The greatest commercial website ever.

Here.

Heater fixed....or is it?

So the heater dude came yesterday and installed a new heater. I'm dissatisfied. The thing is huge, and it's right in the middle of my main wall, the wall against which my TV, bookshelf, CDs, DVDs, and framed newspaper advertisement for Gilda sit. Talk about a feng shui nightmare.

God, this blog is getting boring.

Sorry, people.

In other news, if anyone can procure me a copy of Mystery Science Theatre 3000's "The Final Sacrifice" on DVD, I'll make it worth your while.

Cold.

I'm freezing.

It's frigging-a cold.

Now, before all of you non-Californians start bellyaching about, "oh, that San Diego wimp, he doesn't understand what cold is," you should know a few things.

First, my apartment is old. Very old. Let's say it was built during an era in which they manufactured major apartment appliances to work until, oh, say, 2002. Including the heater. Put that together with a San Diego cold snap (low 50s), and you've got yourself one cold yours truly.

My apartment has no heat, so it's exactly the same degree of coldness inside and out. I could be outside and be no colder. Inside and no warmer. Inside has the advantage of having an oven into which I could put my head, but so far it hasn't come to this.

I can see my breath. Inside.

Brrrrrr.

A lame argument.

I thought of this while I was in the shower this morning.

I take two principles to be generally plausible. 1) If a moral intuition leads to a judgment that is anomalous, there is good reason for revising that intuition and judgment. 2) Most deontologists claim that there is some threshold of harm where the doing/allowing distinction gives out.

Furthermore,

(3) Assume that the threshold is 10,000 lives.

Thus,

(4) it is illegitimate to kill someone except to save 10,000 lives or more.

But given (1), we have reason to reject (4). Because in this case, the intuition that leads us to the judgment that we should not kill one to save fewer than ten thousand is anomalous. Why? Because that intuition is only applicable in a finite number of cases, i.e., cases in which the number of deaths prevented by one killing run up to 9,999. But the alternative intuition, in which killing is acceptable is applicable in a transfinite number of cases. Thus, we should revise (3), and suggest that in all cases, killing one is acceptable in preventing harm. Any finite number will be anomalous.

This argument is pretty lame, but that's what happens when you wake up at 6:45am.

NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

I just realized something today, as I struggled to put together a paper on mercy, I realized something.

I am getting paid to do nothing.

That's right. Nothing. I'm on fellowship right now, and since I've already turned in the draft of my dissertation, I'm basically sitting on my ass until I get comments. Which, judging my the speed at which my advisors get things turned over, could be in the year 2525. If, of course, man is still alive.

In fact, it's not just like I'm getting paid and can choose to do whatever I want, you know, explore and write a number of different off-dissertation topic papers. Which I actually had been doing. It's actually worse if I do work. It's a little bit of a demerit. Every paper I write needs to get read by somebody, and since my advisors are basically struggling to get through the gigantor that is the d, it would not be a good thing for me if I were to give them even more. I mean, it would be good in one sense, but in a much more important sense, bad.

So the optimal situation, vis-a-vis my job, is for me to do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It's worse than it sounds. I mean, I do get a monthly income for no work in San Diego, California, and it's basically sunny all the time. I also live three blocks from Balboa Park and the Frisbee Golf Course. But I also realized something else a few weeks ago, i.e., basically the only time I'm really satisfied is when I'm working. It sounds dumb, I know. But I suppose it's true. Goofing off makes me restless. The only goofing off I really enjoy is goofing off between periods of working. Am I crazy? Am I biting the hand that feeds me? Am I shunning perhaps the greatest period of life I will ever experience?

Time will tell, I suppose. Mercy calls.

I second that emotion.

Here, here.

Baseball

OK, ok. Here's the deal. I cannot run a baseball league this year. I will join the league, but I encourage one of YOU PEOPLE to be the commissioner. The commish. I am standing down. You can very easily start the league by going to the following webpage. Follow the helpful instructions.

fantasysports.yahoo.com.

A bit of an odyssey.

February 23rd.

I wake up in the morning, knowing that I have a doctor's appointment I've been dreading for quite a while now at 2:40. Normally, doctor's appt's really aren't my thing. And this time it really wasn't my thing. I woke up with a heartbeat of around 120, and couldn't seem to get any work done at all, or concentrate on anything. I took a long walk. Sent a fax I'd been meaning to send. Had two doughnuts. Walked back. I tried to distract myself so awkwardly that I even took a tour of a condo across from my place. I watched most of Caddyshack. Finally, time to drive to the hospital. So I get there, park, go up to the floor, check in, and wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

An hour after my appointment time, somebody calls me back. They sit me down. "What seems to be the problem." "..." "I see, and where's that?" "..." "Where?" "...!" "Oh, I don't know why they sent you here, this is [the wrong area] surgery. You want [the right clinic]." "!!!" "I'm sorry, we'll see if we can get you in today."

My blood was beginning to boil.

"Sorry, that clinic is only open on Wednesdays. You'll have to come back next week."

I think my particular utterance of "Goddammit" was audible from Yuma, Arizona. Very pissed. All worked up for nothing. Turns out the person who booked my appointment deleted a particularly crucial word in the description of my condition. Wrong clinic. I was hella mad.

Feb. 25

Moving day. Moving from here to here. It was probably the easiest move of my life. Thanks to Math Rock and the Turtle, we got all of my crap loaded into a (rather small) truck, drove to the new place, and unloaded everything in a grand total of an hour and a half. Had time to shop for records before getting some burgers that night. Tasty. Actually, I figured it out. In the last eight months there has only been one leg of a move (either a loading or an unloading) that was particularly problematic. And the only outstanding variable, I think, knows who he is.

Feb. 28

With my new doctor's appointment only a day away, I decided that I had to do a little self-distraction again. Started by unpacking most of my boxes and putting stuff on shelves, etc. Then, Ikea.

Ikea amazes me. It's one of those places that just works so bloody well, you like to like it. Drive up, it's warm and inviting. Walk around, really cheap, attractive furniture. Kickin' tunes on the stereo. A cheap, but also good, cafe. Anything you want. It's right there. But then I started thinking that Ikea really is a lot like a casino. I mean, they've totally organized the store to keep a single demographic in the store. The music, for instance. Virtually all 80s pop. Now, that appeals to young Gen-Xers like me, older Gen-Yers, and older Gen-Xers, all of whom have some sort of experience of that stuff with in their childhood. And are most likely to a) be buying a house for the first time with the need to buy tons of furniture, b) have young children that need extra stuff, c) have oodles of disposable income. In addition, like a casino, Ikea is set up like a labrynth. It's impossible to get out of there without some cool thing catching your eye. Also, like a casino, they keep you fed cheaply, so that you are more pleasantly satiated and ready to purchase. It's diabolical.

Anyway, I ended up buying some new tupperware (desperately needed), a frame for something I've been wanting to hang on my wall, and the chair.

After that, I dropped about 60 bucks on groceries, came back and put the chair together, and watched the first hour of Metropolis, which I hadn't seen before, but which was strangely hypnotic and interesting. It's really too bad that so much of the film has been lost, but it's stunning, visually. Probably the most amazing visual statement I've ever seen. Which brings us to

March 1.

Real doctor's appointment. Get there. Check in (which took longer than last time; there was something of a line). I didn't have to wait hardly at all. So I go back, get all checked out. Thoroughly examined. Looks like surgery is on tap for me. But, according to the doc, I don't have to do it until the summer, which is a huge bonus. Sweet. Treated myself to lunch at the City Deli, and have since been doing a little work. In my new chair. In my new apartment.