Fucking wonderful. My bed is apparently infected with bed bugs. I can't sleep in it knowing that. and the 1 couch of the three that we have available for me to sleep in is the least comfortable.

I had bedbugs before too man, it's pretty terrible. At the time my friend was sharing my bed with me, and she was getting bit like CRAZY and had red marks everywhere and was insanely itchy. I didn't have marks at all which doesn't mean I didn't get bit, it's just some people don't show as much as others.

Anyway we had to have the apartments come in and treat, and it was free. I didn't see what they did but they use some kind of NITRO-ULTRA-FREEZE powder or something. They killed all of em. We had to put basically everything in my room in plastic bags and we had to spend a day at the laundromat cleaning everything cloth that would fit in a washer/dryer.

BEDBUGS are like a new plague in the US. Apparently they disappeared for a while but are now making a huge comeback. Most people think you need to be really dirty or gross but that doesn't matter! They can get in your house any number of ways and are extremely hard to spot. They can also live for months without feeding so you'll probably have to wrap your mattress in a plastic bag (they make mattress sized ones just for this) and leave it in there for like 6 months for em to die.

Sorry man it really sucks but definitely take care of it sooner rather than later! Also don't just bring your blanket and pillow to the couch because they are probably in there and you will just spread them around! We ended up with them in both bedrooms and even some in the living room on the futon we had out there.  We just tossed the futon but both rooms had to be treated.

also fuck bedbugs, they are terrible!

paris does rule, but the areas infested with swarms of tourists do not. i didn't really spend much time in the louvre, around 2 hours, it was stressful just trying to navigate through the museum. anything remotely well-known had a crowd all over it and every other person had a DSLR to take a picture of every single thing in the museum. the art is pretty boring, it's mostly 15-18th century european paintings which all look the same/who cares about ancient artifacts. d'orsay and pompidou were a lot better.

parisians in my experience so far aren't rude at all, but maybe it's cuz i don't look like a tourist (i've been approached by several though) and i can speak french well enough to get by. paris is a ridiculous city, there's so much good shit

Agh, you know how sometimes if you look at a light for too long and you get after images? I have that right now and it wont go away. making reading all of the above posts a pain. Its actually freaking me out a little because I didn't look at a bright light or anything, its just there. Maybe its because of lack of sleep? (the couch I'm sleeping on seriously sucks, and a housemate has been playing Deus Ex late into the night/early morning)

Anyway, yeah I did not bring my pillow or blanket with me, there was one out there already.

As for learning out other cultures. I already hate my own local culture (US), And see stupid shit in other cultures that I learn about online and what not everyday.I mean I suppose culture can be interesting. but most cultural things either are inefficient, harmless but pointless, or severely damaging.


fuck that vision thing is getting worse. maybe I need to eat something. fuck I'm basically blind now.

You're blacking out, dude. Could be sleep, could be food or drink, could be a lot of things.

Or you could be going blind. Whatever it is sounds dangerous.

Nah it went away. It started going away WHILE I ate though so I doubt food was the issue.

but it was weird. like, a dancing sparkly thing that had colors... I literally could not tell you what they were though. And its like, looked like a tear in my vision and seemed to do more than just obscure it.

Very worrisome. I think my mom has these things, called them 'aruras' or something. She gets migraines after them but I'm not feeling much of a head-ache.

I probably will. As I said though it has seemed to have left me. and since I have no transportation or money I wouldn't be able to go now anyway. :P. Though it might have to wait even longer because I'm probably leaving for home within the month, I'll probably have to get checked out when I get home.

ugh, I hate going to the doctors.


But yeah, culture. Surprised know one responded to my statement. I think last time I said such a thing a good acquaintance of mine flipped out and was like "how can you not like culture?" I don't remember quite well what was discussed after that. But I brought up a few examples of why. And he seemed to indicate that was a totally different thing than what he was talking about... I wasn't so sure.

Maybe there is a loss of communication here. or maybe there never was any. I'd say it's important to define what I mean by culture. When I say culture, I mean stuff like pointless/meaningless traditions/routines, many (but not all) which come from religion.

Marriage being one of the more obvious elements of culture that I dislike. but its seems like a lot of cultures have that.

As well as 'common sense' that cultures all seem to have (and they sometimes differ) which has a tendency to be incorrect just as much as it has a tendency to be accurate. Yet people scold others for not having it.

A cultural element you I'd hope most of you would agree is pointless and inefficient, is "Fan Death" in South Korea. Some might call this a superstition, to me superstition and culture are pretty closely tied, if not immediately related. In fact, I'd go so far as to say superstition is just a KIND of cultural element.

The are a LOT of different things like this that make me shake my head. I'm not going to list them all here. But you get my drift. I hope.

Some might say that life would be boring without culture. To them I say, a world without problems would be boring as well, that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to fix them.


So maybe I am crazy. There must be something wrong with my brain that seems to keep insisting that culture is pointless drivel.

I'll watch I few of them to understand what you are getting at in a bit, first, I'd like to say that I don't think Fan death is a 'significant' example of culture in South Korea, but it is part of it, and its a fairly obviously stupid one to most people (outside of S. Korea itself at least). Which was my reason for using it.

Anyway, instead of me listing cultural elements (or what I think they are), what do you consider culture? Maybe we don't even disagree and this is all just semantics.

OK, watched some of the videos. Do you think he is crazy? He doesn't seem TOO bad... the way he carries himself is a little odd. And maybe a little crazy in the sense that he thinks creating art is an escape from meaninglessness. (or that we should all consider it that way, meaning is what you make of it) And on top of that, art in of itself is poorly defined. So the question is up in the air to what he even means by art. It comes off as like that weird philosophical hippy-type uncle. So I kind of smell a bit of pseudo-intellectualism.

EDIT: Also, clearly this man does... a lot of drugs. Where as I have done basically none for any mentally altering effects other than nullifying pain.

EDIT2: Also he seems to be anti-materialism. I believe any material that improves your life more than degrades it is worth having. (I would imagine most people feel this way, *shrugs* but I guess I can't be sure) Also, the idea that we are our true selves when we do a mental wipe with drugs seems kind of presumptuous.

How about this then. I don't hate culture completely. I just hate that culture separates us. I might be apathetic about other languages, but I like Chinese food (authentic or Americanized) and hate hotdogs (by many considered to be a very American food). Dress-wise appearance I've always been largely apathetic when it comes to any culture but I like Music from other cultures, well, ok technically I should say countries...


Variety is the spice of life (at least in the case of entertainment, food, and aesthetics), so I guess culture benefits in that way, but in the actual guideline/rules/regulations, I hate culture dipping its fingers in a place that it doesn't belong. Culture ends up seeming to me more restrictive and inefficient.

But largely I don't think there is any specific thing about individual cultures that I hate in the "language, food, dress, music, other art" areas. There are areas of distaste, but not hate. I only hate the arbitrary social rules (sometimes even put into law), I hate the bickering/killing over religious shit when its all bullshit, And I intensely dislike tradition, especially for its own sake. That seem to be in every culture.


On your comment that communication is changing culture I agree that it is doing this, however I disagree that its only really creating new cultures. To me it seems more of a merging of cultures. Which seems like its might improve things to a degree, if only because the merging might crush and rid us of some of the stupider elements when people see that trying to merge with the extra cultural-rule baggage makes us less compatible. but the merging shouldn't make variety in art, food or dress disappear since none of that sort of stuff is mutually exclusive like the religions, traditions and social rules are.

I guess I understand that you were just saying that people would only THINK I was crazy if I spoke of culture like McKenna, and not in fact that he was, but I wasn't entirely sure. I don't think his thoughts are LESS valid then mine because of drugs. I was just saying that we were different that way that it'd be hard for me to probably emulate him. I don't give him any more validity than than the 'sober' mind either though.

As for culture making me look upon drugs as mostly bad and what not, I'd say that yeah, it definitely did. I now seem to have a innate hesitation to doing drugs and drinking alcohol that I've at this point sort of realized is not the most logical thinking. This was obviously built into my brain from media, school, family, and a to smaller degree, peers. My schooling actually did a pretty excellent job of scaring me away from drugs and sex (heh, fun parts of life). My gigantic overwhelming fear of death doesn't help either. Making me extremely risk adverse.

Making its literally vomit-level fear inducing for me to think of joining the military and getting shot, participate in dangerous forms of physical activity (skateboarding for example), risk STIs from sex, Risk ODing and dying from drugs, etc.

All my school had to do was say that there was even a minorly significant risk of death as a result on any of these things and they had my mind for them to mold.


whew... I almost thought I had gone on a tangent there. Sort of did, but it sort of explains why it might at least seem like I hate my own culture. I can't say that I love the internet culture as it is either though. But that's a whole other can of worms. its mostly boils down to my utter disgust, bafflement, and frustration for 'trolls'. Even what my friend says are 'smart' or 'clever' trolls.