The New Year

So here I am, sitting in the snackbar and taking advantage of the wireless internet. Supposedly this guy who wants me to help him get some scripts (mailman, squirrelmail, etc) installed on his webserver is going to meet me here before 4:30, but as it's already 4:25, I don't see that happening. So I'll blog a bit. And take advantage of the fast internet to run some updates.

I have a jumble of half-formed thoughts and ideas concerning computer interfaces, their ease of use, and so on which have been slowly evolving over the past few years, and I think it's getting to the point where I'm ready to coalesce the vapors of ideas into the reality of words. I was thinking about hammering it out right now, but I think that I'm going to give this one some real thought, so instead of being the usual under-developed ramble that I usually post, it will be an intelligent and thought-provoking piece of writing. It may even be called (dare I say it?) an essay. I'll probably write it up in vim. If you know what vim is, you'll probably have a hint of just where my sympathies lie when it comes to user interfaces. The real challenge of something like this will be to make it readable and even enjoyable by mere mortals, yet not too boring and dumbed down for people like Welling or myself. And there's always the possibility that I'm fooling myself, and there's no way in hell that I'm actually going to write an essay on my free time in the summer. We'll see.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF) is one of my favorite TV shows. This is sort of misleading, as I usually don't watch TV, so it's rare that I find a see a new show at all unless one is introduced to me by a friend. ATHF is such a show, as is Family Guy, Upright Citizen's Brigade, and so on. ATHF, for you poor souls who have never seen it, is a show detailing the adventures of three... fuck it, just read their damn website. OK, now that you know what it's about, here's what I have to say about it: The characters of Frylock, Meatwad, and Master Shake are incredibly flat. If you watch the show enough, nothing that any of them do is unpredictable. But while they are flat and unchanging as characters, their interactions with each other and the outside world are constantly interesting, and often hilarious. The writers of the show are excellent at creating characters that consist entirely of one trait, grossly exaggerated. My personal favorite example of this are the two dolls in the episode "Dumber Dolls" (with the Frat Aliens, from the episode of the same name, coming in a close second). One doll ('Jingle Billy') is always unreasonably and stupidly optimistic. His answer to all problems and unhappiness is dancing. If one can dance, how can one be unhappy, and how can bad things happen? The other doll (Happy Time Harry) is the exact opposite. He is pessimistic and depressed to the point of ridiculousness. All he wants to do is drink, pop pills, pass out, and (when it gets really bad) cut himself. The interactions the two dolls have give a small slice of the conversations that can and do occur between optimists and pessimists all the time in real life. The writers pit the optimists against the pessimists, but it's clear from the outset who is going to win. Happy Time Harry finally demoralizes both his unfortunate owner (Meatwad), and his counterpart, the formerly cheerful Jingle Billy. Is this right? Does pessimism always triumph over optimism? Is that a subjective question, anyway? I personally believe that humanity is inherently bad, just like Happy Time Harry (he never really made such a sweeping statement, but I'm inferring from his general disposition). However, I also believe that there is more to reality than human thought and human action. Happy Time Harry sees the state of humanity, and decides that it is bad, and the only thing to do is to drink away the pain. It's a solipsistic point of view. Humanity is bad, therefore reality is bad. Happy Time Harry seems to be at the forefront of modern thought. Damn.

Well, It's 5:30 and the guy hasn't shown up. I think that there are some Sigs back in town in an apartment. I think I'll check that out, then head home.