Pics

Finally got some (the second half) of my pictures up on my Picasa.

The Great White North

After 12 days and 8200km we finally reached Dawson City, Yukon.  The drive was amazing (sometimes boring...) but we saw lots and took even more pictures.  I hope to get the pics up within the next few days as there are lots to look at.  I live in a dorm style building here in Dawson and have roommates, all of which seem quite nice.  The sun didn't set last night until about 12:45am, which was odd, but night is only going to get shorter.  Hopefully I'll have pictures for you to see within a day or two; ta ta for now.

Antsy

I've firmly decided to head back down to the other hemisphere the moment I finish school (alas, still 10 months away...).  I'm not exactly sure what my plans will be once arriving, but I do intend to cover the south and east of Oz, Tasmania, and hit New Zealand all over again.  I can't even put into words how excited I am to go back to New Zealand; I admit that I'm quite stoked to see more of Australia, but to be completely honest the animals there scare me.  New Zealand and Tasmania are almost entirely safe (animal wise), which makes trekking alone a lot more appealing.  I'm so excited to spend time in a rain forest again (especially temperate) that I'm already having trouble concentrating on everything before my trip.

Hey Aquinas! Fuck you!

I've had my head buried in much of Thomas Aquinas's work over the last two weeks, and I have to say, he was a moron.  Any reasonable person knows you cannot base a theory off of an assumption, as doing so will render the argument circular.  Aquinas seems to have a problem dealing with circularity in arguments.  One cannot simply state that there is natural, divine, or eternal law and go from there; one must prove that these things exist before basing theorems around them.  Aquinas's second faux-pas is equating human behavior and human instinct as fact.  Human's are not inherently good, nor are they inherently bad, nor are they inherently anything; human behavior is extremely dynamic is cannot be used as a fixed point in any sort of theorem.  Aquinas's last, but most major error is assuming the existence of god.  I understand (to a certain degree) that persecution for heresy was an extremely serious matter in the 13th century and feigning religious faith was a fairly common practice (Hobbes did it, hell, even Einstein did it).  This religious equivalent of playing dead is understandable, but a Christian ethical/political theorist certainly is not.  If the bible or the idea of god were to be removed from Aquinas's work it wouldn't even have enough fiber to stay together.  My point is that basing an entire academic framework on a foundation of religion is about as foolish as it gets; at least find something reasonably truthful to work from.

Well, are you?

Are you looking forward to anything?  I'm not looking forward to a single thing - not a single thing.

VENT

I just tried to set up an auction on ebay EIGHT TIMES and every single time the form I had to fill out froze/refreshed/disappeared.  My advice to you, ebay, is to fix your fucking forms.  I'm not even going to bother now.

Maybe it's not all over?

Obama won the election; maybe the world isn't over just yet... though it may be coming.  I'm quite prepared to live in the woods and eat carrots and blueberries if need be.  

Things really are more tempting when they're off limits; at least it seems like they are.  Maybe instead of being 'more tempting' one's temptation just grows because it can't be released.  I'm not looking for a psychological answer (unless it's neurological, and it'll be some time - if ever - before that happens).  Regardless of the cause of this effect, it's insanity inducing and makes my heart rate double even when it's something relatively simple...

If you're feeling down or stressed out, go look at some demotivational posters; they win.