silly sunday insouciance

well, my post from this morning has received the appropriate amount of sympathy that i expected it would. maybe i should change the mission statement for this blog and become a nihilist. my mundane suburban life has no meaning-- i will be continually tormented by teleconferences that are practically fruitless and theoretically pointless. actually, i can't disagree with that last part, but as long as they take place during the work week, i can catch up on my emails, odd work, or just surf the net with the drone of "pretend-work" a mere background, womb-like subtext to envelop my deviant behavior (sometimes i update the blog). oh, if only i could practically apply the concept of hyperreality (a veiled statement of philosophy that is more a sarcastic comment on american society, by... a Frenchman! Jean Baudrillard.) and instead of experiencing the copy substituted for my understanding of reality, i could have a copy of me experience this copy of reality. plug that back into the teleconference and it's kind of true. the thursday marathon teleconference is a prime example-- it's purpose is to communicate, so we create a facsimile of that through 3 hours of talking, but not communicating. my copy is present (as an alone attendee from florida) because i am assumed to be rapt at attention hanging on every valuable word that droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. it is twice blest: it blesseth him that giveth and him that doesn't listen (paraphrased from merchant of venice). my real self is safely ensconced in its own separate reality. taking this another step further, he believed that those engaged in this illusion are incapable of conscious awareness of this fact because they are so steeped in the reality that they cannot distinguish its boundaries (think of the movie, the matrix, or of being between two parallel mirrors and you can't tell which is you, and which are the reflections). either way, god bless the virtual workplace. at least in this instance. i actually prefer human contact to my soulless, isolated office cage at the top of mount clearskull (shakespeare, nihilism, and a he-man reference; how many places can pull all of that together for you). i like people. i really do. of course, there are some people i really like.

awkward transition: snarky. i love that word.

and clear. took beansprout to birthday party-- it was very poorly orchestrated. no suitable drinks for the kids while they played (just soda for 2/3 year olds?). they didn't even get around to trying to feed them until after 1pm. even the parents were discussing mutiny. all of the games had 2-3 minutes explanations of the rules. are you fricking kidding me? how can you tell a 2 year-old, "when i say go, run over to the pile of beanbags, pick up 2 of them, put one on top of your head and one between your legs, walk backwards, when i yell 'freeze!', stop in place, and say 'happy birthday!'" riiiiiiiiiight. well, she had fun, some of the kids made it without melting down, and i got the ego boost of beeing the best looking guy for miles around (of course, that's like being a native english speaker [who is a college english professor] in an ESL class), plus the joy of seeing my daughter enjoy herself (nothing better in the life of a parent). =)