Nightbrain

This morning I woke up and couldn't remember who I was. It took my brain a little while to catch up, and for a few seconds - thirty or so - I was just left reeling in confusion at how to interpret all the visual impressions I got; I remember focusing on an alarm clock and wondering vaguely if the alarm clock was mine, and if so, what I was supposed to use it for.

I wish I could say it was cool, but it really was just confusing and frightening. Even more so, it was kind of depressing because when I finally remembered who I was, my instant reaction was to be disappointed. I don't know what that says about me.

It's Official!

I have nothing more to add.

Up And Down

I've practically been manic-depressive lately, so much that I'm wondering if I should go see someone just to make sure there ain't nothing wrong with me. I really switch between passionate enthusiasm locking me up in a single task for an entire day, forgetting to eat and refusing to sleep... just to crash the following day in a puddle of lethargy and do nothing.

I have a feeling they're due to stress from school, so maybe this'll all clear up once summer arrives. I think what I need is simply uninterrupted boredom for long enough that I won't have anything left to spazz out and spend all my energy on.

I know I should technically be able to control this myself, but it's really, really hard. I can get up from the depressive spells, but I can't seem to stop myself from those crazy spasms of absolute devotion.

Anyone got advice for how to contain enthusiasm?

"Rik McUristsson (Gamesmith) has been taken by a strange mood."

Futuristic Linguistics

Rappers are pretty amazing. Modern-day rappers can perform linguistic stunts that would baffle the old bards and poets, I'm pretty sure; I've seen numerous examples of rap that contains real literary quality, and many of the best even improvise it entirely.

Question is, why does nobody in "higher literary circles" pay attention to this? I've seen rap lyrics that I'm pretty sure would make Shakespeare impressed (if he could understand them) because they have a nice rhythm, good rhyming, and are peppered with similies and metaphors. Take a look at this, for example:

"When I punch ya, I rupture all your ribcage in a rage,
and I turn you into a cartoon too and erase the page."

The above two lines have some pretty good rhythm, and we've got at least one pretty advanced metaphor ("turn you into a cartoon and erase the page") and one somewhat more crude one (assuming the rapper isn't literally threatening people with crushing their ribcages, which rappers aren't prone to do). This isn't bad poetry - it's pretty advanced poetry. Its message might only be "I am awesome", but poetry has never concerned itself much with message - what makes poetry poetry is that it has literary quality, and it can't be argued that rap does.

Here's another example from some guy called John Cena (he's probably famous, I never heard of him before):

"Cause I'm ill like a sick metaphor,
got the crowd shouting Cena cause they want some more
[...]
hold your hands up, hold 'em high,
that was a nice diss, but it was a wack-ass try."

Not perhaps remarkable mastery of language, but he made this up on the fly as one dude in the audience insulted him. And still, the guy manages to fire off "ill like a sick metaphor" which is a pretty advanced similie and something that, I'm quite sure, literature professors could spend a few hours poring over its hidden depths had it appeared in some musty old book on poetry.

Why aren't rappers given the credit and respect they deserve? They're doing massively impressive things with their language, sometimes in advance, sometimes on the fly as they stand there. What with the speed a rapper usually keeps up, this makes many of them way more advanced than many poets. Granted, the message might not be so deep, but should that really matter? If an artist only paints angry dogs, but does so amazingly well, is he any worse of an artist just because the motive isn't deep and inspired?

Whining

Blogs are good for whining.

Stumbled upon a video on YouTube which was from a Christian group going "Hey everyone, tolerance is real neat, God approves of gay marriage and everything, love each other and be happy."

The comments for the video was endless spamming from people going "Religious retards, you all suck."

Granted, this is YouTube comments we're talking about, so it's inevitably made by the absolute dregs of humanity, but still. You'd think we could agree about "Being nice to people is a good thing."