The T-zone

DDR revisited

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 19:12:00 +0000

I've been getting a lot of responses about my DDR article lately. Since most of you seem to have missed this, I'm going to pound it into your dim little eyes again:
DDR STEREOTYPES ARE FUNNY

It's pointless to have an argument over an opinion, because it's a fucking value judgement. I'm not arguing here, and I'm not being serious. I'm getting my jollies from talking smack on a video game I don't like.

Roll it up and smoke it.

Shine on, you crazy diamond

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 03:25:00 +0000

RIP Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett
January 6, 1946 - July 7, 2006

Alone in the clouds, all blue.
Lying on an eiderdown.
Yippee!
You can't see me,
but I can you.

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plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:16:13 +0000

666, 6/6/06, and why you need a metal rod driven through your undoubtedly thick skull

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 21:22:00 +0000

6/6/06 is not special at all. Anyone who thinks so needs to do a lot of learning.

Here's why.

In the Book of Revelations, the author John uses something called Gematria to calculate the number of the beast - different numbers represent different Hebrew characters. 600, 60, and 6 all hold different values. The name, incidentally, is Nero Caesar - which is another reason why 6/6/06 isn't Satanic. The beast in Revelations is not Satan, the antichrist, or anything else you think it is. The beast is a Roman emperor who persecuted Christians. Ooooh, scary.

There are two different spellings of "Nero Caesar" in Hebrew, one derived from Greek and the other from Latin. In Greek, the letter "n" is placed on the end of a word that would otherwise end in a vowel - "Nero" in this case. This spelling equates to 666. However, an alternate spelling is derived from Latin, and equates Gematrially to 616. Either way, three sixes separated by delimiting characters are NOT EVIL, NOT SPECIAL, and NOT SIGNIFICANT IN ANY WAY AT ALL.

Even if it DID hold Satanic significance, the only people talking about it are boorish morons who don't understand Satanism at all. Satan in Christianity and Satan in Satanism are two entirely different concept, you brick-headed oafs. Do your own damn research.

Funyons no longer have their own Wikipedia article...

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:58:19 +0000

Funyons no longer have their own Wikipedia article.

Smart people: getting all the useless crap out of the public domain since pretty much the dawn of time(tm).

RIP Don Knotts

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 22:42:00 +0000

July 21, 1924 - February 24, 2006

I'm a man of the world, Andy. Why, I've even been to Raleigh!

Folks, please, do me a favor and be amused.

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 22:11:00 +0000

Read this. It's funny.

Not only that, it's family-friendly. Now there's a first for this blog.

Only one thing you need to know about the Olympics...

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:37:53 +0000

Yoko Ono ruined the Beatles and I hate her.

Kthx.

New and improved!

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:51:19 +0000

"Well, Mr. Art Garfunkel, this guitar makes it sound like you actually
have musical talent."

Seriously, if you have so many Livestrong bracelets you can't move
your arms, get off this fucking planet.

LISTEN.

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:31:00 +0000

Get Mr. Nice Guy on the phone, pronto.

Catholicism agrees: intelligent design != science

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:07:00 +0000

Folks, this should be a wake-up call.

In case none of you have noticed, the Catholic church takes about a billion years to make any sort of decision whatsoever. When they're telling you intelligent design isn't science, it's about time to start questioning your views if you think it is.

The bottom line is that intelligent design is not and never will be a scientific theory. There are a number of reasons why this is so. Firstly, you can't test for the presence of a designer. Secondly, you can't measure complexity - it's completely subjective. What's complex to one person is simple to another. Complex carbohydrates dwindle in comparison to the simplest proteins. Come on.

Finally, if you believe that God rewards faith, you should be opposed to intelligent design. Why? Well, a theory is something that can be proven. If intelligent design is a theory, we could, theoretically (no pun intended) prove that there is a God. Once something exists, it's impossible to believe in it... because it is. I don't believe that 2+2=4. I know that 2+2=4.

God never intended to be proven.

no title

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 16:21:36 +0000

Fuck you, news.

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 20:48:00 +0000

All right, I don't know about you guys, but I think 2006 has been a slow news year so far. Our biggest fucking headlines are Ariel Sharon's current health and the West Virginia mining accident.

Who fucking cares, seriously? 12 miners dead and an official in the hospital.

BIG FUCKING DEAL.

What about Darfur? Doesn't genocide deserve a bit more space in world headlines than a few dead guys? I'm not belittling the mining debacle, but try to put things in perspective. We're making a big deal out of 12 miners, but why? Because of how it affected everyone else.

How do you think GENOCIDE hurts everyone else? What about the families of the THOUSANDS dead over there in Sudan? AT LEAST 400,000 people have died there since the whole thing began in 2003. In contrast, the maximum estimate of civillians killed in Iraq is around 32,000. That's IRAQ - the war that the news has been following like a chihuahua on a pork chop since 2003... the same 2003 during which militant Arabs began a systematic extermination of blacks in - yep, you guessed it, Darfur, Sudan.

All of a sudden, 12 dead miners doesn't seem like as much of a tragedy as we're making it out to be.

Think about it.

Advice!

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:35:10 +0000

Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it. This song has no message. Rise for the flag salute.

-Frank Zappa

Principles of responsible entheogen use

plastiquejam@gmail.com (Jason) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 07:04:00 +0000

Note that this isn't titled "principles of responsible drug use". If you just want to get fucked up or you're only trying to fit in and be cool, this really isn't what you're looking for. Hell, if you want to get high, you don't need to do much research... just go buy some weed and smoke it. Take my word for it. Just make sure you get it from a reputable source so you know it isn't laced.

This is not a guide on how to smoke pot.
This is not a step-by-step recipe for meth.
This is not persuasive writing.

This is for those of you who seek chemically altered states for spiritual revelation, personal insight, and the expansion of consciousness. This is a tool. This is not everything you need to know, but if you follow the links and know what you're doing, it can be.

"Entheogen" comes from the Greek "entheos" ("in God" or "inspired") and "genesthai" ("to cause to be"), and it literally means "to cause to be in God" or "to cause to be inspired." If you smoke marijuana because you want to gain insight on your life, you're using an entheogen. If you smoke marijuana because you want to get high, it's not an entheogen anymore... it's just a drug. All entheogens are drugs, but not all drugs are entheogens. It's like insects and bugs, or squares and rectangles.

There are guidelines to follow when you decide on a substance to use, guidelines to follow when you've decided on it, and guidelines to follow when you actually get around to using it. They're just guidelines, but your other options almost always equate to very nasty consequences. I read a report of a Datura trip gone terribly wrong in which the user woke up on a hospital bed while a catheter was being inserted. Don't be stupid. Most of these guidelines are just common sense - something which drug users are clearly lacking, made evident by the mind-boggling amounts of anti-drug propoganda and legislation floating around out there. If we had any common sense at all, marijuana would have been legalized ages ago - though it would still have been illegalized in the first place, based on the observation that our first drug czar was a bigot and that marijuana is really only illegal because blacks and Mexicans smoked it.

Anyway.

Choose a substance based on the effects you want. You'll find that marijuana makes a good entheogen for any occasion, however it's not always as strong as you'd like it to be, or maybe it has too much of one effect and not enough of another. Whatever the case may be, DO YOUR RESEARCH. See the links at the bottom of the article for good places to start.

After you've chosen a substance, follow these three guidelines throughout the whole experience:
Know your mind. Know your body. Know your substance.

All three are common sense, but all three are essential and they all depend on eachother. If you know your substance and your body but not your mind, you could wind up in a padded cell due to the paranoid schizophrenia you never knew you had because you never bothered to find out.

Know your mind - more or less covered in that last sentence. You should be aware of your mental health and what your mind can take. You don't want to be shivering under a blanket in a dark room for 6 hours, laboring under the delusion that your soul has been torn from your body and sucked up into the eternal Void. Know your mental limits. A paranoid schizophrenic shouldn't really be dropping acid, right? If you have to hesitate when deciding whether or not you're in good mental health, get yourself evaluated. YOU ARE ALWAYS BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY. Do not gamble with your mind.
Know your body - this applies mostly to drugs with physical effects, but it's important for any substance. If you have tuberculosis, for instance, you probably don't want to smoke anything. Some entheogens' dosages depend heavily on body weight. Case in point: DXM. If you weigh 120 lbs., but you take 900 mg of DXM expecting a 2nd plateau trip because of an experience report you read from a 250 lb. professional athlete, well, that's a decision you'll probably regret. The best case scenario is that you'll hit a higher plateau than you were aiming for, have a good experience despite this, and learn something from it - aside from whatever insights of revelations you may gain. Of course, you might also have an experience you really don't like but be all right nevertheless. The worst case scenario is that you'll experience total mind-body dissociation and sustain extensive injuries because you had no idea what you were doing and you didn't have a trip sitter because you had only planned on a 2nd plateau trip. Know your physical limits, also... if you have a weak heart, anything with a strong stimulant effect is a bad idea.
Know your substance - ALWAYS know what you're putting into your body, whether it's a drug, your lunch, or a multivitamin. If someone handed you a glass of thick black liquid that absolutely reeked of something that's clearly been dead for a sufficient amount of time and said "drink this," wouldn't you ask what's in it first? Why should this be any different? Knowing your substance is also important for dosing. If you take 20mg of 5-MeO-AMT, thinking it's just AMT, you're in deep shit. People have died from 5-MeO-AMT overdoses, and confusing it with "regular" AMT has really nasty consequences. ALWAYS know what you're putting into your body, no matter WHAT it is.

So you've got your substance and you're disgustingly well-informed about it. Not only that, you're incredibly acquainted with your mind and body. Now it's time to venture into the Land of Else.

If you've ever read any of my trip reports, you'll notice that the phrase, "turn on, tune in, drop out" appears throughout each one. This phrase was coined and popularized by Dr. Timothy Leary, Ph.D. a few years back and in the years since has been interpreted to apply to all sorts of things, from music to meditation to every day life. You can read it however you want, but it all boils down to this:
"Get high, learn something, come down."

If you really intend to use a substance as an entheogen, your trip should be something like this:

Turn on - get high. Activate your mind and your body. After you take the substance, put yourself in a good environment. You might have a trip sitter depending on the substance and dose. Make sure everything is just right. Now sit back and wait for it to come on - if you want to notice it at first, anyway. I find that if I do something while I'm coming up, I get absorbed in my task and don't notice the gradual shift in perception until I'm already in another galaxy.
Tune in - get familiar with the high. Explore your mind and body. How does movement feel? Can you even move at all? What's the first thing you see? Try to envision what it looks like while you're sober. What major differences do you notice? How do you perceive things, vs. how you perceive things while you're sober? Get comfortable with your state of mind. Now is where the entheogenic part comes in. Think about whatever it is you wanted the entheogen for in the first place. If you wanted insight on personal issues, meditate on them. If you wanted to grow in your spirituality, meditate on it. Keep in mind, by "meditate" I mean "think deeply." You don't have to get into a lotus position or anything, but THINK. Use your mind. Use your state of consciousness to your advantage.
Drop out - what goes up must come down. In the words of Dr. Leary himself, "you can't stay high." You sought this altered state of consciousness for a purpose. Whether you achieved this purpose or not, you have to return to normal. People might start to notice if you've been tripping balls for a week. Whether they do or not, the point is that altered states of consciousness put everyone around you in immediate danger. Whether you smoked a joint, dropped a hit of acid, or had a few beers, I don't want you driving me home, PERIOD. If for no other reason, do it for everyone else. Hopefully, you're doing it because you achieved your purpose, or if not, because you recognize the need to return to normal before you try again.

After the fact: well, how were your travels? Did you enjoy them? Did you get anything out of the experience? Did you enjoy it? Remember what you learned. Write it down if you have to. Any knowledge you gain in a chemically altered state of mind is useless if you don't retain it.

If you feel compelled to do so, write a trip report. Be as specific as possible. Include your body weight, the substance used (along with the dose), your age, gender, the setting, and timestamps. Most are written in a T+x format, where T is the time you ingested the substance and x is how many minutes after said time the documented effect occured. If you want to, keep a notebook with you throughout the whole thing. Nobody wants to read about how "totally cooked" you were. Describe what you felt. List any side effects. If you don't know the exact times, approximate to the best of the ability. Write everything you'd want to see if you were reading a trip report before your first time on this substance.

On trip sitters: some substances cause the user to no longer be consciousness of his or her body (dissociation). Do some research. If you think you might become severely dissociated, get a trip sitter - someone who will remain completely sober, reassure you throughout the experience should things take a wrong turn, and who can, if absolutely necessary, physically restrain you. It's helpful if they've used the substance you're using before, but by no means necessary. It's most important that they can restrain you. The substance most commonly used with a sitter is Salvia divinorum... in fact, someone "breaking through" (which essentially means becoming severely dissociated, as though the mind has completely left the body and gone to another universe) without a trip sitter - or at least, intending to break through without a trip sitter - is virtually unheard of. You should also have a sitter for high doses of DXM (based on your body weight, obviously - if you way 250 lbs., a low dose for you is a high dose for someone who weighs 120 lbs.). You'll know whether or not you need a sitter.

Links:
Erowid - everything I need to know about drugs I learned on Erowid... well, almost all of it, anyway. Erowid has basics, effects lists, photographs, trip reports, possible complications... a vast amount of important information on just about every psychoactive substance under the sun. Erowid can help you choose your substance and take the proper precautions (such as deciding on whether or not to use a sitter).

Wikipedia - Wikipedia is absolutely amazing. If you want to know about ANYTHING, just type it in the search box and it's almost guaranteed to have an article. If it doesn't, you can start one - that's the beauty of Wikipedia. If you try a chemical that doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, you can write the article yourself - or start writing it yourself at any rate. Everyone can contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia.

Temple of the Screaming Electron (Totse) - Totse has a decent drugs section, but the most accurate, informational part of the site (as far as mind-altering substances go) is the Better Living Through Chemistry forums on the BBS. Search through the BLTC archives and see if there's any information on your substance. If there's not, ask about it - but please, for your sake, use some common sense. If you've gotten this far, you probably know what's a stupid question and what isn't. Think before you ask. "I heard that some guy accidentally drank 1000 hits of acid and went insane" is going to get you laughed at and flamed.

Hope this helps.