battmutler

battmutler @ 2009-07-30T22:29:00

2009-07-31T02:53:54Z

sorry to neglect my throngs of followers over these past couple months. bloomington is pretty kickin' so far. my roommates are all cool and i quite like the city itself. i'm almost done with my summer class - it's been a good introduction to the dark ways of library sorcery.

i lost my ipod for like a week. i was worried someone might have stolen it, cuz i accidentally left my back windows open for about 15 minutes in the grocery store parking lot. but i found it today under the passenger seat. so yay.

i'm thinking about starting a video blog. problem is, i don't know how to work adobe premiere. would it be worth the trouble?

MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS!
Blind Pilot - 3 Rounds and a Sound
saw them open for the decemberists, and they were quite good. didn't get around to really appreciating them, though, until i listened to the album. check out their myspace for samples. 'tis very good. folksy indie pop, i guess. download the album, then go see them at off broadway on august 11th! i will be seeing them at lollapalooza.

OH YEAH. i'm 95% for sure going to lollapalooza next weekend.

The Notwist - Neon Golden
this album is from like 2003 or something, but i just discovered it. hard to describe - read the allmusic review or something.

battmutler @ 2009-04-08T00:39:00

2009-04-08T05:50:50Z

two things.

one.
as a final lenten activity, i propose the proposition of viewing one Jesus movie of your choice. jesus christ superstar counts, because it is awesome; godspell does not count, because it is dumb. (this is not a debatable point.) extra credit for zeffirelli's jesus of nazareth (you masochist). i plan on watching the last temptation of christ.

two.
until the end of this month, harrah's is doing a thing where if you go and gamble for 30 minutes (even just the penny slots), you get a free ticket for the buffet. this sounds both fun and delicious! would anyone like to join me this evening? if not today, perhaps another time?

photography challenge

2009-02-28T21:54:07Z

no one said no photoshop, so i took the liberty of doing a bit of HDR work. aside from the merging and messing with the curves, any other sorcery was on the camera rather than the computer.

i'm submitting three entries, because i like how all three of these turned out.

Jesus is dead and there's nothing you can do about it

The holy family will rise as zombies

St. Augustine's mom lived here - maybe that's why it glows like this all the time

notes from Nantucket

2009-02-20T06:53:49Z

inspired by anne's post, i took the liberty of composing some limerick eulogies. some are better than others, but i did what i could. i don't know why i called scott a cockmonger, but i still think it's funny.

There once was a man named Scott Kreher;
were he running, I'd vote him for mayor.
But alas, that cockmonger
is with us no longer;
right now, Charon's taking his fay-er.

There once was a girl named Anne Bradley;
But she is with us no more, sadly.
Immort'lized in tomes,
The library gnomes
Keep her annals right next to Boo Radley.
(yes i'm aware of the dangling modifier)

There once was a man named Steve Jones;
undead flesh now hangs off of his bones.
While seeking a job,
zombies mobbed in a mob -
now unarmed human n00bage he pwns.

We tried surgery, prayer and injection,
But Nick died of a sinus infection.
Unusual, yea...
But wait - hip hooray!
He's just slumb'ring, on further inspection!

The Depenthals grieve over Loren;
Go to waste her experiences foreign.
Somewhat masochistic
In matters linguistic,
But it'd be worse if she were nie boren.

grab bag

2009-01-20T04:28:34Z

alright, time for a whirlwind of miscellany.

24 is good so far. not consistently amazing or anything, but with a few flashes of greatness so far, it's certainly no season 4. if you're gonna hop on, now's the time to get caught up. (don't bother with the prequel; it was kind of interesting, but mostly just boring.) the female lead, an FBI agent, is a smokin' hot redhead from st. louis, if that provides any incentive.
still trudging through twilight. it is bad. also reading looking for alaska. it is much better. i find myself comparing the two, especially the two authors' approaches to character descriptions. meyer's reminds me of an exercise we did in english class junior year where we had to use lots of ridiculous metaphors and other such embellishment to create a vivid picture of a character. it can work fine when it's done right, but it's easy to overdo it, and meyer WAAAY overdoes it, time and time again. green's approach, however, i find more satisfying. rather than calling a narrative timeout for extended description, he throws in small pieces here and there and leaves the rest to your imagination, which is always a good thing. i'm imagining the colonel as ambrose with a southern accent, takumi as a younger vince masuka from dexter, and alaska as your mom. do you find yourself imagining literary characters as people you know? and do you find that an author's style affects any propensity toward doing so?

don't wanna do a sublist, so starting a new list.
music of the moment:

as i commented in nick's post, mastodon. solid rock-your-face-off metal - prog without being too over the top (a la dream theater), and hardcore without sounding too much like cookie monster. plus, a concept album about the big bad white whale is a pretty sweet idea in itself.
the national. i downloaded their latest album, boxer, when it was reaping the benefits of the infamous "pitchfork effect." didn't do anything for me at that point. revisited it a few weeks ago, and it is indeed quite the grower. definitely a late night album, though. i've been following asleep to it a lot lately. (good to fall asleep to != boring. exhibit a, boards of canada.)
strangely enough, david bowie. i've tried getting into bowie in the past, but i just never bit on the hooks. after becoming familiar with a lot of his more popular songs by way of seu jorge (from the life aquatic), though, it was a lot easier. ziggy stardust is just a really solid, consistent, catchy album from coast to coast.

alright, enough self-indulgent babbling; books await. OH, and get on the twitter bandwagon if you're not on there already!

either way, i guess the hep would have been better than the herp

2009-01-09T16:31:29Z

Some of you may be familiar with Cetero Research, formerly known as Gateway Medical, the clinical research company Andy Rudolph and Sean Cahn have whored their bodies out to for the advancement of medicine. Well, being currently unemployed and all, I signed up for a study to make a few extra buck$. After my initial blood test and screening, however, they informed me that I have Hepatitis B, and that I should see my primary doctor immediately because my liver was a ticking time bomb. AND, they notified the Health Department, because they have a vested interest in making sure that people with hep actively seek treatment. This all was news to me, as hep B is only communicable via blood and bodily fluids; on top of being vaccinated for hep B, I am neither promiscuous nor an intravenous drug user, and I have no symptoms (jaundice, fatigue, etc.). Well, as it turns out, my liver, thankfully, is not dying (from viral disease, at least). However, I will not be participating in any Frankensteinian experiments if they can't even keep my preliminary blood work straight.

Needless to say, this furthers the case against Godless Science, the golden calf of our resident Atheist, Mr. Holtgrewe.

NERD ALERT (geek alert...?)

2008-12-12T07:32:37Z

inspired by anne's post, here's a bunch of nerdy shit that's currently making my life both happier and less productive. although a lot of it is not really that nerdy... more geeky. i think i'm more of a geek anyway. but whatever.

Jeph Jacques and his webcomic Questionable Content

If you're not familiar (shame on you), it's a great comic about a bunch of twentysomething kinda-hipsters and a couple robots. It's very character-driven and pretty funny to boot.

Ryan North and his webcomic Dinosaur Comics

How better to explain it than through its own element?

HALFBY

This guy is a breakbeat DJ based out of Tokyo. There was a link to this video on Dinosaur Comics, and after watching the video, I went and found a whole album of the stuff. It is awesome. Kind of a cross between Junior Senior and The Go! Team, only minus the annoying factor of the latter.

The IT Crowd

This is a show on BBC about two IT cronies who work in the basement of an office building and the not-so-tech-savvy gal who somehow gets thrown in with them. British humour + nerdy humour = funny humour.

Worms Armageddon

I gave up on this game some years ago because I could never get it to run on XP. Well, apparently there's a "New Edition" that works like a charm, online play and everything. I will never get any work done, for the rest of my life. EVER. Not if this thing is installed.

battmutler @ 2008-12-04T16:46:00

2008-12-04T22:51:14Z

I was perusing through an old book from high school and found something of interest.

WHOSE HANDWRITING IS THAT

battmutler @ 2008-11-10T15:27:00

2008-11-10T21:35:11Z

Alea iacta est. I'm dropping law school.

Not to be short or anything, but I'm really sort of sick of talking about it, but at the same time I want to talk about it... you know? Either way, I'm just gonna throw up the email I sent to my classmates and professors, and a few pages of the unorganized mental purging that led me to my decision -- that's probably the best way to explain things. I'd be glad to talk about it with anyone personally, though, so just drop me a line if you're curious.

Honestly, I’m starting to lack the motivation to keep things going day to day. It’s hard to egg yourself on to keep at it when you’re questioning if you’re still going to be at it two weeks from now.

I’ve been thinking for a couple weeks now, “Well, I’ll just stay with it and go through exams, and they’ll be the deciding factor. If my grades are good, I’ll stay. If not, then maybe this isn’t for me.” First of all, I recognize now that that’s a defeatist attitude and a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy; with that attitude, it’s hard to keep your eyes on the prize and actually follow through, so it’s a foregone conclusion. More importantly, though, it’s yet another example of me refusing to man up and make a decision myself. Hell, I had the same position about coming to law school in the first place: “I’ll go ahead and take the LSAT – if I do well, then I’ll give law school some serious consideration, but if not, then I won’t.” No more. At this point, I feel confident – more confident, perhaps, than I’ve been about anything – that if I turn around and walk away, I will have no regrets.

Fundamentally, I’m an academic. I thrive on logic. But that’s starting to go out the window in a couple classes. As we delve deeper into the finer points of certain legal doctrines, it’s showing that the law is often not logical at all. It may start out as such, but as soon as a legal approach runs into a policy issue, the courts are prone to just covering it up with an arbitrary patch. Judges are even willing to admit this: in a couple recent cases, the dicta stated in so many words, “This isn’t logical, and we recognize this. But it has to be done for policy reasons.” And that sort of thing is disheartening for me.

Where do I want to be five years from now? Where do I see myself? Not doing this stuff. Honestly, I’d be happier working at Barnes and Noble, so long as I have time on my own to read a little literature and philosophy from time to time. I’m an intellectual; I’m a curious person. But the law is about answers, not questions. I can feed my head on my own time. But I don’t even have time for that now, and I have little reason to anticipate that that will get significantly better in the future. Sure, 1L sucks worse than anything in the future, but fundamentally I don’t think it will get significantly better.

It just doesn’t make sense for me to stay with this when I have serious doubts about whether I’ll actually be happy five, ten, fifteen years from now.

It’s not really about the stress, but at the same time, it is. Law school is supposed to be stressful; it’s supposed to suck. But I had a panic attack in Contracts yesterday. I was called on, and I flipped out. I was prepared enough for class, and it wasn’t that hard of a question. But I was flipping out before the question even came. That initial pang of anxiety that comes with hearing “Mr. Butler…” launched into a positive feedback loop, and before I knew it that feedback had turned into redlining static. My chest tightened, and I became dizzy and nauseous. I couldn’t talk; I couldn’t think. I stared at my laptop because I couldn’t even look up. It took every ounce of my energy just to hold myself together, to keep from making a scene either by flipping out in the classroom or just running out. After some bits of silence and some borderline intelligible bullshit half-answers, I made it out with a bit of leading coaxing from my professor. But for the rest of class, and even after, I still felt dizzy and lightheaded – like I was in a dream, or on drugs, or something.

My first inclination was to make an appointment at the counseling center – talk things out, see what’s really going on with myself, maybe get some medication to proactively deal with this kind of stuff. I may still do so. But there’s just something inherently ridiculous about this. I’ve rarely had problems like this before, and never to this degree. I don’t want to be in a field that has the potential to cripple me. Maybe I’m too proud, but I refuse to be law school’s bitch. I refuse to be stress’s bitch; I refuse to be anxiety’s bitch. But to be a bitch to your occupation? Or even yourself, to a certain degree?!? I’m a confident public speaker – when I’m prepared. I cannot, however, think on my feet. I think through things rather than talking them out. (not that it matters when you can’t think or talk… heh.) But if I just randomly clam up out of nowhere in a classroom? I’m out of my element here. (I’ve gotten some rest since the incident and cleared my head, so this isn’t an out-of-my-head-flipping-out thing, just to clarify.)

This all may come as a surprise: “Wait a minute, I thought he was enjoying law school…!” Yeah, I said I was. That, however, was a mixture of “That’s what you’re supposed to say” and “Maybe if I tell people that, then it’ll come true.” I’ve really wanted to settle into things, to get into the groove. And keeping a positive mindset runs parallel to wanting that. So why not, then, just try and talk myself into feeling that way? But fooling myself isn’t working anymore.

I mean, the subject matter has been halfway interesting. But I can say with confidence that it’s not for me.

It’s not that I can’t handle the workload. I’ve been keeping up just fine up to this point. (To be clear, it’s the doubts that led to the lack of motivation, not vice versa.) Nor is about the specific material. It’s the general mode of thought. To a certain extent, my brain doesn’t work that way – this, however, would have potential to change if I stayed with it. What it’s really about is that my soul doesn’t work that way. I’m not sure if I can explain it any better than that. All I know is that this isn’t the place for me. I can’t be molded into something that I’m inherently not.

Friends and colleagues:

I am writing to inform you of my decision to withdraw from law school.

From day one, I've had my doubts, but I'm not really the type of person to be terribly vocal about such matters, especially when I really wanted to be happy where I was. For over a month, I've been keeping a "pro-con" list of reasons to stay or not to stay, and weighing things accordingly. As time has passed, things have been pointing more and more in the direction of leaving. Once I realized that I could turn around and walk away right now and have absolutely no regrets, I knew that that was the right decision. It was a difficult realization to come to, but after accepting it, I'm relieved and excited about moving on to the next stage(s) of life.

I was an English major in undergrad, and one of the things I've really missed terribly over the past few months is literature, so in the coming days and months I'll be exploring the possibility of getting a Master's or PhD in English. Other than that, who knows what the future holds.

Despite all this, the past few months have held some of the most unique, challenging experiences I've ever had. I've met a ton of awesome, interesting people, and I've had the privilege of studying under some incredibly gifted faculty. I'll be in Columbia for at least a few more months, so I hope to run into all of you soon, and to keep in touch in the future.

It's been a pleasure, folks.

Yours in the law (can I still say this?),
Matt Butler
MTButler@mizzou.edu
(314) 497-9045

so that's that.

omg teh lawlz

2008-09-22T01:27:04Z

battmutler @ 2008-09-10T11:02:00

2008-09-10T16:04:05Z

break in between classes, just stumbled upon this nice little short-story comic. quite charming actually.

http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/5408800.html

OMG 1337 ip0d h4x0rz`@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111

2008-06-28T02:25:00Z

i posted this on facebook, and i don't feel like changing all the code over, so here.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=17361298835

battmutler @ 2008-02-22T05:11:00

2008-02-22T11:17:25Z

i never really use this thing to talk about thoughts or feelings or any of that shit. just to post random stuff i come across. that's okay, right? i guess i don't like to talk about myself. anyway.

this has got to be one of the strangest, funniest internet memes i've run across in a while.

here, then when you're done with that one, here

ALSO. this article is kinda long, but it's very worth finding the time to read. basically, these hippie teachers who run a day care place see the kids acting really stingy with their legos and indoctrinate the kids to have a more socialist attitude about property, ownership, and social justice. lots of interesting observations about psychology, economics, and class structures. out of the mouths of babes, indeed.

when you're finished, consider this, though -- students : legos :: teachers : students ...????

battmutler @ 2008-02-05T02:44:00

2008-02-05T08:45:05Z

interesting critique of plot issues in bioshock

not a sports page, not a magazine...

2007-11-21T07:50:59Z

words fail to describe this. just watch.

video:
link

and a bit of controversy over it:
link

battmutler @ 2007-11-17T01:12:00

2007-11-17T07:25:39Z

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of October 25th, 2007). Bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
~~Wuthering Heights~~
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby-Dick
Ulysses
*The Odyssey
~~Pride and Prejudice~~
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
*The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
~~Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West~~
*The Canterbury Tales
The Historian: A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
~~The Once and Future King~~
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel
1984
~~Angels & Demons~~
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
~~Sense and Sensibility~~
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
*Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
*The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: A Novel
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
*Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
~~The Hobbit~~
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Yeah, that's right, I hated The Hobbit, and I hate Tolkien.

battmutler @ 2007-09-15T19:53:00

2007-09-16T00:56:07Z

stolen from lo as well. top 15 posted, because 11 through 15 are pretty relevant.

1.Probation / Parole Officer
2.Social Worker
3.Addictions Counselor
4.Foreign Service Officer
5.Rehabilitation Counselor
6.Lobbyist
7.Politician
8.Sport Psychology Consultant
9.Psychologist
10.Corporate / Commercial Lawyer
11.Judge
12.Mediator
13.Criminal Lawyer
14.Civil Litigator
15.Lawyer

uhh... makes sense... mostly... i guess?

battmutler @ 2007-09-10T00:18:00

2007-09-10T05:20:26Z

article about introverts and extroverts:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch?r

so true. i've long had trouble figuring out whether i'm more of an introvert or an extrovert; i need my "me time," but i enjoy being social as well. this answers it. it's not how you act, but how you feel afterward. often, i love being around people, but damn, it wears me down.

battmutler @ 2007-08-18T13:39:00

2007-08-18T18:40:17Z

reaaaaaaaally cool card trick. see if you can spot how he does it!

battmutler @ 2007-08-16T16:29:00

2007-08-16T21:39:07Z

so since scott is bitching about no one posting, i decided i'd post. mostly, i'm just bored. rolled back into k-ville yesterday. stopped by lukas liquor (otherwise known as HEAVEN ON EARTH) on the way out of town and picked up some stuff i can't get up here... namely, good irish whiskey and sambuca. truman week, here i come.

this morning, i was awoken at 9am by a phone call from my mom, notifying me of an email we had gotten from my lawyer the night previous. (i didn't get internet hooked up until this afternoon.) long story short, my lawsuit is OVER. we had set a price for settling, under which we would not go under any circumstances, and they finally caved. we didn't think they would, because they were being stubborn, and i was really afraid i'd hafta take off class in november for the trial, but this was a very pleasant surprise, although it was indeed out of left field. either way, i should be getting a very large check in the mail in the coming weeks. so that will be yet another reason to celebrate, once people actually get up here. (if you're confused, basically we sued desmet for negligence because of my knee injury in high school. if you're still confused, ask me in person.)

other than that, had a very productive day. heading off to home depot soon to get materials for a beer pong table.

sorry if this is mundane, but i really don't have anything significant to post about. things are kinda boring so far, but they should escalate tomorrow, with scotty's arrival and the carnival here in k-ville.

ATTENTION: Rolla students

2007-07-23T20:43:53Z

... hope you like extortion.

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/12855
found from http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/23/0417223&from=rss

Look who's on that list!

battmutler @ 2007-07-19T16:08:00

2007-07-19T21:10:11Z

keeping in tune with my affinity for all things lolcat...

lolcat bible

stolen from loren...

2007-07-11T07:48:45Z

Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...They have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Famous Artist/Band/Musician: MC Lars
4 letter word: meet
Vehicle: Maserati
TV Show: MXC
City: Milan
Boy Name: Mark
Girl Name: Melinda
Alcoholic Drink: Molotov cocktail... wait that's not a drink... Mojito
Occupation: moneymaker, lol... uh, mason
Something you wear: makeup (well, *I* don't wear it)
Celebrity: Mr. Bean
Food: mashed potatoes
Something found in a kitchen: umm, mashed potatoes
Reason for being late: my dog ate my homework!
Cartoon Character: Mickey Mouse
Film Title: Major League

i will be very glad when july 21st arrives.

for those reading the Dark Tower series:

2007-07-04T09:53:10Z

Gmail made my day today with its Quote of the Day.

"I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries."
-Stephen King

Calling all linguists...

2007-06-24T16:55:53Z

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_colapinto?currentPage=all

Long article, but super-interesting.