Road Trip 2 (The Sequel): Spring Break

Yes it's that magical time of year where all the partially educated twenty-somethings throw caution to the winds and abandon campus for exciting retreats with plenty of alcohol and no parental supervision.  And while I would no doubt love to join many of my contemporaries in (give me a moment to ask Google) Las Vegas this year, find a way to get my Slender friend caught on MTV and segue it into the stalking and subsequent evisceration of the entire cast of "Jersey Shore", it seems as though I actually have other obligations ( a lot of effort and spellchecking went into that joke, I hope you appreciate it).  Unfortunately those obligations do require me to be out of town for a few days, and that means I'm going to be away from my computer for a few days, maybe a week tops.

Honestly this doesn't really mean anything significant, I simply won't be posting on your blogs or making in new posts for that time, and there's only so much of a chance that I'd be doing that anyways.  The only real reason I'm making this post is because I'm tired of having that other one as my most recent post.  I've tried to erase it, I've tried to edit it, I've tried to figure out who was behind it, but I'm still no closer to figuring any of this out.  SO to whoever keeps hijacking my blog:

STOP IT.  

I'm dealing with enough things right now, and I really don't need some stupid hacker trying to tick me off.  I'm not sure why you're writing these things, I'm not sure why you're targeting me, but all you're doing is pissing me off, and quite frankly, I've got no problem slitting your throat and letting you bleed out.  Right now you're a distraction, and relatively low on my list of concerns, but if you ever turn into an actual nuisance I'm going to get a lot more serious about tracking you down, and in case you didn't catch it: you don't want that happening.

Bah, I'm starting to get tired of all this blogging stuff anyways, I think I'm actually going to enjoy my time off from this.

See you around

-Caged

Music of the soul

I was going to put up a post today, but it still needs work, so instead I figured I'd just put up something simple.  No bonus points if you guess who the band is, it should probably be obvious by now.  

For the record, I have no idea who Mirwin is, I just selected the first video that had the lyrics in the video.  Now I need to get some sleep, it's been a long couple of days.

See you around

Free

Or maybe not

So I had a nice little boring informational post on the Year of the Dragon planned, initially planned to go up on the Chinese New Year.  Anyone who knows when that is will probably notice I'm a bit late for it.  In fact, I've decided to postpone that particular post even longer because I've had a bit of a long week, and I'm still too lazy to get both it and studying done.  So instead of doing anything particulairly useful or intresting I'm just going to leave some music here.

See you around

FreedomCaged

Did I say seven?

Oh, I must have misspoke, I meant five.  Seriously though, because this isn't really supposed to be a blog about me I'm going to go ahead and work a little moral into this story:  When announcing plans online for dealing with someone in an aggressive nature, always lie about your schedule and/or specific plans.  If you take them early they will be caught off guard before they're ready, and if you take action later than you said you would, then they will either be burned out from anticipation or believe you to have forgotten your plans.  This is true for both the Hunted and Proxies, by the way, just so that's clear.  Anyways, I'm sure you lot want the story so I'll go ahead and share it now.

It is astonishingly easy to find out all you need to know about someone when you know their name and location, which is why I've never been running around sharing mine (though the notably observant should have narrowed down my location to four or five states by now).  Anyways, I was able to find Phillip's (that's the proxy's name for those of you wondering) room quite easily, and conveniently enough he didn't have a roommate.  It was easy to ambush him after his last class, a rope around his neck cut off his oxygen supply, and when I had parked close enough to his dorm that getting him to my car without anyone noticing was simply a matter of timing.

You know the economy really has taken it's toll.  It's almost a shame there are all these neighborhood filled with empty houses.  After driving to the place I had set up for our talk I dropped off Phillip and made sure he wouldn't be leaving or alerting anyone in the area of his presence anytime soon and returned to school for a couple of hours, just to make sure there wasn't anything I missed.  Around 3:00 in the afternoon I returned to the house to find my proxy friend awake and confused.  The following conversation is not verbatim, but it is close enough to get the general idea across.

Me:  (while removing a gag) So you're awake, good, we can have our conversation now.

Phillip:  (glaring) What do you want?

Me:  I want to know why you're here.

Phillip:  (struggling against the ropes) I'm here because you kidnapped me you physcho! (remember this isn't verbatim, some of it has also been strategiclly edited to be more family freindly.  In case you haven't noticed I'm not a very profane person.)

Me:  There's plenty of people out there that would call you a physcho just as quickly.  ( I retreived his mask from my backpack (yes he had a mask, it was in his room, not even well hidden))  I know what you are, I knew from the second I saw you, now why don't why try again? ( I flipped open my knife) Why are you here?

Phillip:  (He showed surperise at first, followed by a breif flash of fear before he answered with an ovbiously false bravado) Oh so you're a runner  ( Somehow it was both refreshing and annoying to be mistaken for a runner) you'll never get away with this "Father" (yes, he's one of those proxies) will protect me (he sneered).

Me:  (rolling my eyes) Oh well, good for him.  (I moved behind him so he couldn't see me)  Do you know who I am, Phillip?  Have you heard of (I said me real name here, I will of course not repeat it to the masses).  Or perheaps "FreedomCaged"

Phillip:  (he shook his head) No why should I?

Me:  You shouldn't, and it's fortunate for you that you don't.  (I leaned forward and put my knife against his neck) But I still need a reason to let you live, I've come this far, and to let you leave here would be a waste.

Unfortunately for dramatic timing this is when the Slender Man himself decided to make an entrance.  I mean sure it was a good place for him to enter, but if I had been in charge of his timing he would have appeared a few lines later at a much more dramatic moment.  Still, I suppose it was good enough placement to present adaquate theatrics.  After I was informed it would be in my best intrest to let Phillip go I gladly cut him loose and sent him on his way.  Admitadly he didn't have a car, and I may have been less than skillful when removing his binding, but I have no doubt he made it to a public road long before there was any risk of death by blood loss.  After that the big guy and I had a little talk about boundries, by the end we of course hugged and made up, or at the very least neither of us treid to fattaly wound the other, so I'm calling it a sucess.

Long story short: it turns out the proxy was simply a spook, asigned to someone else in that class (I'm not sure who, yet, I haven't noticed any Hunted, but it gets easier to tell the longer they're exposed to Slender shenagians, so I'll figure it out.).  So that's the story, I bet is was just riviting.  I'd add a soundtrack, but my next class begins rather shortly, so I'll just say so long for now.  The next post will be about someting other than myself, so rejoice in that.

See you around

Caged

Some News and a Happy New Year

Hello everyone, and happy holidays (I would say Merry Christmas, but the day has come and gone, and the saying would therefore be belated).  I'm really just checking in at this point, and as a result this will be a shamefully lacking in the psychological and philosophical insight you have all undoubtedly come to know and tolerate.  I do have a personal story for you, albeit a somewhat boring one, I know how some of you people seem to enjoy those things, so I guess I'll begin with that.

I saw someone who was hunted today.  I was at the store in my home town (it's not a huge place, but it's a much more populated area than where my college is), picking up some groceries and other necessities.  Anyways, as I was browsing I felt a hunted near by, I looked around and was able to pinpoint him pretty quickly, a tall ragged man with light brown hair and an impressive beard.  If I had to guess I would definitely put him on the runner's end of the spectrum, he had an old backpack and that slightly crazy look in his eye.  He looked, felt, and to be perfectly blunt, smelled like he had been on the run for several years, at the very least he'd been at it long enough to accumulate the lifestyle and appearance of a homeless beggar.  I watched him discreetly as he purchased several cans of food, at one point I believe he actually spotted me, but he showed no signs of knowing who I was, outside of an increased paranoia that seemed to show up whenever he made eye contact with anyone, including the cashier.  As he left the store he walked quickly down the road, I considered following him for a moment, but I decided against it, I could not positively influence his life one way or the other, and I don't believe I would have learned much from him that could have helped me.  I didn't notice any proxies around when I saw him, and good old Slender didn't make an appearance, so at least he was not being followed while I was there.  While my curiosity was piqued, I doubt this will actually affect me, after all, it seems there are more and more hunted with each passing day, and this isn't the first time I've seen one who didn't realize my nature, so it should all be irrelevant.

Now on to more relevant matters: I have a few plans for blog posts, but those will have to wait a little while, as they either require more research or "can't be revealed, yet."  Many of the latter may never be posted, but I know for a fact that some will be after a certain amount of time.  As it stands, this will likely be my last blog post for the year, so cheers and see you in 2012 I guess.  I'll probably change the format of this blog up a little bit, I'm not sure what it'll look like yet, so if you get on here and everything looks hideous don't worry, that's hopefully not the final look.  Last of all, I want to point out that I am a relatively broke college student, and as a result I'm considering signing up for that AdSense deal google keeps pestering me about.  If you have a problem with that feel free to comment your protest, but frankly, I'm providing a service here (if not a terribly great one), and I like money at least as much as the next guy, assuming he isn't a banker or named in Forbes.  So that's about it for now, enjoy yourselves out there, and see you next year.

Oh, and one last thing before I forget, I'll soon be adding a new page that will function as a sort of table of contents for the blog.  It will have a link to each post that I've made and a breif summary of what was said there, and what was said in the comments.  People trying to catch may now rejoice.  Even though my blog is not a personal story, I always know that I love it when I can get caught up to the general information quickly so I don't feel as though I've missed as much when I begin commenting on present posts.

See you around

Cage

Good and Evil

Dang I need to think up a more creative title, but its late and there are way to many cliche phrases that would have been just as bad, so this will have to do.  Yes that's right, what we have here is a nice little pseudo-philosophical post on morality so if you don't care for that sort of thing here's you're chance to leave, though frankly you should be used to this kind of thing by now, I mean just check out how much use my probably useless tag gets.  Sorry, irrelevant tangent, did I mention that it's pretty late?  Let's try again, shall we:

Defining good or evil isn't exactly the easiest thing to do in any society, much less one such as this, what with all the side-swapping, brainwashed husks (thanks to messenger for this word, I personally find it much more accurate than hallowed), people forced into one side or the other against their will.  So since I can't exactly make a truly accurate definition for these terms why don't I provide a dictionary definition for them:

Good: (noun, adjective, adverb,)

1.  morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious: a good man.
2. satisfactory in quality, quantity, or degree: a good teacher;good health.
3. of high quality; excellent.
4. right; proper; fit: It is good that you are here. His credentialsare good.
5. well-behaved: a good child.

Evil: (adjective)

1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering;unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evilreputation.
5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known forhis evil disposition.

Well I could begin by dissecting the definition of each of the words in those two definitions that are equally vague or conditional, but we really don't want this to be a twenty page long post, so I'll skip past that and just leave these here for later reference.  

Morality is a tricky thing, how do you know if someone is a good person, if they are truly "morally excellent and virtuous?"  Do you define a person as good based on their actions, do you judge them on their intentions, or is there some other quality or trait that makes that distinction?  Perhaps it is a combination of the above, can you really justify slaughtering innocent lives if it is all a means to a virtuous end, or can you really call someone who has saved the lives of many people just to further his own selfish goals good.  

But then where lies the line, can "Joseph" truly be considered an evil person?  Yes he kills people, innocent people, but he does this for his own safety, and he grants his victims (who would probably die anyways) a sense of peace in their final hour.  What of Elaine, who sold out people who trusted her, but with the motivation of keeping others safe and protected.  Very few would likely call her evil, but does the goodness of her intentions outweigh the fact that people got hurt as a result of what she did, and even directly told their enemies.  There's The Mad Ventriloquist, who used to do some very bad things, but is trying to help people (he has his own view on morality of course, not sure I agree, but it deserves to be mentioned).  Have you seen Nightscream's most recent post, what would be the good answer to his question?  Is it good to let a cruel man go unpunished?  Where would Zero fall on this scale?  Was he a good man? Or was he a evil one (I went through hell for that link because I forgot the word "The" in the title and had to track down one of zero's old comments)?  What about the Husks, people brainwashed beyond their own control, with no real power over their own actions; can these people really be considered evil?

(Side note: none of these examples are meant to incite anger, resentment, or drama, they are just being used to show that very few people realistically fall into the categories of good or evil.)

The point I'm trying to make, in a long, drawn out, and heavily linked way (I do love my links, so good for showing examples) is that good and evil are not only vague, subjective, and inconstant, they're also rare and out of balance.  The fact is, if we had a single concrete method for determining whether a person was truly good or truly evil then there would undoubtedly still be an absurdly high number of people milling about in the middle (in fact I'm of the opinion that no one would really ever make it into the truly good side).  I sometimes wonder if anyone could really ever really sort everyone they know into either of those categories, if they could ever even find someone who was truly good.  Sometimes I wonder where I would fall if we were all being sorted into categories.  Then I remember who I am in my own mind and I realize that they'd have to cut my in half to sort me right, heh.

EDIT: Huh, I thought that was longer, well try reading through all of those links, that should more than cover the minimum length requirement for being to long.  Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to sleep, I get to sleep in tomorrow and I don't want to miss out on a moment of that.

See you around

FreedomCaged

What binds us together

So in hindsight that title is a tiny bit pretentious, but I couldn't think of anything better, and it ties in well with what I want to talk about first, the things that cause people to bind together into communities.  Communities don't just spontaneously arise, their has to be a unifying principle to bring people together, in fact there are three great commonalities that are associated with creating communities: Common Goal, Common Need, and Common Fear.  While many reasons exist to come together, most, if not all, fall under one or more of these three categories, in fact it can be rationally said that even communities built on common need and common fear fall under the ideal of achieving a set goal.  People come together for these reasons, they depend on each other for survival, protection, and mutual benefit, but there are many different ways that people come together.

Much of what determines the effectiveness of a community is the level of trust and cohesion in it, communities with members who cannot rely on each other to fulfill their responsibility to the whole of the group cannot achieve their mutual goal as easily.  This means that until enough of the individuals of a community have developed strong relationships with each other or shared several bonding experiences communities are quite chaotic, and finding members willing make sacrifices for the good of the group are very rare.  Eventually this can be overcome without conscious effort as the individuals start to see evidence of how much they need to rely on each other, and how much their comrades rely on them, and start to take bigger risks and contribute greater efforts with the idea of the groups benefit rather than their own.  Communities at this level have higher levels of survival and success for both the community and the individual, as many people are willing to step in and assist each other when they see fellow members suffering.  However, communities with this level of support often take longer to form, as it takes shared experiences to form an emotional bond; these communities also have a higher standard for true membership, they may accept new people in a superficial manner, but they will often not trust this new member without considerable reason or need.

Communities will often have a specific way of choosing their membership, usually centered on how they were formed.  Geographical communities will encompass everyone in the given area, however, these communities can often be very critical of new members, as geographical communities have a higher tendency to go long periods of time without experiencing any new members.  The smaller the community is the more likely this is to be the case, as all of the members will recognize someone new.  Cultural communities are different in the fact that they are much larger, and often have more specific requirements for membership.  However, these communities can sometimes be quite easy to join, assuming you fulfill some physical requirement (usually  based on race or ethnicity), and sometimes even these can be ignored if enough other requirements are fulfilled.  Finally there are communities that develop around highly specific goals, cultural and geographic communities are designed to limit their membership based on boundaries that aren't very static, whereas goal-oriented communities only require that new members contribute to the goal the community is focused on, and restrictions will only be made to reduce behaviors that inhibit the goal.  A goal-oriented community is the one most likely to follow the growth outlined in the previous paragraph, due to the fact that the creation of new goal-oriented communities are far more common than new cultural or geographic communities.  Goal-oriented communities are also have the shortest "life-span" by far, primarily because they no longer have a purpose after either completing their goal or finding that they are incapable of being more successful in a group than tackling the problem as individuals.

There, I sat down and cranked that out a day early, aren't you proud of me.  As usual feel free to leave any questions, corrections, or advice in the comments section, or e-mail me through my profile.  Next I should be posting my opinion on the Core Theory presented by Robert Sagel, I know I was going to talk about hive minds, but I do lie, and I need to do some more research first anyways.  Besides considering it is currently between the Halloween and the solstice I think this is the perfect time to examine the concept that defined almost an entire generation of bloggers.

See you around

Cage

Happy Halloween

Hello again, everyone, and happy holidays.  I'm sorry I haven't gotten up my community post yet, though I do promise that it is half done... okay a third done.  I am a horrible procrastinator, and frankly I was hoping there would be a few questions on the last post to give me an excuse for not updating so quickly when I already had all of my information in order.  I do promise, however, that my new post will be up by Wednesday, or Saturday at the latest.  I talked to the tall businessman earlier, and he refuses to wear the tie I got for him, I'm disappointed, but I think we all knew that he wasn't going to change his wardrobe for trick or treating.

If I were a bit more dedicated of a person I'd crank out a quick analysis of All Hallows Eve and how it relates to the Catholic All Saint's Day on November 1st.  Or I'd talk in depth about how candy was symbolic of the gifts that were placed on doorsteps to ward of evil spirits.  Or I'd draw parallels between it and the Spanish holiday Dia De Dus Muertos.  However, I'm not that dedicated, so you only get what I remember off the top of my head, besides, you probably don't care that much about an academic lecture of today, and I have to design and program a game for my intro to programming class, so I'll leave you with this: Have a happy Halloween, and be wary of small children in masks.

Oh, and before I forget, it seems that my poll revels the greatest fear of those gathered here is losing control, either of your physical or mental capabilities, it seems that only one person who has voted thus far doesn't share this fear.  Second place goes to the fear of isolation, neither of these are particularly surprising fears, but if you haven't voted yet please feel free, the poll is still open for a few days.

See you around

Cage