One year ago today, I stood in a line of twenty people outside the small Gamestop attached to the Hollywood Video near my house waiting to shell out 400 bones for the XBOX 360.

I was one of eleven people who was getting one that day because I was the fifth person to put my deposit in and the small store only received 11 units at launch.

Looking back on this purchase, I am totally satisfied. I became an XBOX Live Gold member on day one and haven't looked back since.

I love the way that each XBOX game has unlockable achievements which add points to your gamerscore. This gamerscore is like stripes on your uniform.

I love that I can play a game online with my friends from all across the country.

I love the High Definition graphics on the High Definition DLP TV I purchased shortly after the 360.

It has been an incredible year with my 360 and I'm looking forward to many more.

When trying to describe attending one of the most incredible sporting events in history, words will never do it justice. So here's some pictures.

The pre-game celebration began with a ten-keg party at ten AM.


Ultimate Warrior is insane!


Much partying was happening at the Varsity Club


This was the crew


This was the ultimate party bus--all the food you could eat and beer you could drink.


The cops were ticketing people for open container when walking from their party buses to the porta-potties if they had an opened can of beer. You could have beer in a plastic cup but if it was in a can, you got a ticket. Tell me that's not some stupid shit!


Just before kickoff!


Touchdown, baby!


The halftime game show with the Best Damned Band in the Land was the coolest one I have ever seem them do--they did a Pirates of the Carribbean/Titanic/Star Wars show. The Titanic actually sunk beneath the ocean (a blue tarp) and the band formed a Darth Vader head which turned into Yoda which turned into an X-Wing fighter and then spelled out "Star Wars." It was incredible!


Storming the field after the win came through!


At the end of the day--this is what truly matters!

Read the Boys Wear Pants How to Think Series

TAGS:
OSU Ohio State University Football OSU vs Michigan

"Kill or be killed!"

That is the underlying mantra of human society today and it is being hummed in the boweled troughs of scale as well as at the high pitches where angels supposedly sing.

The mantra today is to distrust your neighbor and if he comes after you, you're supposed to say, "Fuck you and die, you bastard." Like you're Steven Segal in Hard to Kill, the entire War on Terror is based on the premise that a nebulous mass of sickened individuals are hell bent on killing each and every one of us at any time and place.

Is this any way to live?

This insanity has even pervaded business which is supposed to be providing the highest quality goods and services to the most people for the fairest market wage. But now it's too often, "Fuck you and die--let me step over your worthless corpse on the way up my ladder of corporate success."

This is no way for us to live as a species seeking to make it another hundred years on this warm wet rock hurling thousands of miles per hour through a space so cold and lonely it defies imagination.

Relationships are what make us human but so few of us ever stop to consider the mechanics of relationship and how important they are, not only to our happiness, but to our ultimate survival as individuals and as a biological species still finding its niche in a constantly changing and harsh environment.

So, let's take a moment to consider how relationships work and we must first begin with the way the mind works. The mind is an organ, like any other in our bodies. There is a reality which occurs in the moment and our bodies have five primary sense organs which gather raw information and relay it to the mind.

The mind receives this information from the five senses, processes it into mental images and then reacts to those images. If you hurt me, I store that image and it becomes part of your image in my mind. Likewise, if you flatter me, that also becomes part of your image in my mind. And this reaction based on fear and pleasure is what we call relationships.

But what the mind considers reality (the point at which it receives information from the five senses) is actually a step removed from reality. In other words, by the time the mind receives that information, reality in the moment has already changed and the mind is working with outdated material. And our sense of self is composed of these outdated mental images based upon false reality.

The mind is a warehouse of mental imagery from which we draw conclusions about the past and present and project the future. We have mental images of every person we come into contact with as well as how relationships between objects work in time and space. The scientific method is based upon observation, postulation, testing and theorizing about the certitude of causality in the relationships between objects in time and space and it's the same with mathematics.

Science works. Math works. They both serve a definite purpose and have allowed our species to construct the social niceties which have brought us down from the trees and let us build concrete jungles of glass and steel with weapons that can decimate all life on the planet in a string of nanoseconds.

But is there a point where the false reality of the mind actually becomes a danger and a detriment to our safety and future survival as individuals and as a species?

We keep images in our heads, not only of ourselves but also of the other people in our lives. These images are also based upon a false reality but even worse than that; they aggregate through a cataract filter of emotion which snowballs together until it becomes so obese with time and sappiness that the difference between the reality of that person and the image we have in our heads of them is as wide as the difference between Santa Clause and the parents who actually put the presents under the tree for their children.

It's a lie agreed upon and it is killing us like a gunshot to the heart.

If I have an image of you and that image is based upon my seeking pleasure from you and avoiding pain and you have the same type of image about me then we have no relationship. The only relationship is between two images which are based upon false realities and distorted by loaded emotional baggage.

So what happens when you see this as a fact? You recognize that it is unhealthy to allow dead images to drive your actions toward others in this life and you want to stop it because you realize that if you don't, terrible things will continue to happen in your life and in the lives of those around you.

You will continue abusing the ones you care most about and hating those who abuse you as will everyone else in the world. Seeing this fact is like the addict seeing the heroin taking their life after the needle has been injected and the plunger is halfway down the vial.

How do we stop?

How do we cease reacting towards others based on dead images? We recognize the true severity of the problem and the dire consequences for us all should we fail to act in some way? But what are we do?

The answer to that questions is a topic for another How to Think post. Stay tuned...

About 30 minutes into this movie, I started making comparisons to Curb Your Enthusiasm in terms of how the situations were driving the comedy and the acting wasn't acting but rather natural response to fucked up situations.

And when the credits were rolling, I saw that Larry Charles was the director and all things became clear (Charles is a driving creative genius behind both Curb and Seinfeld).

This movie is pure genius but it's very uncomfortable and there is what seemed like a lot of nudity. Normally that wouldn't bother me but in this movie, none of that nudity was female.

It's all about the idiot with a golden heart stuck in a maelstrom of culture clash. The situations that Borat gets himself in are similar to those that Larry David does in Curb in that they are difficult, if not impossible, to explain himself out of but the difference is that Borat lacks the cultural ability to express himself to even begin explaining his intentions.

I laughed for about 103 of the 124 minutes of this movie and I cringed through the remaining 21 minutes. There was one scene in which I was actually the most uncomfortable I've ever been while watching a movie and had to physically look away from the screen (you'll know the scene I'm talking about when you see it).

I highly recommend you see this movie--it's not necessary to get the big screen experience if renting and viewing in your own home is your preference but it is definitely something you should check out.

PS: The Reno 911 movie trailer was incredibly funny as well and will likely be a renter for me when it hits DVD.

War is the final divorce of humanity from reason and the spiritual aspirations of our highest ambitions.

War is the final three count of the human animal over the human spirit.

War is the moment of inception when the worms of hell finally burrow into the holy of holies in the human heart and begin to divide and replicate.

And war is totally necessary in the social evolution of mankind.

War is the agent of change--the white blood cells of society moving to attack the diseases which threaten to hinder our forward progress.

War serves an absolute and justified purpose but as with everything absolute; war has a beginning, an ending and a limit to its usefulness.

Greatness of human achievement is most visible in the act of war but it remains the greatness of the human animal engaged in teeth sneering murder to secure health, wealth, progeny and ideological lebensraum.

White blood cells die off once they complete their cleansing the blood of foreign and harmful particles as must the act of war once an equilibrium has been reached and the boundaries of future progress secured enough so that we may steer our ship of specie between the jagged rocks of time, decay and mortality.

The Cosmopolitan Citizen is the one whose paradigm surpasses the petty chains of nationalism and the superstitious metaphoric idol worship known as religion. The Cosmopolitan citizen is the one who thinks, not only in terms of their entire species or within the limited scope of all life on this planet but one who thinks in the absolute terms of existence itself. He or she feels themselves undulating in the peristalsis of life in the moment without tether to the ephemeral string of moments which came before or the rumor of the moment which is promised to come after this one.

We as Cosmopolitan citizens are imbued by destiny to define the scope of what an equilibrium with each other and the planet we inhabit both looks and feels like in every possible aspect, not just political and economic. We must deeply feel the interconnected web of all things and learn the beginnings and ends of each facet of our existence so that we may use the tool of war to its most effective end and put the tool away when that end becomes detrimental to the forward progression of our species.

The first step toward freedom is the only step in the process of true transformation and it can only take place within each individual's mind; anything beyond that is somebody trying to sell you something.

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

--Hermann Göring, Leading member of the Nazi Party, Second in command of the Third Reich, and Commander of the Luftwaffe--

TAGS:
How to Think War Sociology Politics Spirituality Evolution Joshua Minton Boys Wear Pants

Absolutely not. No more than I would be upset to see a suffering horse put down after its leg was broken. I tried my best. I made my case. I voted my conscience.

Bill Peirce put up a hell of a fight for an independent candidate, pulling in 2% of the vote (67,126).

But I'm not bitter. I'm thinking clear.

American politics today is like a broken down table in a house where the master refuses to replace it because its seemingly served its function for so long.

And the legs are breaking off one by one but the master still tries to convince himself that the table is good--to just give it two more years, four more years, twenty more years--all the while everyone is eating their dinner standing up because the table is no longer capable of serving its function.

But how many splinters will it take? How many broken dishes and cracks in the veneer will it be until the table won't service anymore? When will it be time to grab the ax and start swinging.

When will the bonfire blaze out back?

One thing this country has in plethora is plenty of trees to make new tables.

LINKS:

• (MUST WATCH!) Penn and Teller Bullshit: The War on Drugs (Hat tip to Fantastic Bastard)>

The human mind is a funny thing--it works in metaphors. Metaphors are conceptual images that reference observable and unobservable phenomenon in the natural world and the metaphysical realm of human thought.

Normally, metaphors are very handy tools in the arsenal of human evolution. For example, in science--I can scratch the symbols: T-R-E-E onto a sheet of paper and immediately my mind conjures up an image of a large, green leafy thick stick growing out of the ground high into the sky. I can understand that the process of photosynthesis applies to this green life form and I can subdivide and classify the various species of this life form into several distinct categories which can be compared and contrasted.

But all of this, the image of the tree, the theory of photosynthesis and all the scientific classifications are all metaphors. They are all symbols. These particular symbols have reference to phenomena which can be observed in the natural world.

But what happens when a metaphor is referring to something which doesn't exist in the natural world, something which can't be observed?

What happens when we scratch the letters: G-O-D?

See, God is a metaphor which is supposed to point past itself into absolute transcendence of thought and experience. The very concept itself is supposed to bring a peaceful quiet to the mind, a death in the waking moment.

When the mind is not in movement, does the self exist? The mind is the storehouse of experience which is the byproduct of thought. When thought, which composes the content of the mind, is not in movement; the self ceases to exist and something entirely new comes about.

But what happens with most minds is that they encounter that word G-O-D and get stuck with it. Maybe it's because those minds are foolish enough to believe that they have substance like the tree and can be knocked on and make a sound. But they aren't. Our egos have no weight in the phenomenal world and the inability of the mind to reach silence when meditating upon the transcendence of the metaphor of God is a prime example.

Instead the mind sublimates itself in books, hymns, arcane rituals and pitiful projections of a savior who will deliver the soul into an immortal afterlife.

Doesn't it all seem so childish sometimes?

Why can't we sit with a fact? Why must we try to change it. Prod it. Poke it. Manipulate it until it looks like we want it to, sounds like we want it to? Until it whispers at us to drive those planes into the buildings or drop those bombs from three thousand miles away with the bravery of being out of range?

What happens to a mind which is emptied of its content of experience in the moment? That mind would be dead by all common definitions but in terms of spiritual awareness--this mind has come electrically alive in a way which is impossible to communicate in words.

When you can see beyond the metaphor and lose the shell of yourself as the observer becomes the observed, you will be approaching the sacred heart of what the metaphor G-O-D is referring us toward.

A sign can only point the way--it is up to each one of us to take the first and only step to absolute freedom.

TAGS:
How to Think Philosophy Metaphors God Krishnamurti Joseph Campbell Joshua Minton

I have already cast my vote for Bill Peirce and I have never been more sure of the moral and political correctness of any ballot I have ever cast prior to this. I urge you all to seriously consider voting for Bill and start making the change now that our country so desperately needs.

Dear friends:

I am writing to you today to urge you to vote for me, Bill Peirce, for Governor of Ohio in Tuesday’s election and to ask your friends to vote for me.

If you believe the polls, I will not win the governorship in tomorrow’s election. So why should you vote for me? Because much more is at stake than just the governorship.

What is at stake in Tuesday’s election? Freedom. The Libertarian party is the only consistent defender of freedom today. Where was the outcry when Congress abolished habeas corpus as part of the Military Commissions Act? Where was the protest when Homeland Security announced that the “no fly list” would be extended to all arrivals and departures by land or sea to or from the U.S.? How long before it will be a crime to be caught without your Identification Papers? How soon will it be a crime to own an animal without an implanted chip?

Closer to home, who objects when the State assumes control of wage rates? Who questions writing a monopoly on gambling into the constitution? Can any voice be heard defending the right of a property owner to allow people to smoke in his building? Bit by bit, our rights are chipped away—and neither major party raises a voice in protest.

What is at stake in Tuesday’s election? Ohio’s economy. The economic plans of both major party candidates are based upon the belief that bureaucrats and politicians are able to spend your money more wisely than you can. The results are obvious in the lagging growth and sagging employment in Ohio. The direct relationship between low taxes and growth and between freedom and prosperity is shoved aside in favor of “pay to play” for the benefit of the politically powerful. The young people understand what is happening and are streaming out of Ohio. It is not another college scholarship program that will keep them here. It is freedom, low taxes, and the economic growth that results.

What is at stake in Tuesday’s election? Ohio’s future.

Voting Libertarian sends the message that the people do care, that we are not sheep grazing placidly until it is time for shearing or slaughter. Every vote cast for me sends a strong signal that voters are fed up with the direction in which this state and the country have been moving.

Voting for either of the two major parties sends a message, too: it tells the major parties that we are content with things the way they are and that we are content to elect the lesser of two evils, election after election after election.

I urge you to make a difference. I implore you to make your vote truly stand for something. On Tuesday, I ask you to vote for Bill Peirce for Governor of Ohio.

Sincerely,

Bill Peirce

...that one day George W. Bush will sit down in a moment of solitude, slip on a pair of headphones and listen carefully to the Bruce Springsteen masterpiece Devils and Dust.



I got my finger on the trigger
But I don't know who to trust
When I look into your eyes
There's just devils and dust
We're a long, long way from home, Bobbie
Home's a long, long way from us
I feel a dirty wind blowing
Devils and dust

I got God on my side
And I'm just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a powerful thing, baby
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
And fill it with devils and dust

Well I dreamed of you last night
In a field of blood and stone
The blood began to dry
The smell began to rise
Well I dreamed of you last night, Bobbie
In a field of mud and bone
Your blood began to dry
And the smell began to rise

We've got God on our side
We're just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a powerful thing
It'll turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust
It'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust

Now every woman and every man
They wanna take a righteous stand
Find the love that God wills
And the faith that He commands
I've got my finger on the trigger
And tonight faith just ain't enough
When I look inside my heart
There's just devils and dust

Well I've got God on my side
And I'm just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a dangerous thing
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust
Yeah it'll take your God filled soul
Fill it with devils and dust

I had this dream last night and I'm pissed off so here's the scenario. I'm in line to check out at Target and I've got my wife and kids with me. Everyone knows that Target has the best selection of Icee drinks (white cherry, c'mon...). Anyway, there is an Icee machine on top of one of those two door Coke cabinet coolers they put in every other line at target. I am next in line and I am parallel with the machine. As my wife moves forward with the cart, I decide that I really do want an Icee and I'm going to give in to temptation. So, I reach up (I'm a short guy so this is important), grab a small cup from the sleeve dispenser and start to fill up my Icee with a "Mint Lemonade" flavor mixture.

As I'm about halfway through filling up my cup, this big burly fat dude about two spots back from me in line takes an empty cup and pushes mine off the dispenser causing it to spill on my head (remember I'm a short dude--5' 5" and he was probably about 5'11", 280 pounds and wore this ridiculous belt buckle and jeans garb like you'd see in the Travolta movie Urban Cowboy).

Now, just because I'm a short guy doesn't mean I can't kick someone's ass or get deep into someone's shit in a public place--I do and I'm mean as hell when I've got my Irish up. There have been a few times in my life where my motto goes from "Do what pleases you as long as it doesn't hurt my life, my property or those of my friends and loved ones" to "Is this a private fight or can anyone join?"

So, I rip into this prick in line, telling him I'm going to file a formal complaint with the manager and take him to court, etc. I'm snapping pictures of him, his wife and the Icee machine on my camera phone, e-mailing my lawyer from my Blackberry and measuring off the exact distances of our proximity to the Icee machine with the tape measure my wife keeps in her purse.

His wife rips a throw-away Kodak from the end cap shelf and starts snapping her own evidence at the "crime scene."

Then the dream shifted to the court room and there are lawyers and media and the PR teams from Target and Icee are there.

And this big bully jackass prick has the nerve to have his lawyer claim the defense of him having to take his pill which super ceded my right of way to the Icee machine because I was closer in line to checking out (in fact, actually checking out).

So, my lawyer put this prick on the stand and ripped into his shit about what pill would you have to take that was so urgent that you couldn't wait five three minutes to take it with water.

The guy said it was his insulin pill because he was a Type II diabetic.

My lawyer then said, so you needed a sugar ice drink to take your insulin pill because your blood sugar was too high?

The guy's case folded like Jessup in front of the faggity white uniform.

To finish him off, my lawyer said, "And why didn't you reach for an Aquafina in the cooler case beneath the Icee machine?"

And the guy said, "Because I could reach the Icee machine but this guy and his cart were blocking the cooler doors.."

And there it was--this mother&*%^^# was a height bigot without patience to wait one minute until I was check out. Well, f&*# him because I sued him and Target for 50 million bucks (in my dream) and won. Here the dream ended and I woke up relieved to have not entered the American court system at all.

The moral of this little Just because you are taller and fatter than most other Americans, doesn't give you the right to bully your way into possession of our high-fructose, no-nutrition national resources.

In fact, fooling around with my Mint Lemonade small Icee could get your ass shot in the hood I be comin' from, Jack.

Actually, this is how I voted in the 2006 election and why. That's right--Uncle Josh voted absentee this year so he could get his ballot early and I think this gubernatorial race is one of the most important in the nation and will be a sneak peek of how the national political winds are shifting for 2008.

I voted for Bill Peirce (Libertarian) for Governor and Mark M. Noble for Lt. Governor. I voted for Bill because he is by far the most qualified candidate and because he's not a Republican or a Democrat. Here's the bottom line--if you vote along party lines, that is likely because you can't think for yourself to see that the two-party system of government is strangling this country and it is only when people begin to vote on the individual merits of candidates who choose not to align themselves into a particular party, when we as citizens begin to turn things around by seizing the power we have been bestowed by the Bill of Rights.

If you still need help deciding on who to vote for, try this little handy 30 question quiz that will match your answers up to those of the four major candidates running next Tuesday. Of course, being the individualist I am; I would never deign to tell someone else who to vote for. But I will tell you that if you vote for Bill, you'll earn my thanks and my respect for having the courage to politically act outside the box and send a clear message to the two major parties that we are mad as hell for what they've done to our country and we're not going to take it any more.

Everybody wants to talk about John Kerry saying soldiers are stuck in Iraq but all the while my night driving has gone to shit. I'm getting old people and I'm not happy about it.

Last year, I thought I was had a heart attack but it turns out that I just pulled about four major muscles in my chest and back while I was sleeping.

...while I was sleeping!

There are soldiers carrying little children through war zones in Iraq and John Kerry dares to desecrate their sacrifice and I'm pulling fucking muscles in my sleep.

Some'n ain't right with the world, people.

And I know that Kerry apologized but my old man always said that you can never take back something you've said and apologies aren't even band aids for wounds made with words.

Someone sent me an e-mail list of intellectually questionable quotes from our current Commander-in-Chief today and all I could do was shake my head and wonder if he wasn't more on the button back when he was drinking.

What happened to Presidents with steel personalities like Andrew Jackson? He didn't have PR teams and campaign cabinet managers who massaged the media. If you pissed him off or questioned his integrity (or, God forbid that of his wife's) he would have challenged you to a duel and shot your ass. You may have hit him with your pussy shot but he would have taken it like the man you aren't. He would have raised his pistol with your bullet still smoking in his body, taken careful aim. and blown your head off with what passed for firearms in the early 19th century.

But Bush can barely conjugate his verbs. Kerry still can't seem to respect the uniform he pissed on to start his political career. I can't drive in the dark anymore and I'm deathly afeared of pulling my fucking trapezius and pectoralis in my sleep again.

Shit just ain't right in the world.