books « white male consumer

End Of The Year Time-Wasters

Posted December 30th, 2009 at 5:47PM

Post-holiday depression? Middle of the winter doldrums? Job search got you down? Here’s my list of things to turn your mind off whatever and onto zombie cruise mode – here’s to better days far away.

Oblivion box art

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

An oldie but a goodie, available cheaply. From Bethesda Softworks, Oblivion plays similarly to their newer Fallout 3 title, but takes place in a quintessential fantasy land replete with elves, ogres, and plenty of rats. I missed Oblivion originally (pre-PS3 pour moi), played Fallout 3 last year, and felt right at home picking up the new (old) title. The game occasionally shows its age – fraggy graphics, hang-ups – but is still worth a play for fans of the genre who might have missed it originally.

MGS4 box art

Metal Gear Solid 4

You guessed it – I’m not one to jump and fetch the latest and greatest game at an outrageous MSRP. But I did recently pick up MGS4. Enjoyable, short on actual gameplay but long on cinematic cut-scenes, and a real eye pleaser. Being the first of the series I’ve played, I was a little lost without knowing the full back story. There is plenty here to make a replay or two worthwhile and it’s as fine a platform as any to show off the graphic prowess of the PS3. I had non-gamers following the storyline for pete’s sake!

Crumb's Genesis

R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated

Lest everyone think I’m permanently wired to a playstation, I’ve also been giving my thumbs a workout by turning the pages of Crumb’s illustrated book of genesis. Finally, find out what everyone’s been talking about! Crumb and I might be heathens, but as stated in the intro, this is meant to be “a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” A faithful reproduction of the King James bible illustrated along Crumb’s signature style? If you get offended, then you’re taking life too seriously.

Dog Hikes book

Dog Hikes in the Adirondacks

This was a pleasant surprise during the conspicuous consumption season, perhaps of little interest to most of you, but just the resource I was looking for. This helpful paperback (published by Shaggy Dog Press in Westport, NY) rounds up 20 trails in the Adirondacks ripe for canine companionship, with the proceeds going to animal shelters and humane organizations throughout the area. It also includes topics like acclimating your dog to the hike, elderly canine hikers, and additional precautions and considerations to take in mind. Don’t ruin a hike by bringing other people – bring your dog!

(Note that I didn’t link a single thing here, as I believe you’re all adept at googling by this point.)

Is Every Man An Island?

Posted December 21st, 2007 at 12:17AM

“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies – all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”

I’ve been in love with this Aldous Huxley quote since reading The Doors of Perception last year.

On the other end of the philosophical spectrum (and that’s a false juxtaposition if I’ve ever heard one), I’m currently slogging my way through Lama Surya Das’ Awakening the Buddha Within. Every few years I’ll pick up a book dealing in Buddhism and briefly “get enlightened.” But after putting the book down and sleeping on it, I invariably realign myself along humanist lines a la Huxley.

Most don’t realize it, but Buddhism is an incredibly optimistic belief system. Everyone has the ability to realize the root causes of their suffering, and to put an end to it by removing wants, desires. Or so the spiel goes.

I just can’t bring myself to be so damn optimistic.

Of course Nirvana properly defined is attainable, but is the removal of suffering really the end goal? Most of us act and react according to desires. And if happiness is the goal, then Nirvana is the solution. But I wonder whether happiness (or the absence of its opposite) is anything other than “yet another state of mind.” Achieving Nirvana doesn’t change tangibles. Tangibles are mostly irrelevant in such a mind-state.

Should they be?

Now, I’m not going to actively pursue misery. Even though, on an abstract level, it might be much more interesting. But I’m still trying to figure out what end goal I have in mind. What would satisfy… Satisfy this deeply unsatisfying existence. I’m not looking for Nirvana. Just contentment.

This has been an incredibly unfulfilling late-night stream-of-consciousness ramble. Tune in for more, later on!

My Interest In Everything Is Waning

Posted February 2nd, 2005 at 6:19PM

I have to do the reading for my politics class tomorrow, the professor told us Tuesday that we were having a quiz on the material. He then layed out exactly what it was on, to the question. He then said, in so many words, that the people who weren’t there at that point (half a dozen students) were screwed.

It’ll be the first time I’ve read all of the reading since the first assignment. It’s really dry, drawn-out discussion about race, ethnicity, “primordialism.” A lot of it so far has been talking about obscure groups living in present-day Nigeria, or the Pacific Islands.

I got my last shipment of books from Amazon. Most of them were books for the politics class, hopefully the books will be a bit more entertaining.

I have a fair amount of stuff to do for my other class. And I really should at least draw up a rough proposal for my article in the alt. college rag. It’ll be an opinion piece on the recent elections in Iraq. Hint: inconsequential, largely symbolic.

But otherwise, I’m still sort of just going through the motions. The weather is still nice, but I think it’s suppose to be cloudy tomorrow. Which will mean a drop in temperatures.

Modest Mouse — The Stars are Projectors
In the last second of life, they’re gonna show you how
How they run this show, sure, run it into the ground
The stars are projectors, yeah
Projectin’ our lives down to this planet Earth
The stars are projectors, yeah
Projectin’ our minds down to this planet Earth
Everyone wants a double feature
They wanna be their own damn teacher, and how
All the stars are projectors, yeah
Projectin’ our lives down to this planet Earth

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