(no subject)

[gogmagog]

I love reading Freud. His world is so simple and hilarious, especially dream interpretation. Banana? Represents a penis. Eyes? Represent a penis. Car accident? Represents a penis. Methinks someone has a one-track mind. XD

I also love his hypocrisy. For example, in his essay "The Uncanny" he's talking about things that people find strange, and talks about how they're often assigning bizarre motivations to things with perfectly simple ones. Then like, two paragraphs later he talks about how once he found it uncanny that he'd wandered into a red-light district with a lot of hookers, and he kept TRYING to get away but omg, he kept finding himself back at the hookers! Imagine that! :O

Lack of self-insight is a terrible thing.

Anyway, since I've got a lot more money than I thought I would at this point (as of yesterday, I'd spent under half of my monthly total discretionary budget), I treated myself to We Love Katamari. It's pretty much what you'd expect - the most quirky fun I've had since the original KD. I love the King's swelled head (and his infamous Chin). <3 <3 <3

There are some cool new features in the game: you can import your cosmos from the original Katamari Damacy, you can switch characters from the Prince to his cousins outside of multiplayer (the only cousin I have so far is Ace, the one from the tutorial); the collection feature seems new and improved, with a shit-ton more of stuff to collect (but the trademark funny descriptions are there); and apparently there's a multiplayer mode. >D

Other video game nattering: I've almost finished Radiata Stories - the human side only, but I already have more characters in my friends book than Suikoden has IN AN ENTIRE GAME. (For the record, I think it's around 130/177.) At this point, I've recruited basically everyone I can on the human side, and I'm at the last dungeon. So now to get the ending, play through the optional dungeon to get Lenneth Valkyrie from Valkyrie Profile (YAY)...and then start over and lose all of my fun characters so that I can play through the nonhuman side. x_x

Er, what else should I write about...oh yeah! On Wednesday I went to a Prairie Lights reading by Whitney Terrell, a KC author. I hadn't read any of his books (though I'd heard that The Huntsman was good), but I figured I'd better go since I knew him secondhand - he's worked with my stepdad and I took classes with his wife Gayle Levy (French and Honors). Anyway, he was reading from his new book, The King of Kings County, which is set in Kansas City as well and covers the period in the '50s when the suburbs basically came to be, and is a pretty firm indictment of the realty companies and their construction of segregated suburbs (KC is actually more segregated, residential-wise, now than it was back during Jim Crow!) and their major role in making them that way through the use of racial contracts (e.g., agreeing not to sell your house in a lily-white subdivision to anyone black), et cetera. Anyway, from what I hear it's scathing when it comes to J.C. Nichols the "Boens" (creators of the Plaza "Campanile") and also of Johnson County "Kings County." He talked about how he's going to speak at the Olathe Public Library next week, and how he's going to have to give a different speech because "these are the very people I'm talking about!" XD

For those who don't know, Johnson County is KC-ese for "rich white assholes." (See: "Johnson County driver.") They're not ALL white (anymore), and they're not ALL assholes, but the exceptions are still the minority, and they're ALL rich pretty much (you've gotta be to afford a house out there).

But in addition to buying his new book and getting him to sign it, I also picked up Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys - they were selling the signed first editions, which made me go YAY. :D

LJ Interests meme results

1. boxer rebellion:
   I got interested in this because of my step-great-great-aunt's diary (she was a missionary under siege in Peking during said rebellion). It's really quite interesting, and in many ways I feel it's the bridging event between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
2. england:
   Err, if you've known me for more than, say, TEN MINUTES, you probably know that I heart England, feel that the time I spent there was probably the best of my life, want to live there someday (or NOW if possible), and in general am just horrifically Anglophilic.
3. gamecube:
   Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Zelda, Sonic...how can you not love this console? (By the way, I'm hoping to try Tales of Symphonia once I finish Radiata Stories.)
4. kansas city:
   Well, it's my hometown, so I kinda HAVE to like it. Though I've noticed I appreciate it much more since I've left it. XD
5. manga:
   Wow, I list really general boring interests, don't I? Well, I'm a manga fiend, and devour it, especially fun fluffy shoujo manga and the occasional shounen manga.
6. persona:
   Probably my favorite RPG series, hands-down. I think the Persona 2 games (Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment) are pure, unadulterated GENIUS.
7. s club:
   They're peppy, cheesy Britpop - one of my flatmates hooked me on them when I was in England (and it didn't help that EVERY SINGLE CLUB I went to played "S Club Party" at some point during the evening).
8. suikoden:
   Another of my favorite RPG series. In summary: gay protagonists, lots of characters, direct sequels/prequels (which means returning characters), and occasionally some truly kickass characters.
9. university of iowa:
   Welp, it's where I'm gonna be for the next six-plus years, may as well get interested in it now. XD
10. 日本語:
    = Nihongo = Japanese language. I R CLEVAR HAHA

Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.

Also, I'm totally looking forward to rathershady and courters28 coming to visit me this weekend (they're getting in tonight). :D

Let's Positive Linking!
- Horny farmer drops grain sack on boner, snaps ligaments (from surlykitty). OWWWW WTF
- Gay Boyfriend (from firestorm717). THERE ARE NO WORDS XD
- ... GASP HOLY SHIT Digital Devil Saga 2 and Romancing SaGa are coming out on the same day! And Wild Arms Alter Code F comes out a week later! *weeps for poor bank account* At least it's at the beginning of the month, so I'll be relatively flush. Also, apropos of nothing, the Resident Evil 4 chainsaw controller is the BEST PERIPHERAL EVAR.

Comments

[dincrest.livejournal.com]

Here's the thing with Freud. He was constantly revising his theories. Therefore, he knew his earlier stuff was incorrect and he'd keep revising. Granted, a lot of his latest stuff, which makes a lot of sense, was never published because he was such a perfectionist and wanted his theories to be flawless.

In addition, I think the whole deconstructing of Freud and pointing out what was wrong with his theories and nitpicking like that is missing the whole point of his contribution to psychology. If he didn't ask the kinds of questions he did and postulate the kinds of theories he did, then psychology as we know it wouldn't exist. The same could be said for others like Piaget. Sure, his theories have been deconstructed and flaws have been found, but nitpicking Piaget almost seems to be missing the whole point of his contribution to the science.

Freud's one of my heroes. Granted, a lot of what we read by him sounds silly in our modern world, he wasn't afraid to think outside the box and ask the kinds of questions we were afraid to ponder.

As for Freud being a walking contradiction in the example you mention, what human isn't? We're all walking contradictions. We ALL do things without having much self-insight about them and may perhaps be in denial. Freud is just illustrating something very common in humans.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally think Freud was a groundbreaker, and contributed - hell, practically created, at least in a modern sense - the field of psychology. I'm just amused at the fact that from everything of his I've read, he seems jsut completely obsessed with sex to a ridiculous point and therefore thinks that everyone else is too. XD

[dincrest.livejournal.com]

And why not? I'm sure back in his days, there was a LOT more sexual repression than we've had growing up and the more sexual repression there is, the more people think about it, right? It's like if you haven't eaten in a long time, you're consumed by thoughts of food.

And we're guys. We probably think about sex every 3-8 seconds. Freud just says what we think and are afraid to say:P

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't say I think about sex often AT ALL (which I guess is atypical for a guy?) but I still think Freud is overdoing it.

I mean, seriously, the Oedipus complex? Mr. Freud, I think we're projecting~~~

[dincrest.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you read the Sexy Losers webcomic at all (it's NOT work safe), but the whole "Kenta's Horny Mom" story arc is appropo for this discussion and wrong on sooooo many counts.

http://www.sexylosers.com/strips.html#4

(Though the Shiunji & Suicide Girl arc is even more wrong than is wrongly possible, but that's too deviant even for archetypical Freud.)

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I know Sexy Losers well. And the Mrs. Shibata arc IS indeed very wrong and funny. In fact, it seems like all the best SL storylines are - Shiunji and Suicide Girl, the Lighter Side of Being Cuckolded, all the Mike stories, etc.

[firestorm717.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha I got the gay boyfriend song stuck in two people's heads now XD;

[courters28.livejournal.com]

You better watch out, Vinnie might try to steal We Love Katamari from you. ;) He's been talking about it incessantly, to the point where I wish he'd just buy it already! :P

[rathershady.livejournal.com]

Its not my fault that you keep having to study all night so I can't get to the videogame store ;)

Joseph you better not get your hopes up too high unless you reply to my email and give me your address!

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I thought I'd already given it to you. XD