Your Philosophic Ramble Saturday
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Questions for you to ponder philosophic on this Saturday:
When we conceive of ourselves as “self,” the moment at which we draw the distinction between “I” and “you/other,” it is impossible to draw a distinction between that which we determine as “I,” and that which we intuit from the Other we imagine is perceiving us as “I.” I cannot be I without you seeing I, and therefore the determinations of both identities are inextricably linked at the moment they seem distinct. In other words, we see ourselves from Without, an imaginary stepping outside of our bodies and our perceptions that is, in actuality, from within.
But if the Other is inherently unknowable as Other, does this illusion of outside, that by definition must come from within, shatter any sense of a continuity of self, leading to a fragmented, alienated and uncanny tension of identity?
And, if so, then is this fragmentation of identity, this drawing of distinction between “I” and “Other” done through the coded act of linking in the phenomenological realm? Or is this distinct to that conscious forming tool of civiliation — language itself?
Does the act of articulation, connecting signifiers to signs like letters and words, lead only to slippage of meaning and a tension of consciousness not only hyrbrized and fragmented, but inherently false? In short, does the act of connecting consciousness to language enforce the very false constructions of distinction at the core of identity formation?
When we form our identity, our sense of self, how much is culturally constructed, how much is gender, ethnic and racially based, and how much is innate to our individual subjective variabilities?
If you kick a douche in the nads and he screams, “Grooooo!” then did a butterfly flap its wings in China?
I hear ya boss.
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I was sitting in a Burger King booth in the Bradley Terminal at LAX about a month or so ago – quietly pondering my imminent trip to Santiago. As I sat there in dubious self-introspection, in strode a beaming Bruce Boxleitner. His electric shock of gray hair and confident demeanor was captivating. Just as I began to immerse myself in what the world would look like from the steely eyes of Bruce Boxleitner, $ąmüræ §crøŧe suddenly leapt stealthily from behind a faux standing bamboo planter and latched onto Bruce’s left nipple and began furiously sookling like a famished, toothless walrus calf uponst its mother’s erect teat. Just as a flushed and flummoxed Bruce began to bat at the nipple-ninja, $ąmüræ §crøŧe made like a jackrabbit fleeing a jackal in the Outback and vanished through a concealed return air vent in the ceiling.
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At that precise moment my phone bleeped and an incoming text flashed the news that a witch-doctor on the outskirts of Quito, Ecuador mercilessly emitted an unsquelched bubble of flatus so potent in nature that all three Bob Marley posters that clung to the walls of his hut simultaneously curled up and fell to the floor.
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Now, I don’t know about any of you all, but I feel it is my God given right as a red-blooded American to clearly state that I will go to my death bed knowing these two instances were not entirely unrelated.
I really need to start drinking more and need to start drinking earlier…
The artist formerly known as White Prince?
Croosh, I’m cleaning Mountain Dew off my monitor now. Thanks, brah!
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Boss, I see myself as I see myself, though I know others see me through their eyes. Even if Samurai Scrote were sucking on my nipple instead of Bruce Boxleitner’s (or even that of Maya Angelou, for example), the way I perceive my feelings about and reactions to that will always differ from how others see it. I will always inherently know how that makes me feel, while others could only guess at my reactions, and vice versa. Additionally, others’ views of what my reactions should be will always be biased by how they themselves would react.
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I hope I didn’t repeat myself. I should clear my head by motorboating some boobies.
Language has always baffled me. Because I am limited to only speaking 1.5 languages I have often thought of how limited I am in what I am able to think about. There are words that don’t exist in the English language so I am therefore unable to express myself fully.
For instance, Portuguese doesn’t have the word ‘awkward.’ There are expressions to convey the meaning of awkward depending on the situation, but there isn’t a direct translation. I don’t remember enough Portuguese to think of an example that goes the other way, but you get my drift.
If I knew more languages and I were able to have thoughts unlimited by my words, I would be a lot smarter and could express myself better when using any single language.
Think of how different my ideas and thus my ‘self’ would be if I weren’t stuck thinking in so few words.
I need a beer.
Being unable to express yourself in a language does not stop you thinking. Most of the differences and ‘missing words’ are descriptive anyway – just because I might call a blue sky grey doesn’t meant I cannot distinguish what you would call grey from what you would call blue. Compound words, phrases and idiomatic speech fills the gaps.
There no English word for a mythical beast that is part donkey, part cat and yet I can imagine it, think about it and clumsily express it to other people. There is no word for the sudden sense of tininess you get under a big sky when aurora are dancing and reflecting from the ice. Again, I am able to think about it. And when you delve into more psychological or philosophical concepts I’d argue the same applies. It might be a little bit harder to think of something when you don’t have a handy label for it but in many ways it is a deeper way of thinking about something.
Labels obscure the nature of things, reduce things to a stereotype, more than help you think on any level other than a fairly shallow one. Words also mutate and pick up connotations that further drive them away from the archetypal thing or concept they are trying to capture. A good example – look at the fantastic array of douche classifications we have here. If we instead had four or five categories and just lumped them into those we’d miss out on so much. Gollum-bag and Creepy-wankscrote would be lumped in with ageing-perv-bag and slimy-hipster-bag. Poopmpaloompa, Mandarin Orange, Poo and company would be covered by one word. All the dissections would often go undone because people used a simple catchall word that didn’t really capture the nature and comedy of the compound douche insult.
Yes I have been drinking. No I am not going to stop.
@Scrotephobic
I think you missed my meaning, I would’t want one word to be able to commuicate my ideas. I wish I knew every word in all languages and so I would never be lost for words. You do have a point with it not being a big deal not having a single word to say something and having to use a whole phrase. Even if I knew every word in all languages I still couldnt say “awkward” in Portuguese, but the point I wanted to make was that I could think of a better phrase to express myself if I knew more words. Also, beer.
WTF? Double Vente Latte’, please!
@ Croosh, I believe Bob Marley’s body may have exhaled it’s final toke of ganja at that moment as well.
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DB1’s question concerning “self ” and what influences our own perception is an interesting and complex issue. I believe our perception of “self” is not static, but changes as we journey through life, based on external stimulus and life experience.
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This was brought home to me recently as I stood filling my gas tank at a lonely, crumbling gas station outside of Kingman, Arizona.
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A lone figure approached from the desert, walking deliberately, and with purpose, he carried only a WWII-era backpack and a filthy rolled-up blanket.
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As he came closer, I could see that he had the callused hands of one who had spent many years at manual labor. I said hello, but he gave no reply. When he stopped and removed his dark sunglasses to wipe his brow, our eyes met, but I quickly turned away, and found that I was shaking uncontrollably.
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As I stood there trembling, I wondered, “Who is this stranger, and how could he fill me with such anxiety and self-doubt without uttering a word?” It was nearly one hundred degrees that day, but I felt chilled, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck.
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The stranger’s legs looked strong and capable, well muscled and scarred by cactus needles and the bites of scorpions. His thick black hair was matted and tangled with debris, and appeared to have a bovine quality. Though he said nothing, what struck me most was his breath. It was quite foul, and I found this curious.
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As he stood looking out across the open desert, the wind blowing his hair gently across his forehead, I believe I saw a single tear fall from his eye, leaving a tiny trail through the dust on his cheek.
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After what seemed an eternity, he spit on the ground between his feet, shouldered his burden, and silently continued on his quest.
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As he walked away, a tuna fish sandwich dropped from his pack. When he stopped to pick it up, I could see some faded lettering on his backpack. I squinted my eyes, and through the many layers of dust I finally made out the initials, B.B.
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Could it be?
sartre doesn’t get a credit? “I” and the “Other” from “hell is other people” a quicker way to say it might be: we only recognize ourself through the cognizant gaze of the other, and through our witnessing of their pleasure or disgust, identify ourselves as pleasing or disgusting. this enforces my theory of the asshats on your site. they peacock up for the evening and they receive a positive response so they take it farther in the hopes of increasing positive responses (drunk darlings with daddy issues). Their ego’s are literally eating themselves. This is how Greico, who was just a cocky kid with an oily mullet, which in and of itself was pretty standard for 1990, became the guylined, hardy-fied, fishnet forearmed, faux hawked, cocked had, popped collar, spray tanned, goose guzzling, date raping vinegar biscuits we have today.
DB1 wrote:
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When we conceive of ourselves as “self,” the moment at which we draw the distinction between “I” and “you/other,” it is impossible to draw a distinction between that which we determine as “I,” and that which we intuit from the Other we imagine is perceiving us as “I.”
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There are fundamental errors here, and that si the source of the dissonance.
One can conceive of Self as something that is not completely distinct from Other. To think that Self must necessarily have absolute distinction from Other is to engage in a dualism that is not warranted.
You can conceive of Self as simply an illusion created by the brain in order to ride heard on unconscious (if intelligent) drives and systems in the brain. Example: you and I walk down the street, talking to each other. We dodge telephone poles, other people, animals, and other obstacles as we talk, but our obstacles never rise to the level of consciousness as objects. We don’t have to think about missing them – we just do. And we do because we have these subsystems in our brain that do precisely that. In this vision, Self is an illusion as is Other. For more on that, read works by the neuroscientist, Ramachandran.
To the dualism problem: it is a deep and basic problem in philosophy, and (IMHO) it is one of the fatal flaws of philosophy for the past few thousand years, as it forces us into less than useful situations and relationships.
Example: Tribe A has too many babies and wants the resources of Tribe B. So, they build weapons and act like murderous assholes and take the resources.
B has three choices, none good. 1. Run away, which perpetuates the douchebaggery of A, 2. Submit and be enslaved, which also perpetuates the douchebaggery of A, or 3. arm themselves and act like murderous violent assholes, which also perpetuates the douchebaggery of A. As a consequence, once someone sees another as Other, and less than Self, then this forces others into the same consideration. If one has the consideration of unity and solidarity, then there is no need for fighting. But once fighting begins, we all become warriors.
This is also how bacteria and paramecia operate. As a consequence, we can see how our ancestral microbial heritage influences and partly determines our existence as humans. Therefore: you are forced to think of yourself as a Self. Even though, it’s just an illusion…
Philosophical as I am, I will not go into any sort of grand detail re-describing what DB1 has proffered in his I-Other mini-essay.
But as I climb into my Mini-Cooper I am reminded of the archetypes of our collective unconscious, of the mother-child need for an eventual reality check-break-off, of reactive detachment disorder when at a tender age a child loses his/her mother. And my foot revs the engine, then slams on the brake. DB1 has described for us what has already been described before, minus the outright Jungian references: fragmentation, entropy.
Now excuse me while I de-frag my computer.
Oh, and my. That fellow in the posted photo is far prettier than the wench. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is.
wu the answer to db1’s philosophical rambling is wu,
or as the japanese say mu, native americans call it maize.
its neither yes nor no. there is self as you really are, self as you see yourself and self as others see you.
yes wu and no.
you see yourself as yes, only to the point in life where you are aware others see you, this happens pretty early on, or should, but we are slow so it takes a couple of years.
from then on its a battle between wu, how you see yourself, how you experience yourself, how directed you are by your inner self, and no, how others see you,how you experience others and imitate them, how directed by others you are. society is increasingly becoming other directed to the point where inner directed, even mostly inner directed people are rare.
so the answer is wu, which might be ironic when heard as wooo! OR maybe not….that is a whole other ramble….
but the answer is wu.
wu!
WU!
WOO!
now finish drinking.
Sorry Dicy, probably took the first two sentences of your post too literally. Assumed that you were a strong Sapir-Whorfist! And no, that is nothing to do with Klingon Lesbians. Wow. There is an image to try to scrub out of my mind on a Sunday morning.
Stackhouse?
“I” is DNA’s illusion.
Yet union with Dicy allures, driven purely by my deoxyribonucleic acids.
(That’s the story for Mrs. Howser, anyway.)
Why must I cheapen intellectual discourse with sexual allusion? Oh…because of my damned genes, that’s why!)
Rushing to make my thoughts’ minuscule mark here, I posted sans consideration of those before..a move ego-fueled, with little thought to hallowed DB1’s deeper considerations.
That said:
All Ya’All’s Full O’ Bullshit!!!!
@He of the Head that is Surely Crucial, 2:48 pm, 5/22
You’ve seen the TronFlatus singularity. Your face must glow as The-One-All-Knowing.
ALL HAIL CRUCIAL HEAD! ALL HAIL CRUCIAL HEAD!
{and repeat, until Mrs. Howser hears, and the power of auditory repetition sets in, and the name of our fellow poster beomes confused with an inexorable call for certain sexual acts}
Buzzed, not yet blasted as only a half dozen Crown Royals had been tipped with my post-dinner Monte Christo #2 , I bumped into a smallish fop dressed in a tasteful tuxedo after visiting the commode at The Bellagio in Las Vegas this past winter.
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I helped him to his feet and remarked about his tiny feet bedecked in stylish two-toned spats. He wiped his hands with a fine silk pocket square drawn from his suit breast pocket…
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He cleared his throat and spoke with an odd accent , Eastern European, perhaps (?) …
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I once bumped into Perez Hilton while he was using the urinal at a function in Beverly Hills, his left cockk, …. he has three you know, ….his left cockk had a sizeable mole on the top just behind the head…. I only noticed this because it was quite sizable, the mole not the cockk…
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He continued, In the society of my country, when a gentleman bumps into another accidentally he is bound by ancient law to then felate that fellow .. The twinkle in his eye sparkling like Amy Adams’ glasses in the bar scene with Ricky Bobby in Talledega Nights which is shortly followed in the next scene by the line….
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Holy moly, that’s like lookin’ up Yasmine Bleeth’s skirt!
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– Which got me to thinking, “Say , old timer did you indeed felate Perez Hilton? ” to which he replied, But of course, all three of him
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I said, “Well I ain’t gonna do it” and offered a wrinkled tote from the sports book from Race 5 at Golden Gate Park with a $6.80 win. He put it in a golden snuff box then offered me a sip from a hip flask he produced. I wiped the top with my sleeve and took a swig.
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Three days later I awoke shivering in the Mohave Desert next to the dumpster outside of Alien Fresh Jerky wearing an ancient indian head dress and a loin cloth , with a misshapen suture job running through a huge scar on my back above the hip bone.
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Across the street there is a tall thermometer touted as “The World’s Tallest Thermometer” . I thought to myself, “I sure hope that’s an ORAL thermometer
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There was a note stuck between the toes of my left foot written on the back of that same tote from Golden Gate in unmistakeable sports book pencil that read, Hah! You didn’t know Fred Astaire’s real name was “Frederick Austerlitz” and that cost you a kidney , son
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I only mention this now because I’m tipsy from my first taste of my neighbor’s home made corn-based hooch. Hopefully, one kidney can process this rot gut. If not, nice knowing you guys/gals …… I’ll put in a good word this Xenu for y’all.
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I am fucked up on this stuff ….. gotta get that recipe …. I think I’m trippin’ … I’m gonna You Tube some Grateful Dead footage now….
Quite right my good man. “Other” is a total illusion of precept. Though we are certainly not external things, we belong together with them to one and the same world. That section of the world which I perceive to be myself, or “I”, as subject is permeated by the same stream of the universal cosmic process that permeates “other”. To my perception I am, in the first instance, confined within the limits bounded by my skin. But all that is contained within this skin, still belongs to the cosmos as a whole.
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Hence, for a relation to subsist between my organism and a an object external to me, it is by no means necessary that something of the object should slip into me, or make an impression on my mind. The view that the boundaries of my body are absolute barriers through which information about things filters into me, is utterly misleading. The forces which are at work inside my body are the same as those that exist outside.
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Therefore, I really am the things; not, however, “I” in so far as I am precept of myself as subject, but “I” in so far as I am part of the universal process. This precept of the “other” belongs to the same whole as my “I”.
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But all this is of nominal importance when compared to the greatness of boobies. Soft, pillowy, jiggling boobies. Boobies I would slap my penis on until I fall half-comatose; a drooling, quivering pile of unthinking fleshy matter. My brain completely wiped by the infinite power of ultimate titty fucking nirvana.
Man, I gotta lay of the peyote
Hey Dicy…don’t sweat the words. More can be conveyed by a wink, a smile and a grunt than 1000 words of what passes for literature in most civilizations.
Just imagine without the boundaries of language.
with all due respect sir, was it wake and bake saturday?
Dear Sirs.
This picture is protected by copyright laws of 15 nations. Said picture is 20 years old and is in violation of Mrs. Reverend Chad Kroeger’s rights to privacy. Yes I did look like the white Prince and demand that this picture be removed or I will be forced to consult with the law offices of Ronnie Douche. I am now bald and fat and you have caused me great sadness.
As Sigmund Fraud said in his persomality disorder treatice. Fuck Fish Slap and prepare to die Dr. Bunsen Honeydouche, Justin Bieber is very angry at you and is armed with gummy worms and young poon.
It’s funny that you should mention Klingon lesbians…
Once in my adventures abroad with my best friend, we decided to experience the local culture in the best way we knew how: by going to a gay club. Our motivation was purely innocent and not in any way fueled by our shared desire to dance on a stage with a half naked firefighter. We danced the night away, drank many a fruity beverage, and discovered that gay men turn straight when intoxicated. Much like the frat bag explores his sexual orientation with his bros after a night of drinking.
Anyways, at around 5 in the morning we had had our fill and decided to leave. We headed towards the line to pay our tabs and became separated when we got to the cashiers. Without my translator, the cashier and I had to play an erotic game of charades in order for me to learn what my tab totaled to. I turned out to be about 60 American dollars which was greater than the amount of money that I had stored in my boobs.
I was at a loss for what to do, when one of the security guards approached me and pulled me aside. He babbled at me in the local tongue, and I was convinced he was going to sell my organs to make up for the tab. At this point my friend found me again and told me to stop crying because the guard was hitting on me.
They began to discuss the situation and came up with a bargain for how I was to pay my tab. He and the other guards were planning on attending a Star Trek convention when they got off work, and he said if we went with them he would pay the rest of the tab.
But oh it didn’t stop there, once we arrived at the convention we learned the guard’s real plans. He made me put on a red shirt and give lap dances to no les that 142 lesbians dressed as Klingons, by time I had finished I was exhausted.
I collapsed in a shivering pile of sweat and tears. My friend picked me up off the ground and we headed back to our hostel. We then decided to never tell a soul about what happened that night, and I’ve kept that vow until now when Scroteobag reminded me of that night.
And by Scroteobag I mean Scroteophobic… Geeze guys get different names. I can’t keep you all straight!
“I can’t keep you all straight!”
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Dicy, saying something like that here is going to get you in trouble. ; )
The problem with your theorum, Boss, is that the standard issue Douche Bag (in accordance with textbook narcissist personality disorder) never matures past a 4-year old’s level of empathy and projection. So there ain’t no “You and I” to a DB. Case in Point: Stackhouse. That is why his words are so vital to our understanding of the battle we face in ways that the photos we mock can never be. You can understand in his ramblings that he can only love and understand the self within his own skullbox and that the rest of us are cardboard cutouts, resources, sex and opportunity on the stage of the one-man show that is his stunted life.
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I been gone a year; did I miss much?
I Like Turtles
RE: The Exchange between Scroteophobic and Dicy:
There’s a type of brain damage called “Expressive Aphasia.”
Most with it, unfortunately, never recover. A few have, though, and their accounts are enlightening with regard to the relationship between language and thought.
After recovering, they describe having had an exact sense of what they were thinking and feeling, and yet they could find no words to convey those thoughts and feelings. They also say that the range of thoughts and feelings with the condition was no less varied than before they had it.
Like Scroteophobic pointed out, we’ve no word for a “part donkey, part cat,” so let’s call it a “Dat.” Lacking that word, we, like an expressive aphasic, couldn’t concisely convey our mental image of the beast with a single utterance.
Instead, to convey the thought of a Dat, we have to break it into smaller mental images that we do have words for (“part” “cat”…).
You and I can imagine “cat” easily. “Part” is hazier, but still, one can maybe picture a geometric object cut in half, or something along those lines.
What I can only imagine, then, is that expressive aphasics can build thoughts by conjuncting the smallest divisions of mental imagery necessary to build those larger mental images…all the while having no words for any of them.
I’m thinking of some things now, and luckily have a word for them: Boobs.
@Dicy
142 Kligon lesbians? I think I need a lap dance to get over the trauma of that mental imagery. It is getting late, I just got back from being fried at the beach (no tags – I know what you guys think of British hotts) and now I have to try and sleep with an image of Star Trek obsessed lesbians screaming Kapla. I promised my liver I wouldn’t drink tonight. Sorry, buddy, but it is you or the brain. And I need the brain tomorrow for work…
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And I thought about getting a new name awhile ago but Darksock has registered every possible long name like Hamilton P Forklicker in preparation for his take over of a thread. I believe his master plan is that the next Samurai Scrote reference will unleash his army of aliases to drown us in pee jokes. Hang on, what did I just say? Nooooo!
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@Douchie Howser MD
It almost ties in to the Chomskian theory on universal grammar – I believe there has been a theory doing the rounds for a little while that the components of universal grammar are related to certain modes of thought that enable abstract and symbolic thought. So even in people with no language so long as the deep structures are there they can reason in an abstract way. That places them in a different part of the brain than those usually associated with speech but would explain how symbolic thought appeared to pre-date language. This would explain how even in a language where there is no word for Douchebag people react and understand the nature of one when they see it. The douche-disgust qualia is truly universal even if the words are not.
Methinks that this pretty douche does not use his cockk in the proper way that the Almighty intended. Please turn it in, friend.
I think if you punch him on the jaw just right, his head will hit hers with just the right amount of force to wake her from her bleethy trance and realize he’s a tool and she’s nowhere she wants to be.
@Scroteophobic
You mean to say Darksock uses more than one nickname? I’m shocked and appalled!
I’ve concluded that words are awesome no matter how many I have to use to explain what a Dat is. And even if I can’t think as complex as I could if there were no language barriers, it’s awesome to think of ways to say what I mean.
For example: wtf Lost is ending and copious amounts of alcohol!
once I scratched my itchy taint with a popsickle stick
if consciousness and language perpetuate [i]very false constructions of distinction at the core of identity formation[/i], then we all need to get drunk all the time. for we all speak the same “language” when we’re drunk.
BOOYA!
… sorry.
very false constructions of distinction at the core of identity formation
i’d like to blame that on drunkenness, but i’d be lying.
Hehe Imdrunk! Wait no I’m knot. I’m alert and ready to discuss intelligent philosophical and physics shit.
I only have two aliases: Crucial and Mr. White. I’m just not sure who’s actually writing our three various post. I suspect that big head Chad motherfuccer is behind it but I cannot prove it anymore than I can unmasterbate my pre-pubescent Shirley Pheeney + Lenny & Squiggy DP fantasies……
Actually, Dicy, in the “thanks” section of DB1’s book my alter egos appear 5 times…Now that we’re on WordPress I’m just too damn lazy to log out and slip on my old skins.
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@ Scroteophobic: “Hamilton P. Forklicker” is an awesome handle…Since “Admiral Hamilton ManTitty” is now retired you should go for it….just stay away from “Elastic Snap Hole of the Love Bear”. I had to take a lot of pills, drink a lot of single barrel, and vape a lot of grass to come up with that one.
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head hurts…
@Darksock
I’m surprised it was only 5. I thought you were all the regs on the site minus the 4 I know on FB hehe
That chick on the right is FUUUUUUUGGGLLLLLYYYY! Wow. Just wow.