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Bush Approval

The Gallup Polls show the approval ratings of political figures. Just this week President Bush achieved the rating of highest disapproval of any president ever. 68% of the country does not approve of the president. However a weird after thought. Days after 9/11 President Bush achieved the highest approval rating of all time at 90%. Do you think he looks at that and feels justified? Is he happy with having been approved at one point.
Vice President Cheney said recently he didn't let popular opinion sway his feelings on the war. Does that mean that him and the president just don't care how the country feels about them because they got to do what they wanted with another nation and with our position in the world when we did approve of them?
Politicians are there to serve the people's will. When the people's will changes so should the actions of the ruling government. Politicians should not assume absolute knowledge and should not keep their citizens out of the loop. The decisions of any great democracy need to be made by group consensus.

Erowid Submission

I just attempted to submit an experience report about mushrooms to Erowid and heyah it is!

Over the past 5 years I have taken many opportunities to experiment with hallucinogenic mushrooms. I've grown my own, picked from the wild and bought on the street. Finally I decided it is time to impart some knowledge on the use, effects, and history on this incredible fungi.
The first time I ever experienced mushrooms was 1/2 an 8th of dried stems and caps. It was possibly the only time my mind seemed to collapse in to itself on shrooms. I wasn't where I was anymore at one point. I was in a canyon with dinosaurs running around me, which was in part due to a dinosaur sheet my friend had hanging on the wall. This type of disassociation has never happened to me again on shrooms (but plenty of times on ketamine).
With the first time through with, I was very happy with the experience. Over the next few years I would find myself re-visiting this amazing high but never in excess.
Because of my love for the substance and my botanical interests I decided to attempt some growing a few years back. When Psylocybe Fanaticus was still in business I ordered a few syringed and within 2 months had a 2 ounce yield of mushrooms. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Eating the fresh shrooms was comparable to dried out ones, still disgusting, but at this point I had grown to love it. The high was just as good as any I had ever gotten from other sources, but sadly in the midst of moving all my crop died out and I haven't had the opportunity to grow again since.
With the knowledge of what kind of shrooms were hallucinogenic and my friends past history of picking them in Florida me and some people decided it was time to go on a field trip. I spent two weeks in Florida picking the freshest, largest, most beautiful mushrooms I had ever seen. They tasted similar to the ones I had grown, and definitely made me trip.
So with all of that said, between buying, picking and growing I feel as if I have experienced every type of mushroom high there is. The way I have generally experienced them is as follows. Normally the first hour as I descend in to the mouth of madness I start to feel very uncomfortable in my own skin. I am a little nervous because I never know what is going to happen on any given trip. Even though I have done them so many times it makes no difference, I always experience something new. After the first hour is through and I am fully tripping I then start to experience the world in a more serene and calm manner. My mind feels as if it understands the physical world and sentient beings around it on a deeper level. It comprehends problems and solutions in a much faster manner, without hesitation or doubt. Of course there is the obvious description of colors and waves of light flashing by my vision. However I almost think of that as a simple opening act to the main event.
Towards the end of my trips I stay very calm and flow with my surroundings. I am never regretful of having done mushrooms no matter how bad it starts, by the end I am always happy. With most drugs the come down is the worst part, for me the come down of shrooms is almost the best part. I can collect all the ideas and crazy thoughts I had, figure out what's real and what's not, and put my life back together as I come back to reality as perceived by the masses. When I get back I feel great and ready to go about my life in a new way. This is almost EVERY time I do them, which is why I take such long hiatuses between usage. But overall they are my favorite "narcotic" as labeled by government. They have much to teach, if only the majority of people that use them would use them for that instead of a quick laugh. We wonder why they're illegal, it's because of the misuse and mistreatment of them. Once we can handle our hallucinogens more abundantly as a society that is when they will become legal again.

An apple a day

10 Steps to Simplify Your Life
1) Relationships: Sort through all the relationships you are part of, and weed out the good from the bad. Only in this is there the possibility to gain fresh new outlooks on the world and on other people.

2)Possessions: You are not your possessions, you are not your friends and family, you are not your awards and degrees. You are matter made conscious. You are a physical object with the ability to think!

3) Money:
Money is important, we need to earn it, we need to spend it, but it should not be the all encompassing reason for our lives. We should not spend our entire life in the constant pursuit of it thinking that it will solve our problems. Lastly we should not waste the money we do have!

4) Work:
Relax, kick back and enjoy the world around you. Money isn't needed to do something that simple, so working your life away is just silly. Don't let your job determine how your life is run, find a job based on your life style!

5) Religion:
Take aspects of all great world religions and philosophies and create your own religion. Pagan, Abrahamic, Dharmic, Modern all of these types of religions make incredible points and give great advice. Many of them have done great things for the world. But how can any single one of them have it right over the rest of them?

6)Food & Drink:
One of the three prime necessities of life. Nourishment. We need to eat and drink, however we do not need to eat and drink quite as much as we have found the ability to do. Our nation has an over abundance of food. Super markets, fast food chains, eating contests, buffets. With this giant bread bowl of a nation we have carved our names in to, we have found a great resource for population growth and of course belly bloating. But just because we have it does it mean we should take such advantage of it?
My personal belief is that just because it is there, doesn't mean we have to use it. We not only have over done the amount of food we eat, but also the type. We eat processed and chemically enhanced foods. As well as horribly mistreated and genetically mutated meats. We depend on a 15 year old high school student to cook us our "number 1 with coke". What ever happened to cooking your own food, using ingredients that are good for you or at the very least going out to a nice restaurant?
Eating healthy and responsibly doesn't cost as much as most people think. Strictly organic and health food stores or sections of super markets are going to charge more. But that doesn't mean you can't buy more natural foods. I do not want to get in to a shopping list of foods but just look at the food pyramid. Everything you need and most of it possible to purchase for cheap, or even grow in your own backyard for free!
Lastly, drinking water, juice, tea, and milk IMO is better tasting and in everyone's opinion healthier than drinking soda, coffee, iced tea, and concentrates.

Pennsylvania

VOTE!

Philadelphia Zoo

And the most film consuming part of the trip was definitely the Philadelphia Zoo.

Clerks

The absolute best part of the road trip was getting to see where one of my favorite movies was filmed. Clerks!

Cut Short

So the trip was cut short, no biggie though, had an awesome time. Gonna make up for it by going North and hitting up New England sooner than later.

For Real This Time!

Tomorrow morning I am waking up at 7:30, doing my thing, going to the library, buying some propane, getting a full tank of gas, picking up Aviva in the city, and leaving to drive around the Eastern Seaboard for the next few weeks. Another life goal I can check of the list. If I keep going at this rate I'm not going to have anything to look forward to. Nah just kidding, my list of goals and the relative time and effort that will have to be put in to accomplishing many of them will probably bring me in to my late 80's.

Past Goals:
Build Computer
Work at Ski Resort
Own VW Bus
Rid my life of bills

Future Goals:
Cross Country to Cali
Backpack Europe
Teach abroad in South America and Asia
Write and Direct a horror movie
Organic farming in Australia
Sailboat trip to all of the Pacific Island
Buy my own plot of land to farm
Organize an artistic collaboration group
Open a "museum" of technology

Hmm well I guess those are all my life goals right now, so maybe not late 80's. I guess I can get all that done by the time I'm 40 and just live the good life afterwards, wish me luck. On all of that and the trip I am about to depart for!

The UMPC

The UMPC is not a new concept. Microsoft and Intel have been pushing one form or another of it for the past few years. However it never seemed to catch on, until late last year when Asus perfected the design with the EEE PC!


Small and portable, but unlike it's predecessors, it has a keyboard! Over the past few months while the Asus EEE has taken the tech world by storm many companies are trying to come on board. The Everex Cloudbook and the HP 2133 Mini Note being the two main competitors to the Asus EEE right now. But by the end of this year I see the laptop market being saturated with these types of machines. Portable, cheap, simple to use, and many times Linux based instead of Windows or OS X.


Going from anywhere starting at $300 up to high grade $800 versions, these machines are revolutionary beyond anything Apple claims to be it's contribution to the world. So many people look at the IPhone, the Mac Airbook, and many other Apple products as revolutionary, but all they are is pretty. None of them have changed the way to use computers, none of them have done anything that hasn't already been done. Asus however is the real revolutionary. They came in to a saturated laptop market and brought out a product that they had no idea would succeed, that they took many chances on, the size, using Linux, and tiny flash based memory, along with open source software. This is a revolution in the way we compute and it is only going to get better!

General Petraeus April 8th

"I never really hated the one true God, but the god of the people I hated"

10 Steps to Simplify Your Life
1) Relationships: Sort through all the relationships you are part of, and weed out the good from the bad. Only in this is there the possibility to gain fresh new outlooks on the world and on other people.

2)Possessions: You are not your possessions, you are not your friends and family, you are not your awards and degrees. You are matter made conscious. You are a physical object with the ability to think!

3) Money:
Money is important, we need to earn it, we need to spend it, but it should not be the all encompassing reason for our lives. We should not spend our entire life in the constant pursuit of it thinking that it will solve our problems. Lastly we should not waste the money we do have!

4) Work
Relax, kick back and enjoy the world around you. Money isn't needed to do something that simple, so working your life away is just silly. Don't let your job determine how your life is run, find a job based on your life style!

5) Religion
The world needs a savior. The masses need direction.

Religion has been around since the beginning of sentience. Because all religion really is, is a way to explain the natural world around us that is not understandable through conscious observation. Lighting cannot be explained by watching it, it has to be studied, and that is why primitive man thought that gods created it. Sure we understand cause and effect, opposites, symbolism and many other non physical obsessions of the world. And after centuries of scientific study we finally understand much of the natural universe around us. But we don't understand matter and life. We still don't know *why* we exist or how we came to be!
And that is the last great question. The last pillar that religion stands on. Once those questions are answered (and I believe they will be) we will no longer need to seek answers in false prophets and institutionalized religions. There will always be a need to show your thankfulness for life and your faith in the world around you, but that can be done on your own and without the stigma and dogma that comes with all the worlds religions.
With all of this said. A simple way to simplify your life, is to just not let religion make you do anything you don't feel comfortable doing. Your life is your religion. If someone asks what you are you tell them "I am myself I believe in my path". You don't need to follow the path of someone who went before you. Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus of Nazareth were incredible people as was Mohammad, John Smith, Lao Tzu, and hell L Ron Hubbard. However that doesn't make their (or more precisely their followers over the ages) perception of reality, and the best way to circumnavigate it, any better than yours!
Take aspects of all great world religions and philosophies and create your own religion. Pagan, Abrahamic, Dharmic, Modern all of these types of religions make incredible points and give great advice. Many of them have done great things for the world. But how can any single one of them have it right over the rest of them? They just can't, so why not incorporate them all! I have found it a great way to simplify my life, by understanding, respecting, and to some extent following all the religions. It is impossible for me to get in to an argument over faith, because I believe in your faith just as much as mine! Problem is most other people don't give another's faith any credence! Start respecting your neighbor as you do yourself, not just your next door neighbor but your neighbors on this planet, all of them!

Robots that eat suburbs and poop plants!

Oh man I wish this was not a joke! Suburb eating Robots!

Original Article

Young Communist League

The YCL is a youth group movement in Nepal that is around to fight for what they believe is their rights. I was surprised to learn that Britain and America also have YCL groups. From what I can ascertain these groups use some extreme methods at times but have also been the victim of the same types of attacks by their home governments. What I am trying to get to though is the idea, of a youth movement joining forces and attempting to bring about the change they so desperately believe in. I am in no way promoting communism or extremism (even though the original ideas of Marxism are genius, but have been perverted horribly). American youth is so segregated and diverse that it almost seems impossible for us to band together in such a manner. To protest and demonstrate against the imperialistic force that is the American Government or the capitalistic force that is the American Media, or whatever other cause needs to be addressed. We have the internet and Nintendo, there's no need for us to take to the streets to demand our rights be enforced and our liberties be protected. Other nations that don't have such technological and societal subjects to take their mind of the world around them are readily available and prepared to do what needs to be done. But the youth of America is too busy with MTV and Myspace to take such steps. But herein lies the opposing view of my former statement. We can use MTV and Myspace and all these other technological advances to our benefit. We do not need to take to the streets when the internet can tie us all together on a much larger scale without the need to be in one set location. Cell phones and video cameras and Wi-fi and laptops can bring about a youth league that doesn't need to be together to make an impact. We just need to take the time and effort to get it off the ground. We need to care about what our nation is up to, and what our lives will be like in the future. We need to care about media and capitalism and democracy. We take all these things for granted so when small sections of our civil liberties are taken away from us we think "Well we still have it better off than communism and dictatorships". But why think of it that way? Why let any of our liberties be taken away for any reason? We should stand up for things we believe in, we should start believing in things that matter and we should join with people who have the same ideologies as ourselves to make the people in charge of our lives know just exactly how we feel!

The Reason People Watch Nascar!

I'm outta here!

Booya! Be Back Soon.

Update 11:04 AM:
Booya! Still not leaving. But for a good reason Aviva is coming with and needs a day or two to get ready. Makes the trip less lonely but it means I have to sit in anxiousness till Wednesday! I swear this will happen I was "this" close to leaving this morning when I got a message from her asking me to wait, so here goes nothing wish both of us luck now!

Lost Parody

LOL! "Get Lost!"

American Concern

We as Americans have come to a point in our history where our priorities seem to have become massively skewed. Our concerns and ambitions have been shaped by the fact that while we do have many problems facing us, they are incomparable to what much of the rest of the world faces. We argue and worry about reality TV and rising gas prices while there are fellow human beings else where starving to death and growing up without education.



Don't get me wrong, there are many things we as Americans *do* have to worry about. Health care, education, war, democracy, the environment, etc etc. The problem is we don't let these things infiltrate our daily thinking patterns because either we are too worried with our own personal dilemmas or we don't want these harsh problems to bring us down. Well next time you go to complain about your life or about the world around you, think about how much worse it could be.



We as a nation need to start thinking about what we *do* have and not what we think we should have or how much better we can make certain liberties that we take for granted. We need to worry about real problems instead of ones that we can't affect, or that are just simply ridiculous. We need to be a world leader in innovation, hope, science, faith, technology, environmental problems and many other world wide concerns. We need to be the America that this Nation has always dreamed of being, has at times come close to and one that only time can reveal!

Wii Transform

Greatest Nintendo commercial I've ever seen, but it's fake! Made by a fan, this is incredible.

A day late a buck short

Well today is not d-day anymore. Due in part to multiple cirumstances, got really messed up last night and didn't get home from the city till almost 1 AM, still have to renew some library books for the ride (and they're closed today), and thought I might have had someone to join me on the ride and was going to wait for her (but yet another futile circumstance, noone has any sense of adventure anymore!). But with all that said, d-day is only one day away, tomorrow. So this push back isn't that monumental. But today is going to be a hard day to get through, mostly because of the anxiety of wanting to get on the road! I just want to sleep the day away and get it over with. But instead I'll watch the Mets game, pack up the rest of my stuff, get a propane tank for my mini stove, and relax.

Hardball with Barack Obama

I have never seen this much enthusiasm at a college political event, incredible.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"

10 Steps to Simplify Your Life
1) Relationships: Sort through all the relationships you are part of, and weed out the good from the bad. Only in this is there the possibility to gain fresh new outlooks on the world and on other people.

2)Possessions: You are not your possessions, you are not your friends and family, you are not your awards and degrees. You are matter made conscious. You are a physical object with the ability to think!

3) Money:
Money is important, we need to earn it, we need to spend it, but it should not be the all encompassing reason for our lives. We should not spend our entire life in the constant pursuit of it thinking that it will solve our problems. Lastly we should not waste the money we do have!

4) Work
We all work at some point in our lives, well most of us at least, and the majority of working folk are unhappy with their job or at the very most content with it. Not many people I know get up in the morning thinking to themselves "Yes I have work today I can't wait to get in and put in as many hours as possible!"
Jobs are easy to get, teenagers start working while still in high school to learn the importance of a dollar and work ethic. But while jobs are easy to get careers are much harder to attain. Today it is nearly impossible to find yourself in a good career without years of extra schooling after high school. Whether it is a 4 year degree or a doctorate, these extensive training programs prepare teenagers and 20 somethings for working in the same area of specialty FOREVER, or until another degree is attained.
Personally I cannot stand to live like that. I do not want to be stuck in the same job or similar jobs for the rest of my life, and that is why after 3 years in collage I decided it was not right for me. I simplified my life by being content with menial positions making $10 an hour instead of $25, and I make due that way because I am meticulous with my money and where I spend it. Most people work so much because they think they need to be making a certain amount to survive. But once we reassess our possessions, relationships and attachment to money we will realize that work is not the most important thing in the world.
If you are unhappy with your job, get a new one! If you are unsure about what you're going to school for, take some time off and rethink it. Don't waste more money on a degree you will not even end up using! Don't waste more time miserable in a job that you hate. If it means making less money but being happier, then adjust to it!
Find something you love doing, and do it. I personally don't have a full time career, I take seasonal jobs every winter and summer, in beautifully scenic places. Then in the spring and fall I have saved up enough money to take off for a few months and relax, take road trips, visit friends and family. It's great. I know people with a family to attend after can't do this, but MANY people my age can, yet don't. They believe they have to start working all the time while young so they don't have to when they're older, or so they can own a home or a nice car or whatever. Well I have a news flash for you, that won't happen, you'll be working the rest of your life most likely to pay for that home and the family you put in it. So take the time now to attempt to find something you want to do, and don't work so hard! Relax, kick back and enjoy the world around you. Money isn't needed to do something that simple, so working your life away is just silly. Don't let your job determine how your life is run, find a job based on your life style!

Road Trip Route

T-Minus 3 days until departure. Today I went out and bought my food for the trip as well as a road atlas for the entire US and mapped out my course on paper. As you can see above I have the entire course mapped out on Google Earth, but that won't help when I am in the middle of nowhere with no internet connection or computer for that matter. I am getting quite excited to leave, first thing first though I am going to spend the weekend in NYC, than after a little urban living Sunday I will be officially leaving for Florida. Good times.

Opening Day

Well here I sit, the day after the Mets season opener, thinking to myself "Why the hell did I think they opened on Tuesday?!" I missed the opener, I missed the first appearance of Johan in a real game, I missed a 7-2 win over the Marlin, and some amazing offense by Wright, Beltran and Reyes. I missed all of it! But tonight is Pedro's season debut and that will make up for everything. I can't wait! That's why baseball is my favorite sport, it's on almost every single day. You miss one game in less than 24 hours you have another to watch. While I will never be able to recapture what yesterday's game would have felt like watching it live, I still am excited by the outcome. Let's hope the momentum keeps on and the Mets have a great April to lead them in to the summer!