I feel...

It always boggled my mind just how hilariously accurate yet whimsical Chinese-English subtitles are.
Example : List Of Actual Subtitles Used in Films in Honk Kong

Now, a little about my extremely unpredictable life. Over the course of the summer, I have somehow managed to acquire a girlfriend, 2 jobs (1 I quit, the other I got fired from :D), and a major amount of crazy shit. I am writing my exam (deferred from the normal school year) in two days. At the same time, we have recently discovered mold growing in our house (hopefully not toxic or I will have brain damage), which probably means I will have to move out into a different house for the summer. Every time I think I have something under control it slips away. This has led me to completely stop expecting things and just view life as pure chaos. I have to admit, it's been a lot of fun.

Now, for more funny things, I stumbled onto this site. It had no explanation but the title and I'll be damned if it didn't deliver. Tattooing Pigs

Every once in a while the facts to a news story are way more insane than anything the human mind can make up. Best Sentence I Have Read All Year

Of course, all art imitates life, so art can only be less ridiculous than life itself. This is difficult to believe while looking at some surreal artwork.

Speaking of crazy life, there's been a big fuss made over the BP Gulf oil spill in the US. While talking to a friend, we realized that this spill could be the end of us all and everything as we know it. To begin, if the leak is not stopped, it will end up... well, pretty much everywhere (even as far as the Arctic), which isn't even close to the scariest thing that can happen. You see, tropical monsoon season is close by, with storms forming near the coast already. These storms will pick up not only water, but the oil as well and then head in the direction of cities (worst case scenario). Think about that for a second. A giant twirling mass of wind, water, and oil spinning at 200 km/h. Now what happens if someone lights a match? That's right ladies and gentlemen, giant hurricanes of fire are about to engulf our civilization. You can't make this stuff up. But wait, there's more! A good portion of the oil picked up by the storms can very likely end up in the atmosphere. Once again, all it takes is a spark to light up entire skies with fire. Of course, this was all speculation by two rather stoned individuals, but nevertheless, it is scary how easy it is to imagine this happening. Here is a video making fun of the spill.


Well, on that bright note I must take my leave. I will leave you with a task that I have not been able to complete (yet). Maybe you will have better luck.

Make All The Circles as Small as Possible

10th Post (whoop de whoop)

What's up guys? I know I said I was going to keep up with my blog more often but... I totally lied. I've been completely swamped with schoolwork and with exams coming around the corner I just haven't had a second to myself (that's a lie). Also being lazy and partying too much can't have helped. The point is I'm writing now, so enjoy :).

I'm going to start by linking to an incredible essay by Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut is, in my opinion, a very talented writer and a really cool dude. He is known for his lightning fast wit and just generally being awesome. This essay deals with how humans give value to literature. I've always known that War and Peace holds a little more juice than Captain Underpants, but the exact reasons why have always seemed unclear. To have a seasoned writer like Kurt give his point of view on the subject is fascinating. If you don't want to bother reading the entire thing here's his conclusion; it sums up his point nicely and tells you all you need to know.

But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.

And if I die—God forbid—I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, “Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?”

I saw another very interesting article about a sort of open forum which involved several writers answering questions from the audience and debating among themselves. This took place near the end of Vonnegut's life and the picture above illustrates his unusually blunt answer to a girl who was asking for some sage advice from a man who's seen it all. Warning: It's a long read.

Okay, on another note, I present to you some of the greatest lines to ever to grace our unworthy television screens. I was surprised by just how entertaining and engaging 10 minutes of Arnie's shenanigans were.


I wrote about chatroulette once before, and it seems as if gold keep pouring out of this wonderfully perverse invention. Here are some pictures of a complete brat being an asshole to people. Hilarious.

Okay that's all for now, next time I'm going to write about Aldous Huxley's death, so stick around, you might learn something.

PS This is funny.

Transcript: Yo-Hemphead! Look what you washed by not checking your pockets! Lets hope the seal was tight enough not to let much water in! May I suggest you lay it out somewhere safe to dry! Love, mom :). P.S. Where's my clear tape?

Ninth Post (late night ramblings)

A few days ago I had a sobering experience that reminded me just how quickly a good day can turn into a bad day. One moment everything is going your way and within seconds your mind is fraught with fear and anxiety, completely forgetting the safe feeling of security you just possessed. It makes me wonder about the validity of things that you feel. How real are they if they can be overturned and forgotten in mere seconds. Anyways, it's been a while since I've had an experience like that, and since I've been having terrible luck ever since.

The picture up top is a funny interpretation of the free will/determinism issue, and has absolutely nothing to do with anything I was saying earlier. I just found it amusing. (FYI Wikipedia has an excellent entry on free will if anybody is as crazy as me and likes to read that kind of stuff.)

The picture on the left is interesting to me because this seems like exactly what happened. To anyone unfamiliar, Sisyphus was a dude who stirred up some shit and got punished by the gods. They gave him the task of rolling a boulder up a hill and then they'd push it down so he would have to start over again (not sure what he did but that punishment is pretty hilarious). So basically, a Sisyphean task is one that is impossible.

A lot of people have been saying that Obama has not done anything yet, to which I reply with the following graph. Now, I don't really like discussing political issues, but every once in a while something worth mentioning comes up.
I'd like to end this blog with a video interview of one of the coolest thinkers of our time. Richard Feynman is a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, and is amazing at explaining complicated concepts in simple everyday terms. Here is one that particularly caught my attention because he was basically unable to explain magnets and the magnetic force, and he gives a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why.



Okay that's all I have for now, its 3:30am and I want to sleep. Peace out internet.

PS. This is kinda cool
Onion News Story: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

8th Post (The Dude won!)

It's been a while since my last post (due to schoolwork/chronic laziness), but it has since come to my attention that I have at least 1 devoted reader, so I will try to keep these posts as regular as a well functioning colon.

Lots of things have happened since my last post, but first thing's first. Congratulations to Jeff Bridges for FINALLY winning an Oscar for The Big Lebowski. The Dude lives on!

As I've mentioned before, I have a procrasination problem, and I've been using this very true picture to motivate myself
Anyways, now that we've got the pleasantries out of the way, on to more stimulating crap. I saw another fascinating Ted Talk that I just had to share with you guy(s).



In this video, Daniel Kahneman (from wikipedia: "notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, behavioral economics and hedonic psychology.", so you know he's one cool Jew.) talks about our experiences vs. our memories. He explains that there are two separate selves, the remembering self, and the present self (who only exists for about 3 seconds at a time) and the discrepancies between experiences and our memories of them. An interesting point he brings up is the lack of reason for how much weight we put on our memories, when in reality we spend much less time remembering something than actually experiencing it. Seeing as he is an economist first, these ideas must have come from an economical point of view, yet its very interesting to see his breakdown of our psychological processes and mannerisms with regards to something as fundamentally important and scarily uncertain as memory.

Before I finish, I wanted to remind people just how sexually kinky the Ancient Romans were. Most people probably don't realize that Ancient Romans were much more open sexually than today's culture, (for example, they had no problems with gays, but I guess today that can just be blamed on religion. Which btw leads to stupid shit like this) which is interesting because it begs the question "Why?".

Okay I'm done for now internet, see you next time.

***Bonus Picture: (I know you'll appreciate this Anton)

PS. This is kinda cool
Potential Tax Revenue From Weed Infographic

Seventh Post

Whew, its been a crazy week, and I'm just about ready to start doing schoolwork again. After all, I had taken a 3 week intermission from my academics, counting the week before reading week, reading week, and the week after (this week). I'm pretty far behind in all my classes but not too worried. If life has taught me anything it's that you can do a lot of things in the very last moment with absolutely no consequences. My name is David Murday, and I am a procrastinator. This can probably be said of most of the student body, which is interesting because it shows little correlation between the tendency to procrastinate and various personality traits. Mostly, I think, people procrasinate because they like the rush it gives them. The rush of being on the edge, always teetering between failure and success, danger and safety. I wonder if this behavior is a side-effect of some sort of aspect of our western society, like a living mundane life, or the deadening of feelings through over-stimulation. Either way it doesn't really matter because I doubt I'm going to stop procrastinating any time soon.

A little while back I posted a link to a personality profile that was studied in order to better understand cold-reading (what "psychics" do), and this time I wanted to show a cool elaboration done by Derren Brown. Link (stupid video wouldn't embed)

Also, to show just how cool Russia is, here is a Russian teenage mutant ninja turtle comic that places a giant anthropomorphic bear as their leader, and includes Batman. (I can't really tell what's going on)
Crazy Russian Comic


That's what I have for now internet, see ya later.
-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool.
The Dudes of History

Sixth Post (cool pictures)

Bill Gates was featured on Ted Talks a few days ago (great site fyi), and he gave a pretty interesting talk about poverty, energy, and climate. Check it out if you have time.

Personally, I've never been convinced that human CO2 emissions are responsible for the current climate change, but he makes many good points about steps we can take to reduce poverty, and use energy more efficiently. Not very comforting was his belief that we will require energy "miracles" to reach some of these goals, which he seems to think will require a sort of Manhattan Project to happen. Somehow I have a feeling that the before we get to his goal, factor P in his equation will drop dramatically.

Here are some of the pics I tried to post yesterday while failing miserably.











































More cool pics:
Pictures Taken at Just the Right Time

That's it for now.
-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool.
All People Are Exactly The Same

Fifth Post

Religious people are crazy. Fortunately they are also unintentionally hilarious.

Here's another televangelist by the name of Benny Hinn, who is a self-proclaimed healer and does some trick where he makes people faint before he heals them or whatever. The song is perfect.


While this is a small sample of religious nutjobs that give religious people a bad name, it's still kind of crazy to watch entire crowds fall for parlor tricks, false hopes, and a sense of belonging. Here's an interesting argument against the existence of an "almighty". Since language is arbitrary, and every word is a sort of disconnected metaphor to an idea in our mind, what idea is connected to the word "God"? If god was never on this Earth or was never witnessed, how can we possibly have any idea of what god is? Interesting fact: dog is god spelled backwards. Coincidence?...

That's all I got for now.
-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool

Fourth Post (stuff)

So, I was fairly stoned last night, and I decided to glance at my blog. To my surprise, I felt as if I was reading a completely different person's writing and expression. This was interesting because it was the first time I had actually read my blog objectively, as every other time I had only read it to check for errors. Why was there this discrepancy between how I write and how I think? There's always been a difference between how I see myself and how I believe others see me, and while I think that is true for most people, I was never aware of it more than at that moment. This little insight reminded me of a quote by philosopher William James; "Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is." This made me wonder which perspective should be considered the most "correct" one. Since the viewpoint of "each man as he really is" is not experienced by either party, what proof is there of the existence of such a self to begin with? Or is the "real" person the overlap between the two different beliefs held by each person? No, that couldn't be right otherwise what is "real" would change with every meeting. So perhaps the "real" is invented only to explain the varying mindsets, as if each perspective could only exist as a shadow of the template that is the "real". I thought this all within a few moments and then quickly proceeded to forget it, probably because I was still quite high (besides, Futurama was on).

That aside, I've had a pretty weird week. Between hanging with my friends during reading week, my roommate's paranoid, borderline schizophrenic, fantasies that I am messing with his life, and my laptop getting busted, I got absolutely no work done. Not that I would've gotten any work done anyways. In fact, I actually began writing this entry as a way to procrastinate studying for my psych test even further (its been working so far). That's all I got for now internet, see you later.

-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool (and also proof of fate)
Daft Punk song to 1920s dance craze (The Charleston)

Third Post (random thoughts)

I'm bored as hell atm so I decided to write in another entry today.

So, I was watching 500 Days of Summer yesterday, and I was somewhat disappointed with how real and un-Hollywood its message was (that's what I get for watching indie flicks). After all, people don't watch romance movies to see reality, they watch them to get the hell away from reality (like pretty much anything else they do). One particularly memorable quote was "It's love, not Santa Claus" as a response to Summer's question of whether or not Tom believed in love.


Love is an interesting topic because of what importance it plays in today's advertising industry. Entire corporations and businesses are built on this ever mythologized concept of "love". I bet I can't find a single person who isn't a sucker for the whole "true love", "love at first sight", "soulmate" loveosphere of buzzwords and catchphrases that keeps growing and growing, just like divorce rates. Is this a bad thing? On the surface, yes. Love is simply being exploited to sell diamonds, cards, roses, rings, shoes, scarves, and anything else money can buy. As well, we are now being told that we need to dress and look a certain way if we are to ever possess any sliver of hope of falling in love. People (well, okay, mostly women) are being made unbelievably insecure about their looks through the power of the media.

*Mini-rant: Most people have absolutely no idea of the effect of media and advertising on their minds throughout their lifetime (because it is a very subconscious effect). And it's only getting worse now that we live in such technologically globalized times. Anyone who watches Mad Men (awesome show btw), is at least slightly aware of the control the media holds, and it is rigid enough to support a billion dollar advertising industry. **side note: coolest commercial ever *End-Rant

However, this exploitation isn't news, love has been the topic of stories, ballads, anecdotes, and jokes for a long ass time (well, not cosmically I suppose), so maybe this concept of love really does exist in breathing, living, writhing form. However, is it now being cheapened and almost hidden behind a facade of comical charades played between the two sexes? A biological analysis of love provides some interesting insights as to how attraction and relationships function, which I won't go into right now because it's lunch time and love is getting boring.

(Back from lunch) Another thing I came across today was an article explaining why Apple is evil. I have never had a problem with Apple (I have several of their products), it's their fan club I sometimes can't stand (kind of like with religion). I have no issue with po-mo hipster culture with their fancy hats and vests (I understand this is an overblown stereotype, I just wanted to be hip and say "po-mo"), in fact I know many people like that and they are quite entertaining, but when it comes to defending their tech-joy provider, Apple, most will fight tooth and nail to protect this user-friendly giant. Once again, tying into advertising, brand loyalty is very interesting. It should be impossible to say that any large corporation is "good" or even "nice" (watch the 2003 documentary "The Corporation" to understand why), so this seems to me just like another case of a perfectly evil corporation being able to mask its visage using media marketing. And not only that, but they somehow manage to spread their message through their consumers as well. Anyways, here's the link to the article: Why Apple is Evil

*Side-note: corporation=evil is exactly why they should not have first amendment rights, but that's a story for another day.



One last thing, to anyone who enjoys pondering about the human condition, this article says it all.
On Being Human: Within the Limits of Understanding

Okay that's it for today, I think I wrote too much (even I wouldn't want to read all this lol).
-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool
Old School Medicine Ads

Second Post (deeper thoughts)

This picture caught my eye the other day because it reflects how I have been thinking about my life for the past few weeks. I've been having a lot of trouble choosing a 2nd year program, and I feel if I choose "wrongly", I will be in the same position as this game of tetris. This gets me thinking. Is there any one "right" path? Since our lives are so obviously controlled by chance and forces outside of our domain (think about how one small change in your past could've completely transformed who you are today), is one choice really any better than another? Humans are absolutely terrible at predicting the future for anything more than a few seconds ahead. The neurological processes associated with simulating the future also lead to very interesting cognitive biases as our psychological heuristics are set up for speed rather than accuracy. An example is the "Appeal to Probability" logical fallacy where people have this blurry idea that if something can happen, it probably will (not really knowing what "probably" even means). I mention this because I have a firm belief that anyone with an elementary understanding of math should not be playing the lottery (pet peeve). Back to the future (and our inadequacy of predicting it), since no one can know the ultimate effect of any of their actions (is there such a thing as an ultimate effect?), morality can only exist within certain specified periods or time. This seems like a bit of a flaw since our society is built upon the notion of free will and people being held responsible for their actions which is difficult to imagine without a concept of ultimate morality thrown in the mix.

Anyways, I ramble, I guess what it all comes down to is whether we control our lives or something else does. From a biological point of view, every system we see (systems of organisms/species/ecosystems) are governed by their own self-organizing rules. We can easily see patterns of behavior in all animals, which really throws the concept of "random" out the window. What confuses me is why people try to treat themselves as if they are separate from nature. *Mini-rant: the whole global warming fiasco, which is now coming down to corporations "going green" and making some extra cash, people trying to save endangered species, and the disillusioned cries of morons saying "we're destroying the planet" all piss me off. While I do have a lot to say on the topic, there is no way I can say it better than George Carlin. *Rant over

So if we take our observations about nature and apply them to ourselves, which is only logical considering we came from nature, we would see (as we have already) that we are nothing more than a more complex self-organizing/replicating system. The question here is are we really part of nature? In "The Matrix", Agent Smith tells Morpheus that humans are a virus. That they don't fit with the planet like the other animals, but rather mimic the behavior of our tiny single-celled friends. In the end, it doesn't really matter (which makes me wonder why I wrote that lol), whether we originated on this planet or elsewhere, the Big Question still stands. I say question, because I believe that all big philosophical debates really boil down to this one mystery. Free Will vs. Determinism.

My rather long-winded point is, I have no idea what I want/need/have/am meant to do. So for now, I'm just trying to go with the flow. Okay, since I'm not sure how to finish this post or where I was headed to begin with, I'll end with a quote from Bill Hicks:

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the Weather."
-Bill Hicks

Sorry for the rather heavy topic today, and my slightly irrational writing, this is what happens when I start writing as soon as I get out of bed.
-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool
Oldest Stash of Marijuana Ever

First Post (Hello)

First, a bit about me. My name is David Murday. I am 18 and attend McMaster University. I have 10 toes and 10 fingers. I like to skip stones on the water. Sometimes I go through all of Wednesday thinking that it's Thursday. I have no idea what to do with my life or even who I am. I know what you're all thinking. Same old, same old.

My lazy ass has been meaning to start a blog for a while, and today I finally got the motivation I needed from this video (its one minute long, be patient, watch till the end)


Word of warning (if anyone is reading lol); I tend to go on longish rants that are seemingly disconnected from my original topic (they are), so please bear with me. At this time it is difficult for me to imagine any number of people being interested in what I have to say, so this seems like a bit of a moot point, but hey, you never know.

A friend of mine started a blog recently, and I decided to follow step because I've been needing a place to write down my thoughts and ideas. I'm not really sure what a blog is or how it works. I am familiar with vlogs (video blogs) that are abundant on youtube, full of young energetic people talking about nothing, trying to rack up views and turn a few bucks. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The first vlog I've seen was the DeFranco show by user sxephil. I was instantly addicted and have tried to watch every show for the past year and half or so. At first, it was interesting, thought-provoking and just a good way to catchup on some of the day's events and hear some coherent opinions. Unfortunately the quality of content has deteriorated as of late, which was also a factor in me starting my own blog.

I'm going to start my first blog off with a rather long story that caught my eye on best of craigslist the other day.

"Hi! I am almost 100% positive you remember me. I was standing in the cab line for about 15 minutes in 1 degree weather, and then you and your girlfriend ran in front of me in the cab line right as my cab, that I had been waiting so long for out in the ball shivering cold, arrived. Now I admit, I am a nice guy, and women get to take advantage of me quite often, but that said I haven't been laid in months, and when that happens, I somehow feel that the goddess of feminine nurture and chivalry can... how do I put this? Suck my six inch piano player. This is the point where I told the cabby what you girls did, and informed him that he was throwing away the very long cab ride to Erie as well as his moral saint 1-month chip. At this point he had the very bad... very bad idea to give me (a drunken narcissist, in the right) a ride with the girls who shunted me most literally to the curb. This is where the sh*t show began. Your friend and you are both very attractive, but nevertheless I have become accustomed to, when necessary, seeing only the ugly souls of the monsters who arrogantly think they can get whatever they want. The cussing, the womanizing, the abuse, the screaming, and everything that ensued for the next 15 minutes, is unlike me. However I was not alone in this endeavor, in fact I would go as far as to say that it was YOU two who did most of the screaming, and abusing. Nevertheless I stood up to the both of you. I let you know exactly how sh*tty it was to leave a stranger to freeze for the sake of your own toes. And although I am a tired soul, tired of fighting petty battles with girls, there are times when the wild thing from my youth finds the perfect combination of irritation and gravel to carve a path to the surface and cuss you the f*ck out. So I did. Somewhere along the way you hit me, good and hard across the face for addressing you by your lady parts. I probably deserved it. But even so, when your friend got out of the car, the attitude from the back seat was cut in half. This reduction in calamity is what made me flip around, to see you face to face for the next 10 minute drive to your home, perched on my knees, and just listen. I watched as you blasted me with insults and be-ration, never admitting nor denying that you intended to leave me on the cold cabby curb.Your visage melted from rage into a pool of confusion as I just sat there and listened. By the end, you were reduced to a puddle of tears, and as gratifying as it was, it is these empty moments that remind me why I hush my inner child to sleep, and open the door for you, and hold your purse, and buy you presents, and walk your dog, and keep you warm, and give you kind smiles. When you exited the cab, my body took me over, I hopped out and gave a "Hey!". You turned around, and I threw my arms out. "I'm Sorry!". You sheepishly just looked to me, and through the tears came a genuine moment. A deep smile. Full of the confusion and joy that comes with being twenty-something. I just wanted to say I appreciated that smile. In it, you told me that you were okay, that we are only human, that you value people over right and wrong. Expect to have a beer on me if I ever see you again..... "

Here's the link to the original: http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bou/1505676272.html

I began reading the story expecting the protagonist to completely humiliate the young ladies, but the unexpected heart-warming ending really brightened my day. It's also funny to me that something like this can come out of the dirty dredges and polluted canals that fill craigslist (check the personals section for some crazy shenanigans... if you dare (it was a lonely valentine's day)).

Well, that's it for my first post, but don't worry, I still have tons to share.
-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool
Awesome Drug Math