The exponential nature of information

You will probably read the title of this post and immediately assume that you will be reading another long theoretical rant about some inconsequential social theory that I thought up one night while laying awake in bed. You will have made an accurate assumption.
This most recent theory of mine was developed when I was stressing out over writing a paper. I began to think about how one could write a paper with the same exact source material as someone else and produce two entirely different outcomes. This led me to think further that this must occur several thousand times a year at colleges and universitites all over the world, and has been occuring since organized higher education has been in place. Think about the utter overload of information that our society is spewing out. Millions of college students write tens of millions of papers every year. Even if you factor out the papers that must have been written before typewriters were invented, that must mean that BILLIONS of papers have been written by college students alone in the last 100 years. This information is most likely sitting around somewhere in a desk or file cabinet, never again to see the light of day. I assume many professors simply throw out the papers they choose to keep. This led me to make a little theory on why students shouldn't have to write papers.

I will call this theory the Stagnation Theory. It simply suggests that the value of your written work can be directly related to the amount it is duplicated and circulated. College papers, for example, fall near the bottom of the scale of Stagnation Theory. You only make one copy of your paper, and it is never published and most of the time read only by yourself and your professor. Therefore, no matter how well written it may be, it has no value because the information contained within it is stagnant. Near the top of the ladder of ST is religious texts. The Bible and the Koran, for example, are read and circulated by millions of people. Not only that, but they are passed down to later generations to impart the information within to the next group. The most valuable pieces of written work are those that are most successful at transmitting information. That's why the internet and blogs are quickly overcoming printed news. The faster and easier it is to distribute information, the more successful it is. ST doesn't take into account truth or accuracy, because I am referring to all written pieces, from news reports to fiction novels. The most infections pieces of information that travel the quickest are more often than not absolute lies. Think about how quickly gossip spreads, or how a flase news story can get blown out of proportion. False stories are created because they are known to spread quickly. Stagnation Theory is all about how much a piece of writing is duplicated and circulated, and so its a more "valuable" piece if it reaches a broad audience in as short of amount of time as possible. One final factor in ST is staying power. Once again this puts relgious texts on top because they have been around so long. News reports, while they spread very quickly, have short duration so they are worth less.

Try using the Stagnation Theory for your next philosophy paper. Just turn in one sheet with my email address on it and I will be happy to explain Stagnation Theory to any professor who may think otherwise. This is the best excuse anyone has ever invented to not have to write papers, and I'm giving it away for free.

Hans Speaks; We Listen

"Hans' (abridged) Excursus on Study Abroad in Africa,

as Recorded by Aaron Mandel."
ed. Dan Baxter

Aaron: so like 30 people probably think you have AIDS or have been eaten by a lion.
Hans: I know, I've been super busy, now I'm doing a research project at a rural prison, it's a restorative justice program.

Aaron: are you still living in a hut or whatever?
Hans: no, i'm living in a "flat" now in the city.

Aaron: can you bring us all back some traditional zulu or whatever south african tribal garb you can find so we can all wear it when we go to parties? or will that offend your newfound internationalist/indigenous sensibilities?
Hans: yeah i feel like that actually would offend me, not to be the self righteous guy who has "been to africa"

Hans: i will write a mass email by the weekend's end, i do suck at keeping in touch but cut me a break, i'm in friggun Africa (ed: he hasn't)

Hans: hey have you guys made arrangements for living space next semster?
Aaron: well all 9 of us who are here now are staying
Hans: socializing whites of privilege has never been so fun!

Aaron: so write some final funny thoughts or words of sage wisdom or something
Hans: i'm still alive, i miss you all dearly monstrots and i will return with tales that will hopefully make you appreciate your luck.

Hans: hamba kahle (go well)

Another Shameless Plug

For all of your juniors at Whitman who are voting for ASWC senator today, write me in as a candidate. Not may people will be voting today so if I can get some votes I should have a shot! Seriously, if you read my blog, do this, because I really would like to get some shit done as senator next year.

Crazy-ass townie

The other day this crazy guy with a "DEA" hat on strolled up onto the main field in the center of the campus with a suitcase that had "Bushwackers" written all over it and a bunch of coat hangers stuffed into his pockets. The guy walks up to me and stands really close and mumbles something about bubbles. At first I think that this guy is just having trouble talking because of his wicked-ass braces, which looked like his orthodontist just glued some bottle caps to his teeth and tied them off with barbed wire. After the guy incoherently mumbled some more shit about bubbles, I realized that it wasn't a bad braces job but his jaw was wired shut. I finally figured out that he was trying to make a point about personal "bubbles" or comfort zones. He started to lay out his coat hangers around a fish sculpture because, quote "He's from here, and that's his big fuckin' fish." By "here" I believe he meant Walla Walla. All my doubts about him being completely insane went out the window when he started yelling something about Air Force Ones and how he loved the sunshine. Then he called somebody a faggot. I feel like if you are insane that you can get away with a certain degree of bigotry simply because 1) you're insane and 2) since you're insane, nobody knows what you might do if they call you on it. I can just imagine some Whitman student walking up to this guy and saying "Excuse me, that word offended me." Most likely this guy would have taken a shiv out of his boot. I'm not joking, since my friends and I were weary about fighting him simply because we were pretty sure he had a knife somewhere. This guy did him damndest to try and pick fights, but ultimately people started treating him like any rambling fool on the street; people started ignoring him. Now, I'm not saying you should ignore all crazy people, but if you wander around like a damn fool yelling nonsense, don't expect me to fucking tune in all intently and listen to your opinion on how lentils are going to take over the moon base. I tried to humor this guy when he came up to talk to me, but after a while it kind of wanders into your head: "hey, this guy probably had this same conversation with a doorknob. What the fuck am I still doing here?" But since we're all taught to be polite and pay attention when people are talking to you, I stood there like a jackass while this guy related his theories on how tadpoles is the winner.

On another note, we won the Tamarac Outdoor Film Festival again, this time with the sequel to Born To Ride, Born 2 Ride: Double Fault. DVD's are gonna be sold in the bookstore soon if everything goes as planned.

Me 'ead 'urts

"milord, I can't go work on the manor today, me and the boys overdid it a bit at the mead hall last night, and me 'ead 'urts."

"get to work peasant, my fiefdom needs you!"

"but master, me 'ead 'urts"

"I rule as far as I can see"

"ME 'EAD REALLY 'URTS"

"Ya heard the plague is spreadin?"

"Spreadin to me 'ead?"

"Spreadin to the lazy"

"I'm not lazy, it's just that me 'ead 'urts. I'm but a week grunt in your fief but a grunt feels just like a lord might whenceforth an arrow pierceth his armour and lodgeth in his head for days on end, then your 'ead would 'urt too milord."

"You make a good point, me 'ead would 'urt with an arrow in it. What's your name, peasant?"

"Bartholomew, simply here to serve and work, and simply asking for a moment of respite since me 'ead 'urts."

"I like you, why dont' you marry one of my daughters and move into the lord's manor house."

"I can't master, me 'ead 'urts."

Some creatures from the deep.

We're gonna play a fun little game called "what the hell is that thing?!?" Let me explain the rules. I'm going to post a picture of something we dug out of the fridge last week, and you're going to try and guess from a list what that thing is. If you get it right, then someone that has a crush on you will let you know in the next week.



Product 1
A) An old biology experiment
B) Spicy chili
C) Chocolate cake frosting
D) Horse manure



Product 2
A) Goat brains
B) Ice cream
C) Salmon cream cheese
D) Alien life form




Product 3
A) Butter
B) Apple butter
C) Duck butter
D) No fucking clue






Now to see if you guessed right! Product 1 was a heaping bowl of spicy chili! Once I scraped off the fungus that could actually scream in pain I found a remarkably fresh-looking bowl of vegatarian chili. Product 2 is a surprise, but its actually salmon-flavored cream cheese. I'm pretty sure that it had a vein in it. Product 3 is actually no kind of butter...we couldn't figure out what the heck it was but we inhaled the spores that flew off of it when we poked it and tripped balls for about 6 hours.

Until next time!

Hair-brained schemes

So Whitman was going to give a bunch of students who wanted to start a Co-op organic foods store something like $35,000 to help them get started. Whitman was going to give them this money because at the time it was believed that the student funds had a $70,000 surplus. It turns out that really wasn't a surplus but we were something like $45,000 in the RED, and so it would seem the Co-op can't get its money. Not to simple, it would seem. Due to some weaseling the people in charge of getting the Co-op started have managed to dig around in the bylaws of the student government and find about 1000 little loopholes to try and get their money still. I thought this Co-op thing was kind of a hair-brained scheme to begin with, but now with them trying to use the books to get their cash, its getting kind of rediculous.

Students don't really have an option in this matter, its up to the student representatives to vote whether or not the Co-op gets their cash. I think there should at least be some sort of selection of projects that the cash could go to, not just the Co-op or nothing at all. I've doctored up a little list of other cool student projects that could use a $35,000 jump start:

1) Whitman College Formula One Racing Team. With $35,000 we could buy a pretty good engine and maybe a used chassis. I would drive the race car and everyone else who joined the team would work as pit crew and mechanics, as well as some guys up in the booth. Since we would be the only collegiate F1 team, we'd win the championship every year. That's better than any other Whitman varsity sport can boast by a long shot. I would also settle for a go-kart track.

2) Buy a huge aquarium. Nothing says "legitimate place of higher learning" better than a gigantic salt-water aquarium full of sharks and turtles. Prospective students will be awed into attending Whitman. A good alternative would be to buy a tank for dolphins and hold weekly stunt shows with the smart little bastards doing flips and hitting beach balls. Admission free for students and faculty!

3) A Gravitron. The physics department could use it for experiements(?) and it would be pretty cool to see a bunch of drunk students stumbling into the Gravitron on a friday night, jamming the start button and then blowing chunks all over the walls as the Eurythmics blasts in the background. To add to the realsim I bet we could get a real-live carney to sit by it and hit on all the females that get on.

4) Clone dinosaurs by splicing their DNA with frog DNA, then contain them in poorly-built holding pens around campus while we give tours. If you all have seen Jurassic Park, you know how awesome this would be. We would most likely have to hire an Australian game hunter to cover our asses, but to cut corners I'm pretty sure there is someone in the theater department who can fake the accent.

These are just a few options of other projects that, in my opinion, are much more beneficial to the student body and the Walla Walla community. The Co-op or a freakin' race car? If you pick organic museli over a shark tank then you need a CAT scan.

Technology hates us

So I've been trying to post some sweet-ass pictures of tons of awesome shit that has been going down but the FTP servers from Whitman keep giving me a crappy error message:

Status: Connecting to students.whitman.edu ...
Status: Connected with students.whitman.edu. Waiting for welcome message...
Error: Timeout detected!
Error: Unable to connect!
Status: Waiting to retry... (5 retries left)
Status: Connecting to students.whitman.edu ...
Status: Connected with students.whitman.edu. Why waste your fucking time...
Error: We were right the first time. Our shit is fucked up!
Error: Bugger off!
Status: Waiting to retry... (5 retries left)
Status: Connecting to students.whitman.edu ...
Status: Connected with students.whitman.edu. You're in for a long night...

That is more or less what the computer tells me when I try to bring wonderful pictures to you all.

In other news, Gus' parents are in town and have succesfully gotten me drunk as hell two nights in a row. First Mr. Gus bought a few of the Monstro guys 4 pitchers of beer down at the Brew Pub. Charlie is a great guy and often confides in me about women. He told me the waitress that was pouring our beer looked like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, then proceeded to tell her the same and gave her an $8 tip. I hope I'm half as cool as that when I'm retired. The second time Gus' parents cooked us dinner and bought 4 bottles of wine and about 48 beers. Charlie once again took me off to the side and deemed it necessary to wisper all the lines from his favorite scene in Pulp Fiction. His favorite scene is when they all show up and Quentin Tarantino's house with the dead body and then call The Wolf.

Big props go out to the local Whitman band Lovechild who played at the Hotel California last night. These guys are really good, so keep an eye out for them all of you non-Whitties who read my blog.

Damn The Man

So Aaron lost, and I demand a recount. I'm not going to follow some puppet for the commies. Hopefully someone will form a rebellion and we can attack the Death Star this new president is undoubtedly building to put all kinds of hurt on the student body.

You've motivated me to hate you

I'm reading a motivational book called Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis so that I can review it for the school newspaper. It's basically about how to overcome all the identity issues that come along after you have graduated college. At one point in the book a person is quoted as saying "Maybe you will go to Costa Rica and find that you have a passion for saving the gorillas." I could be wrong, but the last time I checked there weren't silverbacks running around San Jose. This just goes to show why motivational speakers always intentionally keep their speeches vague: they risk making themselves look like complete morons. If they become too specific, some perceptive college student is going to tear them to shreds on his blog. These speakers always seem to have their shit figured out, but in reality they are just morons who look in the mirror and say "I've got hair implants and a cheap suit, I'll write a book telling dudes like me how to get chicks." You can't really blame these motivational authors/speakers, because the real morons are the people who walk by these books in the store and say "Oh shit! I thought I would never be able to figure out how to turn my life around in 10 easy steps, but now Dr. Dick has written this great book on how to do exactly that. Where's my credit card?"
Take Dr. Phil for example. Oprah made Dr. Phil famous, and now he's like a freakin' guru for anyone who watches daytime TV. Stay at home mothers in the Midwest tune in to this guy every day and listen to him give vague advice like "Happiness comes from within. If you aren't happy with yourself, you won't ever be happy with your life." I just made that shit up but I bet Dr. Phil wrote that in a book or has said it on TV at least once. Am I going to go publish that? Hell no, because it doesn't mean anything. I was Dr. Phil's nephew's camp counselor last summer and this kid was freakin' psychotic. Sometimes his eyes would widen and he would just start screaming and bouncing off the walls. If Dr. Phil can't even ensure that his own family isn't going nuts, how can he go around giving advice to people on how to fix their shit?

I will give you some good advice now, and you don't even have to pay for it: shit tends to work out more often than not. Problems in your life are temporary, even though they might not always work out how you want them to. You will never worry about one thing for your entire life; everything will be resolved, and you will be able to move on. (Unless you're scared of dying every day, then I don't know what to tell you except maybe try to take some pills to cut down your anxiety.) Stop looking to other people for good advice, just find something that chills you out and use it.

Vote Mandel

This is the official press release to state that The Monstro blog is giving its support to Aaron Mandel for the ASWC Presidential race. We, the writers of The Monstro, feel that Aaron falls best in line with our beliefs on how a student government should be run. We feel that his leadership and hard work will lend something to the job that has been absent since the times of William O. Douglas.

The Monstro says, Vote Mandel.

A negative trend I've been noticing...

So I've been looking over my blog, and I noticed there's been almost 2000 hits since I added the counter in February. Still, there is a noticable lack of comments on my posts. What the fuck? I'm out here dancing and singing for all you people, the least you could do is show me I'm appreciated. Drop a quarter in the hat if you enjoyed the show, asshole. You just sit behind your little computer screen and laugh "Ha ha" at all my funny posts. "Drew's so funny, look at his funny posts!" I'm going to start writing posts about how what I ate for lunch and what color my underwear is and we'll see how often you squirt milk out of your nose THEN!

poopademics, old food and the rest...

As I thumbed through the pamphlet for last Tuesday's undergraduate conference a realization hit me. Going to a school like Whitman, a liberal arts school, it's not really what you study that is important, it's how you study it. The method is what is taught and critiqued. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, but it definetly allows for some random ass shit that some might consider, oh how do you say, TOTALLY FUCKING POINTLESS, to be overly scrutinized. This led me to the conclusion that there is a good chance that a lot of what we study is total bs. I really wish there was a way to test this theory by writing some philosophy "text" in like 35 minutes while fucked up outta my mind, then give it to a class of really "smart" people and make them write academic papers about it just to see what amazing analysis would come of this. Then it occured to me that the complete logical mandelian extension of this would be to take a fuckin nasty dump somewhere and make people write about that, then present my study of that to the undergraduate conference.

A few days ago me and the Gus-man decided to look back in the fridge more than the 6 or so inches at the front where we keep all of our food (we are some of the only monstro residents who actually eat here). What we found shocked and awed. Sarah, Kaylin, and Marta's food from last semester was still chillin back there. Drew is in Seattle today but when he gets back I will have him post the pics of some of the shit we pulled out because it was like a button activator for our gag reflexes. Think 3 inches of thick mold resembling desert cacti grass flowers with fresh bean and corns underneath it. Also salmon flavored cream cheese.

Last night was Casino Night in which I did only okay at, leaving me with three raffle tickets, all of which I put in the bin to win a tent. I didn't know you had to put your name on the tickets, which you sholdn't have had to since the tickets had numbers on them. ANyways, they miraculously called a no name ticket and were about to dq it when I asserted myself and rightfully claimed my tent. Now I can just live in the front yard of the monstro and throw shit at Stiles' window, which has been the goal all along after all.

We "baby-proofed" our house for the frisbee party we are having tonight so hopefully Drew can post some pictures of that too.

I'm running for ASWC President so hopefully all the faithful readers of the Monstro Blog will support me from wherever you are, the election will be online all day on Tuesday, April 12 and you should have info about it in your email, if not, bugger off.

Facebook

Whitman just got on Facebook.com and everyone is shitting their pants. Literally. My pants are ruined, and they were a nice, expensive pair of Quicksilver khaki shorts. Now I have to throw them in the garbage can. God-damn you Facebook.com. It's pretty chill in that I have found some profiles of old friends from high school, even though I didn't really like them that much anyway. They probably have fond memories of me, but they will soon follow the link to The Monstro and find out what a huge butthole I am and never post a nice comment on my Facebook.com profile. The only thing I wish the Facebook.com had is a type of friend ranking system so that people could know what type of friend I thought they were. Say some old friend from home checks their rank and "Holy shit, I'm number 23, they must really like me." Or someone else I know right now at Whitman checks and they see that they are number 110, and they realize I don't really like them but I am just friendly to their face. This ranking system would be awesome, maybe I'll mail the Zuckerberg character in charge of the Facbook.com website.

In other news, there is a mouse living in Gus' room named Bob, and we have decided to raise it instead of 1) kill it with a mouse trap or 2) killing it with poison. The "let it live" idea came soon after we realized nobody wanted to spend money on fucking mouse traps or poison. It's important to note that more likely than not "Bob" is actually several hundred mice living in the walls, and we just manage to see one of them at a time, so "there's Bob" is really just another way of saying "there is another mouse." We have yet to see two mice, so they cannot be named Adam and Eve as was the original plan.

On Life

Sometimes your life can take a brief pause, and if you just so happen to be looking, you can notice this happening and you can get a brief glimpse at how surreal life can really be. I was practicing softball today with a few members from my team. We were on a high school field that shared a fence with the field that Whitman's baseball team uses. They were playing a game while we were practicing and I could hear the outfielders yelling commands at each other. As I stood there waiting to field a ball, I saw a dirty white baseball sail cleanly over the fence and roll onto the field I was practicing on. I ignored it until I saw a player from Whitman's team emerge from some trees and start looking around in the grass. We pointed out the baseball to him and he quickly fetched it. "Who's pitching?" someone asked. "Maldy." he said. For those of you that don't know, Maldy is a close friend of mine and pitcher on the baseball team. As the other player trudged back to his side of the fence, I had one of those moments in my life and I connected with how Maldy must have felt after that pitch sailed over. How it must have destroyed his confidence and his spirit. I also thought how only 200 yards away, I could see that same ball sailing over that same fence and glance away not giving it a second thought.

That is how life is my friends.

Now, go live it.

Who doesn't know the Pope?

So by now I'm sure everyone has seen the pictures of the dead Pope. Personally, I don't find anything creepier than taking pictures of dead people. I mean, it's one thing if you're taking the picture to raise global awareness or something, but grandpa sitting in the coffin like a senior-aged Ken doll isn't exactly a Kodak moment.

I was talking to Blakeley about how people are mourning and weeping about the Pope dying. This is obviously just for the cameras, because if these people actually stopped to THINK about the Pope's death for one second, they would realize how awesome it was for him. The Pope died at 84, a heartly age, at the very top of his profession. He died naturally as one of the most important people on the planet. I'd say that's a pretty damn good way to go out, considering there is a web site dedicated to people who die in the stupidest ways possible, and these are just the ones that get reported. What tops it all off is how freakin' simple the Pope's job was in the last 20 years of his life. I can't think of a single time I saw the Pope doing anything but standing and waving, and sometimes stuttering and drooling. Sometimes there would be a picture in a newspaper and the Pope would be standing and waving in a different spot than he usually stands and waves, but that just means the dude flew around in private jets all the time and sipped Hennessy with hot Vatican stewardesses.

On a similar topic, the religious right has been trying their damndest to get and keep the Terri Schiavo case in the news. Despite the best efforts of the various news stations to drudge up something more news-worthy, we found ourselves in the midst of a drought and so Terri Schiavo (and occasionally the MJ trial) was the only thing to report on. Once again, you saw people on TV crying and moaning over Terri Schiavo. People that didn't even know her or seen her in real life. The best part of all of this is that people were giving her husband DEATH THREATS. DOES ANYONE SEE HOW FREAKIN' INSANE THAT IS??? Who are these people? What rock did they crawl out from under to surround Terri Schiavo's hospice with their makeshift shantytown? Every time I saw someone interviewed on TV that was outside protesting it's some overweight southerner with a thick drawl inaccurately quoting the Bible while wearing a Dale Earnhardt shirt stained with chicken grease and chili. I am not generalizing or stereotyping. Everyone out there was dressed like this. It was like a freakin' redneck marching band with matching uniforms.

Friend Icons Pt. 1

Sometimes when I get really bored I make icons for friends to use in AIM. Then I thought, why wait for them to ask me? Here are some icons I've made so far...if you don't see your face here, it means I haven't take a sufficiently unique/artistic/funny picture of you to merit making an icon out of it. HA!

Just right-click the icon you want and Save As...More soon I promise!

Mario blamed for teen's turtle-toppling rampage

Mario blamed for teen's turtle-toppling rampage - NES News at GameSpot

Seems like video game violence DOES have real world implications...


Happy April Fools Day!

Prison Pen Pals

I pulled a letter out the mailbox this morning that was adressed to the International Society of Krisha Consciousness. The address was correct so obviously the person sending this letter was a bit confused as to what went on around these parts. I flipped the letter over to open it and I saw a crisp stamp saying "This letter was sent from a state of Washington correctional institution and is uncensored." I read the letter and see that some incarcerated young man found a copy of the book "Bhadva Gita AS IT IS" and it changed his whole life. Now he wants spiritual guidance from the ISKC. We are thinking about having Aaron grow out his beard and we can send him a snapshot of the swami Aaron and a letter full of bullshit. He did mention in his letter that he was getting out in a year, so we're afraid if we fuck with him he'll show up at our house and want to settle some things...