An Adventure Through Time and Space!

I recently watched an old-timey French movie on Netflix called "La jetée."  To give you an idea of the film: a man lives in post-apocalyptic Paris, where scientists living underneath the ruins devise a way to hurl people through time, and try to use it to get help from humans of the past and future to help them out of their little pickle involving the end of the world.  The man in question is chosen for this experiment because of his strong mental imagery - he obsesses over this image of a beautiful young woman he saw on a pier before witnessing a murder.  The whole film is quite intruiging - it's black-and-white and is made completely from still photos, and it's quite original.  

Anyway, the part that got me the most was some of the images of him lying on a table with all sorts of wires coming out of his head as he travelled through time.  Previously, I'd thought of time travel as a process that was solely physical, like Back to the Future and the Terminator, etc.  The use of a "time machine" was such a crucial concept behind time travel that I never really thought about the mental aspects of the process.

So here's where I got an idea.  Let's assume that quantum physicists will figure out how to travel forward in time in the near future; that's not been considered impossible under special and general relativity, we just lack the technology to allow forward time travel to occur.  How does one explain backward time travel?  

I envision that the process of traveling back in time (for those governed by creativity, not regimented scientific analysis) can simply be entirely mental.  While it is (or at least I think it is) possible to reconstruct vivid memories of past experiences using hypnosis or some other means, these memories are likely corrupted due to age (similar to how old data files get corrupted because of quantum tunneling in your hard drive) and contain many self-constructed fallacies.  I don't want to spam my miracle exemption just yet, so let's say that each memory is recorded exactly as it happened, as in the Robin Williams movie, "The Final Cut," and didn't get corrupted by the same phenomenon that I just mentioned.  This way, one could simply "reset" one's consciousness to the time in the past of their choosing while maintaining memories of the present.  How does this actually enable time travel, though?  An important plot device for many authors of speculative science fiction is being able to use the backward time travel to alter events of the past.  

This is where I have to use my miracle exemption, which completely annihilates every law of science that I'm aware of.  Instead of simply reliving a memory as it passes in one's head, one could actually direct their consciousness to an earlier point in time, which would cause problems based on the fact that one's past self has different neural networks and associations and memories.  This definitely limits the freedom of consciousness-time-travel to a few days, maybe weeks; either way, it'd probably cause a gigantic headache to whoever was unlucky enough to end up in that situation.  From here, the strapping young hero or picaresque time-traveling deviant is free to engage in whatever history-meddling shenanigans they please - don't even bother me with addressing continuity between the past and the present, for now.  And remember, this is just an idea of a plot device.  Sciencefag whiners, stay away!  Also, before the h8terz gunna h8, this is very different from the Butterfly Effect.  Which was retarded.

Two Weeks of Melancholy and Euphoria

A lot has happened in the past two weeks - many of them exciting and worth noting.  This is going to be very diary-esque, but the lessons I've learned in the past two weeks of attempting to follow my life-improvement plan are surprisingly unexpected and significant.

The week prior to the last one was nothing out of the ordinary - a lot of schoolwork and not much happening socially because of it.  I was dreading Valentine's Day, because as I've mentioned before, my relationship with women had entered "Holy shit, that kid needs to get laid." territory, and I'd spent the entire week avoiding discussing what I would normally discuss here on my blog with anything with a vagina.  I spent a good deal of time with the PN crowd, as I've been doing more and more as the year goes on - first, going out to breakfast on an otherwise mundane Wednesday (if you groaned, I win), and then playing video games/scrabble/watching the Winter Olympics on Friday night.  This allowed me to gain access to the opportunity to attend one of the popular Valentine's Day events known as the "Anti-Valentine's Party" where single kids can mope together and be merry.  This, I thought, would make me feel a lot better.  Instead, I woke up ill on Valentine's Day and was sick the entire day.  I won't go into the details about the sickness, but there was no way I was going to be able to go out.  So instead I moped and watched what I consider to be an "uplifting" movie with romantic themes: 500 Days of Summer.  And I've seen that enough that I watched it with the writer/director/actor commentary on.  That's pretty pathetic.  I was approached by one of my friends about some relationship advice, which I gave out angrily and then proceeded to vent about how much my life sucks as of late.  Most of the horribleness of my life then and now was caused by my now-extreme lack of success with women, and my awareness of this issue was greatly enhanced by the fact that it was Valentine's Day.  Emotionally, I think that this was the weakest I've been since the winter/spring of my sophomore year of high school.  And perhaps for a few moments last year when I was under insurmountable levels of stress.

This was the point in time where I was told by another close friend that "things can only go up from here."  I believed him.  I was both right and wrong.

Things didn't get worse for me right off the bat - I told myself in the wee hours of the next morning that I was going to stick to the "plan" that I posted earlier, in order to improve my life.  However, life is a heartless bitch.  As my mood steadily improved, circumstances I was unaware of involving my immediate yet broken circle of friends worsened dramatically.  Due to the nature of the "drama" that went down, I'm going to refrain from delineating my opinion on the matter, but this next part is where things got interesting.

My friend, who I shall refer to as Red Shirt (which is not an homage to Star Trek, unfortunately) is moving to China as part of a study abroad program for several months, and two weeks prior to the publishing of this post, he experienced one of the ugliest breakups I've ever seen in my entire life.  (These two weeks had a subplot, too.)  The next week of drama remained fairly quiet, though there was much talk of the breakup, and I heard some nasty rumors about Red Shirt's ex-girlfriend which later ended up being true.  I discovered this upon attending Red Shirt's going-away party, which was one of the most fun parties I've been to in quite some time, despite being quite tame.  While me and some other cool people spent about an hour and a half on Chat Roulette - screaming in surprise at people jacking off on camera, and also at a guy who, after giving us the impression that he was normal, pulled down a ski mask and whipped out a gun at us - Red Shirt was taking members of the party upstairs and virtually interrogating them on their knowledge of the circumstances underlying his breakup.  This was when the truth was revealed, and now I find in an extreme moral dilemma involving who is trustworthy and who is worth keeping as a friend - but honestly, I don't care. 

The reason why I said that I was both right and wrong about life improving was because in spite of these dire straits of disloyalty and distrust, I managed to have one of the most exciting, enjoyable, and eventful weekends in a long, long time.  The night after Red Shirt's party, many of of the same people from the party regrouped (including myself) to attend a Harry Potter themed "Yule Ball", which was on par with most other school dances, but managed to be a blast because of the people I spent it with.

How does this relate to improving my life?  Not much, really.  I am still hopelessly doting over multiple women.  I finally received the lackluster new version of facebook.  I didn't work out at all.  I'm still quite unmotivated.  Musically, there isn't anything new to add.  And regarding friendships, some of them have become even more illegitimate.  But I feel great.  I realized that once you tell yourself that everything in life is going to stop bearing down on you, they will.  That's something that has been said so many times that there's not much of a point in repeating it - I guess that we just need to be reminded every once in a while.

Sarah Palin

Again, the news has inspired me to engage in a tiny amount of political ranting.  This time, the subject is Sarah Palin, who has far exceeded her 15 minutes of fame.  Seriously, why is she still around?  Allow me to reiterate, first: I don't really have much of a political backbone, and I'll hold nothing against you if you disagree with me on political issues.  This is more of an issue with the fact that Sarah Palin is to politics as Paris Hilton is to life. 

Anyway, it appears that Sarah Palin has made herself into a hypocrite twice over this week.  The first incident involved her angry response to Rahm Emmanuel calling conservative Democrats "fucking retards" and then responding to Rush Limbaugh using the term "retards" to describe the same group defensively.  That's right - apparently the word can be dropped at will by ol' Rush, but not by Rahm Emmanuel.  Her justification... well let's not even go there, because I don't even think she realizes that it doesn't make sense.

Then, later, she made a speech to her fellow supporters of the Tea Party "Movement" in which she (quite "folksily") poked fun at Obama for using a teleprompter in so many of his speeches.  I almost laughed myself, what a comical observation.  I wonder where she got that from.  Oh, maybe it was the notes that she read from her fucking hand.  What is this, an algebra test?  (Go ahead, insert your own "Trig" joke)  There is really no way to describe that sort of behavior.  Hypocritical?  Yes.  Stupid?  Yes.  I guess the best way to describe this speech was that it was just... sad.  It was just sad.

Neither of these are very influential points on a political spectrum, I suppose.  Conservatives would probably jump on the opportunity to knock on Obama if he did either of those things, although they'd have the right to do it especially violently, because even they know that Obama isn't... well, he isn't a "fucking retard" like Palin.  How is it that she's still popular?  I can outwit her!  I don't give half a fuck about politics; all I know is that I don't want someone even more moronic than George Bush to be running the country.  How is it that people still support her, even though she has undeniably cemented her status as a moron into the history books?  I'm scared.

While I'm at it, did anyone else notice the trend for the right-wing, teabagging (haha, they still use that term) evangelicals to describe themselves as "True Americans"?  Yep, I laughed too.

Things to Change

• Relationship with women:  I'm going to stop interacting with them beyond detached conversation because (and yes, it was as uncomfortable to admit this as it is for you to read it) that I've been falling in love with just about every woman who has shown me the slightest bit of affection.  I'm really lonely, and I think that an extended break will actually do me good by keeping me from feeling like I'm missing something.
• Facebook: Shortly after rambling about how much facebook sucks, Facebook started rolling out a brand-new format.  I have yet to receive it, but I really want it for obvious reasons.  This is completely irrelevant to the general theme of this post, but seriously... this is a thing to change.
• Physical fitness: I'm trying to exercise as much as possible, and I've scarcely been eating much food - I suppose that the food I am eating could be a bit healthier.
• Motivation: My own laziness (mostly stemming from my recognition of the futility of trying to accomplish anything serious before college) has actually made me quite angry and miserable lately.  So I've decided to get as much done as I can for the sake of saying that I tried at the very least.
• Music: Regrettably, I'm sick of it.  I really want to do something besides play in pits with the same people taught the exact same way.  Right now, it's just... boring.  I need to learn a new instrument or join a different ensemble or something.  Think of it this way: you can retake a course as many times as you'd like, and learn the material extremely well - but you're never going to understand differential equations if you only study basic algebra.
• Friendships:  I want to end a few of them.  I realize that as I write this, I'm becoming more and more angry, so bear with me for a bit.  While at an earlier time in my life I may have complained about not having anything to do, now I complain about not being able the things that I ought to be able to with friends. I can only say that a large portion of my friends are, at best, unreliable.  At worst, I would say that the constant last-second cancellation of "plans" make me feel like they're mocking me. (Granted, the only reason I think that is because it happens more often than it should, and the people involved have little reason to appreciate my company to begin with.)  It's time for me to weed out the people who aren't worth keeping as friends and hold on tightly to the ones I'll want to remember after high school. 
• Attitude:  I've posted this in order to remind myself to actually fix some of the things in my life that are holding me back, attitude-wise.  As I said earlier, for the past few months I've been little but angsty, isolated, and generally bitter.  Based on my what things have been on my mind the most lately, taking care of the aforementioned "Things to change" will almost certainly make me a happier guy.  Looks like it's time to once again start off on the road to self-improvement. 

LOST: The most alienating television program in history.

Perhaps besides Fox News, anyway.  This will bore the shit out of anyone who doesn't watch the show semi-regularly, so just stop reading if you don't.  Seriously, just stop.

I probably ought to clear this up before continuing any further: I've been busy all week - so much so that I've found little time to post about the epic premiere of the final season of one of my favorite television shows.  Since nobody reads this anyway, I'll neglect spoilers and just go ahead and rehash the events of the episode and then explain my theory as to what the hell is going on with the island and it's survivors.

At the end of Season 5, Juliet blew up an H-Bomb at the site of the island's powerful electromagnetic energy pocket (which enabled it to travel through time and space, crash planes, draw people to it, and possibly even prevent women from having babies) because Jack figured out from Daniel that doing so at the exact moment that the energy was unleashed in what was known as "The Incident" would rewrite the future so that the plane that brought them to the island never crashed in the first place. (This took place in 1977, so yeah, that's mildly possible.)  It appears that this plan worked, as the episode opens with everybody on the plane as it was in Season 1, with a few key differences/clues.  Desmond was there, for some reason.  Also, Hurley appeared to have won the lottery and then continued to have extreme good luck, as opposed to the horrible luck that we knew about in the original "reality".  Also also, Charlie chokes on a bag of heroin and is saved by Jack, and he says "I was supposed to die!" or something along those lines.  Also also also, right after the plane is supposed to crash, the camera cuts away to an underwater scene that appears to be the island concealed underneath the ocean.  This is more significant than most would think, in my opinion.  I'm going to neglect the weird stuff that happened during the normal timeline of the show, for now (aside from mentioning my own theory that zombie Sayid is actually a reincarnation of Jacob).

So the most pressing question of the show right now appears to be "WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?"  as it has tended to be since the first episode.  How can the plane crash survivors exist in a past where they don't even crash with no knowledge of the event of the past five seasons and a present on the island?  The most popular theory is that the H-bomb created an alternate reality for the survivors.  But the creators of the show have dismissed that theory so much that I am really hesitant to believe that it's true.

Thus, I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Why can't it be one of the most heavily relied-upon plot devices in the Lost arsenal?  Having this event be a flashback doesn't seem to make sense, so let's assume that it's a flashforward (which is a terrible show).  Juliet told Miles, "It worked," which I'm assuming is referencing Jack's plan of preventing the plane from crashing.  One sloppy theory would be that because she's dead, she became clairvoyant and saw that they are able to fix their situation toward the end of the season.  The problem with that is that that is very boring and gives no justification for following the lives of the survivors beyond the moment four minutes into the episode when you realized the plain didn't crash.  So how do we explain that?

I draw my theory from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  The survivors, somehow, at some point in the upcoming season, travel back in time to the point of the plane crash in order to face their destiny (whatever that may be - possibly taking place on the island?).  The laws of time travel on this show are vague enough to permit that this caused the island to disappear from the face of the earth entirely, and that the everyone on the island (including Desmond!) was brought back to a somewhat altered state of being similar to that of the beginning of the show.  The different state of reality would also explain why Jack's dad and various other characters are on the island - in this new reality, Christian never died, but rather was brought to the island to help Locke turn the wheel, freak out his son, etc.  However, since the survivors were restored to the state of being in Season 1, they would believe that Christian was on the plane, even when in this new reality he never was.  Besides, why else would the show continue following the lives of the survivors even after they got off of the plane?  It seems to fit together somewhat in my head, although I realize this doesn't explain every aspect of the show.

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(AN: post-finale) I initially wanted to post about the finale, but didn't until way late, so instead, this.  I was so incredibly wrong.  On almost all counts.  God damn it, I underestimate the power of Darlton consistently.  I should have had it figured out that Christian was smokey right from the moment we saw that Locke was the man in black.  Sayid isn't Jacob.  No time travel this season.  What's the only way of resolving the series, then?  EVERYBODY IS DEAD!!! (and it's beautiful).  However, within the finale itself I nailed several key plot points.  I guessed that Lapidus was still alive, because let's face it - despite the fact that he doesn't get shit as far as plot or character development goes (he's only there the whole time to fly the Ajira plane and you know it), he's pretty much the MacGuyver of the show.  I guessed that it would end with Jack's eye closing, although I didn't guess that it would be essentially the beginning of the show in reverse (oh god, Vincent made me tear up here).  Also, I jokingly predicted that Hurley should be the new Jacob.  Just imagine my face when that actually happened.  Loved it.