maxbarry.com
Tue 24
Jun
2008

My Age of Reason

Max I’m not a superstitious person. But I do believe your brain can come to associate particular objects with particular feelings, and this can affect you in ways you don’t consciously notice. So today as I prepared my morning coffee, I thought: Did I have a good writing day yesterday? Because I used my Richmond Football Club cup: they won on the weekend and thus I was feeling good about them. It was a logical choice. But today: would there be a carry-over effect, or would the cup have absorbed too many new vibes from the day before, and if so, were they good vibes or bad?

At this point I realized that I was standing frozen in the kitchen with half a teaspoon of sugar hovering above the cup. I’m glad no-one saw this, because it might have been difficult to explain how I’m not a superstitious person.

Comments

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Robert (#413)

Location: Los Angeles
Quote: "A positive attitude will not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
Posted: 5785 days ago

It's the coaster, not the cup.

thewylddream (#1191)

Location: Montana USA
Quote: ""Always forgive your enemies -- Nothing annoys them so much." ~Oscar Wilde~"
Posted: 5785 days ago

In the States that would be called a "brain fart."

Bawh!~

Digital Robot (#1519)

Location: New York City
Posted: 5784 days ago

I'm only a little bit stitious...

Machine Man subscriber gstein42 (#585)

Location: 127.0.0.1
Quote: "That's not change! That's more of the same!"
Posted: 5784 days ago

lies, robots can't be 'stitious!

Yenzo (#829)

Location: Secret underwater pyramid base in the Pacific
Quote: "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe (Carl Sagan)"
Posted: 5784 days ago

Is that still because of the potato?

Machine Man subscriber Roger (#1653)

Posted: 5784 days ago

Sounds like Max was hit by a bit of the crazys.

Machine Man subscriber Adam (#24)

Location: Morristown, Indiana
Quote: "Why do I blog? Simple, because Max Barry blogs."
Posted: 5784 days ago

allow me to introduce you to my alter-ego, todd berkenstein....

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eDw_0jA1Mmg

-adam speicher

Jamie (#111)

Location: Auckland
Quote: "Anyone still spelling "internet" with a capital "I" is probably struggling with the complexities of their new-fangled electric typewriter."
Posted: 5784 days ago

Only half a teaspoon of sugar Max?

That had better not be decaf you're making, or you'll never get your writer's jittery hype going properly.

Yenzo (#829)

Location: Secret underwater pyramid base in the Pacific
Quote: "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe (Carl Sagan)"
Posted: 5782 days ago

For some reason, this post reminded me of an earlier one about wanting to live forever. Since the comments are closed for that one, I want to add something here:

Have you ever heard of Ray Kurzweil? If not, check him out. He might be smart and slightly crazed at the same time, but he could give you cool ideas about future developments, including the hypothesis you mentioned that this generation might be the last to have finite livespans. He also co-authored a book about just this topic:
http://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Voyage-Live-Enough-Forever/dp/0452286670/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214474960&sr=8-2
(What's up with those endless amazon links, anyway?)

Rebecca (#3616)

Location: Australia
Quote: "The shop is the way it is because it is the way it is. If it wasn't the way it is, it wouldn't be the way it is. Bernard Black."
Posted: 5782 days ago

I say... blame your subconscious. I don't why you have a Richmond cup though.

Go Eagles!

But then Richmond is going better than Eagles.

I don't know. I am writing about nothing basically but then that's me.

The only thing I can write about is not having anything to write about.

Rebecca

You just wasted 30 seconds of your life reading this, and it wasn't even remotely entertaining. There I go again...

Linnea1928 (#2654)

Location: Rosemount, MN
Posted: 5779 days ago

I love how you were glad no-one witnessed this non-event, but then blogged about it. Bwahahahaha! Love ya, Max!

Celeste (#2590)

Location: St.L. MO, USA
Quote: "You can't child-proof the world, so world-proof the child."
Posted: 5776 days ago

This issue of your blog ended up in my SPAM box. Good thing I checked it, cant imagine what if I had done if I had missed it!

And then I noticed, I've been saving your blogs for nearly a year now, till I could get the time to read them which I didnt have just right now because, well, I'm busy deleting all of the ads from the companies I actually buy from and want to know about their products and super-awesome promotions, but I dont have time to read that after all.

So I just read your last years worth of blogs, and now I remember that I havent read Company or Syrup yet, and it was like 5 years after NationStates came out that I read Jennifer Government, but I have been a faithful fan of your blogs since my son introduced me to NationStates when he was like, 11, when we first got the Internet.

Oh, I just forwarded a bunch of your blogs to my friends, too, one to my friend who writes murder mysteries, one to my friend that I discuss politics with, and one to my son- I forget which one, but I was sure he would be amused.
I was going to post a comment on the potato thing about moods and circumstances and PMS, but that comment section is closed.

Your daughter is just adorable, and I wish we had rent-a-chiken here. I have contemplated keeping chickens as pets, but then I got interested in spiders and started keeping tarantulas. Not as cuddly as chickens, but I find them interesting, none the less!

Chris McBride (#1977)

Location: Belfast, N.Ireland
Quote: "Plagiarism saves thinking time"
Posted: 5773 days ago

For those people who like IKEA but can't afford to buy it, EA are offering the next best thing: Virtual IKEA furniture!
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/a104677/ikea-furniture-offered-to-sims-2-users.html

Let's just see how realistic it is, will they be able to put up the furniture despite 3 screws missing and tools that you'll never need?

dezmo (#3630)

Location: Olympus
Posted: 5763 days ago

Um, I could be a little of track, but the mug is symbolic, and I believe symbolism does affect the consciousness of the human mind, Rudd's sorry speech is a case example.

But you can't push it too far or it loses it's gravity, and then the gods will simply fuck with you.

Joe Sherrod (#947)

Location: Rockville, Maryland, USA
Posted: 5757 days ago

Unrelated to the blog post Max, but as you don't have an email link, here's something you might find interesting:

Out of the University of Oxford: Corporate Assassins
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/07/corporate-assas.html

Comments are now closed for this post.