My Letter to Toms Shoes

Dear TOMS:

I would like to do those kids a favour, the ones without shoes. The world is a cruel place, and I am saving the children from the suffering that will continue if you give them shoes. It would be much more to their benefit if they should contract some sort of fatal infection via a cut or scratch in the foot. Only then can a child truly move on to the paradise of the neo-life.

Thank you for helping me save the souls of countless children. However, should you not follow my instructions, I will start my own shoe company called KENS. We will be your rival company, and our policy will be similar to yours, but in an opposite fashion. For every pair of shoes we sell, we will steal a pair from a young child in a third world country, thus saving them. It would be in your best interests to just follow my orders if you're all so "philanthropic".

In all seriousness though, I noticed right on your very own website that your shoes are manufactured in third-world nations already, such as Argentina, China, and Ethiopia. I happen to know that in these nations child labour laws are minimal or absent completely. Therefore, I accuse you, TOMS Shoes, of being hypocrites. Sure, you're providing shoes to children (which most people thing is benevolent), but they don't realize that you're forcing the kids to make the shoes which they just might wear.

Don't get me wrong, I think the concept is neat and your shoes all look really cool. But don't put up a philanthropic front if you're just going to have kids working in factories to make them anyway. Just be a normal shoe company like Nike or Adidas or Phat Farm. Ok, don't be like Phat Farm, nobody wears those anymore.

Having said all this, I plan on purchasing a pair of your shoes in the near future. However, I don't want you, under any circumstances, to give a child a pair of shoes with my order. I will not contribute to your hypocrisy and it ends here. I've already told all my friends about this, and it would be a shame if you lost any more customers because of this.

Hoping you heed my advice,
Kenny (aka Child Saviour)

Ten seconds

Drive ten seconds with your eyes closed

Let the car drift as it will
Don’t peek, don’t touch the wheel


Doesn’t it feel good?

Knowing for these ten seconds
You have no control?


Things will happen as they will,
You’ll probably live
But the chance there lies
Whatever you do,

Don’t open your eyes.

Instantaneous Existence

As any decent science student knows, there is a delay (though negligible) between the neurons firing across the synaptic gap and processing the information of said firing. Now consider the speed of light and the speed of sound. When one combines the miniscule neurological delays with the time it takes for the light rays to travel to the eyes or sound to the ears, the delay is perhaps doubled, though still microscopic.

I have reached a conclusion after toying with the concept of these delays: it is impossible for anyone or any living thing to exist instantly. Regardless of how quick someone's synapses are or how fast the speed of light is, it can never all occur at once. In other words, nobody has ever, is, or will ever live precisely in the moment of an event.

Think about it. When you look at a tree, you're not seeing it as it is now. You're seeing it as it was 0.000000000000000001 seconds ago. Though this is close to the moment you see it, it's not the instant you see it. You are never hearing a song at the part that it is currently at, you are hearing the part it was at 0.0000001 seconds ago.

With this conclusion, I would be willing to agree with Descartes in his assertion of mind-body dualism. When a man (or woman) thinks about what he will do in the next instant, he is taking into account all the aspects of his condition at the time he is experiencing. If he is not perceiving the instant he is actually in, then he cannot trust his senses to prove his existence in a moment. If he cannot trust his senses but he is still a thinking thing, then his mind is independent of his body.

This is not to say that you should not trust your senses from day to day; after all, they are all we have in the physical realm. However, be cautious. Xbox Live isn't the only thing that can lag...

Purpose?

Although it has no doubt been questioned before, I would like to ask it once more: What is the purpose of life?

As everyone says, money can't buy everything and I won't for a second entertain such a notion. However, the money fueling such materialistic pretenses can allegedly not buy happiness, but is this to say that happiness is our purpose?

For instance, I can purchase an Xbox 360 and thoroughly enjoy myself and have times of great fun. However, once I progress from my Xbox stage and have had my fun, what comes next? In this sense, happiness is like a drug. As it has been described by drug addicts, the purpose for continuing to use a drug is to chase the first high or to continue smoking is to feel the sense of relieved stress that they felt the first time they smoked. If this is the case with happiness, then happiness can't be that good of a thing.

I have many a-time pondered upon this topic considering perhaps the purpose may be companionship. However, such a source of pleasure is not stable enough to be our sole purpose of "existence" (if we exist, that is). Our friends and family can provide times of joy, as well as distress, so at the troughs of these waves of emotion, the fickleness of friendship is questionable.

So if happiness - comparable to a drug - and friendship - unstable as can be - are not our reasons for living, what is the reason?

The Sword

I've just set sail,
My sword in hand.
Land ho! is called
Before I planned.

I feel that I've
Been here before.
This place is not
A foreign shore.
Familiar yes,
But I want more.

Legend holds
There is a beach,
Always in sight,
Just out of reach.
How to get there,
You cannot teach.

Inhabitants
Are native, so
How to find it
They do not know.

A man stands there.
Drop your sword! he shouts.
Can I trust him?
I have my doubts.
Why?, I call.
You'll soon find out.

I toss the sword
Into the sea.
The man, he grins.
I gasp with glee.
The shore draws nearer
Towards me.

Is this not
The land you seek?
I nodded yes;
I could not speak.
My future here
Would not be bleak.

Never again pick up a blade
If you enjoy this peace we've made.

Firefighters

I sit and observe, not an active member
Though occasionally I will take a poke at the embers
Add fuel until the flame is an appropriate height
Finally, an adequate source of light
Erect a screen on which you project the show
A pay-per-view fight rather, as you exchange blows

From a safe distance, I sit and enjoy the view
Your brawls, so routine, present nothing new
Until the screen ignites; fire chases me
But I've no place to go, nowhere to flee
I prepare for battle and hoist my sword
Off to fight I go, please forgive me, Lord

Though evenly matched we three may be
Experience is your advantage over me
Back and forth we quarrel, no progress made
We tire and retreat back to the shade
Trouble may never cease to brew
But we'll all be friends in a day or two

Colour me

How do you do?
No, I am not Chinese, I am Filipino.
Yes, the Philippines.
Yes, Filipino.

Oh?
So that’s where you got that yellow skin.
Jet black hair?
Oh, so you’ve had spicy tuna rolls?
Not me either.
Oh, so you’ve been to Comic-Con?
I find it boring.

Yeah, we have towns in New York and San Francisco.
It was a mighty nice of you.
I don’t know where to get good sake.
Still not me.
No, I don’t know how they make the purses look so real.
No, I don’t wear this everyday, I just left Tae Kwan Do practice.
Thank you, I like your black, thick framed glasses, too.
I don't have a dojo.
No, I don’t watch Dragonball-Z.
No I didn’t invent Pokémon,
But I did collect the cards.
No, I’m not looking at the sun.

These are my eyes.

Nessie and the Viking

I was in the Scottish highlands doing some hiking
I reached Loch ness where I spotted a viking
He was all caught up in a battle with Nessie
He could've used a comb because his beard was so messy
He raised his sword and began to yell
You could tell this viking was giving Nessie hell
He fought and screamed and pounded his chest
This viking was better than the rest
Next thing I knew, Nessie made a bad move
It appeared that this viking was getting in his groove
He slashed and stabbed and dodged and ducked
Anyone could have seen that Nessie was fucked
Mr. Viking went "CUT" and it was off with the head
Nessie's body floated in the water clearly dead
The viking had Nessie's head as a trophy for his wall
But the viking was a warrior much different from all
He used physics to help him win the fight
And his sword was ceramic; he made it one night
He then let out a victorious belch
And that was how I met Mr. Welsch

Sincerely...

To whom it may concern
From the elephant in the room
Based on my observations
I sense impending doom.

But it's not the way you think
Not a normal sense of ruin
You're speaking different languages
In which none of you is fluent.

You can't credit a third-party
With fueling the complications
It's evident that your specialty
Is not communication.

Sincerely, here I sign
The elephant in the room
Learn from what I say I have seen
And rather, you may bloom.

Now here is a message from
The spying fly on the wall
At least he likes to think that he
Is O, so very small.

I've seen your many hardships,
I've seen you have a ball
But I implore you to refrain
From getting me involved.

I've grown accustomed to
The events that here transpire
But I have a feeling that pretty soon
The house just may catch fire.

Sincerely, I conclude
From the fly, humble and wee
I imagine envy fills your hearts
For I am truly free.

Voice of an Era

Above the chattering of the people, a distinct BOOM! is heard.
This is just the beginning.

Whew! BOOM! Whew! BOOM! Whew! BOOM!

He creates sounds that remind man of times preferably left forgotten, in oblivion.
Though many try to conceal their emotions with a stoic front, their efforts are in vain as tears steadily pour from their eyes.

The ants believed it to be raining as the salty tears fell to the earth below.

Sniffle, sniffle, hiccup! Sniffle, sniffle, hiccup! Drip, drip, drip.

But of course, going above and beyond is his specialty.
Citizens scream.

Aaaaahhh!!! Aaaaahhh!!! Waaaaahhhh! Wah, wah, wah!

The crowd files out as they reflect on what they’d just heard.

Meta

It is that which wrings the soul of feeling
Drenching a page with ink, organised in curls
It is that which the creator makes appealing
If a girl, to a boy; if a boy, to a girl.
It is that which provokes scorn and laughter
The question remains as to the stranger's wit
It is that which may incite grins after
Perhaps frowns; asses may elect to quit.
It is that which elicits the utmost confusion
Interpretations subjective, as is to be expected
It is that which utilises the most complex illusions
Many a-time they proceed undetected.
Alas, don't read too much into what I've just said,
The topic I speak of is what you've just read.

An Appeal to Metric

America, I have one question for you: Where have you been since the late 20th century?

Perhaps, I shouldn't have named this "An Appeal to Metric", but rather "Why customary?" What I'm struggling to understand is why halfway through the 20th century, most countries would decide "screw metrics, customary is the way to go" even though the metric system functioned perfectly well for over a century. What I'm struggling to understand even more is why, when everyone decided "customary was a mistake, we're going back to metrics", America remained customary.

Ignore, my prior regrets as to the name of this post - this is where the appeal comes in. First off, it makes interaction unnecessarily complicated. If we converted to the metric system, not only would international businesses benefit from ease of commerce, but there would be no need to bother with those cumbersome conversions from metres to feet or litres to gallons, and vice versa. All the units would be universal, which in turn would allow for quicker, more efficient trade.

Furthermore, the metric system is set up in such a "user-friendly" manner, for lack of a better term. The metric system, unlike the customary system, has a central measurement on which all other units of measurement of the same type (length, volume, weight, etc.) are based. For example, the unit of measurement for length, the metre, has variations such as the centimetre for smaller measurements and the kilometre for large distances (one-hundredth of a metre and 1,000 metres, respectively). Similarly, the litre functions as a measurement of volume with millimetres and kilolitres as smaller and larger units (one-thousandth of a litre and 1,000 litres, respectively).

Now, take the customary system. Let's start with length, what is the basic unit of measurement for length? A foot? An inch? A freaking football field? Who knows? Also, the division of them is overly complicated. The mile is divided into 1760 yards, a yard is divided into 3 feet, a foot is divided into 12 inches. A kilometres, however, is 1,000 metres, one metre is 100 centimetres, and so on.

Granted the United Kingdom measures speed in miles per hour, but it shouldn't be hard for them to adjust to kilometres per hour, as they use it for distance there.

Perhaps you may be thinking "But Kenny, the switch will result in disaster! Nobody will understand the new units? And how will all of our products in stores become measured in terms of the metric system?!"

To answer your first question, students are already taught in school the metric system under the alias "SI units" or "International System of Units". The problem is that American students are told that this is a supplementary system of measuring only used for scientific experiments. All we have to do is teach students this system as the only system, thus rendering the customary system obsolete. Besides, the measurement of an inch is already in terms of a metric measurement: the inch is defined as 39.79 inches=1 metre, according to the Mendenhall Order of 1893.

To answer your second question, keep the same sizes, just convert their customary system measurements to metric system measurements. For example, change the label on a pound of steak from one pound to 0.45 kilograms. Or just ask a metric country what they measure their products in and follow suit. Not too difficult.

If you, like me, have been wondering why America hasn't converted to the metric system (yet), I have a theory:
"America is the best country in the world, and therefore we should have our own system of measurement that other countries don't use."

-This theory can't be true; America picked up the English system from Great Britain before the imperial system was standardised in 1824. Though the English system and American system aren't the same, they are very close and the units vary only slightly.

-This theory could be true: Americans are stubborn and prideful.


I propose America switches over to the metric system as soon as possible, or at least show signs of changing by the end of 2011. Also, we should get Liberia and Burma on board for metrication as well. We're all stuck in the same imperial bubble. In summation, the global metrication of the world would be most convenient and pragmatic

Plus, I really want to be able to say when I'm older "I remember when they sold milk by the gallon."

Theory of Relativity: A Concept Explored

It's quite often I ponder the world; that is to say, it's quite often I ponder the mechanisms and purposes behind the world's many processes. However, today in my American history class, we were made to read an excerpt from a book about Einstein's Theory of Relativity. This got me thinking about abstract concepts of time, light, sound, and waves; these concepts, except time, we have just begun to study in physics.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Einstein's Theory of Relativity, it essentially changed the world's views on the space-time continuum. In a nutshell, it states that relative to the human eye, light is moving at incomprehensibly fast speeds, thus allowing us to see. Each colour that is in the visible light spectrum is a different wavelength: red is between 600-800 micrometres, purple is about 400 micrometres and so on. Since each wave has a wavelength and speed of the wave's reflection depends on the medium of the wave's travel (usually air, sometimes water), the colours we actually see are just reflected light waves.

In other words, what the eye sees each second is a reflection of light off of an object. Every time you see something changing before your eyes, what you're really seeing is a different reflection of light waves off of an object.

This is where Einstein's theory gets extremely theoretical and extremely advanced. The estimated speed of light in air 299,792,458 metres per second. Each second that a purple shirt is lying on a sidewalk, that shirt's colour will travel 299,792,458 metres at a wavelength of 400 micrometres. If, and that's a BIG "if" we were somehow able to create a ship that could travel faster than that speed, theoretically we would be able to time travel.

Now I know you're probably thinking, WHAT?! How could that possibly mean you can time travel? Think about it: How can you be positive that an event is taking place? By seeing said event, obviously. What happens if you're moving faster than the light of the event that you're supposed to be seeing? You are ahead of the event itself in terms of the space-time continuum.

Hopefully if you've reached this point, you somewhat understood what I was trying to explain. Having explained the theoretic possibility of time travel, I leave you all with one simple question that I've been pondering all day:

If you're moving faster than light, what DO you see?

Alter-Egos

First of all, I would like to apologise to the one person, Sung Li in Laos, who reads this - though only because she's trying to learn English. I haven't blogged in forever and I regret not doing so.

That being said, I have a story to tell:

As you may know, I'm big on doing accents. I recently had it confirmed by legitimate British people who live in England and speak with British accents that my accents are, in fact, extremely authentic. So you can imagine my surprise - nay, astonishment - when I began speaking to myself in a British accent and it sounded like a Mexican girl trying to tell the world that she's just finished a cup of tea on the train returning from Hogwarts with a baked potato halfway down her throat. (That means it was awful.) I nearly burst into tears as I rushed my dog back into the house, rushed to my Harry Potter film collection, and attempted to shove all six DVD's into the player at once.

The above anecdote was just a little intro to today's real topic: Alter-Egos. Recently (as in 4 months ago), I was exposed to the cult classic film that is Fight Club. For those of you who haven't seen it, stop reading immediately and go watch it. Netflix. Blockbuster. Torrent. WATCH IT. If you don't watch it and plan on watching, skip the next paragraph because it IS a spoiler.

The narrator of the film, played by Ed Norton, has an alter-ego named Tyler Durdern, played by Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt plays Ed Norton's characters "id", which is the psychological term for the part of a person's subconscious that acts impulsively and does what it wants.

Now, you may be thinking "How many alter-egos could you possibly have, Kenny?" The answer is "Several." Your next question probably is "how legitimate could these alter-egos be?" My answer to you would be "Legitimate enough to blog about." I'll introduce you to them one by one.



-Eugene. This alter-ego is the most Tyler Durden-esque. Ed Norton in Fight Club has extreme insomnia. The only reason Brad Pitt exists is because of a condition called "mininaps" common in insomniacs. Brad is the one who creates Fight Club, Project: Mayhem, all the other impulsive things; he only did so because he was Ed Norton's character in his sleep. If you don't know me very well, you don't know that I, too, am an insomniac. Over the summer was my biggest case of insomnia. I would stay up for days at a time to the point that one day as I began my book for summer reading (which I had to write an essay on), I suddenly spaced out. When I became aware again, I noticed that I was holding my printed essay in my hands. Eugene had taken over my body, finished my book, and written my essay. Often times I would start off at home and end up at Bennigan's with my friends. Everything that happens in the spaciness of mininaps, at least to me, is done through Eugene. Eugene, I acknowledge your existence and would like to thank and welcome you into my life.

-Simon. This bloke is, you guessed it, British. My fascination with accents resulted in my ability to pick them up. This friendly Londoner, unlike Eugene, is a conscious alter-ego I intentionally put on. Occasionally when I'm in the mall or at a summer camp or going to a new school (that hasn't happened yet, but when I go to uni I'll totally do it), I'll activate Simon and start speaking with an accent. I've devised a whole identity for him, as well as my other conscious alter-egos. He's probably my most believable conscious alter-ego as well because of how solid my British accent is.

-Patty. With a stereotypical Irish name, this alter-ego enjoys a nice pint of Guinness and some cheery folk music. He often comes off as leprechaun, though only in my own fault; I'll occasionally forget that if I don't intentionally make my voice deeper, he sounds like his Lucky Charms have been stolen. When it is a quality impersonation, it's spot on. Try not to be fooled if you ever catch me at a restaurant ordering with a little jiggy tone.

-Sean. Scottish and damn proud of it, Sean is a lad who wouldn't mind being treated to an ice cold Irn-Bru. If you run into Sean at Disney World, Universal, or Busch Gardens, feel free to say hi, but don't say anything bad about Scotland. He'll kill ye (See Begbie in the film Trainspotting). If you ever stop by a rugby or football match with Scotland playing, you might be able to find him in the sea of Scotch blue shouting the national anthem, "Flower of Scotland" at the top of his lungs. Wanna hear a live bagpipist? He's your guy.

So I hope you enjoyed the company of my four closest friends. In case you're wondering, yes I do speak to Simon, Patty, and Sean on a daily basis. Out of the three, Simon and Sean are my favourites. Patty is often nowhere to be found, probably at my mental pub. So if you see me talking to myself, I'm not REALLY talking to myself and I'm most definitely not alone.



And to finish the anecdote from the beginning, I woke up this morning and Simon was back. I suppose he went on vacation. I could use one of those. Regardless of where he went, I'm sure he had a wonderful time.

Vlogging too?!?!?!

Hey, all you readers (or reader). I realise it's been a while since you've heard from me, but I'd just like to announce that my rants can now be seen/heard on YouTube. Simply click the following link, and you will gain access to all (though not many as of now) of my rants/complaints/views on/about/regarding society.

CLICK ME!!!
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Cheers.