Fuck Game Theory

I haven't written in a while so here is just a short letter I wrote to the subject of maths, today in the library. Please note its a letter to the subject, not on the subject.

Dearest Mathematics,

Ah maths, my long lost friend, you were always there for me in the past even when I tried to push you away and shut you out. Even after four years of my insensitive behaviour of avoiding you and blanking you (only hearing of you through the grape vine and XKCD) you never abandoned me. Always there in the background...and now you have caught up with me.

At first I thought we could be friends again and that life may not be made better, but certainly not worse for having you in mine. But then, there would always be the reasons for our falling out in the first place. Maths, dear Mathematics, you are a spiteful fucker who makes me want to give in!

Please Maths, go away, leave the social sciences alone and go back to the Hard sciences, they're proper and I'm sure that they'll appreciate you more. I hope you understand, but fuck you game theory and statistical analysis.

Fuck you mathematics.

P.S. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but we're better off not knowing one another. I never want to see you again.

My Fifteen Year Old Self would be Disgusted

After listening to what I thought was my favourite album in the first time in what seems like forever I realised it's not my favourite album. Or at the very least it couldn't be if that's how I responded to it. I'm talking about One by One by the Foo Fighters. It has some of my favourite songs on there and its by one of my favourite bands and I have often argued its merits above all other Foos' albums. But after listening to it this evening in the library while working on a stupid essay for stupid history on stupid imperialism, I just felt indifferent to it. This, I believe is incredibly unfortunate.

I guess to give it some context I should explain that I have always shared a bedroom with my younger sister, and how when she would have friends over they would sleep in the sitting room and I would stay up late hanging out in my room listening to this album on constant loop. I realise that I'm easily pleased and such an experience should not be so special or whatever. But to give it further context, I'll go on. At this time I would have been about fifteen and had insomnia (relatively mild in comparison to many other people, but had serious trouble sleeping anyway), so when I could be in my room at all hours, lights on and music playing (low but not with the need of headphones) doing stuff without bothering anyone, it was an incredibly nice experience. One always played out to the soundtrack of One by One. As such I guess I associate it with such fond memories of being alone and relaxed and not freaking out at five in the morning about not being able sleep and unable to hang posters or organise my wardrobe (I never said that I was doing exciting things).

Also it's a really great album. It's what made me decide that music would be a good vice to have, and although I've never come through on being musical (recorder, drums, guitar and even the harmonica were all write offs) I have dedicated an unreasonable amount of my time to listening and collecting music (and as a result hating apple, but that's a different story). Before when ever I listened to it I was always in awe to the emotion in the music and thought about how (for the lack of a better phrasing) x-rated so many of the songs were. To get just an idea of this I recommend watching the video for low. In fact I nearly felt uncomfortable listening to this album when other people could hear it because I thought it was some beautifully perverse thing. After listening to it tonight, I realise now that it's not that at all.

Don't get me wrong I still think it's a fantastic album, the songs, the music and lyrics I think have held up over the years (can hardly say 'aged well' when the album is only ten years old), but I didn't respond to it the same way. For one thing I wasn't uncomfortable about listening to it in as public a place as the library, ok granted it was on earphones so that might have made a difference I guess. But for me, it didn't create a knot in my stomach or even make me smile (here is where it gets really difficult to explain, so imagine yourself when you experience your favourite piece of art/watch your favourite film/read your favourite poem etc.) it just didn't conjure up the same feelings as it used.

So I wonder what this means. Have my tastes changed that much or am I so far removed from my fifteen year old self that I just can't appreciate the same things? I get that I'm being way too metaphysical about this, and its probably just changing tastes, and that at the end of the day it's just an album but I liked my fifteen year old self and I liked the things that I was into (for the most part I'm still into all of that stuff, or at least I thought so anyway).

So, in which case, what is my favourite album now? And really what does it matter, in six years time it'll be something else and that won't always be my favourite album after a while either. Well the answer is I don't know and that that's not even a pressing question. The real question should be can I really define my myself by either defining my favourite things or by not being able define them at all. I mean if I told you my favourite movie is Dog Day Afternoon followed by Dog Soldiers (neither movie is about dogs) or that my favourite book is Alice in Wonderland or that my favourite painting is Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergere, you would probably get a fairly good picture of me. Throw into the mix some favourite songs (Times Like These, Duality, Raglan Road, Disarm, Aerials) and a favourite album or two (?) then you can probably piece together some understanding of me as person. But what if I lied and none of these things are my favourite anything, and if I go now and consume/experience them again I'll feel that way (like I said I'm being way too metaphysical about this).

All in all I guess I'm just afraid of losing a sense of myself, which has always been the case, but after spending the last few days learning more and more about the liberal and communitarian ideals of self (basically what makes a person the person they are. See above), and discovering that one of my ends (tastes/preferences that make you the person you are) is no longer so. I'm all confused about who I am, stupid politics leading me to have a very early-onset mid-life crisis!

Anyway, trying not to focus on the confusion this causes me I'm just going to think about the things I didn't like as a fifteen year old. Maybe I'll think there not so bad now. One example that springs to mind is Aeon Flux (MTV cartoon not the movie). I could never watch it when I was younger though I tried plenty of times, it was just far too sexual and (what I thought was) perverse for my fifteen year old self to handle. I mean, it looked like she was being censored by the FCC the whole time as Aeon's only clothes were strategically placed strips of black leather. Maybe if I watch it now I won't see it in the same light, will enjoy it and not wonder how are they allowed to show it before the watershed!? I should also try reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde again, for some reason I could never get through it before, and maybe I should even give, well there isn't anything else I can think of now that I didn't like as a fifteen year old that has stood the test of time, and even then both Aeon Flux and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are older than that.

The point in all this I suppose should be me coming to terms with change and not some identity crisis, and as a good enough excuse as any as watch old cartoons, read some classic lit and stay up late listening to music.

Hourly Comics Day 2012

Today is Groundhog Day. This means two things: 1) it's the day after Hourly Comics Day. Normally that means I'm giving out about having been thwarted in my attempts to draw a comic for every hour I'm awake for the day (but not this year) and 2) It's Groundhog Day which means something to some people who worship some sort of American Rodent or something. So, um Happy Groundhog Day!

But forgetting about that whole Winter Rodent thing, Hourly Comics! 

I've done them before, a comic depicting some point of every hour that you are awake for a particular day, February first preferably. I've succeeded only once to date (not including this time) because either I forget to do it or the comics I do draw out get destroyed in the process. The only other time I actually got them done (and they are posted here somewhere) was on just some random day so they hardly count. These ones do (see below)

A few quick points first. I'm not great at drawing, whatever artistic merit or skill I had has diminished (rapidly) since whenever it was that I could draw, and I honestly believe I have too much hair. It is too big and busy and just there. I am seriously considering shaving my head so I won't have to deal with it (I probably won't though, I imagine my scalp isn't a nice colour and my head is probably a funny shape too). I tell you this so that you understand why the comics are so bad and why I've drawn myself like that. In my head, that is completely how I look, all of the time: A stick figure with shrubbery on its head.

So here they are:

Woke up at 5.30 in the morning freaking out, thinking I was late I guess. My sister told me later in the evening I'd been sleep walking for about fifteen minutes at this stage. This is all I remember from it.

I normally get up at 7.30 in the morning, but it kills me every time. I think I'm disappointing my bed by leaving it. It hurts!

Me and my buddy Moo Moo drive to college today most days. This is a comic of us in the car. It's really hard to tell, I know.

European imperialism and decolonisation, and ninjas! If only!

This is me in the library. In my usual seat. Doing the usual thing. For hours!

The most boring lecture that has ever been taught. The most boring thing that has ever happened. The only thing more interesting than my own thoughts was Red Hair's stomach. She was hungry too.

Me and Red Hair hitting up the Paddocks for a bit of dinner. Yay food!

Two hours of TEFL and discussing how we are all terrible people and incompetent as future teachers. Well me at least.

Back to the library. This one is for 18.00 - 21.46 (I forget to date it). At 20.01 the fire alarm started going off. My thoughts were to keep writing up my history notes so that I'd be able go home early. Everyone else seemed to think that same, as only after five minutes of the annoying bell did people actually start packing up their stuff and start leaving. Totally the wrong reaction if you're on the top floor of a building filled with paper and wood and its on fire. Turns out it was a false alarm but we didn't know that at the time!

o it was cold as balls last night and my car decided it didn't want me inside it (I think it's trying to break up with me). The driver's door lock is dodgy so I can only unlock the car from the passenger's side. But that door was frozen shut. So in the end after fifteen minutes of practically beating the door I climbed in through the boot. Which I realise now really needs to be cleared out (I found my favourite pyjamas in there, a timing belt and an empty wine bottle)

I finally got home and had my dinner (second of the day) and got don to proof reading Red Hair's chapter for her thesis. I was hungry and tired and my hair was at its biggest and messiest of the day.

All in all, it was an interesting day but pretty typical. Although, it's not like I face down death every day and don't so much as flinch. I mean there could have been an actual fire, I guess. Either way it would seem that I think history notes are more important than life itself. Nor do I regularly break into cars, much less my own but I see this becoming a much more common occurrence. Next year I really hope these are better and that I can get them up quicker. Also I'd like it very much if people had faces and weren't just some weird circle.

Please please check twitter and the forums for everyone else's hourlies, seriously most of the stuff posted is amazing and brilliant. Also I think I have a more interesting life than some people. That makes me feel good about myself.

Also, yes I think and talk in purple. And that sentence makes perfect sense to me. Moo Moo is green but she doesn't know that, Red Hair is orange but I dindn't have an orange pen, so it was brown or pink for her and I thought she would rather.