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| User: | normalcyispasse (1067487) Mega-Ultra Brandon
Merdeka! Merdeka! MERDEKA! |
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| Name: | Brandon | |||||
| Location: | Phoenix, Arizona, United States | |||||
| Birthdate: | 1982-05-05 | |||||
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| AOL IM: |  normalcyispasse (Add Buddy, Send Message) | |||||
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| Bio: | Welcome to the Longest LJ Bio Ever! Last profile update: 18 March 2008, 10:08AM CST Current place of residence: Bentonville, Arkansas, USA A lyric sung by Flogging Molly (from the song "Black Friday Rule") prompted me in large part to begin writing this journal: "I want to go home where my feet both feel safe, but there ain't no jobs in the old free state!" Now, another quote (one that is tattooed on my body) provides a subtext: "Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim" (be patient and tough; one day this pain will be useful to you). I think sometimes I should attach a GPS beacon to my keys so I could keep a realtime update of where I am. After two and a half years living in the far east, I left South Korea with my wife to attempt to build a life in the wild west. I'm an alumnus of the University of Kansas, where I studied philosophy with an eye towards ethics and applied ethical theory. As much as I enjoy erudition, however, I'm afraid I may have lost my taste for academe. Now I'm a teacher, and I love inculcating knowledge to another generation, but I'm not exactly working in my field of study. Interestingly, a lot of my background teaching martial arts comes in handy with classroom management here in Korea. Qua musical tastes, I enjoy a lot of independent, but well-produced, presentation. More meaningful things are said when the artist is less concerned about pleasing a producer, I find. I tend to prefer intelligent hip-hop over commercial rap, alternative to pop, bare vocals to distorted microphones, and balladic country over twangy new-C&W. Also, punk music makes an appearance in my playlists on almost a daily basis. I accumulate MP3s with surprising speed, much to the dismay of my hard drives. As a disclaimer, of COURSE I have purchased all the music I own in digital form. Obviously. I enjoy transportation. Fast things thrill me. I'm a die-hard motorcyclist, and I've done lots of dabbling in hot-rodding and, to some extent, various forms of racing. My current bike is a Honda CBR600F4i; I'm attempting a step down to a more compliant suspension and smaller displacement engine in comparison to my past two race replicas, a Suzuki GSX-R750 and Kawasaki Ninja ZX7R. Of course, while in Korea I owned about a half dozen Korean bikes too. I love the freedom of mobility. I enjoy trail biking, hiking, and numerous other physical activities. I'm extremely active and much of my recreation time is spent at the gym; other than martial arts, I'm also an avid weightlifter and rock-climber. I also enjoy the occasional game of racquetball when I can find it. Many people conflate my pursuits under iron with bodybuilding, and I must emphasize that I am *not* a bodybuilder. Bodybuilders lift weight to increase muscle mass; I lift weight to lift heavier weights and perform better in weightlifting and other activities, and if my muscles grow, it's a (nice) side effect. I'm a powerlifter, and as of February 2007 I actually hold a world record in the sport (APA/WPA, 100kg drug-tested class, deadlift event). It would be hard for me to only enjoy physical activities. I am a definite fan of film, cinema and movies, as well as novels and literature. I enjoy chess and Scrabble among willing friends and generally appreciate academic pursuits. I play poker and calculate pot odds. I listen to music and think about beat structure and harmonies. I watch movies and take note of camera angles and exposure. I also sometimes listen to crappy music and watch awful films. I will not apologize for occasionally listening to Paula Abdul and/or watching 24. I am so hip that I am post-pretentious. Politically, I identify more as a liberal. I have arguments why this is and why I generally support the "liberal agenda," and I enjoy rationally discussing politics (if rational discussion of politics can be said to rightly exist). Outright stubborn isms bother me greatly, as does the espousal of any viewpoint which does not take into account the arguments of the opposition. I used to identify myself as pagan, but these days I just identify myself as myself. I have very, very limited tolerance for fluffy magick crystal wytches. On body art: I love seeing the creativity that people pour into changing their bodies as they see fit, and I wholeheartedly support this endeavour. I don't care if people decry tattoos and piercings and implants and branding as being independent as part of a herd; I appreciate the determination that goes into body art and greatly enjoy the final result. While I used to have many piercings, I have removed most of them but I do have a few tattoos. One on my ankle reads, in simple block letters, "FREE PERSON." My others have been mentioned elsewhere in this tome of a bio. I have a very low tolerance for Asian fetishism in general and Japanophilia in specific. This is only exacerbated by living in Asia. I do not believe that anime has intrinsic virtues. If a piece of anime is good, it is good because of artistic merit: either it is good because of plot develoment or artistry or something along those lines, just as any other form of media is "good," or it can be said to possess the nebulous trope (yes, I'm using that word intentionally) of Quality. I loathe people who blindly and slavishly worship anything that comes out of Japan simply BECAUSE it comes out of Japan (or for that matter, those who blindly and slavishly worship anything for any reason). I studied the Japanese language for a couple years, but you will never see me using the "^________^" emoticon or saying "kawaiiiiii!" I have been to Japan a couple of times and have enjoyed conversing in Japanese but I am not about to move to Japan to get a Japanese girlfriend, visit temples and renounce my citizenship to adopt the Land of the Rising Sun and have a bunch of cats and name them traditional Japanese names while living in a rice-paper house and contemplating Zen koan in my rock garden next to my Hattori Honzo katana and Pocky collection. While I'm ranting along these lines, I love the English language and I would like to say that I particularly hate it when people try to distinguish their usernames from the crowd by using Xs. I hate it when people use Xs at the front and tail of their usernames, like "xkrying_rainb0w_krystal_tearzx" or such. I also hate it when people use the character "x" instead of a space or underscore, such as "luckyxstars." You can probably extrapolate that I hate it when people use Xs for both, like "xgothicxkawaiixwitch" or someshitlikethat; you are not "hXc" because you are "sXe," and if given the chance I would probably like to smack you with a wok. Also, I don't see the point of purposefully misspelling words: "z" does not replace "s" to form a plural, ever, and when I see shiat like "I lurrrrrv hot boyz omgpowmia" I generally acquit myself of the offending person posthaste. I may be a grammer prescriptivist, but I don't find that it's significantly more work to type "to" for "2" and "you" instead of the abbreviated "u." Likewise, "for" and "4" are not interchangeable, and "why" is only two more keystrokes than "y." y do i do this 2 u? becuz i don't lik it!1! My one caveat is that I do not agree with the proscription against split infinitives; consequently, I will split infinitives if and only if doing so will convey more information or more will more accurately convey information than a grammatically-correct intact infinitive would. I am an unapologetic English teacher, dammit. I used to have wonderfully-colored hair: Blues, reds, purples, oranges, and greens in various patterns stayed with me all through college. I ultimately had to let my hair grow out into a normal color, because I could not get employment in Korea otherwise. I profoundly miss the colors. I enjoyed coloring my hair because I love color, not because I was some pseudo-socially-rebellious anti-establishment fuck. If I was any of these things, it was because I constructed my viewpoints from available information and argumentation, not because I'd failed in some meaningful sense and had found refuge among outcasts. Speaking of which, I don't like the coffeeshop intellectualism that gives rise to narcissistic people who think they're brand-new and brilliant because they caught the East-Asian quasi-philosophical influences in The Matrix. When I say that I study philosophy, I do not mean that I sit around stroking my goatee and asking questions like, "Is there a god?" or "what's the meaning of life, man?" Unfortunately, philosophy is largely perceived as just such an ivory-tower endeavour of the luftmensch. I confess to being a bit of a snob, but I really don't give much thought to Intro to Philosophy topics that range from the ridiculous to the Zen koan. I worry instead about logic and ethics in realistic situations. While I find other exercises significant and occasionally meaningful, I honestly don't care about whether the world disappears every time I close my eyes or whether it's like everyone's really an alien and we all just think we're people, man, and like, we could all be really living inside a huge cave with shadows dancing on the wall or something. Drugs. Many people think that, because I've had crazy hair and piercings and tattoos and a formal education in philosophy, I must love drugs. This is simply not true. I don't smoke, drink, or do any drugs harder than the occasional cup of coffee. I don't care if you drink or enjoy the occasional bout of altered consciousness; that's your prerogative and your autonomous decision to make, and it doesn't bother me so long as you don't make it a part of my life. One thing I hated about Kansas is that there were no mountains. I adore mountains, especially those of the American southwest, and I couldn't stand the flatness of Kansas (there is less than a 1,000-foot altitude deviation across the entire state). I also hated the winter in that state: to me, cold seems only justified when there is altitude involved somehow. I loved living in Arizona where there were mountains in my backyard, and it made me ecstatic to see a horizon with craggy hills exalting the sky. Living in South Korea was fascinating because there were mountains everywhere, and I took great, slow pleasure in watching the color of the mountains change with the seasons. Every time I see a mountain I see possibility; every time I find a cluster of cliffs or rocks I think not of a cage, but of a challenge. If there's one thing I've learned and can extend to a metaphor, it is that the view from the top always justifies the effort necessary to get there. When I moved to Korea I was single and had plans to remain single. I had very firm positive plans NOT to have a relationship. That changed, as things often do, with time and in July of 2006 Terri and I married each other on the beach at Hat Rai Leh, Thailand. In May of 2007, on my parents' own anniversary, we had a more formal ceremony on a beach in Maui, Hawaii. Note that my interests list is at least a moderately-accurate reflection of my tastes. I know I go on at lengths regarding the things that I dislike, but I would prefer to avoid letting my dislikes define who I am. I've probably written enough for now. If you would like to add me to your Friends list, that's absolutely fine. Feel free to comment on my entries; if you comment and your own journal is provocative, I will probably reciprocate by adding you to the list of journals I read (I cannot bring myself to use the word "friend" as a verb). However, it's difficult for me to know who you are or how you found this blog if you don't comment! When I started writing this journal I wrote it for myself and with more of an eye towards selfish exposition. Now I write with a conscious sense of audience, and I try to fulfill the responsibilities therein. You will be tested on all this information later. Fuck bees. | |||||
| Memories: | 2 entries | |||||
| Interests: | 150: academia, acceleration, achievement, action movies, adrenaline, anatomy, applied ethics, athleticism, audrey hepburn, bbq, bouldering, breaking boards, breaking bricks, broadband, car movies, cars, cats, cinnamon, classics, color, competition, comprehension, computers, contemporary ethics, conversation, cooking, creative profanity, current events, darren aronofsky, deadlifting, diet, dragging knees, driving, e. e. cummings, eating clean, egalitarianism, electronic music, engineering, ethical theory, ethics, exercise, facial hair, fark.com, feminism, folk music, food, fountain pens, freedom, gadgets, global communication, goals, grilling, happiness, heat, hiking, hip-hop, honesty, hot rodding, humanism, humor, independence, indie rock, intelligent music, jazz, john rawls, kissing, korea, lane splitting, lead climbing, learning new things, liberal politics, life, living, living abroad, logic, manual transmissions, married life, martial arts, masculism, meat, metaphysics, mixed martial arts, morphology, motorcycles, motorcycling, mountain climbing, mountains, movies, mp3s, music, my wife, non-human animals, nutrition, oats, opportunity international, peregrination, peter singer, philosophy, physical exertion, physiology, piercings, plants, poker, politics, powerlifting, pragmatism, progressivism, punk, punk covers, punk rock, puns, qualia, quietude, racing, racquetball, respect, responsible decisions, road trips, rock climbing, saxophone, self-sufficiency, sesquipedalianism, sex, sexuality, sharing, simplicity, skills, sobriety, south korea, sparring, speeding, spontaneity, sportbikes, strength, tattoos, teaching, technology, text tattoos, the internet, the number five, the outdoors, the sun, trance, travel, vocabulary, w.v.o. quine, weightlifting, winning, working out, 태권도 | |||||
| Schools: | Shawnee Mission Northwest High School - Shawnee, KS (1996 - 2000) University of Kansas - Lawrence, KS (2000 - 2004) | |||||
| Friends: | ||||||
| Mutual Friends: | 255: 00hshiny, 27red, 3or4monsters, __ashli__, abbydabby, acommonreader, adammaker, aliveatolaf, ambienceman, amnewsboy, andrewgiessel, angelica123, artemiswrites, articulate_ink, arvindn, atraxia, audacity242, aunighthawk, ayr, balanceinchaos, bar_bell, barkis, battlefish, beehunkier, being_here, bewareoftruth84, bigsqueezer, billinaction, blankbook, blorky, bluepony, bodybydom, borninjeans, brekketechie, burningcleric, c_maxx, cannella, capitalcor, capriciously_me, caricaneba15, casswalker, cathouse_blues, cestovatela, cheekyweebisom, chernobylred, circe811, city_of_walls, claudiag, clothedmonkeys, count_croakula, courtneysorca, crappychu, cruisergirl, curieuse, custodiankasumi, cuterpillar, czarina69, d2leddy, d_klein, dakini_grl, darcilla, darkbarde, davidphillips, dayslikeknivesx, decasia, dedalusj, destinymanifest, dichroic, diosa_estrella, doubleedge, droopydog500, drownedinink, duckylick, dukexmachismo, dyan2, eakboo, earthgoat, eh_notsomuch, elina, ellinoora, fang_uk, feather802, firedrake_mor, fitfool, flemco, friendofjack, fusionist, girl_on_a_stick, gonesurfin, greatbearmd, greenwavedave, greyfalcon, greysniperpoet, hahathor, halloranelder, haunter969, hbriem, herlihey_boy, hyrkanian, iamsab, iedeshoujo, iejw, improvizor, indigodreamer, inostalgia, ironmanjt, ivoryisis, jade_spider, jalden, jconstantine, jebbypal, jeepgirl77, jfalstaff, jfboyd, judopup, junyr, kaitopia, katplayspoker, kinfae, kissmekate0228, kittenhead, kittenspeaks, kittyodoom, koreansal, krustukles, kuarcetkd, kungfutofu, laserith, laurawelchbush, leadbox, lebenketten, librarywench, liquid_eve, littlegothkitty, loser_j, lostinzootopia, m_fallenangel, mananath, manintheboat, marveen, mbaty, mckitterick, mindme, mipish, mjhj24, mmixon, mnemosyne9, mochapixie, mordant, morgman, ... | |||||
| Also Friend of: | 33: a_root, abunaiiyakusoku, antonijan, arpv2, autumndinosaur, b18ch1ck, blaidrider, bondagekitten88, bullchef, bxinggloveptrck, cyanide101, dement0b0y, dj_screetcha, eyeheartagentm, foxey_moonie, gaining_myself, gambling, gavelepo, hotcowboy17al, jl_thor, judgedanny, lil_drum_girl, luv2suk, machtdestroy, oakenking, omiterebi, originalsynn, riceeaters, schweb, socalpurr, sunshine_two, vigoro09, whitegato | |||||
| Member of: | 44: 2hot4philosophy, a_and_p, advancedfitness, amnestyint, azjournal, badbeats, beos, bike_shop, blog_sociology, climb_high, comic_foxtrot, expats, fl_teachers, flemcomics, gearheads, genderevolution, getfuzzyfeed, gymbrats, gymrats, jennifernettles, korea_pics, life_in_korea, m15m, malefeminists, mc_chris, mens_studies, mma, motorcyclep0rn, motorcycles, mountain, nutrition, nutritionnews, oldskoolfarkers, pearlswine, philo_majors, phoenix_az, poker, progressive_net, real_philosophy, shutupandlift, stick_shift, taekwondo, twisted_spoke, ufc_fans | |||||
| Account type: | Basic Account | |||||
