New Moon: yes, I watched it.

...and I say that in deep regret. As sxephil described already, here's how the movie goes:

1. Vampire dumps chick;
2. Chick gets depressed;
3. Werewolf gets turned down again and again by chick;
4. Chick gets depressed;
5. Chick finds vampire;
6. The End.

If I may say a couple of words in my defense, I was expecting some cool sex scenes and a lot of werewolf vs vampire action. I know it's a lame excuse, and no, there were no such scenes.

The dudes who designed the visual identity for the vampires must really like sprinkling bright stuff, whereas the werewolf designers should have a little read at Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

On a related note, the depression part was really well depicted in this movie. I myself felt very depressed while watching it.

Threads of reality

Lately, some changes have been happening in my life. I can't say that this
is the first time this has come to pass, and I've also had other
stronger and more dramatic so-called spikes of change. Anyway, one thing that
caught my eye a couple of minutes ago is that language is such an
important part of what shapes one's reality.
On one hand, this might seem like another petty masturbation-like
realization that learning a new language expands your mind and your
horizons. On the other, I just realized why I like to write, and this
means I can start taking charge of that part of my life again.
In short, writing is one of many ways to change your own outlook (both
conscious and subconscious) on reality. It's a big deal. The real deal.
And this realization gives me tools to steer my writing properly from
now on: do you want a public or a private blog? How should you name
it? How do you promote it and to whom?
Writing allows me to weave threads of reality just as much as all
those NLP-based exercises, or maybe even more.

What is a Youtuber?

In short, I have my own Youtube channel (be sure to check it out).

Now, I was thinking to myself how does this Youtube thing, works. Here's the deal: with TV, you don't really get to decide who's important to you or not. And don't give me that crap about ratings. Picture a scenario in which you'd have 3 handsome guys competing to be the next Brad Pitt (or whatever). They should all look pretty similar with slight differences, so one would have asian-ish eyes, the other would have european-ish hair and the third would have a italian-ish nose. So, in the end, one of these guys would yield the highest viewing rates and would be hired be the company (or show, or movie producer) with more money. What happens is that those Brad Pitt wannabe's are now going to be shoved down everybody's throat.

That's how a celebrity is born. And a celebrity dies exactly when it's profitability drops lower than that of the new best thing.

So what does that make me? At first I'm just another frustrated celebrity wannabe, i.e. I see no reason why we should separate some guy that decided to be an actor (show his face on TV and movies) from a guy who decides to be a Youtuber (show his face on Youtube). Initially, you're not gonna have an easy time with money, but there's a possibility, however remote, that you're eventually gonna make a buck (or a lot of bucks). While we're at it, you're also gonna have to put up with lots of idiots that try to tell you what to do, or tell you you're not good enough, or that you should copy other people's style/work/language/idea or whatever... There's a lot of pointless critics being tossed around. And critics never get anything done.

So I guess being a Youtuber is like being a celebrity of the lame kind. You basically work your way from scratch using nothing but your own silly will to do something you think might prove somehow interesting.

Review of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

About a week ago, I was browsing through amazon.co.jp and trying random words. Now we all know amazon - and Google, for that matter, - try to get inside our brains and offer us stuff we'd never heard about, but that we just might like. That's how I found a book called The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists.

I was never interested in Pickup, having that associated with art, even in a questionable way, got me to buy that book. And I don't regret it one bit.

One of the things that make me write is the fact that, while you're reading me, you're basically in my reality, inside my head. You may not agree. Heck, you may not even like it, but there's something absolutely amazing and awful about the possibility. You can get into someone's life without having to go through the trouble of actually doing anything. I'm not talking about a way to dodge laziness, but about a way to do all sorts of nasty deeds without even feeling remorseful about it. I can just open a book and my mind could be examining the best and the worst of humanity in a split second.

If you think I'm full of crap, try Henry Miller. Can't go wrong with Miller.

The Game was written by Neil Strauss, which I'm sorry to say is not Henry Miller. Nonetheless his writing, and that includes his theme of choice: pickup artists (or PUA), kept me hooked to that book until I'd read it to the end.

At first, I wasn't really worried whether the openers and routines really worked. I never asked the crucial question of "does this really work"? Basically, because I knew it eventually would. I wanted to see these people actually getting what they want through their "Social Dynamics" approach, sure, but I was reading so rampantly just because I wanted to know how they would end up. Having an internet community (or secret society, if you will) growing from scratch is something that even Mr. Seth Godin would find admirable. I mean, this is what he was talking about in his book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us.
In short...

Did I like it? I loved reading The Game.

Does it work? Like a charm.

Is that a bad thing? Most likely, yes.

It took me three days to go through the 400 or so pages of The Game, and I was only reading on my scarce free time. It was a lot of fun, and I'd rather give this credit to Neil Strauss, the man himself, than to simply throw it all at a bunch of PUA-wannabe-AFCs. That's another very cool thing about this book: the acronyms, the secret lingo. In case you're still wondering, PUA means pickup artist and AFC would be average frustated chump.

In my opinion, you don't have to buy into the subculture of PUAs to buy the book, because it's really well written.

Scientifically Literate

Great interview, and I quote:

“If you are scientifically literate the world looks very different to you. Its not just a lot of mysterious things happening. There is a lot we understand out there. And that understanding empowers you to, first, not be taken advantage of by others who do understand it. And second there are issues that confront society that have science as their foundation. If you are scientifically illiterate, in a way, you are disenfranchising yourself from the democratic process, and you don’t even know it.”
I agree, and, as I have said before, when a society allows a scientific illiteracy to continue then the potential for abuse by those that manipulate those that are scientifically illiterate leaves the society vulnerable to making very bad choices.

Check out the interview here.