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a random existential thought

Were I compelled to spend eternity pushing a large stone up a hill — only to have it roll back down every time before I could get it quite to the top — I think I’d spend less time reading Camus and more time working on my invention. Which I’d tentatively take to calling “giant-ass slingshot for propelling really large rolling stones all the way to the top of some stupid fucking hill.”

But then, I’m more practical than romantic, I guess.

68 Replies to “a random existential thought”

  1. Obstreperous Infidel says:

    But then, I’m more practical than romantic, I guess

    You’re a hater dude! Duh.

  2. mojo says:

    Oh, don’t be such a Sisyphus…

  3. JD says:

    All of that boulder pushing would likely result in one being in hella good shape.

  4. dittybopper says:

    I tried something like that but it has limitations. Wiley Coyote

  5. Blake says:

    Hmm, I gotta wonder if that’s better than being chained across a boulder while an eagle rips out your liver.

  6. Jeff G. says:

    I think I could come up with an invention in that case too, Blake. I’d call it something like the “chainmail I forged in order to keep predatory birds from lunching on my organs while I’m chained to this ridiculous rock” thingie.

  7. Blake says:

    Jeff G,

    But, does this venture into another existential area? Which came first, the chainmail or the chained to the rock?

    Seems to me forging chainmail whilst chained would be a tad difficult.

    Although, we are talking gods, so, normal rules don’t necessarily apply.

  8. mojo says:

    You’d have to be incredibly Loki…

  9. scooter (still not libby) says:

    ..and your back would probably be really Thor.

    Mojo, I think it’s time for you to Apollo-gize.

  10. scooter (still not libby) says:

    Not the least of which for mixing Greek and Norse mythos. And yes, I know I mixed Norse and Roman. Just acting out on the stage as had been set.

  11. JeffS says:

    Well, you could always rent a shitload of bulldozers, dump trucks, scrapers, and other assorted earth moving equipment, and simply get rid of the stupid hill. There are always holes that need filling.

    Ying and yang, in a Greek sort of way.

  12. Jeff G. says:

    Some of you aren’t arguing in good faith, I don’t think.

  13. bh says:

    You should just be happy you’re not the guy trying to roll the rock out of the enormous hole.

  14. JeffS says:

    I know, my idea isn’t innovative, but it is tried and true. Plus it’ll give you more time to read Camus. And to drink beer.

    Not to mention the stimulus it’ll give the economy, while generating a humongous carbon footprint at the same time. If you’re short a few bucks, tell your congresscritter that you have a shovel ready project, and wait for the cash to arrive.

  15. happyfeet says:

    or hey you could go to the Home Depot and hire the illegal ones to roll the boulder for you and on the way back you could pick up a tasty Big Mac but not a Happy Meal

  16. DarthRove says:

    I reject your hypothetical situation altogether. I mean, where’s the dog and the Unseen Other?

  17. Mikee says:

    Sounds like somebody has been reading the new teen book series about the half-human, half-Greek-God kids and all their Harry-Potter-like adventures.

    Would you rather push the stone, or have food always around but just out of reach, or do the eagle/liver thing, or be turned into a daffodil, or be ripped apart by Furies, or marry your mom after offing your dad, or be struck by a lightning bolt hurled by Zeus? Because there are many options in how to spend your days in the wonderful world of Greko-Roman mythology, and fooling the gods (as in the above post on slingshot design) is indeed one of the best.

  18. dicentra says:

    The Plague is one of my favorite novels. It might become uncomfortably relevant in the near future.

  19. John Bradley says:

    As long as I’m not ripped apart by Furries, I’m good.

  20. Blake says:

    Wait, isn’t the “food out of reach” from the “Pit of plenty” circa Edgar Rice Burroughs and the John Carter series?

  21. mojo says:

    Le Peste: Sometimes, courage consists of simply doing your job when anybody with a lick of common sense would be runnin’ like a scalded cat, and devil take the hindmost.

  22. Wiley Coyote says:

    Don’t bother trying the Acme springs. I’m still suing the bastiches.

    At this point, Defendant`s product should have thrust Mr. Coyote forward and away from the boulder. Instead, for reasons yet unknown, the Acme Spring-Powered Shoes thrust the boulder away from Mr. Coyote. As the intended prey looked on unharmed, Mr. Coyote hung suspended in air. Then the twin springs recoiled, bringing Mr. Coyote to a violent feet-first collision with the boulder, the full weight of his head and forequarters falling upon his extremities.

  23. Carin says:

    Trying to game the system of the quandry that is represented the Myth of Sysyphus is indicative of the sort of epistemic closure that plagues conservatives today.

  24. McGehee says:

    All I know is, I’m bricked up behind this wall with nothing but a cask of wine — and I wish the guy in the next room with the pendulum would quit screaming.

  25. Carin says:

    I’d help you, McGehee, but I’ve got to go and check on this painting of me I keep in the attic.

  26. dicentra says:

    You’re a fake, Wiley Coyote.

    I’ll await the arrival of Wile E. Coyote, thanyouverymuch.

  27. dicentra says:

    Some of you aren’t arguing in good faith, I don’t think.

    Don’t be preaching your Xtianist filth to me, buddy. Nobody wants to hear it.

  28. cranky-d says:

    Shouldn’t it be “Xianist” and not “Xtianist?

    -Pedantic in San Diego

  29. JD says:

    Everyone knows everyone hates Xianists.

    lulz

  30. JD says:

    Sorry for the thread-jack, but this kind of throws a wrench in nishit’s idiocy from yesterday …

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36550.html

  31. happyfeet says:

    almost 60 Republicans are co-sponsors of the bill

    mother of shit

  32. JD says:

    Nobody said Team R is smart, happyfeet. But this flies in the fucking face of the idiocy nishit the monster was squealing about, since the strongest opposition is coming from Latinos and Latinas.

  33. JD says:

    That pendulum thingie that McGehee mentioned above used to be one of my primary sources of inspiration for nightmares before clowns, midgets, and Chantix.

  34. happyfeet says:

    yes… nishi did not do her homeworks on that one looks like

  35. LTC John says:

    “that one”? Just “that one”?!

  36. JeffS says:

    ‘Feets, are you still hoping to get laid by nishi?

  37. sdferr says:

    ““that one”? Just “that one”?!”

    We’ll be watching for that tidal wave of Latino support flowing from Marco Rubio to Charlie Crist LTC. Sometime this century, I’m sure. heh

  38. Silver Whistle says:

    Nishi is a 300 lb Italian guy living in his mom’s basement.

  39. happyfeet says:

    well that one and also the other ones, but definitely that one for sure hey guess what?? A Pink’s Hot Dogs just moved into my zone!! It’s an LA thing I haven’t done yet so that’s neat. Me and NG are gonna go maybe next week.

  40. serr8d says:

    Don’t do it, ‘feets. I’m thinking even Amanda Marcotte might have a better cooter…

  41. JD says:

    Pink’s Hot Dogs are very good. Me and my mother went to the one on LaBrea in Hollywood, if memory serves. I liked the bacon burrito dog, except the lack of a bun was confuzzling at first, and Mom liked the Guacamole Dog.

  42. JD says:

    I think any hot dog on a golf course or at a football or baseball game is better though. Context.

  43. John Bradley says:

    Perhaps the intent of the hot dog manufacturer was that their product always be consumed at a sporting event of some sort. And by eating said beastie elsewhere, you’re creating a new weiner-text, which is certainly your right… but don’t go putting your newly-minted non-sporting weiner interpretation in the mouth of the original meat-author.

    So to speak.

  44. JD says:

    I have pretty clear parameters as to where I am allowed to place my weiner.

  45. LTC John says:

    “meat-author”.

    Man, I love this place…

  46. cranky-d says:

    I had no idea, until now, that one could have an intentionalist argument with respect to foodstuffs.

  47. Makewi says:

    Seems to me there is likely to be a bunch of people who used to live in Arizona who you could hire on the cheap to push that rock for you.

  48. Squid says:

    I’ll bet you could sell a million of those slingshots, Jeff. Of course, after the first few thousand units, you’d probably reach the new federal limits on Enough Money…

  49. Mikey NTH says:

    Do it yourself? Well, if you got a good amount of cash or a good line of credit you could always get Raytheon to put together a laser-guided rock mover/remover.

    Or just give a shout over to Arizona and ask if any day-laborers want a job.

  50. Mikey NTH says:

    #30 JD:

    Eh. Puerto Rico statehood votes come up every decade or two.
    Any territory, etc. can petition for statehood if it meets the requirements. Potentially, so could Guam and the Northern Marianas.

    The question is – do the local politcal structures like the current status?

  51. Mikey NTH says:

    #43 John Bradley:

    Sir – that was brilliant. *golf clap*

  52. Ric Locke says:

    Well, maybe Mithra will be born from the stone, Jeff. That would short-circuit the whole thing, wouldn’t it?

    Regards,
    Ric

  53. mojo says:

    I always eat at the Pink Taco.

    ‘Cause I’m a cunning linguist.

    Apollo-gize, my ass.

  54. SDN says:

    Judging by smell it might be a Fish Taco…

  55. Adriane says:

    Jeff, if Buddy Holly thought like you, we’d all be listening to Lawrence Welk on AM.

    NTTAWWT.

  56. BuddyPC says:

    Were I compelled to spend eternity pushing a large stone up a hill — only to have it roll back down every time before I could get it quite to the top — I think I’d spend less time reading Camus and more time working on my invention.

    But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on rolling it if you’re providing a good stone or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the mechanical system to help grow our make-work.

    Now get back in line.

  57. John Bradley says:

    I had no idea, until now, that one could have an intentionalist argument with respect to foodstuffs.

    Sure, why not.

    For instance, the Oscar Meyer Corporation (the aforementioned meat-author) might have intended their tasty comestibles to be used as a delightful somewhat-nutritious snack. Certainly a fair reading of the evidence available to us (the meat-reader and/or bemused onlooker) would seem to back up that interpretation.

    On the other hand, the lovely and talented Ms. Marcotte might actually prefer to take one of the Corporations ‘larger caliber’ offerings and thrust it, with vigor and a certain degree of rhythm, in one or more of the openings available in her nether regions… or somebody else’s. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

    In this example, our dear Mandy has (hypothetically) interpreted her processed meat product (I’m thinking ‘knockwurst’) as some sort of vaguely Germanic twatzenstuffer, which is certainly her right. And it no doubt doubles as a political statement of some sort. (“Take that, stupid old partriarchy! I’ll buy my giant cock stand-ins as needed, with no icky man-thing attached.”)

    But if we were to privilege her particular (and somewhat kinky) interpretation of the meat-text over that of the author… well, I suppose it would mean that certain products at your local supermarket would have to be sold in a plain brown wrapper. “For the children!”

    You might even have to show I.D. to purchase such items, which would be just like Nazi Germany.

    And that’s not an America I want any part of!

  58. cranky-d says:

    My mind has been expanded. I’m not sure that it’s a good thing.

  59. B Moe says:

    Singer-songwriter James Taylor has cited Pink’s as the inspiration for his song “Chili Dog”; on his 2007 album One Man Band, he notes, “[The chili dog] was my favourite foodstuff for a time, until I realised that it wasn’t a food, it was a drug.”

    I finally found something to like about James Taylor.

  60. Mikey NTH says:

    #57 John Bradley: Do not forget that such gound-meat and filler substances have been created by patriarchal (“Oscar” Meyer) capitalist concerns and have their origin in such right-wing nations like Germany. The ‘weiner whistle’ – which figures prominantly in the movie ‘The Santa Clause’ as a yearning for a male figure – is a signifier for using weiners in the manner that the patriarchy has set. And the movie ‘TSC’ has a male battling with a womyn over the sad unaborted offspring that resulted from their failed union that he instigated from the first.

    Breakfast is a tool of oppresion, and ‘tool’ is another word for the male oppression appendage.

    Don’t get me started on the ‘Oscar Meyer WeinerMobile’ which merely crafted this oppression onto the oppression of American car culture – a culture that makes a great deal out of horsepower (stallion is a male horse, hung like a horse, etc.)

    So you will understand when all ‘hot dogs’ etc. are banned.

  61. Mikey NTH says:

    I admit – it took me a few beers to get to the point that I could produce #60.

  62. John Bradley says:

    Well, the calm voices of reason on the Left have been telling me for years that “Meat is Murder!” (Though I’m pretty sure that the statement would generate an error message when compiled, if strict type-checking was enforced.) But hell, they’re all Sciencey and all (just ask them!), so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

    If one further supposes that Hot Dogs are made of some sort of meat, and not a heavily-spiced gypsum concoction, and it’s a well-documented fact that they can be (mis)used in the manner suggested in my little example…

    Well, it would just seem that it’s possible to rape someone with ‘murder’.

  63. SDN says:

    John, I just want to say that your #57 was an image I could have lived the rest of my life, not to mention eternity, without.

  64. Mike LaRoche says:

    John Bradley, your #57 was a classic.

    As for this:

    “Meat is Murder!”

    P.J. O’Rourke once posited this query: If meat is murder, are eggs rape?

  65. Blaine says:

    I would not have my invention send the rock “all the way to the top of some stupid fucking hill”. that would be suicidal. Getting the rock to the top would mean the end of eternity and oblivion. Just send it close enough to the top to qualify and go have a beer with a muse.

  66. Yeah, but when the stone rolled down the hill it would invariably smash your invention to pieces, thus requiring you to spend eternity rebuilding your “giant-ass slingshot for propelling really large rolling stones all the way to the top of some stupid fucking hill.” Zeus is clever that way.

  67. With respect to #65, or as someone once said, “Don’t immanentize the eschaton!”

  68. Blaine says:

    With respect to #67, well said.

Comments are closed.