melancholy envy rage

Stranger Danger

2009-12-07T15:24:00.001-08:00

Today I had the single creepiest thing happen to me ever.

I was walking down a very busy street on Beacon Hill. Broad daylight. Some people, including myself, are waiting to cross a side street. This group includes myself, and a man we'll call Mr. Purple. Mr. Purple because that is the color of the woman's coat he is wearing. Now I could just as well have named him Mr. Second-hand-knitted-floppy-hat, or Mr. filthy-lime-green-scarf, but they just don't have the same ring.

coming out of the side street arrives a pickup truck. This would be nothing out of the ordinary, had the driver not begun honking furiously, before both occupants flip Mr. Purple the bird, make the turn, and disappear.

I'm left thinking to myself: sure he has worse fashion sense than Helen Keller in a good will store, but hey, there are plenty of people around who don't exactly read Vogue.

So, lead by your intrepid narrator, Mr. Purple, Innocent Bystander, and her dog, crossed the street. Nothing exciting.

Now, as not to be late, I am walking fairly fast. About a block later, I get the undeniable sense of someone being in my bubble. You know the feeling. I slow down to let this person pass me.

This is the point where this story starts being the creepiest encounter of my life.

Mr. Purple slows down too. I know it's Mr. Purple because he's walking directly beside me staring into my ear. So I slow down even more. We're now moving at a speed outside of the 95th percentile of pedestrian speeds. He doesn't get the hint. So I stop dead.

"Hi"

I do my best to compress "Get away from me, creep" into a simple "Hi", but not so much.

So we start walking again. Along the most unsettling block of my life. It becomes more awkward at the end as I have to make a left turn across his path. Which I do with my ninja skills. I decide to give it half a block before I look back. I make eye contact with Innocent Bystander, who gives me a look like 'wtf?'. No sign of Mr. Purple. Now, it should also be noted that this too is a well traveled street.

Maybe fifteen seconds later, my bubble sense is tingling again.

Mr. Purple is standing inches from my left shoulder. I will never forget the following utterance: "I just want to say, you have a nice chest." Now, this might be an altogether forgettable utterance if I wasn't a guy, or even if I had some nice pecs or something. Or if he didn't reach over and give my sternum a nice rub.

What. The. Fuck.

That's what I said when I pushed him.

Now, since he's just an ordinary creeper, he walked away like no street harassment had happened.

I don't really know what to think about this, other than I really hope it doesn't happen again. If I carried it, I would have maced him right there. I can't really think of another time that anyone has ever invaded my personal space like that. I dont even know if it was sexual harassment or just garden variety harassment. It's about a hundred times creepier if it's the former.

Talk about things that make you go 'buhhh'.

Sunday morning chemistry

2009-11-15T06:54:00.000-08:00

1. Max buys a coffee at Finagle a Bagel, which comes in a cup of size 214 ml. The cup is filled with 190 ml of black coffee at 80 degrees C (container A). Max then adds 10 ml of light cream. However, when adding sugar to his coffee, the sugar container bursts open, dumping 400 g of sucrose into Max's coffee, potentially displacing some. The employees courteously give Max a new cup of coffee, with the same volumes and temperature (container B).

a. Bagged white sugar has a density of 700kg/m^3. What volume, if any, of coffee was displaced due to sugar containment failure?

b. Given your answer to a, and the temperature of the coffee, what is the current sugar-coffee solution in the first cup of coffee? You may treat black coffee as distilled water for your calculations.

c. Given your answer to b, if max fills container A to the top with coffee from container B, stirs it as to homogenize the mixture, and then pours the mixture from container B back into container A, how many times will Max have to repeat this process until the concentration of sugar in container B reaches that of container A, if ever? Remember the pile of undissolved sugar that may or may not be at the bottom of container A.

you never cease to amaze me

2009-10-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I arrived in Boston, in order to start my Junior year at a university downtown. So far, life in the city has been interesting and exciting. The thing that makes it all the more interesting, is the people.

1.Sitting on the T, I was situated across from a very gothed out young lady. Who buzzed her lips for the whole 15 minutes I was there. At peace with war with the world. Bththththththththththththththththththththththth.
2.Another woman, pretty young, standing in an ally, staring at a brick wall. Not looking distressed, just interested. Stark, yet beautiful.
3.Gave a spare slice of apple pie to a homeless man, who repaid me with dating advice. They then prodeded to invite me to a church social the next day. Da onez that all dressed up sexy n shit, lookin like they got a man, deys da one lookin fo a man.Yo know what im sayin man? Just you rememba that.
4.Didn't give money to a homeless man with a sign reading “I'm not a pathological liar, need money to get drunk” You made me chuckle, honest man, but I still don't have spare change for you.
5.Multiple people warning passers by of the coming apocalypse. So what'll it be this time? Angels? Fire? Ice?
6.Walking 4 blocks, I overheard the word 'nigger' at least 6 times. Please. What? Flip. Stole my shshi?
7.There's a woman across the street from my apartment every day, with a stick, with a homemade headdress, a number of plastic bags, with several pages of text written in permanent marker placed around her person. The only phrase I have been able to make out is 'Irish people”. This woman is black. I'd love to stop and read it all, but that would mean I would have to give away change that I don't have.
8.A woman pushing her kids in a stroller, wearing a sandwich board, full on both sides, about how much Jesus loves me and that I can convert any time.
9.An elderly man opening a can of red bull, emptying it into a trash can, then throwing the can into the same can. You rebel you.
10.A portly gentleman rushes to stomp on a newspaper blowing down the sidewalk, which he zealously kicks into the street. That'll teach em.
11.Been approached by the same Greenpeace activist twice in the same afternoon. Honestly, I didn't want to pledge anything, or sign anything before I went grocery shopping, maybe after?
12.I think there's an albino girl living in my building.

About me, and what I’m going to be talking about

2009-06-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

About me, and what I’m going to be talking about.
I have a lot to say, so I’ll start with a bit about myself.
I am a 19 year old male, between my sophomore and junior years in college. I spent the last two years at a small engineering school in a boring post-industrial city in the northeast, and for this fall I have transferred to a much larger school in Boston, where I hope to finish my undergrad in something technology related, before continuing on to law school, where I want to specialize in internet and copyright law. I’m short, and have had a fairly large number of orthopedic surgeries; I’m not sure if I consider myself disabled, but I think I can a good segment of the (dis)ability spectrum.
Copyfight is a passion of mine, as are issues relating to the internet and technology in general, so you can expect to hear me geek out about such things in the future.
Video games. I partake. The PC is the one true platform, and that’s all I have. Currently playing Call of Duty: World at War and [Prototype].
Movies. I won’t watch just anything. I’m really not a fan of comedy, but I am a huge fan of horror and terror, anything kind of dark and gritty. I’m not afraid of foreign and independent. The last move I really enjoyed was Quarantine, along with Inside and Irreversible. I also like some TV, right now I’m working my way through The Shield.
I believe in the technological singularity.
Music. I mostly listen to the full spectrum of Industrial, from Throbbing gristle and Nurse With Wound, to Trent Reznor, to Ministry, to The Birthday Massacre, to Rammstein, to Emilie Autumn. I attended Festival Kinetik this year; it was truly amazing, more about it later.
I also do a lot of thinking and reading about feminism, but that’s a topic for another day.
More posts as I find the motivation.

First post

2009-06-17T08:24:00.001-07:00

real content coming soon, I promise.