Stolen Facebook Flotsa

9:17pmPeter

whoop whoop!

9:17pmTyler

yo...

what's goin'?

9:18pmPeter

oh, you know, just warwhoopin...

how's the yay area?

9:18pmTyler

like...our old high school newspaper?

it's good...

9:18pmPeter

yeah, I never could give it up

9:19pmTyler

I forgot it existed until you used the term just now...still a little surprised I remembered...

9:21pmPeter

i was not surprised, it's deeply ingrained in the more annoyed parts of my consciousness

9:22pmTyler

understandable...

9:24pmTyler

speaking of annoyance...I've become inextricably fixated on finding a small linux distro that'll boot from a cd on powerpc machines...and I can't explain why...I don't need it...I mean, anything I want to do from the command line in Linux, I can do from the command line in OSX...it's the same fucking command line...but for some reason, I just can't stop myself...

9:26pmPeter

woah... that is a weird goal... you've come to one of the chosen few that could even hope to empathize with that... yeah, in fact, I have a machine for which I could use such a disc at this very minute... but I'm going to try just sell it for parts...

I got the too many old computers blues...

9:29pmTyler

that's probably a better plan...it's becoming apparent that if you want a lightweight ppc machine, you're going to have to build the thing yourself...though, I hear Debian still runs decently on some old ppc machinery...

9:30pmPeter

yeah... dinosaur footsteps in the distance...

9:31pmTyler

so, what's new with you, abe?

9:32pmPeter

oh, not too much, officially homeless as of one week ago... couch surfing and grad app writing for another week or so, and then driving midwesterly....

9:32pmTyler

sounds like a time...

9:32pmPeter

it certainly is...

I'm feeling alright about it though... some kind of adventure is better than none at all... especially at the ripe old age of 24...

9:34pmTyler

indeed...adventure is in the air lately...the apes are getting restless...

9:35pmPeter

I'll raise a rock and drink to that...!

and you sir? what strange new frontiers are you probing?

9:38pmTyler

I've been spending whatever time that isn't used up on job hunting and domesticity learning Python...

9:38pmPeter

RAD!

9:39pmTyler

hence the origin of my burning need for a barebones linux machine...but I've been realizing lately that the easiest solution is to just use the shit that comes with unix...

9:40pmPeter

i suppose that makes sense...

9:43pmTyler

I've also been looking for a decent homebrew curriculum for learning Russian...

9:45pmPeter

that also sounds like a serious task

9:45pmTyler

indeed...luckily, I have a built in language tutor!

9:45pmPeter

I was going to say

9:46pmTyler

I figured that if I didn't get here in time to enroll in classes, I'll just be homeschooled for this semester...

9:47pmPeter

well, sounds like a good t-term syllabus

9:49pmTyler

it's serving me a hell of a lot better than World of Warcraft did last October...

9:49pmPeter

eeeeeewwwwww really?

i'm currently living with a member of the hive... it's debilitating

i keep pressing his talk button and screaming insanities into the retardverse

9:50pmTyler

good...

they all deserve it...

9:50pmPeter

"fire magic pretzel juice!!!!"

9:51pmTyler

I've seen past the dark veil...it's hideous...

9:51pmPeter

"please let me be your mage! Please Please, my DPS IS LEGENDARY"

9:55pmTyler

I retained one shred of human pride throughout the experience by never using a fucking microphone to actually talk to people who aren't in the room with me...

9:56pmPeter

bless you... others are not so strong

well, must dash...! adios compadre

9:56pmTyler

later...

Minor Triad -- High Contrast

I did not know these pictures existed, but I just found them in negative form. See if you can reach deep into your brains and remember some day where we walked around by the school and the track and rebecca took pictures. I think we may have even run races, and we had a boom box and hackey sack with us... fun day, some cool photos...


photos to follow:












There are more on the ol' flickr

Traveling!

After driving back to Chicago for the best decision I've ever made, we've made our way through Iowa and all of it's delicious entrails, Nebraska in a flash, and very public Colorado. Santa Fe, NM for now and from here, who knows? I promise to try to let any of you know if we're coming at least a day if not a couple days ahead of time...or maybe we'll just show up on your doorstep. I feel like the luckiest man alive that I'm able to take this trip...and especially that she came with me for it. If I haven't seen you already, I'll see you soon! If not...give a year or two...or fucking come visit, asshole...

7-13-09

Got in at 5:30 after flying in what I have come to believe was in fact a subsection of coach referred to as the nursery.
Tonight: a family barbecue, a little fishing in the pond with my cousins and then off to the fire.

planes are ridiculous

Thank universe for PDX free wifi! I've managed to download some fresh tv for the trip in the time its taken to sit here and wait for the plane to board. I am about to take the midnight plane to iowa. All indications are that this will be a special trip if ever one was to be had. Tyler, call me when you hit town!

Postponement...

As it is now two weeks after I was supposed to be arriving in Iowa, I suppose I should explain. The bit of machinery that I was planning on ordering to haul the motorcycle turned out not to work with my Cherokee. So, I found another bit of machinery that would accomplish the same goal in a different way and ordered one of those. However, that particular bit of machinery turned out to be on back order and they didn't tell me until five days after I ordered it, so, I was forced to cancel that order and find another establishment to order one from, and I did. This most recent bit of machinery is what is currently keeping me in Chicago, for I have to wait for it to be delivered. The upside is that in all of my extra time here, I have had the best of company and the most spontaneous of adventures. As of this moment, my bit of machinery should arrive on Tuesday the 14th and I will be driving to Iowa the following day. I will make more words if things change yet again...

Change of plans...

I will be leaving Chicago in time to be home for the Fourth of July. After some time there, I will be heading down to Iowa City for an indeterminate amount of time, but will be back in Forest City by the fourteenth. I won't be heading west from Forest City until at least the 19th. Hopefully, I will see my friend Dandroid in Denver amidst camping in the Rockies. I don't know yet when I'll arrive on the west coast, but will try to be in Seattle in time for the Capitol Hill Block Party with (at the very least) Eric! After that...who knows! I hope this covers all the bases...

Wants become blurry...

Home again from drinking, I find wonder! The Triad is, indeed, turned back on! Passing the time has become so troublesome, so I'll just have to settle for the little teasers that this fine blog offers me. You as well, I think. I don't, necessarily, want to write about it, but what's on my mind tonight is the aforementioned wonderful little Estonian girl. Under different circumstances, I would be crazy about her, and as such, I've had to work fairly hard to stifle that. However, her company on nights such as tonight is preferable to that of anyone else in this metropolis and keeping my mind platonic is a small price to pay for it. Whew, with that said, I can think again. Anyway...I have a tentative itinerary of where I'm going to be and when (subject to change at my whim, within reason) during the entire month of July, so I should work that into a postable form and publish it here, for all to see. I may also be taking volunteers along on parts of my journey, if anyone is so inclined, so once I get the schedule posted, let me know where you want to get on and off of this scrambler machine!

Oh, yeah, and the snowcave is back up, as well...

The Ghost of Ben Kenobi Weighs In

Tyler,
Never before have I been so morose/elated as when I found your three most recent posts and realized I'd missed their arrival. We've got to tell everyone that the triad is turned back on. I'm really excited for all of the potential this summer has for reuniting our disparate members. Your posts have thrown gasoline on this fire. This also came down the facepipe recently:

Remember when...
Between You and šunkový Chlebíček

šunkový Chlebíček
May 17 at 8:10am
...there used to be Sockey? Apparently other humans have also been practicing strange forms of large ball-n-sticks sports games. The New York Times wrote about it, so I guess that means it's officially part of our history.

What's new?

No game trumps Sockey.

Sarah

Peter Johnson
Today at 10:07pm
Dear Sarah,
It is true, a great era of sockey has lapsed into inconsistency, intermittency... lameness. However, I maintain the hope that sockey will again be played in its true form, perhaps even this summer... sometime in july??
I was really pleased to receive your letter and it set me thinking anthropologically about sockey and what it means. Sockey is a game of wonderful contradictions and blatant oppositions: the gentile-sporting and the obscene; the furious and the lackadaisical; the individual and the group; rule governance/constancy and spontaneity/unpredictability/impermanence; the human body and the ridiculous equipment of sport. It is the revelation of these oppositions and their manifestations and relative intensities in practical instances of field sockey that we experience as a grandiose play of sensational tension, emotion, exertion, release, rage, and hopefully catharsis. Etc. Etc.
Things churn on in PDX; for how long, few can imagine. I hope you've very well and thanks for writing. Let me know if you're going to ioway in the summatime... we're well past due for a bonfire/acidtrip/mate/weed/games/music/chatter sesh
yours,
Peter


More to follow...

P.S. Because Eric does not care, we'll make him anakin. You, Tyler can be Yoda.

I'm on my way...

Things are more solid. Not concrete yet, but more solid. I poured the cement and I'm working on making it harden faster. I have the Jeep to drive me across the country and to all of your doorsteps. I also have the motorcycle to make myself grin. Now I just need to wait until the end of the month when I'll have enough money to get a hitch rack to put the motorcycle on the back of the Jeep. Time, I guess. The hardest part of concrete is the waiting...

On that note, I am looking forward to seeing you all again so much that the waiting has become unbearable. In your natural habitats no less! It's not a reunion back in Iowa around a camp fire in the Johnson's backyard, though that would also be awesome, and will also happen, though not all of you will be there. You will be in spirit. It'll be like Return of the Jedi where we're all partying and Peter, Eric and...Sarah, I guess...are standing in the background somewhere looking like holograms, smiling in their humble Jedi garb. It's been a long time since I've seen all of you and if you've changed nearly as much as I have since then, I'm especially excited to meet you all, all over again...

Lacks substance, but a placeholder is better than nothing...

I've reached one of those points in life where events happen fast enough to leave a sunburn but yet I feel like the lethargic, plodding steps of time are slowly bleaching my mind. Yesterday, I worked for several hours accidentally, bought a Jeep, was confronted with the fact that, for once in my life, the last thing I need right now is a wonderful little Estonian girl to kiss, and then went home and got ridiculously stoned for the first time in years (mostly because I wasn't entirely sure about that previous decision). This morning, while I was fashioning a new window for my Jeep out of plexiglass, I suddenly realized that it's only the twelfth of May. A month and a half. That's how much longer I have before I leave. A month and a half ago, Portia and I were still together and I had no inkling of any of this. Have you ever seen The Cell? You know that part where J.Lo is in Vincent DiNofrio's mind and she falls into that chasm where she is caught by water that isn't really there and her descent slows as she sinks in the water and then speeds up again when she reenters not-water? That would be a pretty good analogy. At least I exist in a time where I can carry absurd amounts of mood bending audio in my pocket. Reclaiming my Mac and thus rediscovering my music collection has been pure joy. The AKG studio headphones that I picked up from work have helped as well.

The format is there, but I just can't bring myself to write installment fiction...

All of the things that I spent so much time wanting to do once the weather allowed have apparently been erased from my mind. Now that I know I'm leaving, I simply can't remember them. I guess, really, I should compile a list of things I want to do before I leave the city and just make them happen. Oh, wait...those are the same things that I've been trying to remember since I decided to leave. Well, at least I'll leave the city with some regrets. I'd hate to believe I'd accomplished everything there was to accomplish in this giant fucking matrix of retards.

Apparently, I've rediscovered the proper level of discomfort for writing. As though the perfect combination of boredom, loneliness and intoxication are stimulating that certain part of my brain that makes the words flow. The main problem with this being that it results in something more likened to sticking my finger down my throat rather than the well thought out escapism that I so elaborately plan on writing. I started working on a project a few months ago that I hoped would eventually form itself into a novel, though now it's fins seem a bit lethargic and it's tank has a weird green film everywhere. It's the story of Jeremiah Kyzlasov's survival in a possible post-apocalyptic Chicago, subsequent realization that, although the landscape could sustain them, the still relatively high population density is too much of a threat to his small community and their eventual trek out of the city to open, fertile lands where they can thrive. Intertwined, of course, with detailed instructions and diagrams on how to recreate all of their solutions to living without reliance on the unseen trappings of society. Basically, a survival guide and an apocalypse novel all wrapped up into one. The Journals of Jeremiah Kyzlasov, at it's most successful, would make ordinary humans, still woven into the fabric of civilization, realize that there are better ways to accomplish everyday tasks in a new, more efficient way, rather than continue to rely on our shrouded caste system of proletariat morons and gluttonous profiteers. Oh, look, now I've begun to rant. The problem with all of this is that, although Jeremiah's exploits are still in the making, so are those of his uncle Travis. Perhaps they should combine forces...

It's not late enough and I'm not drunk enough for me to stop writing just yet. Though, not in this vein...

Contents Subject to Change, As Needed

It's time to end this drought. Therefor, I'm here to relax the muscles and wet the ground with a diarrhetic torrent of mental sewage.

Externally, I continue to thrive in Chicago at a price. Enjoying my ever-accelerating thrift store empire and the deluge of must-haves that wash ashore has grown old. You can only possess so many antique gas masks and sets of custom tailored prosthetic legs before you decide that the sight of one more copy of Iococca by Lee Iococca is going to set off a chain of events that you refuse to be responsible for. This is amplified by the process of shedding such priceless garbage. Getting rid of a home filling amount of other people's trash that you once imbued with monetary value really makes you think. All of the hours of my life spent on this bit of junk and that, for I prefer to convert straight from units of time to objects of detritus exchanged for such time. That movie cost me ten minutes of my life and then another ninety-eight because it sucked.

I had a dream some time ago where I was living in a Morton shed on a small plot of land surrounded by trees. In the rear section of the shed, I had erected a humble kitchen and living area topped with a sleeping loft. The rest of the space was taken up with tools and workspace where I welded sculpture, repaired machinery, spat in the face of science and whatever else a Mad Engineer would find himself up to. It was beautiful. I'm not entirely sure how much of this was the original dream and how much of it has been romanticized in the following weeks. Since the initial dream, I've really fleshed things out in my daydreams. Wind generators made from old steel barrels and the biggest electric motors I can find, rewound to accommodate the added magnetic poles. An enormous wood burning oven/kiln/furnace/forge made from clay bricks hand formed from the nearby creek bed, complete with spinning chimney cover to capture the escaping heat and return it back into the system in the form of just enough electricity to power a thermostat and an automatic flue. A small grove of bamboo out back as quickly replenishing fuel? Okay, so there are some things that I still have to work out. It's become my "five year plan". As a person who finds "five year plans" repulsive, I can now understand their purpose, I guess.

Internally, the city has become a wasteland. Where I saw potential and untapped resources only months earlier, I now see uselessness and worthless cretins. There are still gems among the wreckage, but only in the form of people. I am not a city boy by nature and I think I've leveled up in Urbanity significantly since I got here, but it's soon going to really detract from the rest of my experience points. However, quitting cold turkey is not an option either. Not because I find myself addicted to city life, but because the concept of land ownership has become such a perverted and protected notion in these fine United States.

All of this in mind, I have been confronted with a decision that I have to make. Not a simple this or that decision, mind you, but an open ended, nigh rhetorical self-imposed question as to just what in the hell I'm going to do about this. I pride myself as a decisive person, but this isn't the sort of thing you can just proclaim. So, I plan. A plan is really no more than a fluid decision and my fluid decision is to leave this city, diddle around the country side for a month and arrive in a different, smaller city. The former being Chicago, IL and the latter being Eugene, OR. If you're reading this, I hope I spend some time with you on my way.

2009?

So, I've been not blogging of late, but I think it's starting again. And whenever I feel the need to read/write internet content, one of the most joyful/sad places to check is, of course, this fine blog.
Looking back, I think it's fair to say that 2008 was at least a year of some fine content for we three, though not as much as any of us probably would have idealized. This year has begun as anything but ideal in terms of our collective internet output of gibberish, and so, I'll go ahead and at least stick in a placeholder three months after new years in the hopes that this space will again stalwartly serve contain those malefic products of the wildly occasional writer-lust that we each cast out into the web.

Actually, I've been two-timing this blog with a typewriter. What a glorious outrage!