I also need stimulation. I need to be doing interesting things and talking to interesting people. My ideas come from interaction with the outside world. More importantly, I need diverse inputs. I have to be interacting with lots of different people/things.

I don’t feel as if I’m getting enough time for either of these things, although I am getting better dosages of the latter.

As much as I disliked college, it was an excellent environment for fostering creativity. It gave me heavy dosages of both things. I had ample free time, which I had enough free time to do my creative things. Seriously, so much free time. I wasn’t in class 8 hours a day; I had no commute; I didn’t need decompression time. Even with homework, more time belonged to me. College also provided a lot of interesting fodder for comic material. I interacted with a larger, more diverse group of people. The people I knew ranged across a broad spectrum from acquaintance to friend. Being forced to take new classes meant I met new people every semester. New classes also meant I was being exposed to new information.

Last year, I went on a delete binge. I tried to remove inputs from my life. I stopped reading blogs, comics, newspapers; I watch less TV. Overall, I don’t know if it’s made my life any better, or made me any happier. I don’t know if the answer is “less.” When it comes to TV, I’m glad that I don’t just sit there and channel surf anymore. However, I like watching TV and I feel like TV is good for me insofar as good storytelling is good for me. I want to watch a variety of shows. Getting lots of inputs is good for creativity.

I guess perhaps I need to be more discriminating when it comes to these inputs. Less news. Less abstraction. More stories. More conversations.

I am not going to lock myself into any projects now, except the one Ruby on Rails project. But as soon as that is done, I will push forward with another project.

I also want to establish some new habits. This don’t need to be done at once. I want to start journaling everyday. I think I need to spend more time reflecting. Then, I want to start blogging again. I would also like to do some health related habits after that.

Lastly, I want to make a lot more money this year than last year.

2. When I taught this book to younger kids, I don’t remember any of them thinking Jones should still be in charge.

If you read Animal Farm and think Jones should have stayed in charge, you might have read Burke.

3. Although the original villain Jones stands in for the monarchists, it is interesting that all the farmers are really businessmen.

Alright, now I’m officially a two-time winner for Time’s Person of the Year.

Lessons learned: 1. Never ever carry a second kicker. Kickers are way too random to make it worth holding one during the bye week. 2. Don’t think you are set if your depth lacks talent. I thought I was set with Jackie Battle, but he didn’t have that much talent. So, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he faded. I should have been more aggressive in the RB market. Or rather, I never should have dropped Tolbert. That was my biggest mistake.

My best move was trading Pierre Thomas for Antonio Brown. PT didn’t do much, while Brown was consistent. And he scored me a bunch of points this week.

Aside from the best, TE’s are a crap shoot. You either get a touchdown or you don’t. And touchdowns are way too random. Here are the only TE’s I’d consider grabbing early next year: Gronk, Graham, Gates, Hernandez, and Fred Davis. Not too many TE’s can get good yardage. Gronk may be worth an extreme premium next year (as early as third rd… Maybe even 2nd). I suspect that because of his injury history these past two years, Gates may be available at a steep discount. If you don’t get the top tier TE’s, you can wait until the very end of the draft.

I am still trying to figure out tiering with WR’s. It seems like receiving yardage is so variable, that I am not sure what the difference is between a WR2 and a WR3. This is something I will need to look up. I traded Roddy White for Reggie Bush and Tolbert right before White finally started having games where he scored 10+ points. He was getting consistent points before, but nothing spectacular. He stopped dropping so many balls after I traded him. I don’t regret the trade at all, though. Bush has played well and I don’t think Brown was a huge downgrade. I did have a Djax for Jacobs trade that got cancelled before I could accept. My internet was out because AT&T sucks. Djax was my biggest headache this year. I thought he would do well when I drafted him. Oh yeah, another lesson: Avoid headcases.

The Slap Kings won this week and earned a number 1 seed. It is time for a 3-peat.

Slap Kings is first place, and I think a win clinches a playoff spot. Somehow this team has survived ridiculous injuries. Here are my top 7 draft picks: Jamaal Charles (out for season), Mike Wallace (still a stud), Frank Gore (a stud, but has underperformed since he got hurt), Ahmad Bradshaw (been hurt for last several weeks, but might actually play this week), Matt Schaub (out for season), Jimmy Graham (beast), and Kenny Britt. So, I’ve lost a lot of top-performing guys. But I have managed to overcome it. Time for a 3rd consecutive title.

Secondly, I really like Gaius Baltar as a character. He shows an incredible survival instinct. He’s not a very morally admirable creature, but he manages to stay alive throughout big changes. When I first watched the show, I really identified with Lee, but I liked Tigh and Gaius as interesting characters. Anyway, what I’m wondering is if I should be more like Gaius. Or rather: What if the revolution fails?

I know, it’s a leap to even say there’s a revolution going on. There may or may not be. It’s like a recession. You won’t really know until things are all fucked up. There’s a good likelihood it can fail. People aren’t organized well. The police have become increasingly militarized, so it’s easier to stop the people. Those in power have been able to act with impunity, so it’s unsurprising if things get more violent but they win.

Now, there are degrees of freedom. Cicero died because he loved the Republic, but people lived pretty well under the Empire. Not every tyranny is a police state. If there’s a revolution (or a lesser degree of it), there are questions to consider: How much freedom can I lose? Can the revolution succeed?

If it can’t succeed, it may be smarter just to keep one’s mouth shut. If we keep the status quo, things aren’t that bad for me. And even in China, many people live decent lives.

Last Saturday, as I’m watching football, my TV suddenly shuts off. So, now my TV is broken and I have no internet. I’m glad my friends were able to make do with watching a DVD on my friends laptop.

Oh and I lost my fantasy football QB for the year. So, I’ve got Tebow in one league (glad no one picked him up after I dropped him) and Palmer in another league (a bye week solution becomes a permanent solution).

All in all, not a great week. But in my head, I wanted to label it one of the worst weeks ever.

It wasn’t, though. I’ve lived without TV before. I’ve lived without internet at my place before. I had to walk to Starbucks to use the internet, or use it at work, but it wasn’t as if some great injustice had been done to me. I’m paying a little bit more for Comcast now. My TV is still under warranty, and I still have a working old TV.

Yet even if this stuff wasn’t easily replaced, it’s still only stuff. I don’t need any of it. It’s good to be reminded of that. Or rather, I need to make an effort to remind myself of it more frequently (not just from time to time). It’s just stuff. It doesn’t matter.

I believe the Occupy movement is rather important — not just now, but in a historical sense. I’ve been reading Glenn Greenwald’s new book, and I’m getting angry about things I had let myself forget. (Why did I forget about telco immunity after illegal wiretapping? Probably a lack of agency, but that’s just an excuse.) His book shows how the elite escape the justice system in America. The US is controlled by an oligarchy, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but it becomes bad when these rulers aren’t constrained by the rule of law. Who is in this oligarchy? Government, corporate leaders, media? Because of the revolving door, there’s no meaningful distinction here. They’re all the same people, switching from job to job. So, when people argue about the blame in the financial crisis, whether it was government or corporate greed, it doesn’t really matter which is which because the people in both worlds are the same people. The Occupy movement is important because this is the first popular uprising against the financial elite. They control our government and act with impunity. They must be stopped. They are the 1% that are being talked about.

I don’t know if our government needs radical reform. I’m inclined to think that it doesn’t. One of the problems with monarchy is that it requires the right people — and more often than not, you’ll have the wrong people. I don’t know that democracy solves this problem. You still need the right people in power. (Plus, you need the rule of law.) So, I think rather than thinking about reform, it is essential to take out the people currently holding power. I won’t necessarily agree with the new people, but all I want is a respect for the rule of law and a hatred for the old rulers. Part of this will involve voting people out. We must also disinvest in evil companies, or at least demand better CEO’s. We must break the current political parties. We must turn off cable news. A revolution needs to sweep the oligarchy from power.

There is another thing we can do, which is rather controversial: Resort to violence. It’s odd to find myself ambivalent about violence. So, I’ll talk through the reasons for violence. The fact is that the bankers are guilty of fraud and bringing down the economy. Instead of facing justice for crimes, they got big bonuses. Bullshit. If you go back a hundred years and further, these people would have been tarred, feathered, and run out of town. Perhaps justice can be done — if the mob carries it out instead of the courts. Oddly enough, when I discuss this with people — suggesting that instead of setting up encampments or protesting, the aggrieved burn down mansions, my suggestions face less pushback than I would expect. People seem less afraid of the idea than I do myself.

The only thing holding me back is that I wouldn’t do this myself. I couldn’t actually lead a mob, hold a torch, and light someone’s house on fire — even after all the nasty things they’ve done. Thus, I can’t put my money where my mouth is. So, I have no business advocating what I wouldn’t do myself. I hope that this sentiment comes from an inner civility and conscience, not from a lack of courage.

I can still promote all the things I mentioned earlier. I still want these people punished. I want their reputations tattered and their power taken away. I want them disgraced. And, once that has happened, I want their crimes prosecuted.

I don’t believe it will fix all our problems, but I do believe it is a good start in restoring the rule of law and restoring power to the people of America.