AAAAHH

I am so tired of the rehashed politics of the 21st century. No, Mexicans aren’t going to kill your family. No, the deficit isn’t going to squash our economy.

We need to talk about things that are real and meaningful. Making healthcare accessible to everybody seems like a great goal. It would prop up small businesses that can’t compete with corporate benefits packages. It would prop up people in dangerous or intense lines of work that put themselves at greater risk of harm. It would put a stop to the rampant price hikes that our already-subsidized pharma companies reap huge profits from. We need to stop bickering and start talking about the policies that actually make a difference.

HAVE IDEAS! BE CREATIVE! Democracy puts this power in our hands. We shouldn’t be so easy to pass our decision making powers off to bureaucrats. Do we want to live in an America that makes the impossible happen, or an America that can’t get out of its own way long enough to see the writing on the wall?

We are addicted to burning fuel. We are addicted to cheap labor. We are addicted to convenient electronic devices. What will happen when we run out these things?

Americans have made a lot of enemies in the past half century, and they are catching up to us.

In 2019, mere months before the pandemic changed everything, I was contemplating throwing away my literary research path in favor of becoming a tree hugger. Yes, I was in love with my field biology class! The product of this class was a 60+ page field guide containing information about upland and wetland sites within Sachar Woods. It also contains journal entries that I wrote while spending time in the woods. I fancied myself a modern Thoreau. I was active, contemplative, and very happy. That semester was far and away the best one I served at Brandeis. The guide itself is very readable: it details the geological history of the forest as well as the life that supports it. I tried to imbue as much humor as possible.

If you would like to learn about Massachusetts trees, give my field guide a read!

[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FIELD GUIDE]

“Only fools prefer the past!”

– Leto II

Copies were probably made and distributed.

At long last, I am beginning to make older versions of AAAAHH.com accessible again! This is accomplished through the power of SUBDOMAINS. Hurray! Hurrah!

http://ben.aaaahh.net/

This is the only vintage website I have on hand at the moment. When I get back from SHINE 2022, I will dig through my HDD and see what else I have buried. I want to put up my old point+click adventure games, but I am not sure if my flash projects will run anymore. It is a pity Flash died–so many great games were created using it!

If you frequent this website, you might notice some unsettling memes titled PROPAGANDA. It is election season, for better or worse, and that means doing your part to affect the discourse surrounding politics. We live in strange times. So many opinions, so much ideology! It is important to remember my golden rule: VOTE CORRECTLY! My propaganda will serve as your gentle guide, elucidating a path through this age of darkness. Like a warm candle!

Hopefully this spurt of effort portends future upgrades to the site. It is frankly quite outdated at this point. There is enough content now that users need a sidebar in order to navigate it all. Blogs, art posts, and political memes are all heaped into a single archival page! You readers deserve better.

Putting this here for my own reference. I wrote 7000 words for this wacky fantasy adventure game: https://ariannaarguetty8.wixsite.com/mysite

Good time to have student loans.

(But we should be working together!)

“I modify the human desire for war.”

-Leto II

No, those are not mounds of shit. That dingy wooden structure is a shower, and those two piles are the water heater. A tank is buried beneath the mounds. As the sun beats down on them throughout the day, the microbes inside get to work breaking down old plant matter and the compost piles heat up. The water in the buried tank can reach a hundred degrees!

This picture doesn’t really do the piles justice. Crimson black seaweed is mixed up with wood chips and saw dust to create a natural water heater. A spigot inside the shower shack spits out bathwater for bathers to enjoy and wash themselves with in the open air. To emulate the shower experience, a watering can that can be hooked onto a pulley can be hoisted and tipped above a bather’s head.

The whole experience was more than comfortable. The warm water, the cool breeze between my naked thighs, the open sky above! Three pails of water was all I needed to do the job. I can’t imagine it is very pleasant once the weather cools, but it was so refreshing to have an after-dinner wash in the evening air after an afternoon of hiking around the Maine wilderness. This wonderful setup was provided to me and my girlfriend by the Deer Isle Hostel. We thought we were just getting a room in some artsy cabin–we had no clue that we had signed on to join a low-tech commune powered by solar panels and compost.

The shower was just one of the nifty technologies that this lovely compound employs to avoid modern waste. The outhouses were composters too! But I’ll show those off at a later time. For now, I just wish I could bathe myself outside again. Maybe I’ll get a bucket and some rope and have some fun on my back porch…

“The wolves are but an extension of my purpose, and my purpose is to be the greatest predator ever known.”
-The journals of Leto II

I feel exceedingly empty sometimes. I recently bought birthday gifts for people that no longer want to associate with me in any way. The garden grows exceptionally this year regardless. We let the beds overflow with life of their own. Clover and strawberries gave way to towering wildflowers and onion stems. Even a lone tomato, impoverished heir to last summer’s dynasty, peeks its little yellow flowers out over the side of the box. An understory of green stems create a paradise for little bugs, and the overstory, a buffet for bees and flower lovers of all kinds. Every square inch of soil is being used. Next year, I will not have access to this much soil. I may take some of the dirt with me and see what comes out of it when placed in a pot.