Happy New Year!

New Years Party Episode III has been a blast, and has had three important parts, in increasing order of importance to me: beach, board games, and best friends, or buddies, I was just going to call them friends, but that would break the alliteration. There was also dancing! This year we needed an even bigger house, and the least time we could rent it was 3 nights, so our party was actually one day longer than it had previously been, no complaints here!

Beach: Pretty self explanatory. The house is right by the beach and has nice big windows, so I spent a lot of time admiring the sights and sounds of the surf. We also walked some on the beach. Highlights include finding two geo-caches, fording a stream by climbing over rocks and driftwood, and wondering if people who decided to ford an ankle high stream got swept into the ocean. There is a limit to my recklessness, climbing around might get me dirty (it did) or hurt (it didn't), but wading across a stream would get me wet!

Board Games: In no particular order, I played Arkham Horror, Twilight Imperium, Quarriors, Galaxy Trucker, Chinatown, Power Grid, and RoboRally, perhaps some others that I cannot remember as well. Arkham Horror, Chinatown, and Power Grid I had played multiple times previously, so I suppose it is safe to say that I must enjoy them, since I knew what I was getting into.

I have to admit I'm not sure if I enjoy Arkham Horror. It is a complicated game, which keeps me interested, and it is cooperative, so it is something fun to do WITH friends rather than against them. But it is soooo long!!! I think part of the problem might have been we had a full game, with eight players. However, by the end of the four or so hours of play we were a bit... fatigued. I'm not sure how eager I will be to play this next year, just because there are other games I know I really like that I did not get to play.

Chinatown is one of my favorite games. It is about trading and building up one's area, both of which are practices that I enjoy. However, because I am enthusiastic about trading, I sometimes annoy people with my... thrift... when trading. So, I enjoy Chinatown, but I should restrict how often I play it.

Power Grid is another of my absolute favorite games. It has a very interesting and fun market mechanic for purchasing materials to fuel one's power plants. The placement of power plants on the game board adds a geographic element and there is also a bidding component for getting new power plants, so it is a rich, complex, and seriously fun, game.

I had played Galaxy Trucker and Twilight Imperium once before each. Galaxy Trucker I really enjoyed, one builds a spaceship then tries to survive a voyage throughout space. I suppose the actual objective is to make as much money as possible, but I'm not quite that good, and I was really just hoping that my ship didn't get destroyed. As I mentioned, I enjoy games that let me build things, and it is entertaining to watch ships, usually mine, get pieces chipped off of them. I actually was supposed to have this game, but Tanga couldn't manage to successfully ship it to me, so I don't have it, and that is sad.

Whereas Galaxy Trucker is simple enough that I feel like I understood it the first time I played it, so I have no excuse for how poorly I did today, Twilight Imperium... is not. I had played it once before, about a year and a half ago, and that was enough that, by the end, we knew sort of what we were doing. But this time we had two people from that last game and four people who hadn't played before, so we needed to re-teach it. The game moves much faster when people know what is going on, so I don't think the six hour playing time is indicative of how long it should really take. However, it is an amazingly fun game, you are building and defending a space kingdom, so there is building, which I still like, and strategic combat, which I also like; although I managed to make it through that game without really attacking anyone once. I would like to play this one again, even if it means skipping playing a few quicker board games that I also like.

I am not enamored of Quarriors. It is very quick and based completely on dice rolls, so not terribly strategic. It does seem to be a good game for people who are drunk, exhausted, or otherwise easily distracted... no reason I know that. The dice, while pretty, are not high quality, so I noticed a lot of the numbers were hard to read due to chipped paint. I might end up buying it just as a good way to get people interested in games, much like Settlers and Ticket to Ride, but it isn't something that I would play much given my druthers, so I am not inclined to pay money for it.

RoboRally was a seriously chaotic game, with robots careening wildly around the course, shoving each other off track and causing nearly random laser mayhem. As you might imagine it ranks low in the strategy category, but because there is so much interaction between the players and the catastrophes are so much fun to watch it is still quite an enjoyable game. I don't know how much opportunity I would have to play it in Michigan, but I still may consider getting it because it does seem like a really fun, non-intense game.

Friends: There just really isn't much to say about these amazingly wonderful people. I've known a lot of them for almost nine years. And I don't mean just any ten years of my life, starting with college, so I've been doing a lot of thinking for these ten years, and been very aware of thoughts and people, not wasting it being a small child then forgetting everything I experienced. Side note: terrifying thought, I've been doing college for closer to 10 years than 5 years.

We just had a long, deep philosophical conversation and I knew almost everything that one of the other people was going to say. Not the details, but what position he'd take on the issues. Because we've talked about them, many times, in great depth. And it is wonderful to be around people with that level of familiarity.

And we had new friends, which is good! That's why we get to have these conversations again! In between these two extremes there are a bunch of other friends, and they are wonderful too. So, to friends old and new, near and far, hope you have a wonderful new year, and I look forward to seeing the nearer friends again in a year!

Pentagon, Hexagon, Oregon, Michigan

By the way, the first two rhyme, the second two rhyme.

Appropriately enough, although I begin writing this post in Michigan, I expect to finish it up from an airport in Oregon. It has come to the point where I have to admit I call both states home, although I still consider myself an Oregonian. Thus, flying from one to another provoked some emotions, which I'm not really going to talk about, and some thoughts, which are more my thing.

One thing I realized is that I don't really visit Oregon proper, I visit an idealized version. For one thing, I am just visiting Oregon, I don't have to live here. Which means I'm usually not doing work when I'm here, although that isn't always the case. My stress level also tends to be a lot lower here, because even if I am working on things my deadline doesn't come due until I head back to Michigan. Another idealization is the delusion that a lot of my Oregonian friends still live in Oregon. This is especially true in the Christmas season, when I get together with old friends who have also made the pilgrimage back to Corvallis, a few of them from origins even further away than mine, although this coming year I expect to be the second most distant. I realized at least a year ago that the Corvallis which I visit is a Corvallis that mostly exists in my memory, rather than reality, but it has been a more recent revelation that I have been comparing Michigan to this ideal Oregon unfairly. That said, the weather really is much nicer in Oregon.

Another interesting thing I recently realized is that I really do consider Michigan my home now. I think I made a grave error in considering my move to Michigan temporary. This, combined with my pain from leaving Oregon, probably contributed to a desire to avoid feeling at home in Michigan, so that my planned eventual leaving wouldn't hurt so much. Of course this, along with other stuff, led to me being fairly miserable my first couple of years in Michigan, so I can't really say as I recommend this course of action. I'm sort of inclined to write it off as just me not transplanting well, but that is disingenuous, as I acclimated to Corvallis very well, and I always enjoy visiting and exploring new places, so it is probably more complicated than that.

In conclusion, it's not easy having your life scattered across the continent, but whose life is easy? I try to persevere and keep thinking interesting thoughts. And seriously, pronounce Oregon correctly ;)

We're Planning a Party!

As post 100 continues to creep closer, I have been wondering what I want to do with these last few posts leading up to it and with my 100th post. In my next couple of posts I want to write up some ideas I have had for a while. While my blog idea list continues to expand more than it shrinks, I would like to put out the third and final (planned) post in my Kantian respect and in my philosophy of pop music series.

That will take me up to post one hundred. As for that post, while I have some ideas, I also would like to know if you have any thoughts. It is clear to me that the main reason I have stuck with it so long, albeit erratically, is the pleasure I get from reading your responses, especially those that present a new perspective from which to view the situation, or expand on a point I may have overlooked.

It is not often that someone as inherently flighty as I am puts this much effort into a personal hobby; there is an embarrassingly bad set of webcomics to attest to that, and even my math blog has been lacking in updates lately. That I made it this far is because this isn't just a personal hobby to me, this is a shared undertaking. So, it only makes sense that I at least invite you to help plan my 100th post, since you have already helped me get to a place that I can talk about writing it.

I check my pageview stats slightly obsessively, because it is nice to know that what I write is being read. However, in addition to corrupted data from reporting computerized accesses, by SpamBots and the like, pageviews cannot tell me how much people are thinking about a post. To gauge that I basically rely on comments. Nothing heartens me more than to see commenters engaging in discussions independent of my participation in the comment thread.

If you have a thought regarding the 100th post, please feel free to leave it. And, as always, feel free to respond if you feel the urge! I'm sure I'll say it again in a couple of days, but it bears repeating, thank you for getting me this far!

Nothing Lasts Forever

It sometimes feels like once you put something on the Internet, it will last forever. If you've ever tried to delete your embarrassing Facebook photos, I imagine you know what I'm talking about. Once I put something on the Internet, I no longer have to trust the frailties of my own memory, I can immortalize my every thought in the bedrock of our society, as though we were young lovers, simply by publishing a blog post.

However, this is a false confidence, a brittle permanence. Although the electronic memory may seem perfect in a way no human memory ever could be one minute, upon its deletion it is gone in a way no repressed or forgotten memory ever will be. With a click of a mouse a thought, a paper, a profile, even a friendship can be obliterated.

This frailty is not reflected in the real world. A computer stores its memories, each in their place, each separate from the memories stored around it. People, we live our memories, we are our memories. We don't remember things because they are "stored," we remember things because they have become a part of us, and who we are is a part of our memories. Every single thing that I remember is connected to every other, because they are all, in some sense no matter how small, a part of this thing I call myself.

On the other hand, I too am terribly impermanent, so although the memories stored within me may be more flexible and, consequentially, more durable than those in a computer, they too shall be obliterated as time wears on. I would like to thank everyone who participates in this blog for sharing something more than bits and bytes with me, for, in some way, making me who I am.

Nothing lasts forever, except loss.

Why Feminism Matters To Me

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." -Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler

Although the above quote may be due to the cited sources, I was introduced to it by the wonderful Professor Lani Roberts of the Oregon State University philosophy department. Although it is not yet Feminist July, I want to take a post to discuss what Feminism means to me. I have recently read a series of wonderful posts by various bloggers about what Feminism means to them. You can find them here, here, and here. The first linked was prompted by the second, the second by the third, and mine, in turn, by the first.

In a post last year I wrote that, "[h]ere I am using Feminist in the sense of one who examines the interactions between one's gender and their lives, a more academic sense perhaps, rather than one who simply believes that they [women] are also people." As I note, this is a fairly academic definition of what Feminist, or Feminism, means. Here I hope to make a more personal account.

I want to begin by saying that the first post makes what I personally consider to be a very important point, so I link to it again. In liberating women from the necessity to reproduce traditionally feminine modes of personality and behavior, men too become liberated to more fully realize themselves, rather than attempting to replicate a traditional mold of masculinity. Thus, women's lib is also shy, caring men's lib, among many others' lib, which is of great personal importance to me. Because the first article addresses this issue at such length with great skill, I shall move on without devoting to it the length its importance deserves.

In addition to my own personal liberation, Feminism also means greater security for people that I love. According to the Domestic Violence Resource Center, 25% of women experience domestic violence in their lifetime, and 20% of high school women experience dating violence. The National Organization for Women reports 232,960 instances of rape or sexual assault in the US in the year 2006 alone. According to Wikipedia there were 155.6 females in the US in 2009, so the rapes and sexual assaults in the year 2006 ALONE represent 0.15% of the female population.

I present these statistics not to scare or dishearten, although they certainly do sadden me, but rather to explain the powerful need that anyone who cares about any women in their life ought feel for Feminism. Statistics such as these provide explanation for the traditional notions of machismo, wherein a male would provide security for a select group of HIS females. However, in addition to being demeaning to women's humanity, this model is clearly dysfunctional considering the rates of relationship violence. In order to make the world safer for the women that we, as either men or women, love, it only makes sense to promote a world wherein all women are safer.

In a final note, I would like to preempt any possible deflection toward the plight of men. I am a man, I recognize how full of suck life can be for men. However, unless you can connect increasing the safety of women directly to increasing the injustices occurring to men, bringing it up in this context seems like naught but a feint or distraction, because male suffering neither invalidates nor justifies female suffering.

Facebook

A while ago, I noticed that the population of my Facebook friends list was approaching 500. Since 500 is a rather nice, round number in base 10, the thought occurred to me that it might be a grand thing to reach that number. However, as those of you who follow my every move on Facebook, don't I have an inflated notion of my own importance, might know, since the new calendar year I have shed a large amount of my friends list, it is a fair question to inquire what precipitated this alteration in priority.

Part of the explanation lies in the sense of alienation that I experience, to a greater or lesser sense, each time I return to Michigan. If my existence is often characterized by a deep sense of loneliness, then an overstocked friends list is, at best, a cruelly ironic joke, and at worst an attempt at self-deception. Paring my list down to include a higher concentration of people with whom I actually feel a social connection, whether only on Facebook for the most part or also in real life activities, allows me greater social satisfaction from my Facebook account. It is replicating socially what one does nutritionally when one cuts empty calories out of one's diet, except in this metaphor empty calories don't actually taste very good, once one realizes that the superficial satisfaction of appearing "popular" does not translate into the more substantive enjoyment of feeling "well liked."

The other satisfaction I obtained from the exercise was the enjoyment of better ordering my affairs. This is the same satisfaction I get when I utilize vacation time to assign my students grades or to straighten up my personal E-mail account. On a related note, during the vacation I spent an afternoon curled up on a friend's couch, in Oregon, working out what grades students had earned the past semester, that was a very fulfilling afternoon.

I suppose that if you are reading this, the odds of you being one of the people I removed from my friends list are rather slim, but I felt like explaining why it is that I did what I did, and may continue to do.

The Temptation to Type

It is sometimes hard not to put up a post when I have an idea in my head. I bother to restrain myself for two reasons that I can think of. First, sometimes it is hard to come up with an idea for a post, so might as well save them for Fridays. Second, keeping a once a week schedule not only ensures that I am putting up content to entice you, my treasured friends and collaborators in this, to keep coming back, but also helps me not to feel pressured to present posts at such a prodigious or prolific pace as to burn myself out.

Hmm, I'm riding some kind of alliteration riff today. Also, as much as I tend. to argue, after some thought I have decided that arguing with my friends all the time might not be the best form of communication. Thus, having alienated both my conservative and liberal friends by this point, I am going to try to present thoughts, rather than positions on debates, for the immediate future. I still highly enjoy and appreciate comments, critiques, contributions, and even affirmation, even though it doesn't start with a hard 'c' sound.

So I don't forget the thoughts that I am currently restraining myself from talking about, here is a cryptic preview of my planned topics for the next couple weeks.

Feminism

Perception of Education

In Memory of Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, one of the co-founders of the Dungeons & Dragons game, died yesterday. Although I did not begin playing D&D regularly until last year, he has still had a profound impact upon my life. Sometime when I was in elementary school I was in the library, perusing my favorite spot, YA Sci-Fi (Young Adult Science Fiction), when what should I spy but a row full of new books from a series I had never heard of. Not knowing what they were I picked one to see if they were any good. The book, Red Magic, the series, Forgotten Realms. I still berate myself for not checking all the available books out when they were conveniently in one spot.

Although they are young adult books, the Forgotten Realms still is a very important, if mythical, place for me. In the Forgotten Realms I found some of my favorite authors, RA Salvatore, Jeff Grubb, and Kate Novak, some of my favorite heroes, Drizzt Do'Urden and the Heroes of Icewind Dale, Cadderly, and Alias, danger, adventure, the importance of friends and love, vocabulary words, wonder, and a home away from home. It turns out that the Forgotten Realms are based on the D&D game, so, indirectly Gary Gygax is responsible for a large part of my childhood.

Thank you Gary Gygax, you are one of my rainbow connections.