your first problem: you live in los osos. your second problem is that you then took out a fucking ukulele and started playing some outkast song that wasn't even in the same key as the real song. lastly, you didn't really do acid; you just wanted attention.

-listened to some ridiculous band play at the art center by the name of The Weeds. first, when they sang together they didn't sing together. second, they played songs that kenny hall would make up as a joke (thanks to matt for that comment). lastly, they had a mandolin player for kicks up there... i could never even hear him.

-listened to a really fucking good band called the evangelicals. i'm not even sure what they sound like. they were just good. check them out.

-hung out with brandon pascal when he got off work at woodstocks (me, brett and matt were simultaneously devouring an extra large pie) who told us of tales of his apartment, travis king, and we discussed our former employer: joebella coffee. the weirdness that has transpired my former place of work astounds me. all through this, brandon was sporting a new mustache.

that was my week.

mysterious and frightening... perfect.

2008-10-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

I think by now, people are figuring out this isn't the most fun blog to read. I'm almost hoping people don't read it, but if you really want to I guess I'm not gonna try and stop you.

One of my favorite things, for a while, has been getting into ridiculous conversations over iChat (AIM, or any instant messenger for that matter). I mean those that should never be had over an instant messenger. They probably shouldn't even be had in any form, whatsoever. I mean the conversations that mind-fuck you to the point of a cognitive breakdown.

My most recent of these was just moments ago; I tend to like bringing up ridiculous, unanswerable questions late in the night. It has occurred to me lately, that one of the most psychologically damaging things someone can do to themselves is constantly ask themselves questions that have no answer. With science, it's okay to not have an answer; that is the fuel for science. But when it comes to questions of existence, then you're walking on the equivalent to the scorched soil of Mordor- a dangerous land indeed. For Frodo and Sam never even knew Aragorn and Co. were even at the Black Gates trying to help. They just had to go on without ever knowing anything at all.

But enough with Hobbits and word of the dark lands of the South... For it's not even the season for an annual viewing for Lord of the Rings yet... What exactly went down in this conversation, on par with dying stars? Well, it started with the human mind.

Or should I say that it started with sleep... I spoke of how flawless it would be if we had the ability to sleep for any number of years that we chose, in order to rid ourselves of a certain time period assuming we were sick of it. Would we really choose to do so though? Although we'd be sure that whatever catastrophic event currently persisted in our lives would die away, we couldn't be sure that the world would be so enjoyable when we woke up. So, if given the option, would you sleep through the dismal years of your life with certainty that they'd be gone when you woke up? Or would you suffer through them due to the uncertainty of what lies ahead in the future? I suppose it just depends on the person and the level of the catastrophe in someone's life. The variation of answers to this question alone, fascinates me.

This is the point when I brought the twelve-hour-long epic complexity of the brain into the conversation. I like asking questions about the brain because it's one of the things in our real world that still seems safe from impossibility. A variation on the former question would be the ideal for anyone, I suppose. Think of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. What if we could pick and choose among the unsatisfying memories in our head, and get rid of the bad ones? In the end, I suppose it'd technically have the same effect as sleeping for a number of years: there would just me a massive gap in your timeline. The difference is that you'd still have to experience everything undesirable, even if you didn't know the difference in the end. This leads me to the idea that memories are basically everything that make up our lives. Every second of every day we're doing things and forming memories. All for the purpose of what? Maybe so we'll have things in our mind to look back upon and associate everything we experience with something that's happened before? We have the ability to look in retrospect but not into the future. As a result we constantly look back as a way of determining everything else. A good majority of every conversation that we have has something to do with memories or something that has already happened.

I guess what I'm asking now is if we really should get rid of all the bad memories if we have the ability to. Shouldn't we just leave them alone and let them serve their purpose if they make up such a cosmic portion of our lives? We should leave them alone; not only can we learn from them but we can then also have a means of contrast. I guess without any bad memories there would be no good memories? The "no light without darkness" argument...

From here I went on to speak of mysterious inquiry itself. The only thing that anyone will ever know for sure is that none of us know anything for sure. To me, that is simultaneously the most frightening and amazing thing about, well everything. I can assume that we won't know the origins of our universe within our lifetime and that really bothers me. Not knowing anything about the majority of existence bothers me. At the same time I'm simultaneously in awe of mystery. I guess this almost proves that sometimes not knowing is better than knowing. Not knowing anything for sure throws the idea of impossibility out the window. Since we know close to nothing, in comparison to the magnitude of the universe, it's impossible for impossibility to exist (how's that for a brain-fuck, eh?). Being someone who is close to science, I'm glad to be alive in a time when we know nothing.

-chaz

Nietzche quote for today...

2008-10-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

"To forget one's purpose is stupidity."

He makes a pretty brave point here... Not only is he defining stupidity but he's also fusing it with the heart of his philosophy. I don't mean to sound like a pretentious asshole when I say that I agree with a good majority of what Nietzche hypothesizes. I didn't even know anything about him or any of his ideas until about two years ago when I stumbled across Thus Spoke Zarathustra during the time I was in Mr. Cantrell's English class. I suppose this was the time when I stopped ignoring what my real beliefs about existence were- that I'm pretty damn certain there's no wise old supernatural being in the heights of the universe, who has predetermined our lives for us.

I suppose it isn't really fair to assume that anyone who believes in higher powers believes their existence is predetermined. A good majority of religions agree that life is a series of choices (Christianity, Catholicism in particular drives this point). But one idea many persist on hypothesizing is that every choice happens for a reason; this reason usually has something to do with a divine entity. The thing that really bother's me about religion is that all with the exception of Buddhism are inherently fatalist. Why is it that Catholicism and Christianity in general, states life is a series of choices that we make? Well, choices are what determine, in their opinion, where we go after we're finished here. I just get this feeling that the only reason people of these beliefs make their "good-samaritan" choices is so that they'll be seated at the right hand of god for the rest of eternity. From this logic one could say that, deep down, religious belief is the most unhealthy and deceptive codes of morality that an individual could ever adopt. The reason it is so unhealthy: it lies about being down-right good and just. Why isn't it enough to find fulfillment in life for just being alive? Why can't we be good for the sake of being good? I want to ask these people if they would still be as good as they are even if it was somehow possible that we managed to find out, for sure, that there truly is no divine being that created us: that there really is nothing watching over us. Are people with belief in the divine only good because they are pretty sure something is watching? So yes, religion is fatalist. Every choice is made in order to ensure a safe way to heaven, and heaven is supposed to be infinitely better than where we are right? To them, death is the most beautiful act anyone could partake in because they are going somewhere better than here. Might as well treat the earth like a piece of trash and pick and choose among your religion's beliefs so you get to heaven.

But back to Nietzche's quote... It could be interpreted millions of ways, but I'm gonna focus on one. Where Nietzche is coming from, purpose must be defined by individuals themselves. I'm guessing, however, that Nietzche believed every single organism and human being in particular had some sort of purpose, and that purpose was to figure out one's purpose in life. I know this is a slight paradox but it seems logical if you think about it. We spend a good majority of our lives figuring out our purpose, and once we find that we continue to live out that purpose. So, existence has two parts in my mind: a what and then a how. That is, we look for what our purpose is and then we contemplate how to live it out. Anything could be considered a purpose: even merely existing without a "purpose" is a purpose. Even if you believe in a higher power, following that code and that order is a purpose; those people have made it for themselves, they sometimes just don't realize it.

This brings up another criticism I've had about my country for a few years now. I know for a fact that there are a good amount of people in the U.S. who share the same ideas that I do. Doesn't it seem logical that we should want people in office who are just good for the sake of being good? I feel like we need people who are good right now, and want to make this world as good as it can be right now. What I mean is that I want people representing my country who aren't consumed with whatever is after this. I want people who want to make this country as good as it can be right now. I feel like believing in god is a prerequisite to running for office and it makes me sick. Logically, we need people who don't believe in god who want to make this country as good as it can be for the short fraction of time that they have in this universe. It just seems like we'd be a lot more productive if we had those who realized this was their only chance to make the world good for generations after us. It comes down to being sick of the misrepresentation in our country. I know there's people in political positions who don't believe in god, they're just so afraid to admit it because it would probably ruin their career. At times I feel hesitant to vote at all because I'm so sick of religious values playing in to politics so much. So I chose the lesser of the two evils: there's no way I could ever support someone who simultaneously shoots wildlife from the comfort of a fucking helicopter all the while belonging to a church who believes in speaking in tongues. It's bullshit. Plus, there's no way I could ever vote for a republican, but that's not my argument right now.

Sorry this was such a long post. If you read it, I am exponentially sorry. I leave you with this:

wow, I guess McCain didn't feel the need to clarify the fact that being Arab doesn't make you a bad person.

and this

there is nothing in existence than can express the ridiculousness of this. go ahead and support this human being if you want america to look like a joke for another four years.

also, Tim just sent me this link:

-chaz

stellar

2008-10-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

new macbook pro=stellar. this is the first of many posts on it.

in other news, i had a clusterfuck of a lab today. who would have thought that observing protists could be so stressful? i did thoroughly enjoy looking at slime molds an amoebas however. once again, my two lab partners were clueless. thankfully i branched off with someone else this time, but the dude still persisted and grabbed my lab manual once in a while.

as of late, san luis obispo is constantly baking in the sun. in some cases, it is actually surpassing paso on its level of shitty weather.

anyway i just needed something to do on this new masterpiece of a computer so here it is.

-chaz

boredom and procrastination

2008-10-11T15:48:00.001-07:00

i'm bored. check out this video of my band at moneleone's in paso from this summer.

now we understand what everyone was saying about that place... the count (monteleone) is one strange quack indeed. not only is he completely socially obtuse, but that fact that a man of that size can handle a musical instrument of that size (a violin) without destroying it honestly amazes me. why do i call him the "count?" i'd like to thank john flitsch for that one; upon uttering monteleone's name, john can be heard with an accent of an indistinguishable manner... i suppose it just seemed fitting at the time to call him the count. this is just one example of the ridiculousness of our humor when we are all in the same area for too long; certain ideas and humor just seems to spontaneously generate out of nowhere, and we somehow all get each other's humor without even an explanation.

in other news, i'm bombarded with three midterms in one day on monday. needless to say this is not a fun weekend. i shouldn't be bored right now, i shouldn't be here professing my boredom and making myself more bored thinking about it. there's a lot of things i should be doing, but such is the desirable nature of procrastination.

someone? anyone?

2008-10-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

please save me from the clusterfuck that has been my biology lab as of late. it's not that i'm bored with the material or wish i wasn't there, it's just hard to work with two other people who are equally clueless and have no idea how to ask their own questions. literally as soon as begin the lab, this bastard is asking me the worst questions. Along with this, he constantly gets in the middle of whatever i'm doing and continues to steal my lab book. it doesn't help that the other person in our group is his sad excuse of a significant other either. i constantly get a dose of

"hey babe, that gram stain looks really good,"
"OH, thank you for the compliment,"

in my head: "i'd like to see you keep this up for another 8 weeks."

the worst part, though, is when the dude constantly gets in the way of whatever i'm doing on my own. it seems like he's probably the most neurotic human being that i've met, and i'm pretty neurotic from time to time.

it's not all so bad though. there is one other person in the group i get along with so we constantly speak of these ridiculous antics in secrecy.

i guess this just adds to a list of things i hate: shitty lab partners.

2008-10-09T22:39:00.001-07:00

img_0293.jpg

Posted via Pixelpipe.

shits

2008-09-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

i'm taking this opportunity to tell you that i have just experienced some of the worst stomach pains in my life. fucking "eggland's best eggs" really ruined me this time. or maybe it was the 3 year old tapatio?? i hope, for the sake of my love of tapatio, that it was not the tapatio. tapatio...

paso is finally holding back on attaining the title for most char broiled city on the central coast? only 87 degrees in september? what's going on here?

in other news, i just saw Burn After Reading and it was excellent. if you see no other movie this year besides The Dark Knight, go see this. you will simultaneously laugh your ass off and be horrified by human beings and the means that some will go to for a cause. the only bad part was having to see it in paso robles on a friday night. not only is the downtown shithole now littered with cracked out, coked out, broed out, cockfiends going to dickmeetings, but the afterhour scene in paso is even worse with drunk broads and bros stumbling about leading dreadful and pointless lives.

i really am in a good mood today though, even if it doesn't seem so.

update

2008-09-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

saw mogwai last night. i have been known to be overly excited about a band right after i see them, but this time i know it's for real. never have i simultaneously been both frightened and given chills by a band for a constant 2 hours. aside from the assholes around me who, if i was seeing a lesser band, could have easily ruined the show, the entirety of it was flawless. one of them attempted to clap on time which never happened once and another proceeded to seem to be hitting on some girl behind me.

they played a good mix of the heavier and mellower songs. most notably of the heavy was "like herod" and the new masterpiece "batcat;" these songs were truly frightening to behold. i found myself putting my head back in amazement several times.

too bad shirts were $25. probably brought with them from scotland.

in other news, it's been a good 5 days posting up at the brehmer/hove enclave. i thank both of your for your hospitality and for sharing this sonically amazing experience with me. i've started to grow more accustomed to southern california in the last few days and i am finally, for once, sad that i have to leave. i will be seeing more of you soon.

i leave you with a fine portrait of the most hospitable of hosts. thanks oliver.

check this out if you can stand it

2008-09-09T14:58:00.000-07:00

i'm gonna try and post one horrible cover of a song per day. it helps if the song is already the most poorly written piece of shit in existence. not only is this guy playing a stratacoustic but he's also covering metro station. enjoy.

then i found this. even better!

nothing

2008-09-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

today has been nothing. i felt like making it that way. aside from about an hour of smash bros, pestering oliver, and constantly having my brain rattled by the sound of hammers, not much else has occurred in this so-called waste of a day.

maybe that's because i'm seeing mogwai tonight. if we exist in a place where events have meaning and reason, i could see this theory holding up. any person can probably guess that the laws of physics are active and present, but do we live in a universe that seeks constant balance?

the only way to go about answering that question requires a good deal of extrapolation, and that's never a pretty picture.

i suppose what i'm trying to say is that my day has either been nothing for a reason or my day has been nothing because i have chosen to make it that way; i tend to think in the way of the latter. i'd like to think that my day of boredom could actually mean something (getting something from nothing?) but i could have just as easily walked outside and made something of it.

welcome to my insane head. i think about these things daily.

the mind's eye

2008-09-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

one of our own

2008-09-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

so someone commented on my blog from last night. i thank you for doing so. i was instructed by "anonymous" to check out "ripley's believe it or not" for a recorded case of a human child raised by monkey's. given my skeptical nature with pretty much any piece of information i decided not to use "ripley's" and instead find another source.

here is what i found: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/466616.stm

apparently homo sapiens wouldn't necessarily revert to some sort of natural instinct but would rather model their behavior and actions after whomever they were reared. i should correct myself however... we show our primitive instincts in addition to our learned human behaviors together every day. fear response, for instance, is a natural instinct inborn in just about every animal organism with a hypothalamus.

i guess if i were to take this theory further i would have to set up some more guidelines... what if the human subject wasn't raised by anyone, not even by another species? the subject would have no behavior to model after. i remember discussing a little girl in my psychology class last year who was severely neglected and abused as a child. apparently she was kept in a basement or some closed off room for the first 5-6 years years of her life (i may have the numbers wrong). i believe we were discussing language at that point in the class because apparently she had no ability to learn english or any spoken language after authorities found her.

it would also be interesting to contemplate what the case would be if a human was raised by a species other than primates. since the boy discussed in the bbc article was raised by primates, i suspect that some of the primitive behaviors that he modeled himself after were pretty similar to that of any human. what if he was raised by a pack of wolves or lions? this probably wouldn't happen, i hypothesize that the wolves would either rather have nothing to do with the boy or if hungry enough probably eat him (as would the lions). i guess the monkeys saw the similarity of themselves and the human being.

after reading something like this it seems strange that a phenomenon like racism could even exist. i may be way off topic here and straying too much from my original point... the evolved human brain allows something like racism to come into being i suppose. racism, like religion or any other delusional belief, is probably some misfiring of an original genetic function to aid in survival of the organism. and yes i am reading The God Delusion at the moment...

i don't know. these are just some thoughts. help me out here.

-chase

cat

2008-09-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

oliver

a cat currently resides on my bed of the last four days. name: oliver hove/brehmer. strange fellow he is; he's led a relatively sheltered life and has rarely had contact with his species.

it makes me wonder if a human being would still act like a human being if they led a completely isolated life. this theoretical premise would have to be the basic equivalent of what this feline specimen must endure. in a human beings case, the subject would never be allowed to partake in any instruction of how to act human. this includes no instruction of reading, hygiene procedure, etc.

i suppose this theory can only go so far and really ceases to be interesting... we'd probably all just revert back to our animal instincts. my point is, with no social interaction of our own species, we have no idea what to model ourselves after. man: the great evaluator and modeler.

here is a picture of me, myself, the beast, and one of his few friends

chill

2006-12-03T22:52:00.001-08:00

you are either reading this because of lack of an interesting life or for some other reason that i don't know of. anywho, just listening to the new isis, it shreds. i've been listening to new music all day due to the fact that i acquired quite a few cds for my birthday... yes finally 18, i can buy cigarettes and go to diamond adult world now! what a cool age.