Saturday, Jan 4, 2020

 Man, I really don't want to do this. I am drained and tired. Yesterday was too much. I don't want to do anything but sit outside, and it's too cold for that. Let's ride with the King nevertheless.



 I've spent most of the day reading. I don't make New Year's Resolutions, as I think I've said, I just pick arbitrary dates to do shit. One of them is spending more time in the gym because not doing so is starting to adversely affect my existence. There's just no need for that. However, five days a week is plenty, I think. I walked around outside a good bit today anyone. It was cold and biting, but that's because it was blowing pretty seriously.

 But compared the last week of cloud and rain, it was great. So I walked around the Hill with Bounce and B.C. at my heels and Otis losing his damn mind. My last leash for him broke and I don't want to use Daddy's big ol' heavy hunting chains. Need to get him a small one, because it's starting to hurt his feelings I don't let him out of the yard. Hell, no, I don't trust him. There is just too much temptation for one little dog to handle.

 So, I've been reading. Nothing in particular. A book on anarchism followed by half a Jorge Luis Borges short story, then a rather silly chapter in a book on the possibility that there's something to the Simulation Theory. In short, it means we're in the Matrix or something close to it, anyway. If I'm absorbing everything properly, it posits that since we can imagine something like that being in the future, it's just as possible as not we're in one.

 I have to have that wrong, though, because that sounds way too much like Saint Thomas Aquinas. I got to have that wrong. I'll look it up later. A lot of this grows out of Bell's Theorem which, again if I have my head around it properly, reality can be studied by treating it as something similiar to how a hologram is, where our three-dimension reality "emerges" out of a two-dimensional. It doesn't say it actually is that, mind, just that the math works that way.

 That being said, it's fun to decide that explains chakras and ghosts and deja vu and other weird phenomenon that defy scientific examination. The Simulation Theory goes a step further, or do most of the takes by the ones who study most often, and says some higher intelligence  is making a "virtual reality" and that explains determinism, human behavior, free will or the lack thereof, and all the other things that give people willies. We're either part of the whole or depending on how much we enjoy smelling our own farts, the VR is created for/specific to our individual selves.

 Me, I prefer to adhere to Occam's Razor unless proven sufficiently otherwise and calming the fuck down. Like the Multiple-Worlds Theory. With all due respect, I understand that the suggestion isn't necessarily that reality consists of different universes or dimensions or existence probability or time cone or whatever the hell, and it's all just an atom away. It's just that the math works.

 I lack sufficient Latin in this, but I have been able to grok that some people who read pop science books by actual scientists who can almost but (possibly) not quite explain a phenomenon that may be the Rock of Gibraltar today and water the next because it's the journey and not arrival that matters most. Maybe. Sort of. Not completely, though. The point is they take it too seriously and start thinking they have a handle on the concept without full appreciating its complexity, much less anything fundamental or the mechanics.

 It's fun to think there's a universe out there the Quantum Foam there's a reality that has super heroes, either ones we've made up or ones that we've never even considered. Or a zombie plague because everyone thinks they won't be lunch the first day. Anyway, I've wandered off point, and that point was that I have been reading on Simulation Theory, I think it's fun but silly, and I've been doing it as well as other shit all day to put off doing this.

 But now that I've stopped to think about it, I may just have to lay a -30- on it. I've been listening to Van Morrison, Bobby Bare, Townes Van Zandt, and '70s era post-country-to-rock-&-roll-legend territory Jerry Lee Lewis. It's what I grew up with, actually, and it's a lot of fun. The Killer is best when he's convinced he's the hottest shit on the market. I've been fiddling around on Tumblr last night and today, and one of the things that percolated up is the existence of a radio station either in Fulton or Tupelo where the morning deejay and the guy who did Sunday afternoons, who may've been the same guy, is the reason I like late '70s Jerry Lee and Elvis, honky-tonk music and country pop from the '70s, and Ray Stevens. I can't remember the call letters, though. It and a trucker's show on a station I occasionally pulled in from Tuscaloosa in my teens pretty much defines my concept of country music. I know that does no one any good but my self.

 And Van Morrison's just great. He's like Ray Charles or Dolly Parton, if you can't find something by him that doesn't make you smile, you're doing it on purpose. Band I played in briefly played "Wild Night" and that song is fun as hell to play. Okay, everyone's put up where they belong. Bounce is mad I won't let him back outside, but it's cold, like 42 degrees, and I'm simply not in the mood. That's like six degrees Celsius. That's just silly. Otis just got through eating, so he'll probably go outside once more before the night's over.

 Nothing really moved on from yesterday's rumors of war. Trump was a dick about things, which the MAGAts get all wet for and everyone else questions is it necessary to active like a 12-year-old boy when people are going to die. Iran's told us to go skip rope and the idea that there'd be celebrating in the street has fallen apart like a cheap suit in a rainstorm. The fear and loathing increases at the land even while the rest of the world nervously suggests we take a chill pill and relax, goddammit.

 I'm also making another stab at Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It's not a difficult read - apart from being like all Russian literature I've read, and that's goddamn bleak - I've just never finished it. I'm also starting Dr. Bloodmoney, one of the handful Philip K. Dick books I've never read. PKD's always a tricky nut to cut because while his ideas are always mind-blowing, his prose is sometimes exactly what you'd think would come from high on speed trying to write enough to feed his family and failing miserably.

 What else. I got a number of games I picked during the recent Steam sale, trying to run out the last of that gift card. Nothing coming out that'll be worth buying anytime soon has me hopping on one leg, so I ain't waiting. Pathway, Starbound, and Star Traders: Frontiers, specifically, and I still need to check Phantom Doctrine as well as Rebel Cops and NEO Scavenger. I thought about pulling the trigger on Between The Stars as I finally got around the memory-hog issues. However, it's apparently pretty far from being done and I'm going to give it awhile. I got burned once on that shot here lately, so I just couldn't do it.

 Okay, I've wound down. That was fun, though, thanks for letting me indulge. Maybe I'll watch the Titans-Patriots game, but I imagine I'll be disappointed when all's said and done.