“The human spirit was born when we dared to dream beyond death,” the fictional DJ at KBHR suggests in “Northern Exposure.” Optimism about the human condition is out of style, optimism about nature, even reality itself, is out of style. We place a very high premium on certainty and invariably take the engineer’s road over the mystic's. We believe mysteries are problems, solvable, boring little things, that there is a proposition-shaped answer to everything. We believe the mystic’s path is the same as the engineer’s, if it carries us forward, and otherwise, a dead end. The one who favors meaning over certainty is avoiding The Truth, that great tragedy we know to be bedrock, and it is obvious, we say, that if all the mysteries of life were solved by concrete, observable, communicable means, the mystical would be obsolete. Should we, with sufficient scientific cleverness, carry some semblance of consciousness beyond the boundaries of our flesh, mystery would be condemned here too – a balm for the heart, denying us the only solution to the ultimate problem. We’d best face the facts, sonny – truth alone is immortal. We collectively believe the human spirit was born out of our awareness of death.

Yesterday I hitched a ride to the outskirts of my homeland; I needed to retreat away from sorrow and death and familiarity – naturally, I wound up driving out with a terminally ill family member. We were confined to each other for the duration of the trip, and despite our best efforts to stave off meaningful conversation, we eventually spoke of his illness – metastasized cancer. He is carefully hopeful – I, on the other hand, rushed to call his condition terminal . But what destroyed me was the way he spoke about his death – like it was his, an experience that belonged to him. It was like watching a puppy get kicked by his trusted guardian and get up to greet him. In him I saw the ghost of Christmas soon to come. The rest of the journey was silent. We reached our destination late in the evening and had a long overdue dinner in a corner bistro; he had a decadent, shellfish and fried fruit gourmet dish, and I had a phobic, grilled vegetable and whole pasta bowl. He ordered dessert, and I stared out the window. We slept in the decaying beachside apartment I now write from, and he left in the morning to receive his first round of treatment.

When I rose this morning I rose to go in search of booze – I left my life to leave myself as much as the world, and casual, seasonal alcoholism seemed a great hobby to that end. I walked into the first tourist-supermarket I saw and made for the booze isle. Too Anglo-Saxon for vodka, too young for good wine, too old for cider, too gay for scotch, too straight for tequila, and with too cheap a liver for fruitier options, I left the choice to chance. I turned a corner and grabbed the first bottle that presented itself – “Carl Jung – De-Alchoholized Rosé.” I put it back on the shelf and grabbed a Malibu. I returned to the store a few minutes later and bought the damn thing. When the man who coined “synchronicity” – meaningful coincidence, the a-causal but meaningful linking of events – comes to you in the form of a WASP-y liquor label and tells you not to do drugs, kid, you listen.

I am not a natural optimist – that Malibu is sitting in my fridge – I do not wake up with an urge to smell the flowers and hug my neighbor. I expect the worst and prepare for it well; I admire the great spectacle of life from the corner chair by the emergency exit. Thoreau agreed with the luminaries of today that it is by truth alone that we are made immortal – but his truth was not the one we pray to, it belonged to him and no other. The entirely unfalsifiable notion that divinity and meaning are baked into existence, that the world is composed of symbols and synchronicities, and the truth belongs to the spirit isn’t one I’m naturally inclined to believe. But here I am, feeling only the buzz of a night poorly slept.

#chronicle #jung #synchronicity

I never initially thought that I would do this. Maintaining a static generated website using Hugo seemed so customisable and simple then, I didn’t even care to look for other options. But now that I have built my website in write.as, I really hate myself for not trying it sooner.

What went wrong with hugo?

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Hugo. I really love the way it is customisable to its core. You can create new pages from the existing template, or write a new layout altogether. And boy oh boy! there are tons of themes available. All you gotta do is just run a command and the theme is live. I loved this idea so much that I had made my own Theme for Hugo which then was used to theme my own website.

However, that’s about where the advantages end. Eventually things started to crumble down when I started putting more efforts in setting up the layout and theme for my website when I should be spending more time writing my articles. In the end of the day I would spend so much time just fixing the layout, I would have no more patience to write an article on top of that. As exciting as building a brand new statically generated fully customisable website sounds, it sure comes with its qualms.

…And, Write.as?

Yes. So I decided to move to write.as since I believe it offers me a proper balance between customisability and usability. It lacks some features that I enjoyed having in Hugo (separate tags and categories to organize my content well). But I think I’ll find my way around it as I go. Write.as has theming support that lets you add Custom CSS and JS to your site. So yeah! I don’t regret moving to write.as for my personal website and blog.

I’ve really missed how I can just jump in, write my mind and publish! ✌🏻

Categorized Under #MyTechXperiments

Tags : #Hugo #WriteAs #PersonalWebsite #Blog

I’m not afraid of giving people a chance, what I’m afraid of is not giving people a chance.

“Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers.”

Evergreen advice.

Probeer het niet te zijn en zorg dat je het te boven komt! / I i – – – De Indruk / Help! Ik kan me niet meer aan De Indruk onttrekken

Elsewhere is a series of interesting things I came across during the week, published every Sunday.

(Well, except last Sunday. Had a little bit too much on my plate then.)

• Ed Zitron predicts that companies currently offering a hybrid “work X days per week from home” structure will eventually return to the “everyone back to the office” thing.
• I'm not very familiar with Jonathan Richman, but what struck me about this interview is that Richman uses no digital technology whatsoever. No phones, no email, correspondence via lettermain. Then again, he's got an assistant to handle such things, so...
• “As we live our lives ever more publicly, we have come to prioritize arguing—the flashy, viral, gotcha kind—over learning,” according to this op-ed. It's all so tiresome.
• I have yet to go to the lengths of deleting social media as G. Keenan Schneider did, I do recognize that Twitter et al. encourage a “reply first, think later” model of discourse — pretty little hate machines powered by “enrage to engage” algorithms.

#elsewhere

Opgeschoten.

Dit schiet niet op Cupido's wapenarsenaal ligt nog in de bewaakte opslag De pijlen in bestelling. Dit schiet niet op Het heeft helemaal geen haast gemaakt Het duurt maar omdat het kan Het ontbreekt de vaart aan vlotte stroom. Dit schiet niet op Dit ding komt niet uit z'n werkwoorden Voegt geen wijs ergens aan Wijst niks aan en zelfstandig is Dit ook niet. Dit schiet niet op Gaat juist op weg naar beneden Daalt richting ondergrond Wil het licht niet zien. Dit schiet niet op Een slachtoffer, gemaakt in naam van de dader De vijand in het stille putje of wandelend graf Een groep onschuldige duiven van klei of kleine ronde roos omringd door grotere onbelangrijker bloemblaadjes. Dit schiet niet op

Het is er toch maar is Dit nu geliefd, onderweg, geschreven, ontkiemd of geraakt?

#nature

Monkey Island 2 was published in 1991 by LucasArts as the sequel to The Secret of Monkey Island. Story again follows Guybrush Threepwood on his adventures as he's looking for the treasure of the Big Whoop. It was the first game to use new iMUSE audio sequencing MIDI engine.

Story

Main story revolves around Guybrush Threepwood and his quest to find the treasure of the Big Whoop. There are 3 islands he travels between using houseboat with Captain Dread – Scabb, Booty and Phatt.

The games starts with Guybrush in the hole hanging on a rope while holding the treasure, and Elaine asking him how he got there. Guybrush begins telling her the story:

He starts his journey on Scabb island where he encounters pirate called Largo LaGrande, LeChuck's former first mate. To get rid of him, he has to create voodoo doll of him. He achieves it with help from the Voodoo Lady. During the encounter with Largo he accidentally reveals to him that he defeated LeChuck by showing the “undead” beard of LeChuck. Not surprisingly, Largo steals it and resurrects his former boss.

The Voodoo Lady reveals to Guybrush that treasure of Big Whoop is also the key to another dimension which will allow him to escape LeChuck forever. She gives him book about it, where he learns that the map to the treasure was torn to 4 pieces.

During the quest, to recover all 4 pieces of the map, he has to do some library research, participate in spitting and drinking contest, do a bit of necromancy, diving in ocean, attending costume party, make awkward attempts at proving love to Elaine, and much more.

After successfully recovering all pieces, he gives it to the cartographer called Wally to put the map together. Unfortunately, Wally is kidnapped by LeChuck and held captive in his fortress. Guybrush sneaks into fortress by getting into crate of voodoo supplies for LeChuck. As usual nothing is going smoothly, and he ends up in torture chamber together with Wally. After some spitting puzzle and unfortunate lightning of a match in dynamite storage, they both escape the fortress.

Guybrush luckily ends up on Dinky Island, where the treasure of the Big Whoop is hidden. He meets an old friend who teaches philosophy now and will be once again totally useless. Eventually he finds the treasure. In this moment we are back at the beginning sequence with Elaine. She agrees to help him, but he falls into the hole and ends up in series of tunnels.

He encounters LeChuck who claims to be his brother. He uses voodoo doll on Guybrush and this begins quite long sequence of running through the tunnels trying to assemble voodoo doll of LeChuck.

This part was quite confusing at times and more than once I needed to quit and restart the chapter for LeChuck to appear properly again.

I will not spoil the ending so I will write no more.

Graphics and Controls

The game uses new iMUSE audio sequencing MIDI engine that enabled the compositions in the game to change interactively depending on the current environment or situation.

Controls and graphics are the same as in The Secret of Monkey Island. Including the same difference between original and remastered.

My personal preference was still the original version as the controls are visible through the gameplay which made the gameplay more seamless to me. And unlike the 1st game, this had voice over in original version as well as remastered.

Easter Eggs

Probably the most unique one I've found in the games so far is ability to easily win the game by pressing keys “alt + w”.

There are usual ones like appearance of characters from other LucasArts games (Sam and Max in costume shop, seagull from LOOM flying away with one map piece) or “death” of Guybrush if you fail to put the candle out while in torture chamber.

My Thoughts

Monkey Island 2 is funny and well executed adventure game. It's nice sequel to the Secret of Monkey Island. I enjoyed most of the puzzles and twists in story. You will meet quite a few familiar characters from the first game and story is progressing smoothly without any friction as in some other adventure games.

Some of the puzzles were a bit harder to figure out or complete. Especially the last part with LeChuck chasing you through tunnels, as I've already mentioned. It's strange it was not fixed because it seems to be well known bug.

The game's length is roughly similar to the first. And the end of the game has unexpected twist which I have mixed feelings about.

Nevertheless the game is very enjoyable, story and scenery captivating. Puzzles are fairly easy so they do not interrupt the flow of the gameplay. I recommend you check it out.

Interesting Links

• Walkthrough

You can buy the game here: – GOG – Steam

Neste helg vil jeg kjøre til Oslo, men jeg skal ikke det, har andre planer, sikkert hyggelige greier, men jeg vil bestemme selv. Jeg vil starte min egen podcast, mitt eget nyhetsbrev, fordi jeg liker teknologien og fordi jeg liker tanken på å produsere noe som noen (ikke) trenger.

Ser Henriette Steenstrups tv-serie (Pørni) på Viaplay. Liker bildene av Oslo. Høst i Oslo. Sommer i Oslo. Liker Nils Ole Oftebro.

Jeg har begynt på enda en roman av Michel Houellebecq. Han er opptatt av forfall, menneskets forfall, samfunnets forfall, kjærlighetens forfall, fenomenet tid og hvordan det påvirker oss alle.

I 1999 kom American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix og Magnolia. Dessuten: 10 Things I Hate About You, Eyes Wide Shut, Office Space, The Virgin Sucides, Sixth Sense. Altså: Herregud for et år.

I 1999 fylte jeg 18 år.

Michel Houellebecq skriver om 40-åringer. Jeg løp mine 10 kilometer her en dag og møtte på en nabo (ikke han med avisen) og vi snakket litt om løping. Han skal løpe et langløp i juli (95km) og kalte det midtlivskrise. Fyren er 50. Jeg tenkte at han er optimist når han omtaler det som midtlivskrise. Jeg mistenker at mitt eget midliv for lengst er passert.

Nok en gang må jeg understreke hvor fint jeg synes det er å taste inn svarte ord på hvit bakgrunn. Jeg aner ikke hvorfor jeg har det sånn, men det er slik det forholder seg. Jeg kunne ha gjort dette døgnet rundt. Nesten. Jeg kunne mer enn gjerne hatt dette som jobb, men dessverre er jeg avhengig av fast inntekt.

Leste om Haaland med min yngste sønn i går. Han er imponerende. Vi så EM-kampen mellom Danmark og Finland, men måtte slå av da Christensen falt i bakken etter at han fikk noe som lignet en hjertestans. Ungene, særlig min eldste, ble veldig redd. Det var ubehagelig. Jeg var sikker på at fotballspilleren var død. Etterpå løp jeg 10km veldig rolig.

Søndag er ikke min yndlingsdag. Det burde du vite by now.

Remedios would never want to live in Sausalito but it’s a pleasant place to roll. She leans on the railing of the houseboat Caleb rents a room in, looking out at the water, trying to ignore the lingering taste of 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine on her tongue. Beside her Caleb spits.

“Oh gods that tastes terrible,” he says. It is not his first complaint this evening. October in the bay area is sweater weather, but Caleb wears a shirt unbuttoned to the fifth button out of seven, and makes occasional comments about the wind chill.

“I warned you about the taste.”

“No warning could have prepared me for that. Do people always lick the crystal off a plate? Is there another way to take it?”

“There’s lots of ways to take it.”

“Next time we gotta, like,” he says, then spits, and continues, “look up one of those ways.”

Remedios ignores his assumption of a next time. So far he’s been right about next times, but Remedios reserves, inside, the right to vanish.

“I’m getting a slice of cheese to mask the taste. Do you want one?”

“I don’t eat cheese.”

“Shit, right. Well I’ve got… uh. I’ve got Oreos. Those are vegan right?”

“Depends on the kind.”

“The dipped kind.”

“They’ve got milk.”

“Geez. What can vegans even eat…” Caleb steps inside and stumbles into some furniture on his way to the kitchen.

It’s been twenty minutes or so since they dosed the molly. Remedios last ate early in the day before her chess club’s cookout, so her stomach was near empty at the time of dose. She feels some of the first effects: distortions in her proprioception, a desire to hug herself and caress her own neck, a bubbling urge to confess a long-held feeling, any long-held feeling she can think of. Her pupils eclipse her irises.

Caleb returns with a slice of cheddar.

Remedios stares forward over the rail trying not to see the cheese but also trying not to seem conspicuous about this. The odor aerosolizes. In the her vulnerable molly-addled state, she’ll start crying if she can’t get cows and their plight in the human world off her mind. Porch lights reflecting on the water’s rippling surface remind her of bright light posts looming over an industrial farm, not one she’s seen but a vague memory of the claymation movie Chicken Run. People say molly fills users up with love for everyone and everything in the universe, in a less trippy but more profound way than acid. Remedios disagrees, thinks that’s just hype. She grabs her water bottle and opens the deck gate to step off the boat. “Let’s walk,” she says.

They say nothing on the walk but Remedios knows their experiences are asymmetrical. Caleb sometimes looks at her with a teary smile, full of love, which she tries her best to return. When she tears up he must assume it is for the same reason, a matching intensity of affection, but her tears are for something else.

Her tears are introspective tears, brought on by the oh-so-tired thought that between her and other people, other people in general, there is some un-traversable emotional chasm. In sobriety she chastises herself for feeling this way, reminds herself that all people share this trite, narcissistic delusion. But the drugs open her up to it.

Caleb stops beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong, Rem?”

“It’s just the drugs.” The tricky thing about the delusion of uniqueness is that it is vague, protean, never maturing into the specificity that would make it obvious how incorrect it is.

“You’re feeling something?”

“It’s a hallucination.”

“Everything real happens in the brain. Talk to me, Rem.”

Remedios laughs and smiles at him. Caleb’s said something smart. “You’re right, Caleb,” she says, wiping her face with her jacket sleeve. “You’re totally right.”

“Let’s sit down over here and talk.”

They sit on the side of the road, in the grass. In the twilight the details of each other’s faces are hard to make out. Crickets sing together on a kind of saw wave, all around them.

“It’s a memory that came to my mind.”

“What happened in the memory?”

“We—we don’t have to—what are you feeling right now, Caleb?”

“I’m feeling grateful to be here beside you, and eager to listen to your memory.”

Remedios laughs again. She has nerves. “It’s such an old, silly memory. But that’s what’s affecting me so much about it. It was silly, light, carefree, like nothing ever is now.”

“Nothing’s ever carefree now?”

“No. I’m so caught up in trying to figure out the right way to be, or frustrated with people close to me for not trying to figure that out for themselves. Nothing’s ever carefree. I mean, this is the first Friday night this year—and it’s October—that I haven’t spent playing chess or drilling chess tactics or analyzing games.”

Now Caleb laughs. “You do take things seriously.”

“And why don’t you, Caleb?”

Caleb lies back on the ground, and Remedios notices but doesn’t cringe about the dirt he’s getting on his shirt. He clasps his hands behind his head. “Because I’m small, Remedios. My name isn’t known all over the world like yours. I don’t have a Wikipedia page.”

“People don’t know my name all over the world.”

“Chess players do. International Master Remedios Moncada. Anyway I guess it’s not about the reputation. It’s just… I don’t think I can affect anything that matters.”

Remedios suppresses the urge to criticize his apathy, tries to see his point the way he sees it.

“Hey, Rem.”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you play chess so seriously?”

“I love chess.”

After adjusting on the ground a few times and failing to find comfort, Caleb sits back up. “Tell me about the memory.”

“Hmm... I was four. My mom was driving me to my first day of kindergarten. When we pulled into the parking lot I looked up at this huge Catholic church, towering huge—six stories of brick with some spires rising higher—a big imposing building. I told my mom, ‘This can’t be a kindergarten!’

“And she said, ’Why’s that Remmi?’

“This conversation was in Spanish of course. I’m translating for you.”

“Thank you for translating.”

“Anyway I told her it couldn’t be the kindergarten because it was too big. I don’t remember what she said after that. What I do remember is that she didn’t warn me that they spoke English inside. We moved to the US a few years before, and I just knew English as a language other people spoke. Our church, our grocery store, our doctor, everyone I’d ever met here spoke Spanish—not the Columbian kind, but close enough—so I assumed kindergarten would too. I screamed at the poor boy running the front desk, some high schooler with a work hour I think, demanding he tell me in Spanish where my class was. I yelled ‘Habla Espanol! Habla Espanol!’ at anyone who made eye contact with me.”

“Oh. Habla, not hablas?”

“Are you—are you really asking me that?”

“I’m just wondering why habla. I took Spanish in high school and they—“

“It’s habla. Can I continue?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, whatever. The point is… the point is that’s when everything stopped being easy, maybe. Or it would have stopped being easy no matter what and I’m on introspective drugs. Either way the begged question is: can it become easy for me, now? Is it possible to let things feel natural again the way they did before I had to give up my language?”

Caleb has nothing to say about this, just stares back at her, beaming affection.

The mosquitoes start to bite. They walk back to the houseboat and eventually fall asleep on the couch watching unnarrated nature documentaries.

There is this very sexist “joke” in Mexican culture about women learning to cook. Once they learn and can do it without fucking up they are then “ready to get married”

Today, ladies and gentlemen I have achieved that “wondrous” milestone.

Disclaimer: I've been cooking and baking for a long time. I'm good at it. It brings me joy, peace, and satisfaction. It makes me feel proud of myself and it's really fucking fun. I've created original recipes (before) and can follow a cookbook recipe quite easily, but for some reason I have always stayed away from traditional Mexican dishes out of fear and respect; and in the process have never considered myself a full and realized cook.

All of that changed today. (woohoo!)

I've always found traditional Mexican dishes to be quite intimidating. I know that sounds odd considering I'm Mexican, but it's true. They are very hard to get right and extremely easy to fuck up. They are demanding. They require intuitive knowledge and are not for the faint of heart. Many have tried to make “their version” of our traditional food and have failed miserably. Fools!

Today I took the plunge and did it.

My brother has been battling the common cold for a few days and I decided to make caldo de pollo for him—and it came out AMAZING! The chicken was flavorful and tender, the veggies were cooked perfectly, and the caldo seasoning was fantastic. Gosh, I'm so happy!

I started out by defrosting the chicken and cutting/washing whatever “what-looks-like-it-could-go-on-a-caldo-and-not-taste-like-shit” vegetable I could find. After a bit of tweaking here and there, finding a couple of spices to enhance the flavor, and praying to God that I had not wasted a ton of food trying to make caldo, I put a lid on the pot and let it boil.

Then I sat down and waited...and waited...and waited...

Halfway through the waiting stage I began to doubt whether it was going to cook all the way/taste good (and whether I had followed my own recipe correctly) but about a minute later the kitchen began to fill up with delicious caldo aroma and my heart soared. I had done it!

I cooked up some tortillas, cut up some lemons, put some salt and chile on the table and served it to my siblings. We loved it and ate all of it up!

While eating I started to think about all of the work I'd put into making my caldo and felt embarrassed with myself for doubting whether I could do it or not in the first place. Of course it was going to turn out well! How could it have not? I had spent so much time thinking things through, researching various recipes, and doing a whole lot of other stuff I won't mention in order to “get it right”. It would have been odd if I HAD fucked up or failed completely or screwed up even slightly somewhere along the line.

So, stranger, why did I doubt myself in the first place? I've been thinking about it all day, and I don't have an answer. It wasn't related to fear; I know that for sure. If it had been then I wouldn't have decided to take the plunge in the first place; and it wasn't extreme hunger or desperate need either. I could have made sandwiches, pasta, chicken, rice, noodles, warm soup, a salad, bread, etc., etc., etc. from scratch or made an instant soup if I had been THAT desperate to eat (or feed my siblings) right then and there.

So, why was I afraid? Why was I so nervous about fucking things up—besides the aforementioned complexity of cooking traditional Mexican dishes?

Stranger, it was love and kindness, I think. Love and kindness towards my brother (and sister, who is super encouraging and supportive when it comes to my cooking!). My brother is an asshole. A curmudgeon in every sense of the word; but he was sick and I knew a caldo would help him feel better. And I was afraid of letting myself down by not being able to help or feed him.

But it all worked out! And it helped him. Just a little bit, but it did. And I could tell he (well, both of them) appreciated it too. And that made me feel good. Really good.

Stranger, being able to create something that others enjoy—truly enjoy—is such a wonderful blessing; it is a self-gift of the purest kind. Cooking, writing stories and playing music among many, many, many other things—the feeling of wonder and magic and joy that it brings is indescribable!

Many of you who are reading this will probably laugh at this entire blurb, but for me this is a HUGE milestone. I was so afraid of messing something up, of failing miserably, that I overlooked all of the “good things” I'd done to prepare something I'd been intimidated by for a long time.

My self-expectations, however, reached new heights today and I gained a little bit more self-pride, confidence, and love. It is late and I gotta go, but I wanted to let you know about my little adventure before going to bed. I feel fulfilled. I am happy and proud and excited to have stepped out of my comfort zone. Hopefully I'll be able to do it again soon.

Godspeed.

C. W.

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Augustine promoted the concept of three Persons in one Deity — one Trinity of three Person. According to him, the revelation of any person of the triune Godhead was a miracle and each one could appear equally and in complete unity, from one to the next. The Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son enjoys the same essential nature as both in both. Distinctly, between the three Persons of the Trinity, their respective causation and relation defines them. The Father is the beginning of the whole divinity, the Son is born from the Father, and the Spirit, like the Son is not subordinate to the Father. The Holy Spirit unifies the Father and the Son.

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This double procession is where the Latin Western church differs from the Greek Eastern Church. The concept of Augustine’s Three-Personal God is the opposite to the Cappadocian Trinity of same God of same substance, the concept of ousia and hypothesis as universal and particular.

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Origen’s concept has the Father high and exalted, spiraling subordinately as it descending to the Son and likewise in a further descent to the Holy Spirit.

Walter Chad Carroway

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