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When I finally arrived at this blog layout and design (after a few false starts) I took down my previous blog and all 600+ of its posts. I didn’t think anyone would miss them much, but according to my traffic statistics and a few correspondents, some of the posts are missed. That is why I’ve decided to bring back online my blog archive from the past. This blog ran from July of 2014 to May of 2018 and was titled “My Beautiful Life.” On this blog, I mish-mashed a bunch of stuff together including tutorials, programming, game playing (let’s plays), and musings about my life and struggles to become a whole person. There wasn’t a whole lot of cohesion to it, but I decided after a while that despite its best effort it didn’t help me make any new friends, AND it was kind of negative. ... [Read More]

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Back in the day, when I was about twenty-two and a bit later, ’til about twenty-six, I wrote poetry. I haven’t written a real poem in a very long time. I used to be so into poem writing that I would go to “open-mics” and read my poems with my friend and brief-boyfriend Calvin. Calvin was significantly older than me, and unfortunately, the relationship didn’t quite work out on my end. Calvin and I would go to the Mercury Café in Denver and read poetry, and we’d also go to a place called the Kasbah. What’s interesting about that is that Calvin and I were two white gay guys, and the Kasbah (or Casbah) was a mainly African-American lounge that had a poetry night. So we’d show up and we’d be the only two gay white guys amidst a see of strong black poets. It was a little bit daunting. Of course, I decided to try my hand at being a “spoken word” artist and composed a SUPER long poem. I tried to pull it off and I was clapped offstage (or played offstage) at both the Mercury and the Kasbah… very embarrassing. After that, and the fact there was a shooting at the Kasbah one night I didn’t go, and my interest in open-mic’ing kinda died out. ... [Read More]

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Back in the day, when I was about twenty-two and a bit later, ’til about twenty-six, I wrote poetry. I haven’t written a real poem in a very long time. I used to be so into poem writing that I would go to “open-mics” and read my poems with my friend and brief-boyfriend Calvin. Calvin was significantly older than me, and unfortunately, the relationship didn’t quite work out on my end. Calvin and I would go to the Mercury Café in Denver and read poetry, and we’d also go to a place called the Kasbah. What’s interesting about that is that Calvin and I were two white gay guys, and the Kasbah (or Casbah) was a mainly African-American lounge that had a poetry night. So we’d show up and we’d be the only two gay white guys amidst a see of strong black poets. It was a little bit daunting. Of course, I decided to try my hand at being a “spoken word” artist and composed a SUPER long poem. I tried to pull it off and I was clapped offstage (or played offstage) at both the Mercury and the Kasbah… very embarrassing. After that, and the fact there was a shooting at the Kasbah one night I didn’t go, and my interest in open-mic’ing kinda died out. ... [Read More]

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This piece was written on October 19th, 2006, and originally published on my LiveJournal. Before you get into it, there’s a fair bit of warning that needs to be said. I define faith as believing something is true or probably true despite lack of evidence or worse, in contradiction of the evidence. When I discuss faith here I do not mean a belief in the future or trust and confidence in something. My personal, individual beliefs do not include the idea of faith. In fact, I am very critical of the idea of faith. I believe faith, and its institutions of religion, are responsible for a number of ills in our further understanding of reality, morality, and our natures. I wrote this as a satirical/sarcastic piece to illustrate the follies and dangerous ideas that truly can be found in the Bible, in context, or out of context. Everything presented here is an interpretation of a passage from the Bible (which I provide a link to so you can see for yourself.) I believe engaging in the belief that a book, written by people throughout history with their own biases, is some de facto standard of morality because it’s from God is dangerous and foolish. It is hubristic to look at reality, and this universe, and think that you know the explanations for its entire existence with absolutely no objective evidence whatsoever. I don’t do that, but people who believe in God do that every time they pray. And before the gun is jumped, I don’t blindly worship science either. What many might consider “facts” I still consider “theories.” ... [Read More]

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Back in the day, when I was about twenty-two and a bit later, ’til about twenty-six, I wrote poetry. I haven’t written a real poem in a very long time. I used to be so into poem writing that I would go to “open-mics” and read my poems with my friend and brief-boyfriend Calvin. Calvin was significantly older than me, and unfortunately, the relationship didn’t quite work out on my end. Calvin and I would go to the Mercury Café in Denver and read poetry, and we’d also go to a place called the Kasbah. What’s interesting about that is that Calvin and I were two white gay guys, and the Kasbah (or Casbah) was a mainly African-American lounge that had a poetry night. So we’d show up and we’d be the only two gay white guys amidst a see of strong black poets. It was a little bit daunting. Of course, I decided to try my hand at being a “spoken word” artist and composed a SUPER long poem. I tried to pull it off and I was clapped offstage (or played offstage) at both the Mercury and the Kasbah… very embarrassing. After that, and the fact there was a shooting at the Kasbah one night I didn’t go, and my interest in open-mic’ing kinda died out. ... [Read More]

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Back in the day, when I was about twenty-two and a bit later, ’til about twenty-six, I wrote poetry. I haven’t written a real poem in a very long time. I used to be so into poem writing that I would go to “open-mics” and read my poems with my friend and brief-boyfriend Calvin. Calvin was significantly older than me, and unfortunately, the relationship didn’t quite work out on my end. Calvin and I would go to the Mercury Café in Denver and read poetry, and we’d also go to a place called the Kasbah. What’s interesting about that is that Calvin and I were two white gay guys, and the Kasbah (or Casbah) was a mainly African-American lounge that had a poetry night. So we’d show up and we’d be the only two gay white guys amidst a see of strong black poets. It was a little bit daunting. Of course, I decided to try my hand at being a “spoken word” artist and composed a SUPER long poem. I tried to pull it off and I was clapped offstage (or played offstage) at both the Mercury and the Kasbah… very embarrassing. After that, and the fact there was a shooting at the Kasbah one night I didn’t go, and my interest in open-mic’ing kinda died out. ... [Read More]

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I’m so impressed by all the new individualists, the new intellectuals, popping up in opposition to the great overreaches of the government. I had no idea there were so many people ready, willing, and able to protest and zealously spread propaganda as far as they can shout in support of individual liberties. As a friend of mine lamented, it was difficult before the pandemic to get people to even care about a protest for individualist-minded immigration reform (for example), but since the pandemic, we have warriors of individual freedom coming out of the woodwork! Armed with the latest in rhetorical weaponry (memes, horrific analogies, victimhood, and appeals to being ‘nice’), a nice unified frontline has been formed to take down the oppressive Big Brother in that theater of World War III, social media. It’s so nice to finally, after all this time, be surrounded by like-minded individuals who are concerned for the liberties and freedoms of their fellow citizens, so that we may look towards a brighter, more productive future without having to ask permission for our accomplishments! Their courage and resolve in the Twitter wars, the Facebook melees, and the Reddit debates are what will help us form a new union where each of us can find our own path towards happiness, unfettered and unmolested by others’ actions and beliefs. ... [Read More]

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I have launched a project I’ve had sitting around for a while now called Kougeki. It is essentially a Japanese learning blog centered around video gaming. You could say it’s Japanese studies the gamer way. Here is a reprint of the introductory article on Kougeki. This blog is about Japanese – English Gaming. It’s essentially a blog that translates, in detail, Japanese games into English to create study aids. I hope that in doing so, I (Asher Wolfstein) can help raise awareness of the Japanese language (that I love) and of Japanese gaming throughout the English-speaking world. I have started this blog as a study aid for you, my readers, and as a study aid and practice for myself. Through writing this blog, I hope to increase my knowledge and proficiency in the Japanese language, and of course, I also hope you do. ... [Read More]

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Back in the day, when I was about twenty-two and a bit later, ’til about twenty-six, I wrote poetry. I haven’t written a real poem in a very long time. I used to be so into poem writing that I would go to “open-mics” and read my poems with my friend and brief-boyfriend Calvin. Calvin was significantly older than me, and unfortunately, the relationship didn’t quite work out on my end. Calvin and I would go to the Mercury Café in Denver and read poetry, and we’d also go to a place called the Kasbah. What’s interesting about that is that Calvin and I were two white gay guys, and the Kasbah (or Casbah) was a mainly African-American lounge that had a poetry night. So we’d show up and we’d be the only two gay white guys amidst a see of strong black poets. It was a little bit daunting. Of course, I decided to try my hand at being a “spoken word” artist and composed a SUPER long poem. I tried to pull it off and I was clapped offstage (or played offstage) at both the Mercury and the Kasbah… very embarrassing. After that, and the fact there was a shooting at the Kasbah one night I didn’t go, and my interest in open-mic’ing kinda died out. ... [Read More]

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Back in the day, when I was about twenty-two and a bit later, ’til about twenty-six, I wrote poetry. I haven’t written a real poem in a very long time. I used to be so into poem writing that I would go to “open-mics” and read my poems with my friend and brief-boyfriend Calvin. Calvin was significantly older than me, and unfortunately, the relationship didn’t quite work out on my end. Calvin and I would go to the Mercury Café in Denver and read poetry, and we’d also go to a place called the Kasbah. What’s interesting about that is that Calvin and I were two white gay guys, and the Kasbah (or Casbah) was a mainly African-American lounge that had a poetry night. So we’d show up and we’d be the only two gay white guys amidst a see of strong black poets. It was a little bit daunting. Of course, I decided to try my hand at being a “spoken word” artist and composed a SUPER long poem. I tried to pull it off and I was clapped offstage (or played offstage) at both the Mercury and the Kasbah… very embarrassing. After that, and the fact there was a shooting at the Kasbah one night I didn’t go, and my interest in open-mic’ing kinda died out. ... [Read More]