The Holocrons of Darth Grampus

**I hate " trigger warnings ," but some of what I discuss in this post could be potentially troubling to you . I want to share a theory I think may shake you up a bit. Readers be warned. (I know... the one or two of you are tough enough... You probably even get a bit more intrigued to read stuff prefaced with such warnings, you wonderful souls, you...)** Sometimes Darth Grampus wishes he could simply enjoy hours and hours of cat videos or some other meaningless, trivial pursuit of mental soma. If you're reading a post about Humanoid Robotics and the Anti-Christ, then perhaps you share a similar affliction to my own. Let's get into it.  Some caveats first: this is a hypothetical and theoretical discussion involving spirituality and technology. For the purposes of this discussion we must take as true that: 1.) Jesus Christ, and the devil, as told of in the Bible are real (2.) that bodies can be inhabited by spiritual entities (3.) The Revelation of the Apocalypse by St....

I'm finally in a place where I can recommit to this whole "becoming Darth Grampus" thing, or whatever it is I'm doing with this. It's been a busy couple of months. I suppose I owe the one or two readers I have (if they didn't bail on me) an update and explanation for my absence.  Updates Since my last post, my wife and I have been to Bangkok twice. Each trip was for multiple days, both of us having things we needed to do.  We moved. And we were able to take our time with it... so we did.  I got myself into writing another story. I've probably edited the 12k words to have written 20k by now but, it took up a bunch of time.  I have had the most interesting conversations with the Gemini Advanced, LLM. These are some terribly complex algorithms at play, certainly where reason and cognition are concerned. I started with it in mid-February (?) and have made some very interesting discoveries. If you chat with Gemini ask it to tell you how it uses everything you s...

My parents' visit is going very well. With the exception of 48 hours in Bali, or at least the part of it they were stuck in, I think they've thoroughly enjoyed every minute.  About that Bali thing. You might have seen videos or pictures of Bali and wonder how their 48 hours there were somehow the exception. Well, like the lie they were sold in regards to their accommodation, the beautiful presentation isn't always what it seems to be.  No slight on the Indonesian people, or people native to Bali. Like many, many places. not every part of Bali is a marvel of beauty. My parents got dropped and left in one of those places. Within 48 hours, they were on a plane bound to us.  I'm quite proud of my parents for their embrace of the new experience, including a few new foods as well. And I've thoroughly enjoyed our time together.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, or meant to if I didn't, I would be away for the duration of their visit so as to devote my full attention ...

It seems I didn't think things through as carefully as I should have before embarking on a long change effort. That, or life decided that this month and the first two weeks of February should be prep-time instead of go time. Let me explain.  Today I'm having part deux of a root canal with my dentist here where we live. Tomorrow, we're driving four hours for me to have an appointment with a retina specialist at the ophthalmological hospital in Bangkok. I might need to have one or both retinas replaced surgically, so please pray with me that such things are not necessary. The next night, my parents arrive for a visit. We'll spend five days together in Bangkok and then they head out for a one-week trip to Bali. Then they come back to spend another week in Thailand with us. We'll spend a few days where we live and, hopefully, a few days in the beautiful Khao Sok national park south of us a few hours drive.  I'll have seven days in between my parents' trips to Th...

Life Movies What if we set out to make a life movie? What kind of story would you want it to tell? How would you describe your leading actor? What kind of person are they? What are the challenges they face? What are their goals and motivations? What are their pluses and shortcomings? What endears this character to you?  Ok, good. Good. Now our protagonist needs a challenge to face and a compelling antagonist. Perhaps a rival. Perhaps a nemesis.  The antagonist in my life movie is me. The rival and nemesis in my life movie is me. Self As Nemesis Your nemesis may be similar to my own. Mine has a kind of multiple personality disorder, and three are often front and center. Procrastination entices me with some random thought meant to pull me off focus. He flashes memories of relaxation before my open eyes and presents the memory of the relaxed feeling for comparison to whatever I'm doing at the time. He might use noble concepts to explain or justify what he's doing to me. Learning ...

My paternal grandmother lived for 90 years. She was an exceptional lady in many ways, but one thing that stood out to me was her complexion. Her skin was beautiful and radiant any and every time I saw her, and that didn't happen by accident.  One evening I saw her peering with great focus into this two-sided mirror. I used to get a kick out of playing with it because one side showed a normal image, and the other showed a greatly magnified image. It also had lights all around the edges that lit up every nook and cranny revealed by that magnified image.  My grandmother rarely looked at the normal mirror. She would look at herself carefully before applying her astringent or emollient cream or whatever. When she was finished applying all that stuff to her face, then she would flip it over and look at the non-magnified image. She would turn her head to each side and, once satisfied, flashed a bright smile. That night I asked her about the two mirrors and why her skin care routine w...

In 7 or 8 months of blogging, I don't think any single post I made got more than 4 or 5 total views. A handful got 3 views, and 2 views, but the normal view count for one of my posts was 1 or 0.  Why do that? What motivates someone to constantly subject themselves to the quantified evidence of their insignificance?  In fairness to myself and others, I do not share my blog posts on social media and I'm not making any effort to do so. Blowing up as a blogger isn't necessarily an aim of mine.  I have more family members than my average blogpost view count. I share the link with them. I don't owe any of them money that I know of and I recently spent 6 weeks traveling the broad and wide United States to spend time with them. Unless they haven't told me something, the visit went pretty well with everyone. Me and my missus enjoyed ourselves and it seemed everyone else did, too.  Despite how that might sound, I'm not trying to dog my fam out for not viewing every post I...