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Limitless
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1327
Found a referral to this in a couple of neural hacking videos I was watching, so I downloaded.
To sum up the plot, young struggling writer is presented with magic pill that improves his thinking by a couple of orders of magnitude. Silliness ensues. Not a bad movie, not one I'd recommend, it has a few moments, but an observation before I leave it:
- The embedded narrative that the drug must be addictive and have unpleasant side effects
Now this seems to be a part of our cultural narrative - perhaps largely generated by big-pharma, with their rush to release new placebos of suspect value and frequently real harmful side effects. Or it's the innate belief that all good things must involve a trade-off, there's an inherent belief that all coins have two sides...
...but, aside from the film (these effects are needed to create or further the plot) - think, in the real world, that most things don't have that trade off. A carrot is good for you. Period. So is an Apple. So is breathing. Just noting, the attitude regarding drugs is always one of a "mixed blessing" or "necessary evil" whereas real world experience doesn't always substantiate this. Just found it curious is all...
...now back to the neural hacking videos, some interesting points of view - contrasting, one presenter in favor of every new touted enhancer, TDCS, drug, supplement, vitamin, etc, the other, a doctor, empirically demonstrating the benefits of breathing, exercise and meditation...two very contrasting views on how increase performance...
Lost in a Mall...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1256
I'm in line to see a play. Red velvet walls with sculptures inset into niches, a formal atmosphere, a small gathering of people. I recognize a couple of girls, don't know how or from where, we make eye contact, glance away, it's a bit awkward...
They begin to allow people in to be seated, and I pop outside for a final cigarette...
I find an exit, go out, pull out my cigarettes and one flies off the balcony down below, there's a black guy, across from the balcony, hinting he's going to get it, I tell him not to worry, looking over the balcony it's several stories to the bottom, a many-storied mall of sorts, he's making some sort of to-do as if my cigarette was lit and starting a fire, so I find a route down and begin to look for it...
...down and down, inter-crossing stairways, it's a maze of sorts this, and I run into Michael J. Fox, and we're talking and walking and I'm a bit distracted, he's a pretty nice guy, or he's warmed to me because I'm recognizing him not for his celebrity...
...and then around a corner and I'm in a multi-storied mall, filled with amusement acardes and barkers, I'm obviously a bit lost because one of the barkers in the center of the mall and sees me and says "Looking for the movie - Last Exit to Uxborough? It's just straight ahead in Phase 2"...and I get that it's a burn, Phase 2 of the mall is miles away, and nobody wants to see Last Exit to Uxborough and as I'm walking past I can still here him and his friends loudly laughing, they think they've sent this tourist on a wild goose chase in the wrong direction, and I get annoyed and go back, and say..."At least I'm not working in a mall..." and now they're a bit annoyed...
...there's a couple of slender stairwells that lead up to a glass faced world-health center, by slender I mean a few inches wide, going up narrowly and letting myself in a small glass porthole, I'm lost, have missed the play, and there seems to be no escaping this mall...
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1261
If you recall Snoopy's line: "It was a dark and stormy night..." was actually borrowed from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel "Paul Clifford", and according to the wiki represents "the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing,".
But take heart, there's actually a contest where people compete to write the most melodramatic opening phrase. This year's winner:
Even from the hall, the overpowering stench told me the dingy caramel glow in his office would be from a ten-thousand-cigarette layer of nicotine baked on a naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire in the center of a likely cracked and water-stained ceiling, but I was broke, he was cheap, and I had to find her.
William "Barry" Brockett, Tallahassee, FL
You can read more great entries here: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
The New Waitress
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1547
This job, it's the monkey's paw, you can give it away but you have to disclose it's real purpose...
...a new waitress, fifty-something, the nephew isn't impressed, he'd rather hire something a little more to his taste, me, obviously I don't care, she's not to my taste either but it's not about that, it's about how she works...
...fifties, her Wiccan pendant, she's got her freak right out there, wrinkled like an apricot, flaming dyed red hair, she's apparently done this before...she's perfectly suited to flirt with our 80+ year old customers...
...but spend too much time holding up the bar, making imaginary value for herself by polishing glasses, reorganizing the bar, the nephew isn't having it, orders her to get drinks, it takes her a few days and then she's hopping...she's never opened a bottle of wine at a table before, I scoff, she's got to be lying, doesn't know what's in a lemon twist, hand the knife and explain, ...she's not persuading us of her lifetime of service but she needs the job...the industry, the restaurant industry in specific, it isn't kind to people that are older or unattractive, I can't think of a way to warn her she's on thin ice, the owner's watching her every move and the nephew, he's not liking her at all...our days off are shuffled, I'm on the Old Italian Waiter's 4 days of doubles and Saturday Night, the worst rota ever but he liked it, I don't, the price of 2 days in a row is an extra shift I didn't want or need...and she's asking about payday, tips, I tell her but she seems to forget, asks again the next evening, I get it, she's probably broke, but it isn't my problem...painful to say, but my indifference makes me the "good cop", the others are a little too transparent in their loathing...
...tip outs, the "how much to tip out the new equal who held up the bar", we start her low, worry about complaints, she could be trouble, but, really, she'd wants her share she has to start providing the value...that said, the nephew's set a bad example as to how much can be paid for how little work, an equal as well, but an equal who does as little as possible...
Fuck I hate this, the hard landing on an empty wallet after a few brief weeks off, need to get out, escape, every regular customer that appears is an inward curse, I'm sooo done...
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