I have a friend that needs a job in ATX or Ft. Worth in copywriting, marketing, PR, or (she didn't say these two, but I think she might like them) photography or singing. I'm biased towards ATX :), but if you know of anything in either town, please let me know.

I think I am moving my blog over to blogger.com. I like the text editor better (hotkeys), and the greater control of the layout and html, though I haven't messed with that yet. I might change my mind, but my updates will be at brittfrey.blogger.com for the near future.

Anyone able to make it to Tulsa tomorrow or maybe Sunday to go to the PGA championships with me? I have tickets from my mom and it seems pretty cool, even if I don't care so much about golf. Obviously, sexy chicks are preferable ;)

I was talking to a friend yesterday about religion and mentioned that I never really talked about what I believed. I talk about my opinions about organizations or inconsistencies, but I really don't talk about what I believe. No, I'm not going to talk about what I believe now, but I am going to talk about why I don't. I know, that sounds evasive and bass-ackwards, but it's the best you're getting out of me for now; besides, have you come to expect anything else from me? ;)

When I started thinking about it, I didn't know exactly why I avoided that type of discussion. The first thought, which I have pondered a bit before, was the pointlessness of the discussions and arguments. Yeah, yeah, I argue about everything, it seems; actually, I don't. I only argue when there is something to be gained from the argument, and religious arguments rarely have any purpose; people are typically very set in their religious ideas and their justifications are usually of the sort that can't be disputed. That doesn't necessarily make the ideas or justifications wrong, or even right, but it does tend to restrict the exchange of ideas. But that only addresses arguments, not discussions.

As I was driving up to Tulsa today (I'll miss you, Austinites), I thought more on this topic. I started thinking about what I would say in a hypothetical conversation or how I would explain my beliefs. This triggered my Philosopher Sense^tm (imagine a head and shoulders panel of a comic-book me with little squigglies around my head, eyes looking up, and an arched eyebrow), of the Wittgenstein variety. The first problem is that the human mind just can't comprehend the vastness and, at the same time, all the details of the universe, being, truth, or a higher power. We might be able to understand a bit about what those things don't encompass, but not really what they are, fully. On top of that is the inherent problem of the inaccuracies of language.

Language is a great example of metaphors in life; every word and grammatical construct is only a metaphor for the idea we are trying to convey. Metaphors are a blessing and a curse; they are very convenient for conveying aspects of ideas, but they are limited to conveying only those aspects (among other problems). This necessarily introduces inaccuracies into conversations, combined with our inability to fully grasp the concepts involved to begin with, can lead to conversational problems. Let's say you start out with the idea of chocolate. Obviously, the human mind cannot fully grasp all the wonderfulness that is chocolate. Combine that with the ambiguity of what kind of chocolate you're thinking about versus what the other person is thinking about, maybe dark v. milk chocolate, and the next thing you know, you're imitating a squirrel with a top hat, monocle, and cane in a traveling circus. I don't think any of us want that, now do we? Seriously, though, I imagine monocles are pretty uncomfortable.

So, while I honestly never really thought about this before, I really don't like putting important beliefs into words; it feels like whatever words I use are a mere shadow of the actual idea, destined to give my co-locutor the wrong impression. I like to keep those sorts of ideas more formless, bounded by the legions of suspected falsehoods, rather than trying to specify the nature of their truth.

While everything I said above leads away from such conversations, I will admit that, earlier tonight, I had an intelligent conversation of just this sort with said friend, and it was quite enjoyable. It could be that our ideas, while probably different in the details, were similar enough to allow reasoned discussion. Maybe if we had come from vastly disparate backgrounds, we wouldn't have been able to have such a conversation. In any case, it was an enjoyable conversation and helped me to understand my own thoughts a little better. Perhaps I will rethink my stance on these sorts of discussions, though I'm sure I will always be hesitant. Off to bed now, I think.

Danger, Will Robinson! Spoilers! Danger!
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Overall, I felt this book felt very rushed and lacked polish. She had a lot of good plot elements and background story that she failed to connect or really show "on camera". It seemed like she had a laundry list of things that she wanted/needed to accomplish, then ran out of time or pages and had to squeeze various parts in. It feels like she wrote the middle first, spending a good deal of time there and really writing a good story, but then had to really hurry to do the first and last few chapters. I think she spent a little too much time on a few time periods in the middle and not enough time on other important parts near the beginning and, especially, the end.
( SPOILERS )

I thought of a great book idea while I was trying to fall asleep last night:
Random Ruminations of a Rodent
or
The Diary of Leonardo the Sqrl
Ghostwritten by Britt F. Frey

It will be a collection of satire, philosophy, and whatever else I want to write. It's going to be awesome. Now I need to learn how to draw a cartoon squirrel in various scenes so I can add flavorful illustrations.

Cristina came into town today to hang out with me on my birthday (thanks, Mexican). It turns out that her refrigerator died shortly before she arrived in town. Good timing, I guess, as it allowed her to save most of the stuff in her freezer from the imminent second death by thawing. She immediately turned to my facilities as a backup, of course, since Britt's useful like that. So she brought over all the things she saved and put them in my refrigerator; it's not like I keep much in there, after all. Now, however, everytime I open my refrigerator, I look down in shocked disbelief as I notice that there are hot dogs in my refrigerator. Many of you probably don't know this, but I am not a fan of the franks. We had a fairly lengthy discussion recently about vegetarianism, but this is worse than that; not only are hot dogs animal and, thus, carry with them a twinge of guilt, they are also just disgusting. I mean, they are made in giant vats of churning meat, pumped out into tube shapes that are oddly shiny and plastic-looking. Now, when I open my refrigerator for some tasty bread, cheese, or a chilled glass of water (as that's all I really keep in there), I stand transfixed for a few moments, my mind trying to comprehend why these disgusting amalgamations of myriad meats are staring back at me. I think "there are hot dogs in my refrigerator...why are there hot dogs in my refrigerator?"

That lengthy, though quite humourous introductory paragraph serves as a wonderful segue into the rest of this post; as you will see, I will be covering many disjointed topics tonight. Viewed as a whole, it might appear much like a hot dog, though hopefully more appealing and the cause of fewer deaths.
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I will begin by reiterating the well-known axiom: women are crazy. No, I'm not going to clarify. I just want it stated quite clearly that insanity is housed on the X chromosome.
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Next, I have an extension on my international arbitration paper. I have it all worked out in my head, but I can't concentrate enough to put it on paper. It doesn't help that I have realized the uselessness of the paper; the completion of said paper will impact nothing in this world other than my grade. Huzzah! That really makes me want to work on it...
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About a month ago, my grandfather was up on his land in the country and fell off a log while crossing a dry creek bed, about six feet down. He's lucky that he just had some bruises and such...or so he thought. He's still lucky, but he suffered more than the bruises. He also had a slight bleed in his brain that was picked up on an MRI, showing a slight pressure in his skull. The brilliant doctors basically forgot about it until he went in to have knee surgery on Tuesday. "Hmm, you know, before we give you these blood thinners, maybe we ought to look again at that bleed you had...IN YOUR BRAIN!" They did another MRI and it turns out the pressure had increased a bit, so they have to go in next week to relieve the pressure. They will be drilling two or three small holes in the skull to attempt to drain the liquid. That's not a very serious procedure, despite what some may think; however, if the fluid has solidified, they'll have to cut off part of the skull and cut out the solid mass. That will be more serious, but still not too bad. I still worry some, but it should all be ok.
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The Saga Edition Star Wars RPG rules are friggin awesome! I am working with some others to adapt the rules back into D&D 3.5, as I think they have a lot of promise. If you want to help, go to:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/sagadd/
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Have you ever had a friend or situation that you really wanted to help, but everything you do or say has horrible and unforeseen consequences, and anything you think of to try to do seems like it would have equally horrible consequences? In the end, you are left just sitting there twiddling your thumbs, wishing you could help or do something, but knowing that you can't, which is amazingly frustrating :/
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I've been thinking about looking into editing law books as a career, but I can't fathom the pay would be high enough to justify it. I would have to be able to edit about 40 pages a day, 20 days a month, to get the cost down to about 10,000$ a book, all to make as much as I would in a large firm and pay back my debt. I could see myself getting the cost down that low, with some practice, but not much lower. I also can't imagine people being willing to spend that much to edit a book, no matter how good I am at it. The spelling, grammar, and style of law books grates on my nerves.
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There are hot dogs in my refrigerator...

I have just had a major epiphany. I can't fully explain it, as I was in the middle of trying to fall asleep (yes, at 05:00), but I wanted to put the basics here so I don't forget.

For a long time, I've believed in absolute morality. I haven't known what that absolute morality is, just that it's there somewhere. I've believed that killing is wrong, universally, with no extenuating circumstances, for example, but I had no way to prove it and I didn't exactly know why it was wrong. For a few years, I've been solidifying my beliefs into a coherent, unified system based around the metaphysical nature of the universe. I believe that the entire universe is one giant wave field with everything in it representing perturbations within the wave field. You can have other waves within the giant wave, each with different frequencies, amplitudes, etc. Quantum mechanics is even integrated, as I believe it's all one giant quantum wave function that is locally collapsed by conscious entities. This relates to taoism, some forms of buddhism, some christianity (though I know people will argue with me), shamanism, etc, in that we are all part of the same entity, all one thing, yet all individuals at the same time; we're all part of the wave function, yet all individual perturbations within it as well. Individuality v. unification is a false dichotomy; it's all just different ways of looking at it.

Which transitions nicely into the other piece of the puzzle. One of the most important things that philosophy has taught me is that everything, everything is a metaphor. Nothing that we think, say, sense, or believe actually exists or actually is what we think; what we think is merely a close approximation that is useful for the task at hand, pragmatic. Even the highly-vaunted Mathematics is only a collection of metaphors as well; two does not exist in the universe, it is merely a metaphor that helps us understand the concept of a collection of what we label as things based on a different metaphor. Objects do not exist as we perceive them. A tree is not actually existent the way we think; it is merely that we perceive the change in density and type of molecules at a fairly distinct point in space-time, at least to our senses, as the definition of an object. Zoom out or in very much, though, and the distinctness fades and eventually disappears. The human brain works by recognizes patterns and applying those patterns to help solve problems and understand concepts. The trick is to understand that these are just self-made patterns that do not perfectly map to reality. They are merely pragmatic tools to help us understand life. It is something that has led me to believe that true intelligence is the ability to understand these points, collect metaphors, and switch between them easily. The better you are at that process, the more readily you can understand new concepts and make them useful to you. These patterns and metaphors are merely ways of interpreting the perceived relationships between various other metaphors.

All our definitions in the world are based on relationships. How we define objects, personalities, groups, actions...everything is based on relationships. We cannot define anything without referencing something other than the thing we are trying to define. I recently was talking to someone about relationships. I tried to tell her that intimate (non-sexual sense) relationships are the most important thing in life, at least to me. I didn't know why at the time, and it seemed a rather new idea to me, but I believed it whole-heartedly. I had many reasons that I gave, and they were good reasons, but none seemed to really capture the depth to which I believed this idea. (Side note: without any justification, I have believed for a long time that humans have an innate ability to sense Truth, that it somehow resonates with them or stands out, possibly as harmony with the base wave form of the universe or something. I don't know. It just is a bit relevant to the point.) I think I now know why I feel it is so true. Everything about us is defined by our relationships, and we help to define everything else through those relationships. Without relationships, we would have no definition or meaning, and the rest of the universe would have less definition and meaning. It seems that intimate relationships, where you really open up to and connect with someone help to define you even more, which is consistent with the above ideas. By becoming closer to one entity, having less separation, you each gain more definition and individuality at the same time.

How do these pieces fit together? I said I felt that there was some sort of unifying principle to whatever absolute morality is out there, and I think I have it! Relationships. Killing completely eliminates the ability to have relationships with the entity you just killed. Never again can anyone define it or themselves by relationship to that bird, ant, dog, boy, girl, elephant, etc. Similarly, I think other forms of gut reaction 'wrong' could probably be easily defined as detrimental to the ability to relate in an active way. Sure, everything relates to everything else just by existing, but conscious entities have the ability to actively relate to the universe. Their relationships are formed with our body and our consciousness, not just our body. Relationships with inanimate objects are formed with just the body, though there may be some arguments for basic conscious relationships with 'nature' or some such idea, but that would be with an idea. Think about the difference between the relationships between a human and a living dog versus a corpse (leaving aside ideas about the previously living dog). There is a distinct difference there.

It's not fully fleshed out, as I just thought of this, about 40 minutes ago, though for a few minutes, then rolled over and started typing. I'll work on it more and I look forward to comments. The key is in here somewhere, I can feel it :p

Ok, so I lied; I did end up explaining it in depth. Sue me; I'll beat you in court.

Neutral good with lawful tendencies. I think the Neutral bit comes from me being very orderly and logical personally, following a very strict personal code, and expecting others to follow that as well, but at the same time, having very little respect for authority. If I wasn't such an elitist, I might trust the capabilities of authority figures more and be more lawful :)

It's a decent alignment test, overall; however, the phrasing of the questions makes me doubt many, if any, people would ever end up as evil.

Link: The Alignment Test written by xan81 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

In the vein of the recent visited countries post, you can keep track of where you have been and where you plan to go here:
http://www.efcollegebreak.com/

I know some of my readers aren't in college, but just pick 'Other' and I think you can register that way. On Facebook, there is an application that lets you put the map on your profile. I had some trouble getting logged in, but it eventually worked. Look for the 'upload to facebook' button, or something like that.

People need to quit playing that game so damned much and realize it is just a game and a poor substitute for real life. It should be something you play when you have nothing else to do, not something you do in lieu of activities with other people. When you tell people "sorry, I can't hang out with you because I'm playing WoW", you should realize that you just passed up spending time with people for the opportunity to alter some tables in a database.

I've been there before. I used online games as a substitute for real life, mainly because it was simpler than real life and had fewer real connections, while still feeling like you were connecting with people a bit. It's the new religion; WoW is the new opiate of the masses. It gives you just enough to feel like you are living life, without any of the actual issues of life. It's like corn syrup, simple, an imitation, and bad for you in the long run. At the end of a long session of WoW, what have you really accomplished? You still have bills to pay, people are still starving all over the world, your family and friends still want to talk to you, the dog still needs to go out, you still need to eat, you still have to study, you still need to shower, eat dinner, and sleep...In the end, you've done absolutely nothing but spend money and lose some of what little precious time you have on this Earth.

Don't get me wrong, some people play it exactly how it should be played, as a game or leisure activity. People need leisure activities, and WoW can be a good one. However, many people don't understand exactly what it is they are doing; they don't think of it as a brief respite, used to unwind for a bit before getting back to real life. For many, it's an important part of their life, while not actually being a part of life. Sure, if you play a little bit at a time, maybe get together with some friends for a few hours to chat and do something while chatting, that is great. But if you are passing up time with friends for the chance to get more gold or that new tier 3 breastplate, you need to really think about what is going on.

And don't go getting all defensive. I'm not targeting anyone in particular, but the entire phenomenon. You, the reader, are surely one of the innocent WoW gamers that uses it merely as an outlet and leisure activity without letting it dominate too much of your life. Of course, this whole situation is just a current and consistent exemplification of what I view as people in general wanting to avoid real life and dealing with what really matters, searching for something to waste time on and take their mind off things that they should be thinking about but would rather not.

Sorry, I'll stop ranting now :)

Would you make a fool out of yourself in public if it meant you were making your partner laugh?
Possibly. It depends on if they seemed like they needed a good laugh.

Do you judge people solely by their musical preferences?
No, not on music.

Would you ever start a relationship with someone who was still living with an ex for financial reasons?
Sure.

Do you need to know everything about someone's past?
Need, no. I want to know more than I should though.

It is more worthwhile and satisfying to improve the world or appreciate the world?
Improve.

Do you feel you have a purpose or calling in life?
See the previous question. I fix things, make things better. (when I'm not screwing them up)

Do you believe that dreams can be messages from a "higher level"?
Can? Yes. Are? No clue.

Would you rather have a great friend you could share everything with or a great lover you can't really talk to?
Friend.

Do you like kissing in public?
I don't care.

Did America really put a man on the moon?
Yes.

Would you date someone significantly (9 years or over) older than you?
If they seemed right for me.

Generally, in life, what makes you happy?
Friends, traveling, making people feel better.

How well do you handle criticism?
Not well, probably, but far better than I use to.

Is it possible for full-figured women to be equally attractive as thinner women?
Sure.

You've just met someone incredible while out with friends, and (s)he's been kind enough to cough up a phone number. How long would you wait to call?
Too many factors to be able to tell from that hypo. Likely a few days or until there is something to talk to them about or ask them to accompany you to.

Do you think the family of a murder victim should have any say in what punishment is given to the murderer?
No.

Would you have a 'Happy Button' installed on your body, connected to your brain, which would instantly make you very happy whenever you pressed it?
No.

Would you rather know everything about your mates, or be regularly surprised?
I like to know too much. So I /should/ probably know a good deal, but not everything.

Would you rather have your dream job or your soul mate for the rest of your life?
Soul mate.

Should your girlfriend/boyfriend also become your best friend?
Yes.

Have you ever posed as a nude model?
No.

Would you prefer if good things happened, or interesting things?
May you live in interesting times...

Is it better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all?
Yes.

This one will take a wee bit more effort. I hope to visit Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, India, and Thailand this fall while I'm in HK; plus, I'm hoping to go to the UK in the spring, possibly hitting a few continental countries while there. That's a very tentative plan, though.



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

I could fill this in pretty easily, me thinks.



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

And then there's that fucking Jeff Goldblum again.

The past few days there has been an epiphany scurrying around me; I've been grasping at it, but have had a hard time gaining full control. Ok, enough of the creature metaphor. I think I have a somewhat decent grasp of the concept, not completely by any means, but enough to share here for comments. Bear with me, as this might be long as I follow the main points in the thought process.

As many of you know, I am somewhat picky, a bit of a perfectionist if you will. (Fine, I know that's an understatement!) As I was walking aimlessly the other morning, I was examining various ideas and wondering why I placed so much emphasis on things being just so. While contemplating this, I realized that the meaning, purpose, or value of a thing cannot be judged separate from its goal. Without a teleos as a reference, how does anything have meaning?

Now, I don't want this to sound like nihilism; I do not mean this in a negative or depressing way. What I mean is more that placing a value on something, judging it without reference to a goal, is pointless. If, in a mall parking lot, there is a perfectly manicured hedge with one stray branch sticking up out of the top, why would that have any value to me? The goal of the mall owners is likely to attract customers by making their premises aesthetic and appealing to the human affinity for patterns. But that has nothing to do with me. I don't want to attract customers, so why should I judge that job at all? I have no interest in how the hedge is maintained. A well-maintained hedge, poorly-maintained hedge, and completely unmaintained hedge should all have the same value to me.

Does this mean that nothing has value or meaning? No, I would not go that far. I think that the chosen goal definitely has a value. Surely, some goals are better than others. If your goal is to feed starving children in third world countries, that must be a "better" goal than genocide. So, how do we objectively compare goals? I don't know; this goes back to my belief in an objective morality, despite my inability to state what that objective morality is. I think there is some defining characteristic of Good, but I don't know what it is.

Does this mean that means are irrelevant; that the ends justify the means? No, that cannot be true, either. If you plan on feeding starving children in third world countries by producing and shipping excess grain or the like, surely that is "better" than feeding the children by feeding murdered, unwanted babies to them, ala Peter Singer. No, the means still matter, obviously. There is likely some unifying property that would allow us to evaluate both means and ends, but I don't know what it is. I know this sounds counter to my thoughts at the beginning, but it seems to make sense in my head. This is one of the areas I am still trying to piece together or rearrange into a semblance of sanity.

From here, I began thinking something similar to what I have thought for many years, but from a different angle. As I looked across a parking lot full of cars, I wondered what all those people were thinking as they went about their daily tasks. Do any of them think about anything other than making it through the day, maintaining the status quo, or climbing the social ladder? Then I started putting this into the context of the thoughts expressed above. How many of them have an end in mind? Sure, I can't read minds or anything, but I am extremely confident that the vast majority of the human race focuses completely on means, without thinking what they are going to do with the means; they make the means into an end, without realizing that this has no value unless they accomplish something with the means. For example, many people focus on accumulating wealth, power, or status. What do any of these things mean without doing something with them? Does gaining wealth have any value unless you do something with that wealth? Our society places the emphasis on the means, encouraging us to care about things that really have no value. Furthermore, pursuit of a means has no end in itself; you can continue to pursue that means, gaining more wealth than you use to have, without ever turning your focus to an actual end. You spend your entire life as a cog in the machine of society, focusing on the same worthless concept. According to our society, that is what makes you successful, having impressive means but not doing anything with it.

What does this mean for my life? What end do I want to pursue? I do not want to become another cog in the wheel, mindlessly pursuing a means like Xeno constantly crossing half the distance to the other side of the room, without ever getting to the other side. I need an end that feels worthwhile, something that I would feel proud to accomplish. I'm not sure what that is, though. I know I like making things better, and helping people. I think I am getting quite good at transactional law, like contracts, licenses, and the like; but, helping a corporation make more money definitely does not feel like a respectable end for my life. At least I realize that in a year I will not really be constrained by location or career unless I want to be, so now is the perfect time to find that end and start implementing the means to the end.

So, thoughts, if you made it all the way through?

I uploaded some more Australia pics to Flickr. I had to delete some older pictures as I reached the 200 picture limit on a free account and don't feel like paying for a Pro account just yet. I'll have to upgrade next time I go on a vacation, though, for sure. I just went through the old photos and looked for pictures that had 0 views, made sure they weren't that great, and deleted those. I will probably have to cull a few more in the near future to make room for some more Australia pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonbritt/

Don't worry, Jill; I'm done listening to lectures, so I won't be sitting at my computer in total boredom for days on end anymore. What that means for you: no more memes.

( cuttie cut cut )

I uploaded some of the Australia pics I never got around to before. I'm not done, but I uploaded two dozen or so.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonbritt/

( meme ahead )