copied and pasted from a link i clicked and entered my birthdate. think it's accurate?-

Find Your Sun Sign Profile

Aquarius

Your sign, dear Aquarius, is the eleventh of the zodiac and is considered to be the sign of perspective, the future, and new projects. The water bearer symbolizes intellectual development through communication and innovation. Of all signs, you are the most idealistic and humanitarian, with a strong sense of community and fraternity.

Your ruler Uranus, the planet of change and revolution, represents originality and a strong drive for adventure and freedom. Uranus is also called the rebel planet, and its energy is radical, sudden, and unpredictable.

Aquarius is the third of the three air signs, which means that your intellectuality is expressed as an intuitive grasp of universal principles, along with a concern for the universal well-being of humanity.

Aquarius rules the eleventh house of the chart, the sector associated with friends and groups, intellectual pleasures, socializing, and attitude toward society. However, it also describes personal hopes and wishes, as well as collective trends and humanitarian issues.

Yours is a fixed sign, which means that you resist manipulative behavior. You form your own opinion, however unusual it may be, and refuse to adapt. If someone dares to push, pull, or pressure you, they will definitely get to know your stubborn and eccentric side.

Your strengths definitely are that you are accepting and sympathetic to many points of view, and are equipped to understand each of them. This wide sphere of understanding causes you to be idiosyncratic. You are an unusually independent and wildly unique individual with a profound spiritual bent. Your intuition, loyalty, and resourcefulness make you a fun person to be around.

Naturally, you have some weaknesses, too, the most pronounced one being that you can be erratic in your actions. At times, you can be scattered and unrealistic, and confuse your own will with the greater will. Sometimes you can also be detached so that others see you as cold and inaccessible.


if you know me and wish to comment, aim-freudianphoenix, email

yea, i've noticed my lack of updating this. and out of sheer boredom, i've decided to chronologue a day here at work for me, as it actually happens. due to the nature of the time setting i set for this blog, if i published entries at different intervals of time, it would all be in reverse order, i.e. when you started to read it, you would read what happened last. i know i could change it, but it would change everything else that's already published. so, instead, i'll just time stamp it myself. brandon phoenix dot com. i always tell people how easy my job can be, even joke and make fun of it, but in actuality, my job is no cake walk. true, there are times when it has been very easy, and i admit, the job is easy, but, if you know me, you know how i'll say what i think and have few problems or dilemas with confronting people. fuck, one week i had a running count of how many people i bitched out, and not because i need anger management, it was because they brought it upon themselves. really, just because you're a pompous, impatient professor, don't think you can cut in front of me when i'm at work, running errands for the psych dept. brandon phoenix dot com. so, at times, in order to keep my job, i have to keep a check on what i say, which, can be very hard here. in any case, here's a day at work for me:

friday:
8:30- came in, i work 10-5 for the summer 1 session, but two people are off today, and another leaves at 12:30 every friday, so, i'm working all day here today.

9:10- so far, only 3 phone calls.

10:00- intercampus delivery guy comes and drops shit off. among the shit, copies of the "inhouse@unt" newsletter/flier/piece of crap/waste of time/waste of paper. it's no surprise just how stupid the people are who run this university and all the bullshit they put on us. in this lovely issue i found out that some dallas businessman and supporter of unt just gave the university a million dollar conversion touring bus. for "supporters and friends of unt" of course. fuck, my mom "supports" unt with the payments she's had to make, but fuck if she'll get to ride the fucking bus. this is so fucking gay, but it doesn't surprise me. this winspear guy who donated the bus (i think there's a building here on campus named winspear, i'm not sure) is quoted as saying "unt is still a very under-appreciated cultural asset of metropolitan dallas, in my opinion and I find that's because there is a general feeling amongst people that going to unt events is quite a trek and a hassle. so, i thought getting this bus was a nice idea to make the trip more pleasant." - oh, how nice and gracious of you, you selfless selfless man. fucking dipshit. oh, that's great, cause 15 people can ride in it, and the headline reads "...provides vips with star treatment" so basically, this bus is going to be used for an elite few who can't seem to get their bmw's or jag's here, but they can ride in a bus that rivals pop-stars' touring buses with leather furniture, wet bar with full-size fridge, 42-inch plasma tv, in-motion satellite system, and five disc cd/dvd surround sound system. yea, just great, you jackass. and are you going to pay the enormous gas bill for bringing these elite, special people here? are you gonna pay the bills to have it cleaned and maintenanced? all of this when the university is apparently in a budget crunch. what, that's a preposterous idea to think that you could donate the money used to buy the bus to the university! who would do that? we've only laid off most of the janitors, and are currently trying to cut costs everywhere on campus, ranging from putting the thermostats up higher to keep the a/c from coming on too often, to limiting student facilities. and the nerve of the university- they put out memos to faculty and staff saying that each office should allow for more casual dress for the summer months, to make it more "comfortable". cause fuck if the a/c should come on. even still, the dipshits turn them off each night, so then when they turn them back on in the morning, it uses more energy to cool the building back down to the newly regulated temp. honestly, the university is run by dipshit. and fuck, we just got a big honkin new "touring" bus. well, if the university decides upon forming a boy band, at least we've got the bus already. fuck.

10:45- head out to do errands and pick up the mail.

between 10:45-11:30- got mail, dropped shit off at the essc, dropped stuff off at the union, saw robert and talked with him, then brought the mail back.

11:50- more people called and annoyed me. some professors did too. i swear, i don't think some can wipe their own ass by themselves. some frickin suffer from repeated jackcular spasms.

12:25- made some copies of some form for someone.

12:30- had to redo a copy job cause someone forgot to scan in the backside of the pages, don't know if it was me, don't care.

12:36- reading the new people magazine. you know, i thought ashton kutcher was pretty funny, but every time i see him now on mtv, or now in pictures with demi moore, he's wearing the same grey hat i have. figures.

1:00- made some more copies.

1:10- found out this computer i'm on has an older version of photoshop.

2:23- judy(the only other person here with me) and her daughter bring in the tv and put in "like mike".

4:00- more people annoying me, mostly grad students and and faculty.

4:17- "like mike" is over. i thought jordan made a cameo, but no. it passed the time at least.

4:20- again, more annoying professors.

4:25- stumbled upon funny news this morning, but forgot about it until now. heh. i feel sorry in a way for these people who fell for it. but it's damn funny news. especially when they look at all the ingredients and find out that all the pills are the same.

4:47- found other news pieces. this one looks interesting. it's got a cool flash demonstration, but when you look at it from the black hat perspective, it's kind of gay. still interesting. i've noticed though, that since "the matrix" came out, whenever hacking, or almost even computers in general, are talked about, it's always visually displayed with black backgrounds and green lettering and numbers.

4:54- there's also some new virus out. bugbear, or something like that. and another one sobig. watch out.

4:56- it's closing time. judy's already left. i know a certain professor is going to walk in here in the next minute or two cause she always does, so i'm going to get a jump on shutting this biatch down before she does.

4:57- brandon phoenix dot com

yea, i read trevor's blog and saw this conversation he had, so i added the name to my aim buddy list and imed them and had a conversation with them. i think the guy/girl is a dipshit. i mean, really. just read the conversation. this guy/girl seriously needs to get out, get laid, get drunk, get high, get something. you'll read in there somewhere that they claim to have other priorities; now i kept the person on my list and have noticed- they are always on. so, i'm thinking priorities=sitting on their ass, or porn, or maybe they work on a website or something. and then, notice how in the beginning they make an assumption, but then later tell me not to make assumptions. this person probably is smart, but they're that person in your high school class that you wanted to just slap upside the head and tell to fuck off, not because they're smart, but because they act too much like a prick. this is someone i'd probably like to antagonize. i don't think i could get tired of it. i think it's funny, cause in their head they probably make it seem like they're something new, something different, something we've never seen before, something so enlightening that we should be in awe, but really it's like "so many others have come before you, and when they said it, it was annoying, you're nothing i haven't already seen or heard before, try to be fucking original if you're capable and try not to hide behind your words" in any case, read on


freudian phoeniX: so you're an atheist?
misterravenguy: yes.
misterravenguy: who's this?
freudian phoeniX: i was reading a friend's blog and came across your screen name
misterravenguy: i guess he mentioned me. can you give me the url?
freudian phoeniX: he put up the conversation
misterravenguy: url? :-)
freudian phoeniX: want to read your handy work huh?
misterravenguy: nm, found it
freudian phoeniX:dirtydeedsdonedirtcheap.blogspot.com
misterravenguy: handiwork?
freudian phoeniX: alot, a lot
freudian phoeniX: same difference
misterravenguy: no, what did you mean by it?
misterravenguy: it was just a conversation
freudian phoeniX: do you think you made a difference?
misterravenguy: probably not. making a difference isn't always an easy task.
freudian phoeniX: so was it worth it? the conversation is pretty damn long, if there was nothing accomplished, was it still meaningful in the end?
misterravenguy: maybe he'll go back to it. maybe someone else will read it and see the sense in my words. and maybe not.
i really don't know. sometimes time is wasted, sometimes not.
misterravenguy: are you trying to drive at anything in particular here?
freudian phoeniX: no, i found the whole thing somewhat funny
freudian phoeniX: thought i'd give you a random im, like you did trevor
misterravenguy: sure. so where do you stand?
freudian phoeniX: holy fuck that's a long ass conversation
misterravenguy: ?
misterravenguy: i've had conversations dozens of pages long. that one was rather brief.
freudian phoeniX: the conversation between you and trevor, i hadn't read all of it, i thought i was close to the end when i imed you but i scrolled down more and you two were still talking about the same shit
freudian phoeniX: well, that was a conversation about god with trevor
misterravenguy: he's a confused young man.
freudian phoeniX: i don't think he's confused
freudian phoeniX: and even if he was, what's wrong with confusion?
misterravenguy: i shouldn't have to answer that. in any case, i'm assuming you're not a rationalist. can you answer my question of where you stand with no further ado?
freudian phoeniX: sorry, i didn't see that
freudian phoeniX: not a rationalist huh? um, well, i thought about atheism for a while, thought about buddhism, like some of the ideas but never fully read into it. not quite sure where i am, i think there's a god, but it's a much different situation than christians would like to think about
misterravenguy: atheism isn't an idea, actually. it's a logical default.
misterravenguy: lacking belief in that for which there is no evidence.
misterravenguy: there'd be no need for the word had someone not dreamt up the notion of gods
freudian phoeniX: you've got a lot of time on your hands huh
misterravenguy: a lot of time on my hands?
misterravenguy: i have intellectual values to which i devote some of my time, if that's what you mean.
freudian phoeniX: and religion is one of them? or god and "the lack thereof"?
misterravenguy: i left a religion and have a lot of knowledge particularly about the bible and christianianity. refuting them comes quite naturally.
freudian phoeniX: i see, what religion?
misterravenguy: i was raised as a jehovah's witness.
freudian phoeniX: watchtowers? aren't those publications jehovah's witnesses gave out?
misterravenguy: yes, the most common
freudian phoeniX: prince is a jehovah's witness
misterravenguy: eh? he made the move?
misterravenguy: i'd heard something awhile back..
misterravenguy: funny. they actually mentioned him once in the literature, taking a shot at his lyrics.
freudian phoeniX: yea, i think, i'm not much more familiar with jehovah's witnesses than that
freudian phoeniX: so you were raised that way, and it's been a year since you've decided on atheism, so how old does that make you?
misterravenguy: i'm 23
misterravenguy: you?
freudian phoeniX: 20
misterravenguy: ah.
freudian phoeniX: ah what?
misterravenguy: just a generic acknowledment
freudian phoeniX: 20 not worthy enough or something
freudian phoeniX: i see
freudian phoeniX: generic
freudian phoeniX: generic like most of your conversation with trevor?
misterravenguy: i've only had one coversation with him..
is there any particular reason for the criticism of it?
misterravenguy: if you wish to offer a refute to any of my points, feel free.
freudian phoeniX: i didn't im you to try and berate you or anything, but the most common turn off to listening to someone's "beliefs, ideas, blah blah bullshit" is someone who expresses them in an arrogant, pompous, prickish manner
misterravenguy: your friend is wildly pretentious, i'm surprised you'd accuse me of arrogance.
misterravenguy: anyway, a critique of my manner is insignificant compared to offering one of my arguments. can you find fault with what i said?
freudian phoeniX: wildly pretentious? last i checked he didn't want an im from you, he didn't ask for it, it was someone else's idea. i mean, are you taking it on your shoulders as some good deed to spread your word, in a way i might add that many christian radicals do
freudian phoeniX: i find fault in the way you present it
misterravenguy: he could have blocked me at any time. he chose to continue it.
it wasn't a random message. another friend of his asked that i speak with him, and i did.
freudian phoeniX: you might have some intelligence, you might not, who gives a fuck, i don't, but trevor was right when he said he's heard the same fodder from many others
misterravenguy: there's only one logic.
misterravenguy: don't be surprised to find that many intelligent people use it
misterravenguy: this will cause some consistancy in the presentation of their arguments
freudian phoeniX: if you need to go on an ego-booster go to an elementary school where they're more impressionable
misterravenguy: an ego booster?
misterravenguy: if you wish to attempt a refute of my arguments, go ahead. but i have priorties that fall before listening to your arbitrary griping.
freudian phoeniX: to you it may seem like you're high and mighty with your "logic" and "logical reasoning" but it's not effective, you just come off as a prick. trevor is pretty smart, i don't know about his rocket science abilities, but he has common sense, and it seems like you don't
misterravenguy: at least i was trying to accomplish something productive in messaging your friend/
misterravenguy: think what you will. i'm an atheist and he effectively does not care if his beliefs are wrong.
freudian phoeniX: who says your's are right
freudian phoeniX: you?
misterravenguy: my what?
freudian phoeniX: beliefs
misterravenguy: i don't hold beliefs.
freudian phoeniX: you believe there is no god, that's a belief
misterravenguy: you just expressed a misconception about atheism. i don't believe there is no god, i withhold belief for lack of evidence suggesting there is one.
freudian phoeniX: you believe atheism is right, another belief
misterravenguy: atheism is a logical default, like i said.
freudian phoeniX: so what do you believe in, anything?
freudian phoeniX: believe in gravity?
misterravenguy: i don't hold concrete ideas that are not grounded in logic to be true, no.
misterravenguy: there is evidence for gravity. gravity is measurable.
freudian phoeniX: but you do have beliefs?
freudian phoeniX: you have to have beliefs, you cannot go around without a belief in something
misterravenguy: not in the same sense of the word.
freudian phoeniX: well mr funk & wagnall's, what does the word belief mean?
freudian phoeniX: and what's your take on it?
misterravenguy: a religious belief is one for which there is no evidence. where there evidence, it would be a scientifically accepted fact
misterravenguy: *were
misterravenguy: you'll notice a lot more internal consistancy within science then religion
misterravenguy: that's because science involves actual testing.
freudian phoeniX: yea, i'm all about science, i'm not always good at it though
freudian phoeniX: i don't really like religion either, but the point is, you contradict yourself when you say you don't hold beliefs
misterravenguy: so why are there thousands of religions? simple. the ideas are based on faith, and there's often no way to test a faith-based idea. alternately, sometimes the faith-based ideas directly contradict empricial evidence, rather then just logic.
misterravenguy: no i don't.
misterravenguy: "i believe there is a god" is contextually different from "i believe the sky is blue"
freudian phoeniX: the sky isn't blue, i learned that in a science class
misterravenguy: subjectively, it is.
misterravenguy: a better example would have been "i believe the earth is round"
freudian phoeniX: it's not even round, it has corners
freudian phoeniX: so you don't believe you're going to die?
misterravenguy: i've never heard that. hit me with a link.
in any case, you know what i mean
misterravenguy: oh, it's quite possible i will.
freudian phoeniX: i read it in a book, something about the actaul shape of the earth, geology, blah blah blah
freudian phoeniX: so that's a belief
freudian phoeniX: you hold at least one belief
misterravenguy: no, it
misterravenguy: *it's not
misterravenguy: it's decidedly a possibility based on what i know of reality.
freudian phoeniX: there's nothing wrong with belief in something, it seems like you're scared or running from something, did someone in your childhood throw a book at you with the word belief on it
misterravenguy: the decision is based on reality and logic.
misterravenguy: scared and running? from what?
freudian phoeniX: like all your atheist friends will disown you, like "belief" is a bad word, or something like that
misterravenguy: why should i believe in something for which there is no evidence or logical basis?
misterravenguy: my entire family is religious, don't make assumptions.
misterravenguy: for that matter, it's very likely they will disown me in the not-so-distant future
freudian phoeniX: i said friends
misterravenguy: it has nothing to do with any atheist friends i have.
misterravenguy: i care about TRUTH.
freudian phoeniX: you said there's evidence for gravity, but you don't want to believe in it?
misterravenguy: there's no need to 'believe in' it, there's evidence. i KNOW gravity exists.
misterravenguy: 1sec
misterravenguy: "We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions." - Bertrand Russel
freudian phoeniX: i guess you didn't look up belief in the dictionary
freudian phoeniX: but i did
misterravenguy: it's just a word, dude
misterravenguy: there's a rather stark difference in "belief" because of evidence, and "belief" without evidence, or even in the face of contrary evidence
freudian phoeniX: acceptance of the truth, so by definition, you do not accept gravity, therefore you don't accept the truth
misterravenguy: when did i say i don't accept gravity? shortly ago i said that i *know* gravity exists
misterravenguy: what i'm saying is very simple, please try to understand it.
my internal model of reality is based on facts and logic.
the internal model of reality of a religious person is based on *some* facts and logic, and some ideas which are based on faith alone.
freudian phoeniX: yea, and you also said you care about truth, but i guess your dictionary has a different meaning for belief, because you do not "hold beliefs" when you do, but you say you don't, then you say you "care about truth"
misterravenguy: you're arguing totally arbitrary language semantics.
freudian phoeniX: sorry, you seemed like someone who tries to prove everyone else wrong, but have trouble accepting your own faults
misterravenguy: fine, let's use the word "belief" and discuss instead what these "beliefs" are based on. truth can be defined as a belief which is rooted in evidence and logic.
freudian phoeniX: sure
misterravenguy: so religious beliefs are based on "faith".
misterravenguy: religious faith.
freudian phoeniX: right, mostly, but there's some evidence on some of the occurences in the bible
freudian phoeniX: not ironically though, most of that research is done by "believers"
misterravenguy: yes, probably. some of the references are to actual people or events, and why is that surprising? that hardly validates the entire book, let alone the more radical of its stories
misterravenguy: i've heard an analogy.. that of Gone With The Wind. the story features the civil war, which actually happened. does this validate the rest of the story as an actuall occurance?
misterravenguy: furthermore, some of the miracles in the bible are testable to the extent of logical probability, based on evidence.
misterravenguy: for example, a global flood occuring a geological eyeblink of 4000 or so years ago. there should be a wealth of evidence.
misterravenguy: (including the absense of most or all oceanic life)
freudian phoeniX: are you trying to allude subconsciously that you believe in the bible?
misterravenguy: i have no idea why you'd suggest that.
misterravenguy: i was saying that had the flood happened, there'd be a much more profound mark left.
misterravenguy: we can then assign a very low, or perhaps even zero, probability to a global flood occuring a few thousand years ago. i'd say the number is almost certianly zero.
freudian phoeniX: you sure? cause i just took a geology course and i was damn surprised at what can happen
freudian phoeniX: did you know the earth wobbles?
freudian phoeniX: it's fucked up
misterravenguy:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
misterravenguy: believe me, there are too many logistical problems
freudian phoeniX: anyway, you filled my time until i had something to do, which i do now, i'll check out the link later, and also, i never said the flooding was one of the examples from the bible that could be scientifically accurate, try not to assume
freudian phoeniX: have a good one
freudian phoeniX: prick
misterravenguy: you too
misterravenguy: heh.
misterravenguy: are you seriously upset?

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Auto response from freudian phoeniX: when you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. when you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. that's relativity- albert einstein
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freudian phoeniX: hahaha, that's funny you'd think so highly of yourself that you made me upset, heh, no, my girlfriend is here

i keep meaning to put stuff here, but everytime i come up with something to talk about, i'm not at a computer, and when i do get to one, i've lost the desire to. everyone else is putting stuff in theirs, and i started this before they had one. i really don't want this to be a journal, or diary. i'd like to try my best and not write anything in here out in the first person. this entry will be more of a first person entry. i want this to be confessions of how i think, but without the first person perspective, but right now it's too late, and it would just be easier to put it in the first person.

to me religion is almost a waste of time. i think it's over-rated, and over-abused. people get too blinded by the word "religion." it's almost as though it's a socialite club now. "oh, what church do you go to?" or "what denomination are you?" when it's all over the same book, well, for christianity, and catholicism as far as i know. other religions basically follow the same pattern.

why can't we just have a "way of life?" why can't it be "faith" rather than religion? or an "idea?" do it for yourself, not for a group of people who meets at least once a week at the same time. i mean, yea, if you want to meet and be around others who share your views, than more power to you, but do you have to be lead by someone else? can't you figure it out for yourself? i see these die hards in their religions, following their pastors, or reverends, or priests, or whatever they are, and following their ideas- why do you want to follow them when they can make the same mistakes? if you're so into following the lord, or whatever you "follow", then follow them and do it on your own. find yourself, and not let someone else decide who and what you are and how you should go about being that person.

i think we messed up. i don't think this is how it was supposed to be. religion. wars are fought over it. and it's all stupid. who's right, who's wrong. who gives a crap? maybe somewhere in the bible it says follow your pastor. i know it says something about a holy day, and keeping it, and worshipping on that day, blah blah blah. i can't really get into the bible, it reminds me too much of a fable book i had as a child, and other parts remind me of being scolded. i just never could get into reading it. i guess maybe because parts of me still have the same ideals and thoughts i had when i was atheist. or maybe it's just my lack of faith in man (meaning men, women, children).

i just see these people, and i think of them as wandering, as cattle, who just follow along, don't question, just do as they're told and taught, without fully understanding what faith is. they don't believe, they just do as they've been brought up to do. when i think of the word faith, i think of walking down a staircase- can you go down the staircase without looking at the steps? even i look on a regular basis. but i see these people, who will be the first to tell you and talk about god, jesus, and everything holy and not holy, and i can't help but think "i've seen this all before, i've heard this all before, you're nothing new, you need something bad to happen in your life, test your resolve, your faith, your "religion", then come back to me and we'll see what you have to say." i just can't help but think "damn you're blinded" but then for some i think they're better off that way. and it takes almost everything in me to keep from taking that away from them.

i think we got it wrong. i think we messed up.

i was going to put something here, but i lost the desire to.

all of these things they are such reveries.

i had a dream recently. to me it's very apparent where the thesis came from for this dream. we've been talking about geologic time and that wonderousness in my geology class, cause you know, you talk about that in geology and not, say algebra or spanish, so back on topic, i also read an article (see previous entry) on this guy's take on how the world would end from nuclear warfare. i guess it got me wondering, both the lectures and the article, on the history of the planet earth.

in brief, we can guesstimate with some accuracy how old earth is with geologic time and all that jazz. visible layers, super-position, plate tectonics, blah blah blah. we can assume some things, and other things are more definite.

the article talks about how a reaction, cause and effect, would occur if nuclear missiles were launched. it's to the reader's imagination how the missiles were launched in the first place, but one could safely think anxious fingers of a few killed anxious lives of the many.

so then i dreamed that the earth is much older than we think. things go in a cycle, the earth, the life upon it is destroyed, and ages and ages pass and life is reborn, to follow the same lines, and end the same way. each time, going about things in the same manner as the previous. get to the same point, the height of our civilization, the end it all. now, it wasn't completely the same, the characters were different, it wasn't some lame attempt at groundhog day or anything, but the same mistakes were made. naturally, all of this flashes by somewhat quickly, the rise of new life, dinosaurs, ice ages, egyptians, greeks, romans, mexicans, stupidity, ca-boom, new lifem dinosaurs, meteor, ice ages, ozones, rains, saplings to trees to forests, mountains, plate tectonics, layers, super-positions, architexture, ca-bloowee, again and again.

the interesting thing though, was pangea, you know, the super-continent that broke apart to form the present day continents. it would start out the way we know it, then life would end, and millions and millions of years pass and the continents have spread all the way around the earth to crash into each other on the other side, then, that's when the cycle begins again; the new pangea breaks apart and the continents again move away from each other. a reversal, which most highly very unlikely could occur, so we'll classify that part as the "fiction" part of the dream. novelty nontheless. helps to really make the dream work.

subduction zones, movements, friction, earthquakes, volcanoes, winds, atmospheres, rains, hurricanes, tornadoes, gases, warmth, meteors, bacteria, amoebas, plants, fish, mammals, birds, insects, dinosaurs, rodents, man, bombs.

nomads, groups, fire, the wheel, villages, crops, hunts, towns, idols, gods, religions, stonehenges, -henges in general, structure, rules, laws, infastructure, highways, bi-ways, republics, democracies, wait, that's the second "fiction" of the dream, skyscrapers, name-brands, consumerism, warheads.

darwins, freuds.

nietzsches, popes.

dahmers, giens.

coke, pepsi.

love.

hate.

and war.

thanks for reading.

brandon phoenix dot com

1. it's noon, thursday, eastern daylight time, and every human being on earth has just vanished in one huge and completely unselective rapture. had there been any warning, people might have parked their cars on the roadside or landed their planes, but no, so immediately the world's roads become flaming wreckage-strewn ribbons, while crashed jets punctuate the landscape with fireballs.
to witness the scene around, say, a freeway circling dallas, texas, one would have the impression of a landscape on which 10,000 black tethers have been lashed to the sky.
and then things go quiet, at least for a few minutes- the quietest few minutes the planet has known for centuries, but this doesn't last long, as everything has been left running. dams continue to generate electric current, and gas pipes continue to deliver gas and fule rods remain inserted in their cores. gas stoves, heating systems, security lasers and bunsen burners cause houses, businesses, prisons, and hotel rooms the wolrd over to burst into flames, followed by oil wells and forests and, most critically, nuclear power stations, beginning with less sophisticated and undermaintained models in the former soviet union, as well as those on the asian subcontinent. the smoke they produce is certainly thick, but the isotopes they release into the jet stream and air sheds is in levels inconceivable to even the most nuclear-paranoid.
by midnight, most of the northern hemisphere is shrouded in a black, acrid curtain, and sunlight will from now on reach the surface in patches. the southern hemisphere fares slightly better in an on the beach sort of way, but the mist of angry isotopes from the north begins arriving around the 24-hour mark.

2. fail-safe mechanisms the wolrd over trigger nuclear volleys that hit targets in no particular order of vengeance. the first city to go is liverpool. the next is murmansk, after that is minot, north dakota. then go sacramento, montreal, the outskirts of rome, italy; aukland, new zealand; anacortes, washington; jerusalem; new delhi, india; cocoa beach, florida; and so forth. on day two, there are 104 separate nuclear bombardments, and the bombardments arrive at random from then on. some of the missiles hit their targets, and some merely land or detonate wherever. one cluster of warheads stockpiled in annapolis, maryland, detonates simultaneously, chewing out a crater so large as to reveal magma within the earth's crust.
also by day two, oil tankers and cargo ships have begun to run aground and fracture, at once coating the oceans with a thick crude crust - also in flames - as well as dissolving untold quantities of heavy metals, solvents, running shoes and canola into the waters.

3. colossal lightning activity in both hemispheres triggers fire even in those areas most remote from what was once the human civilization. residue from pesticide and pharmaceutical facilities quickly sterilize most european, north american and asian rivers: the mississippi is now a gummy acidic broth, not unlike hot-and-sour soup, but cut with burnt rubber.
soot and debris from global burning has landed on the glaciers and ice packs of both poles, the darkness logarithmically accelerating the pace of melting. railroad derailments across the planet release containers of chemicals into biosystems, wreaking borad-scale freshwater havoc. oilrig fires the wolrd over mimic those of kuwait in the 1991 gulf war.

4. rains composed of what is essentially battery acid scour the world. insects have their brief moment of glory as the incredible rainfall triggers a massive hatch, with locusts and grasshoppers battling each other over what remains of plant life, most dramatically in the central canadian and central african plains. the few remaining bird species - gulls and corvids and a few penguins - are in severe trauma.
many reptiles have entered a state of deep hibernation, never to reawaken.
carrion eaters, though, have a field day - viva maggots! - and their smaller organism volume makes them far less vulnerable to death by radiation. they too, though, will shortly succumb.
much of the northern canadian and siberian permafrost tundra endures erractically yo-yoing temperatures, during which isotopes and heavy metals briefy enter the biosystems only to be frozen and rethawed again and again, the end result being a toxic pudding sludge.
extreme weather is already the norm. ozone holes quickly crawl down past the 60th parallel. on the island of spitzbergen in the artic ocean, the first window o direct contact between the earth's surface and outer space occurs, flash-freezing and drying marine life within the top 10 meters of the ocean surface.

5. a high proportion of deciduous trees has shed their leaves. most birds and mammals are now extinct. only deep marine creatures are relatively untouched, but it's only a matter of time before toxins from above filter their way into the bathyal depths.
a few miles outside of vladivostok harbor, a marooned russian warship carrying multiple fusion warheads accidentally triggers a simultaneous on-the-spot detonation; in a gargantuan belch of steam the pacific ocean floor is suddenly made visible to orbiting satellite cameras. outer space then briefly scours the detonation site, freeze-drying the embers while freezing ocean waves in mid-surf. beyond the space hole, tsunamis ripple outward to crumple much of the japanese, korean and kamchatka coastlines, and later, for what it's worth, the charred west coast of north america, from alaska to san francisco.

6. by day six, warehouses of solvents in most large cities have ignited and/or exploded and drained themselves into the rest of the world. there is no habitable space remaining on the planet's surface, nor any potable water. mammals are extinct, save for a few rodents eating vending machine snack food within underground missile silos in colorado, siberia, and bonn, germany. around noon thel ast whale floats to the ocean surface off the southern tip of chile; the last bird, a migrating sandwich tern, falls to the ground over southwest africa. even plankton, sensitive to uv radiation, are undergoing a rapid die-off.

7. what can be said? the world is over. earth is now not much more than a waterlogged, barbecued briquette. and all it took was seven days. not even that, really.

douglas coupland. adbusters, vol. 10 no. 1 jan/feb 2002