The Epic of Bostock

It makes me want to listen to Rhapsody (which is impressive, because Rhapsody is a ridiculously foolish band, no matter how awesome it sounds aesthetically). I want to teach there for a year or something. Hell, I probably wouldn't mind living there forever; Scandanavia has the highest standard of living in the world anyway (or at least last I checked; Sweden was #1 in the world, Norway was #2, Denmark #3, Iceland #4, and Finland #5... impressive for five separate countries of one geographic area). Not only does it look cool, but it sounds cool and it has the coolest non-Celtic language ever. It's even cooler than some of them, particularly Scottish Gaelic. Who the fuck likes the Scots anyway?

I like the cold. Glaciers (pronounced "glass-ee-ers", by the way, just as speciality is "speh-see-AL-ity", not "spesh-ul-tee") are cold. Ergo, I like glaciers. How can you counter-argue my logic? You can't, that's how. So really there is no "how" there, is there? That was a rhetorical question...

You know what sounds like the life to me? Waking up at 1 p.m. to find out that the sun still hasn't risen, having a cup of tea (heated naturally by hot springs, which sounds a lot like a low heating bill to me), eating some of the healthiest food on earth (that's right vegetarians, a hearty Icelandic diet of meats seems to translate to the healthiest nation on earth, how do you like them apples? [probably a lot, since you don't eat meat... pansies]), and watching the aurora borealis over the active volcanoes whilst standing on my porch naked in -40 C (which is the same as -40 Fahrenheit for those of you who don't know any better). That's right, naked in the 72 degrees (Fahrenheit) of frost-- 72 degrees below the freezing point, for those of you who don't understand that idiom-- is great, clothes are for pansies.

And being Welsh, I love lamb. The national food of Iceland? A smorgasbord of lamb products. I don't really like Lutheranism, but I like J.S. Bach, so I could deal. The flag isn't as cool as the Welsh flag though. They should have made a flag with a longship on it or something more badass... goddamned Christians ruin everything. Asatru (the neo-pagan bullshit belief in the Norse pantheon) is also an official religion in Iceland, which means that people will worship me, whether or not they realise they are. Sadly people don't worship me in Wales... fucking Church of England.

Well, I guess Iceland is still no Eryri, North Wales. But I haven't really found anywhere quite home yet, so it remains to be seen. I'm definitely going to Iceland the first chance I get. I'm so awesome I'm even learning Icelandic, which everyone calls "impossible" for those who didn't grow up with it. As a speaker of an equally confounding language, I say Icelandic is a piece of cake, unless you're not up to the challenge and you want to fail. Stop learning pansy languages like French. What the hell did the French ever do that was manly anyway? Oh yeah, they took over England. Those were the Normans though, and they were essentially Norsemen, so the French still fail (at the least the Frankish aspect of them, the Gauls were Celtic asskickers, as expected).

Iceland is damned cool.

I'm milking this one for all it's worth. I shall elaborate...

I am Odin. If you don't know who Odin is, kill yourself. You're a moron. Anyway, I'm Odin, and I'm completely serious. Allow me to explain it all in detail.

As you all know, I am of the clan Bostock. What you may not know is that "Bostock" comes from the name ab 'Ostawc, which degenerated to ab'Ostoc, Bostoc, and finally Bostock. The name "ab 'Ostawc", or vab Gostawc in old Welsh, means "son of silence" in literal translation. Idiomatically, it means "son of nothing", or "born from nothingness" to give the precise intended meaning. Keep following me.

Now, let me discuss the Bostock coat of arms. It is a black shield with a white horizontal bar. This bar is unusual in that it does not traverse the full length of the shield. Scholars associate this bar with the "White City" of Celtic legend of the Celtic Myth of Origins. This so-called "White City" has been recreated several times in many Celtic cultures, giving its name to Gwynedd in North Wales, Gwenet in Britanny, Venice in Italy, and Phoenicia (a linguist will immediately recognise phoneme morphologies between those place names). Mythologists place the original "White City" in the Baltic region from whence both the Celtic and Norse nations migrated, eventually becoming separate cultures across northern Europe.

The Bostocks hail back to a man named Math ap Mathonwy, Prince of Gwynedd. Hence my namesake, Mathonwy Bostock. This prince is regarded in Welsh mythology as the "All-father", the ancestor of the line of Celtic god-men (in other words, people who actually existed but were deified in legend as god figures). Mathonwy means "bear" in Welsh, and indeed the Bostock coat of arms has a bear head in place of the knight's helm usually seen in coats of arms.

Now, Mathonwy had a second alias, and he was named Gwyddon in many tales, which mutates often to Wyddon. This comes from the Welsh word meaning "wooden". The bear head in the Bostock coat of arms happens to spring out of the stump of an ash tree.

Still with me on all of this? Good. Now, the figure of Odin in Norse mythology is similar to the role of Mathonwy/Gwyddon in Celtic mythology, and both cultures, as I said, are descendent from the same migration from the Baltics. The older form of Odin was Woden, meaning "wooden". Ah ha! Now you see the connection: Woden = Wyddon = Mathonwy = the "All-father" of the peoples who migrated from the Baltics, the original ancestor of what would become two separate cultures (Celtic and Norse). In other words, Mathonwy and Odin are the same guy, some original king of the Baltic homeland of both cultures, and the schizmed cultures developed different mythological systems based off of his legend. Oh, and most followers of neo-Norse spirituality will tell you the story of Odin hanging on the ash tree Yggdrasil. A bear head upon the stump of an ash tree... yet another similarity to roll around in your minds.

Now, being the legitimate decendant of Mathonwy/Odin (as recorded in both the Annals of the Kings and the British "Doomsday Book" and depicted uniquely in the Bostock clan coat of arms), I am the heir to him who is known as Odin to the Old Norse and the modern neo-pagan reconstructionist religion of Asatru. I am Mathonwy Bostock, the descendant of Mathonwy of the White City, called Odin by the Northmen, the ancestor who was a living mortal man and deified in pagan legend.

It'd be funny to say that I'm joking and making this up, but I'm not. It's well documented. So, if you're one of those hippy neo-pagan chumps in Asatru or independent or into one of those Celtic reconstructionist bullshit "religions" or faiths or whatever you call it, you don't have to look far to pray to the All-father and the patriarch of the Hibernian nations, the head of the pantheons. You don't have to burn incense or recite stupid prayers made by stupid New Age frauds. No, you don't have to do any of that to revere the old gods.

I do, however, accept cheques and money orders. Cash is always good too. I'll grant you a favour. If not, you can be damned sure that you're not going to Valhalla or the Otherworld or wherever the hell you feel like going. Oh man, I won't allow it, being the one who has inherited the divine regal authority of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.

Some may point out that my father is still alive, making him the rightful heir to "Odinness". However, that would just make me Thor (or Math ap Mathonwy in the Celtic system), which means that I'll hammer your head if you don't revere me.

Oh man, it truly RULES to be me. I may not be rich, and I may not be a king, but no one else on earth can demonstrate their inheritance of the divinity of a mythological figure I would reckon. At least no one as badass as Mathonwy or Odin...

Even if you don't worship me, all you "pagans" out there, at last I have the satisfaction of knowing that I've burst your bubble and defeated the mystique of your psychobabble by living amongst you, the living, breathing decendant of Mathonwy/Odin. In the least you'll lose sleep over it, but most of you are retarded and will go back to celebrating "Yule" and "Samhain" like a bunch of cunts who can't let go...

I love myself.

Not just because we hate their baseball team, but because they're congesting our roads every summer.

Also on my way to work yesterday on Rt. 9 a car drove by me with a New York licence plate that read, "2 CAPECOD".

This people are so fucking bogus. Firstly, there is nothing great about Cape Cod. When I think of Cape Cod, I don't think of quaint maritime communities and pristine Atlantic beaches and a rural oceanic people. I think of yuppies, overpriced realty, tourists, snobs, prices of products jacked up 15%, and heavy traffic. In other words, whatever appeal Cape Cod might have had at one time has been overtaken by a yuppy economy.

Second, I despise seasonal residents. If Mr. New Yorker loves Cape Cod so fucking much, why doesn't he live there all year? Oh yeah, he might be a little inconvenienced in the winter when nothing is happening and nothing is open for business. No, we wouldn't want that for city boy, would we? My native Eryri in North Wales is sadly much like Cape Cod, although we haven't officially become nothing but a tourist destination. But Saxons are always buying up our land and residing there in the summer, rising the costs of our properties and forever taking away pieces of land that should rightfully owned by actual rustic Welsh folk who could use it rather than a bunch of Saxons who only live there two months a year. The whole concept of a second home in [fill in the blank] disgusts me unless it's inherited property, and even then you shouldn't hold onto things that you aren't using.

The problem with the Cape Cod area is people like Mr. 2 CAPECOD. People like him have destroyed the oceanic culture that might have once resided there and turned it into a gimmick. That may be good enough for him to get out of the city a few months a year, but it's not good enough for a rustic like myself. If you want to visit a rustic place, you shouldn't expect a five star hotel and a golf course to be waiting for you there. You've missed the whole point of coming to visit us and taking part in our way of life, and you'll ultimately destroy our rustic economy until we're forced to turn our homes in bed-and-breakfasts and sell our fishing boats for ferry boats, or make us open coffee shops that are twice as expensive as anything else because we only make an income from it less than half the year.

It's a crying shame, and I hope the bastard's summer home burns down...

I was driving to a meeting yesterday on Rt. 9 in Wellesley [sic?] when I passed by a Monro auto service station on the eastbound side. A large banner over the station read (paraphrase), "Thursday is Ladies' Day, full oil change/service $11.95."

This pisses me off to an extent that English has no words to express. I hate the concept of "Ladies' Night" or any such thing anyway, but this particular case bewilders and enfuriates me.

What angers me most is not so much the actions of the Monro station, but the non-action of women's rights activists. While I was muttering to myself about it on the way to the meeting, I realised that I've never heard of an "equality" activist group ever protesting a place that extended more advantages to women than men. If these hippies are so righteous for equality that they will bitch about and take action on things that extend greater advantages to males, why don't they do the same for situations like that at Monro? If they're truly fighting for equality, why don't they equalise the playing field from the other end by stopping the deliberately engineered advantages designed for women alone? But no, you don't ever hear them bitching about men being at a disadvantage for something, even something as simple as the cost of an oil change.

First of all, I hardly see how that can even be legal. I know little about the intricacies of Commonwealth laws in Massachusetts (or U.S. federal laws) regarding such a matter, but I would think that, in a state such as this one, there'd be something governing such a practise. It's essentially discrimination: a customer is [fill in the blank], ergo that customer is entitled to special treatment.

You can bet your ass that if there were ever a "Men's Night" where men paid no cover charge or received discounts and so forth that there'd be someone standing in the line to protest the place. You'd at least have a bunch of dissatisfied lesbian femininists grumbling about it, but where are those grumbles at "Ladies' Night"?

A normal oil change at Monro for a male customer is just over $20. That means that women are paying roughly 60% of what males pay during Monro's special. What is the point of that? Do women make, on average, 40% less than what men make, and so Monro is simply stimulating the ecomony? What's the bloody reason for it? If the purpose is simply to bring more business, wouldn't you think that you should offer the discount to every customer to boost your business further? Or are women targeted because it is assumed that women know shit about cars and so they must rely on a place like Monro for service?

I usually change my own oil, but for twelve bucks I'd pay for someone else to do it. I spend almost that much buying oil and an oil filter just to do it myself. If anything a special price of $12 would attract people like me who otherwise wouldn't use the service. Why then are they giving discounts to a demographic that probably relies on them for it anyway, regardless of what they want to charge them? That would be a simple principle of supply and demand.

I could go on, but the point is that not only is there no fucking reason to give women special treatment to service their autos, but there's no reason to give them special treatment or discounts for anything. And all of you equality-preaching hippies out there, until you start protesting the advantages women receive instead of just the advantages that men receive, you're a bunch of frauds who obviously don't give a fuck about "equality".

Name the film from which these quotes are:

1. Get to the chopper! Now!
2. My God is the four winds. Your god lives under him.
3. There can be only one!
4. But Max- once you abandon scientific rigour, you're no longer a mathematician; you're a numerologist!
5. No, but it brought me my apple tart, didn't it?
6. We're not saying the Z ("zed") word.
7. I bet she gives GREAT helmet.
8. You are now armed with... MIGHTY JOINT!
9. I'm going to pistol whip the next guy who says "shannanigans".
10. But don't let the name fool, 'cause in real life I'm veeeery big.
11. The All-father wove the scheme of your life a long time ago, go hide in a hole if you wish. But you won't live one instant longer, your fate is fixed. Fear profits man nothing.
12. Get your ass to Mars.
13. Boards don't hit back.
14. It's about fucking time! (with a Chinese accent)
15. Yes Massuh, they'll be nooooo bacon on the salad.

...but not too tired to type about some awesome things from today!

First item on the list: flag of Wales cuff links and tie clip! They were so awesomely gifted to me from my beautiful, brilliant, perfect, amazing, thoughtfully sweet girlfriend today. Not only that, but she gave them to me the day I forgot cuff links (since most of my shirts are French cuffed, they can't be buttoned without links... in which case you can say that they can't be buttoned at all, since they are closed by cuff links). She's AWESOME.

Second item: my gorgeous Shannon Rose sings in just intonation for Baroque arias. It's so very sexy and stylistically appropriate, and her interpretations of English opera are amazing and expressive. And yes, she was supposed to have a more even tone and less vibrato. Take it from me, the historical musicologist who specialised in late Renaissance and early Baroque music.

Third item: an excellent night's sleep, which means I'm going now. I'll be dreaming of my beloved and her awesomeness (which isn't anything new, since dreaming about her is the next best thing to being with her, and since I can't be with her when I'm asleep I've adopted the practise of dreaming about her).

Time to catch some "zeds", mwah ha ha!

I fucking love internet forums. Seriously, it's quite a blast if you ever feel like putting work off (which for me is all of the time). The great thing about the internet is that people don't hold back, since there's no real threat of stigma, no matter how fucking stupid you are. In real life most people are too afraid to speak their minds because, down inside, they know they're useless morons and that talking only means that we smart(er) people will laugh at them and ridicule them for their inane foolishness. You'll lose your faith in humanity on internet forums, which is probably why I hate everyone and immediately assume everyone's stupid. I know that you're not supposed to assume, but when studies have actually shown that only 2% of people with doctoral degrees can effectively think critically, it's not too hard to imagine that uneducated people are even stupider.

I guess I'm a snob, but the fact that I am is even MORE of a testament to how fucking retarded people are. After all, I wouldn't be a snob if even one TWENTIETH of the people I met could actually think and rationalise. It's people's stupidity that makes me a snob, so I wash my hands of the blame. Whether or not that's fair doesn't matter because I stopped giving a fuck a long time ago.

Anyway, internet forums. Ah, yes. Obviously I don't go to them to expect intelligent banter, never mind a dialectic, or even a discursive for Christ's sake. So it's not like I'm entering them with the expectations of a university colloquium or conference. I just keep coming back because I'm a glutton for punishment and probably a masochist (and it STILL beats doing work). There's nothing better than being told by a 14 year old metal guitarist that you don't know anything about music. Of course I don't tell them that I have a bachelor's in music and am more than half way through a master's in music, but even if I did they wouldn't believe it (which is their one redeeming choice of judgement, seeing as I'd respect them less if they went around believing anyone on the internet who claims expertise). But that's precisely what makes it funny. On the internet, EVERYONE is smarter than you. In real life, if I met a 14 year old metal guitarist in a coffee shop and sat down to talk about music, he'd probably listen, regardless of whether or not he believed that I'm a professional musician. I don't know exactly why because I'm not a sociologist and figuring out people is mostly a waste of time, but I have a feeling that he'd listen to me. There's something about the nature of authority that is felt in person. That's how people get scammed so often, as it were. But not on the internet.

You'd think that my authoritive words would be universally viewed in such a way, as they virtually are in real life on that subject (at least amongst those less-educated in music than I). On the internet though, everyone takes on a role to be the expert of everything. I'm not a psychologist, but I almost think that there must be something wrong with it. It's this fantasy world where people effectively convince themselves that they know more about everything than anyone else who talks to them. Maybe it has to do with the fact that in person you can distinguish between age, class/income, and communicability and facility with things that can be clues towards one's possible authority, things you can't pick up on over the net. However, I still find it amazing.

After all, I wouldn't continually engage in debates about neuroscience, even over the internet, if I obviously knew next to nothing about it. Hell, when someone even has the vague appearance to be more well-read than I on a subject I'll usually back down immediately (and not just because I empathise with someone who, like me, might actually know something but can't discuss it for the life of him because of everyone's hostility online).

Sometimes I almost let it get to me: "Fucking little dipshit, you're an idiot and you don't know anything, how dare you insult my intelligence?" And then I remember that I still have the degree, and dipshit needs to go to bed before his mother kicks him off of the computer and sends his ass to bed. Mwah ha ha!

Like today, we discussed SAT scores. I got a 1580. No one in the forum believed me, naturally. At first it put me off a bit, and then I remembered that I got a 1580 no matter what some shit-for-brains from Wisconsin with the alias "RitualSuicideBunny103" believes. The internet would be a waste of time if it weren't for one thing: over the years I began thinking that way about dumb cunts in person as well.

But still, it gets me every time when some prissy bitch calls me "stupid" because she doesn't like what I have to say, then calls me "unintelligent" for using vulgarities (as if using vulgarities makes you less intelligent... if so then I guess I could have got a 1600 instead of a 1580, I better stop swearing before I get REALLY stupid), and then brags about getting accepted into graduate school wih her score of 1700 on her GREs. I scored 1760, thank you, and I happen to be in grad school already with an assistantship. So congratufuckinglations douchebag, by your own standards of evaluation I guess I'm still "smarter" than you (whatever the fuck that means). Not only that, but I'm smarter than you and I can swear at the same time... I'm just fucking brilliant then. Stephen Hawking, eat your heart out. Bah, I hate theoretical physics anyway...

So, if you're ever bored and want to feel even better about yourself, jump on the net. If you happen to be stupid and want to pretend to know more than (actual) graduate students about any given topic, jump online too. Without you oblivious fools there is no punchline...

But if you don't know anything about critical thought, deductive reasoning, rhetorical dialectic, and intellectual modesty, shut the fuck up and read a book, because the only people worth learning from online are too busy bitching about how stupid you are on LiveJournal...

So, I was in Wrentham the other day at the Outlets with lovely Shannon and Kathryn Rapacki. I think we were in J. Crew or some such store when some woman came up to me and said, "Oh my GOD, you look JUST like our cousin [insert name], you both have long hair and the same beard! I've NEVER seen two people who look so much alike!"

Never? Have you ever seen identical twins? I don't think I looked that much like the guy they knew.

First of all, if I had a quarter for every time some asshole said that I look "exactly like" some other guy with long hair and/or a beard who looked absolutely nothing like me (with the exception of hair length), I could do my laundry for three years. I've been arguing for years that I do NOT look like that asshole from the Red Sox who keeps a beard and long hair. I don't look a thing like him.

I'm going to start walking around and saying that every Asian looks alike, every Black person looks alike, every blonde girl looks alike, every person with the same hair style looks alike, every skinny guy looks alike, and everyone with [choose arbitrary feature] all look alike.

Granted, maybe I really do look like this guy. But seeing as I've been told hundreds upon hundreds of times that I look like some random asshole who just happens to have long hair (usually not even of the same length, texture, or colour half of the time), I'm going to assume that this woman was a fool.

Why doesn't anyone ever walk up to me and say, "My, you're quite handsome,"? Why do I always have to "look like" someone? Is that person attractive, or do I look like some prick that you hate and is ugly? It makes me wonder if I know anyone who does that. Do I have friends or family out there who meet other guys with long hair who look nothing like me and say to them, "Whoa, you look EXACTLY like this guy I know named Mathonwy,"? I bet some of you do. I don't know who it is, but there HAS to be one of you out there who does this. SHAME ON YOU.

Who do I look like? Math fucking Bostock bitches, that's who.

...only I'm a foot taller, one hundred and ten pounds heavier, not Chinese, and I'm not a kung fu master. However, both of us can't speak English very good... I mean, very well.

Kiss of the Dragon is a great movie. It's got ass-kicking, French hookers, corrupt policemen, and Chinese uncles who own Chinese restaurants. Not to mention all of the guns like Uzis and .357 magnums and Frenchmen who suck at using them. Whoa, explosions and dismemberments abound... the whole acupuncture thing is pretty gay though. Oh well, it can't exactly be perfect.

Oh yeah, and the whole Chinese guy demi-romancing the whore, not too great, and the whore having a child that she cares about it too Victor Hugo for me to stomach in a kung fu movie.

House, M.D... now THAT'S an amazing show. Besides the Adult Swim gems, that has to be the best show on television. Were I a medical diagnostician and crippled, I'd be just like House (even if the actor who plays him is a dirty Saxon). He's a son of a bitch who lives by staunch principles and a sardonic lack of professionalism and orthodoxy. That's basically me in medical doctor form, only I'd probably be a neurologist so that epileptics have an "inside guy" in the medical profession. I'd infiltrate the system and make it better for epileptics. And then I'll get sued for malpractise and end up becoming a mathematician. Actually, I guess I'm just going to skip that step and become a mathematician.

I don't understand people who keep their wallets in their back pockets. That's what an inside coat pocket is for. Oh yeah, most of you douchebag men of the world (as if you're all reading this) don't wear suits.

Oh man, I'd keep typing, but House is on. Awesome...

So I had a rehearsal today for my band, Siren. Ok, it's not really my band, it's actually the project of two old guys (old = 40s or so?) who really like to play rock classics and top 40 for money at weddings and bars and such. Ed plays drums, Scott plays guitar, and this younger woman (younger = late 20s?) named Rose sings, except when male voices are called for, in which case Ed sings (one of those seldom-encountered drummer/vocalists who can play drums and sing at the same time).

It's all right. I got the "gig" last month when I was really fucking desperate for cash, being virtually unemployed. I found an ad in the newspaper for a bassist needed for a cover band that actually made money playing (unlike former metals bands I was in in high school and college, which made chump change from metal shows and shit). So I answered the ad.

If I weren't arrogant enough to begin with, this is what Ed and Scott said when I auditioned: "Not only are you the best bassist who has auditioned, but you're probably the best we've ever seen; want to be in Siren?" So what the hell, I'm in Siren playing bass and learning top 40 songs to play for people who like entertainment with a little more rawness and authenticness than a DJ can provide. I'm in a fucking wedding/bar band.

It's not so bad. I actually have a good time playing shitty rock/pop tunes. It's really just as bad as playing anything else that I don't really want to but get paid for... which happens to be quite a bit, before one sardonically asks the question. The only problem with it is this: now every time I'm at work and hear one of these songs, I can see myself playing them. For the sake of my own integrity I can't really mock them anymore, seeing as they're providing part of my livelihood.

Besides, we all know that the real reason I'm in it is because they called me the best bassist they've ever seen. Flattery will get you EVERYWHERE...