Incoherent Thoughts

A couple of weeks ago I went LARPing with a friend of mine. It was on a relatively new system with a small amount of people, about 20 total. I must say that it was really fun. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work but it was a most memorable experience. I showed up and joined the NPCs which was convenient because it is free and I didn’t need a costume yet. It took place in Indiana and it was still really snowy at the campgrounds so it was far too easy to tire yourself out.

It was weird at first and I wasn’t very good at using the foam weapons but I still managed to get a couple of hits in with one of my swords. It was fun being a bandit even if I was completely out of my element. I found how truly unfit I am just by how winded I was walking to the actual encounter location. Looks like I’ll have to step up my bear fighting training to include some endurance training.

I still loved it. I kept forgetting that I was supposed to yell out my damage while attacking but the learning experience was what I was really after. At one point the encounter called for being part of the undead. I was to be a skeleton and had to use a mask which somehow disoriented the crap out of me. I started walking like a zombie and being dumb. I was confused and I think I may have messed up on a rule at one point.

I thought I would have more to say about the experience but I can’t think of anything now after all these weeks without writing about it. I’ll probably do it again if I’m asked so I’ll be excited for next time. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually roll a character for the next session. I know I used to make fun of LARPers back in the day but I’m of the opinion I should at least try something before bashing it so it was a pleasant surprise to see how much fun it was to participate in this sort of event. You learn something new everyday. Woot woot. It has also given me a desire to play some more D&D. Something which I finally managed to do the other week. I’ll hopefully blag about it soon.

Two nights ago my fridge was finally repaired. It has been acting up for months and I’ve been foolishly holding off on telling my landlord.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping for the first time in months. A $100 endeavor as I had to replenish pantry items as well.

Last night I cooked my first meal since the fridge died. Last night I was reminded of how much I love cooking my own food.

I went all out. Chopping a slice of beef and a pork chop into bite sized bits. I seasoned them with olive oil and Adobo inside a bowl to wait while the rest of my ingredients were ready. I grabbed my newly acquired green pepper, onion, garlic, mushrooms and some other strange yet super spicy pepper. Chopped them up (except garlic) placed them in a different bowl, added vinegar, sofrito, recaito and a tiny bit of alum. I then take some of the garlic and a small part of the strange pepper and mashed it with my mortar and pestle until they became a fine paste.

Placed the meat on med-low heat on my pan and waited for it to cook a bit. Then added all the veggies and paste and mixed it all up. It was ridiculously spicy yet satisfying and delicious and I even had leftovers for lunch. I’m so glad that I can cook again. Tonight might not be possible due to going to the Dublin Pub for some Irish food, but I’m sure Friday will bring me ample opportunities to cook myself more delicious meals.

Hindsight: Should have added potatoes and cheese to my dish to make it even tastier.

I just got home and instead of taking a nap like I probably should I decided that I would instead write another post on this here blog. A blog that nobody knows about; I haven’t told them about it yet. On to the topic!

I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday; a conversation relating to the different ways we communicate in both spoken and written form. We were arguing because he does not approve or is at least bothered by the use of proper capitalization and punctuation in an informal chat. He believes that such things should be reserved for more formal mediums such as email or work-related net meetings.  His argument being that in this informal chat we should instead be speaking, well writing, the same way we would normally do in a face to face conversation.  During the course of our conversation I came to a realization of how differently we communicate depending on the medium and social context.

I’m going to list some of them to help me organize myself:

• Spoken
  • Face to Face conversation with Friends
  • Face to Face in a formal setting (Ex. Work)
  • Phone
• Written
  • Chat / IM
  • Email
  • Blog
  • Text/Microblogging

Alright, that seems a like a decent enough list. Let’s start with speaking.

In speaking we tend to communicate differently in setting but we it at least contains some common characteristics: namely inflection, tone, timing and in the case of face-to-face conversation, body language.  It is far easier to discern meaning with less words and context simply because you have all of these clues. The phone tends to take some of this information away which is one of the reasons I hate speaking on the phone.  Formal or informal setting tends to merely change which words we use. Formal settings tend to include more specific and common words while informal allows for any language to be included easily including slang and cursing.

It’s different with writing. In writing you only have words to convey your meaning, so you need to be specific yet concise. This is a tough thing to balance. I’m already on my 364^th word, and I’m hoping I’ve been able to be clear without too much verbiage. Writing also takes a much more pronounced distinction in its separation between formal and informal communication. Informal chats and texts tend to demand speedy contractions, abbreviations and less focus on proper grammar. We use fewer letter in hopes of keeping up enough to type our response quickly but we still have enough time to correct any mistakes and maybe rethink our words. In this informal setting we also have the option of using emoticons to help express ourselves. It allows us to substitute, albeit poorly, the loss of body language in an interaction. Blogs and email are slower with more time to correct ourselves. There is an expectation that you’ll have more time to reply and thus you should write clearly, formally with proper punctuation, grammar, spelling, capitalization, etc. I’m supposed to have enough time to proofread my email a couple of times and make sure I am saying what I am actually trying to say as the communication is delayed and a back and forth dialogue is almost impossible.

Last note: I think it might be interesting to explore how the different pacing in communication mediums affect our manners and methods of communicating with others.

Overall I find the whole thing fascinating and would love to look into it more. I’m going to ahead and break what I previously said and no proofread this right now because I have little to no time left for me to get ready for my delicious Irish pub dinner.

Irony,

I like it; yet, I still struggle to truly understand it; to truly comprehend its various intricacies.

I fear mislabeling it; yet, I am enraged when others do.

Irony has played a major role in influencing on me. I cherish it and at times embody it. “Brave New World,” an ironic title, brings us a seemingly beautiful picture of a modern society which it then tears apart at the seams to show us a truly dystopian society. A society based on lies, conformity and stripped of all its humanity. A society which when combined with Orwell’s 1984 isn’t too far off from out reality. This disjunction, this irony, represents an accurate portrayal of a subsection of my conscious mind, of society’s conscious mind.

In a way, Irony drives me, molds me and liberates me. Irony allows me to appreciate the absurdity of this incomprehensible, contradictory and illogical machine we call our world. It plays a major role in my own sense of humor; it affects my appreciation of my surroundings.

As the theme of this, what I’m considering my “personal” blog, is my own thoughts, rants, and ramblings; I find it appropriate to compare our society, what sometimes seems a bleak and gloomy shadow of its intended purpose, as affirming the absurdity and inevitability of Huxley’s dystopian society through its very existence. The fall into the ridiculous inherent in our universe is enough to have me crack a grin.

In a sense the title is a dichotomy. Its literal meaning clashes with the ironic literary title. This post is also the beginning of my first serious foray into blogging and writing. It is a brave new world which must now suffer my awkward steps into forming coherent thoughts in the written word. Thankfully, as of writing this, nobody really knows about the existence of this blog so the damage can still be contained. Perhaps an inkling of compassion will emerge and I’ll stop subjecting the world to my inane ramblings.

Of course, I could have just called this post “Brave New World” because of last night’s episode of Heroes. I guess I’ll never know.