"I was otherwise very normal before I became 4 years old"

Nah, definite similarity, and I've listened to tons of Burroughs readings. I don't think there are any recordings of WSB from before he was already in his 40s, so if you subtract age and add a touch of nasal tone, there you go.

I would totally listen to video game podcasts from this dude.

i know this guy.

-- andi, Monday, 6 August 2007 08:27 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

So what's the deal?

What's with the youtube people and their "get a life" remarks? After all, THEY are watching the damn thing.

i love his 1-10 scale

This is the most bittersweet website.

His meat juiciness tip is surprising:

First off, this trick can ONLY be applied when you're shopping for meat. This particularly applied to a pot roast. When you go out to buy meat, look for the white stuff in the packages and feel it. When there's a lot of it and it's rather hard, the juicier it can be. There's one catch though you should be aware of [but it's rare]: it could have very little in the center, thus taking out the juice. This has worked 22 out of 23 times so far. The catch of this trick got to me, but looking at the chances of failure, it almost-always works.

I like his description of an accountant's job.

jesus, i just got lost in that site.

it was bad news for me this afternoon.

Love this site. It's addictive. Reminds me of my video-game-obsessed OCD childhood.

By "the white stuff" does he mean the fat? Cause thats a well known one, fat-marbeled meat being more tender.

"marbeled"? gah I cant spel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvOOwlNKFNY

lol @ shakey dissing a mentally disabled child on this thread

shakey your contemptuous pity for this guy is totally nauseating.

-- s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, July 28, 2006 6:02 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

good post

dood rode the short bus - clearly got some mental disability. I wouldn't call him articulate or intelligent.

-- Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, July 27, 2006 10:43 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

he's read two books in his ENTIRE LIFE.

-- Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, July 27, 2006 10:44 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

zing!

I wonder what Shakey would say if this dude died.

are you his best friend?

-- RJG (RJG), Saturday, July 29, 2006 5:40 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

I sent him the one email. He replied and seems like a nice enough guy. I'll probably post on his forum that will be for helping him find bugs in his videogame, which I was going to play anyway.

you are his best friend

-- RJG (RJG), Saturday, July 29, 2006 5:58 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

how're them glass houses workin in the summer guyz

I've heard that just preparing for a baby can cost upwards of $500 let alone having to feed the baby and other things while it grows up.

I just spent an hour on this guy's website, being totally captivated by it. It's several kinds of beautiful.

I just frowned all the way through that "incase you were wondering"

http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym.html

Cooper's not so impressive, but the original guy... I find his site absolutely heartbreaking. And that Youtube clip directly above, omg, that's so sad. It's making me want to cry. I want to know the guy's name.

Man, I look around http://www.ulillillia.us/aboutme/home.shtml and I keep looking and then I think: "if this were a novel, it would be a complete fucking masterpiece, albeit an often boring one."

He's called Nick. Maybe he'd be my friend because I'm also called Nick. Even though I fucking hate computer games and what he does with sample rates and bitrates basically makes me feel ill.

I find the fact that he so rarely mentions his family more upsetting than the fact that they might have neglected him; he's not aware of them, seemingly, at all.

The stuff about the words 'people' and 'person' is almost unbearable.

All the stuff about lava and blue water I kind of did myself for about 5 minutes when I was 8, or whatever, but I was always 100% aware that it was a mental game (as distinct from Nick's "mind game") and not actually a problem. I really feel for this guy.

I know you're being sympathetic Nick but is there anything on his site to indicate he's especially unhappy with the person he is?

Not directly, but I think there are plenty of clues that suggest he's not happy; the "no transport" section for instance. He also mentions being bullied on several occasions in a definitely negative sense. I think largely he's not aware of the person he is... but at the same time, to make that site, he clearly is also VERY aware too.

I dunno. It's difficult, obviously; I don't think sympathy is condescension.

Yeah, I know, I was just doing my disability rights schtick. Guy certainly reads like he's got an Autism Spectrum Condition.

wow, after spending way too long today on his site i kind of want to go to north dakota and drive him to the goddamn Y so he can go for a swim.

I end up tuning into his way of thinking writing and it starts making too much sense.

Future plans:
I need to make banners to accompany my latest design. The banners, at the moment are from version 2.x or 3.x of my site and are from around 2002! They seriously need to be updated. Negative motive prevents me, but lately my motive has gotten fairly close to neutral.

^ this is me a work but without the "fairly close to neutral" :(

He seems quite happy (or at least acceptingly inquisitive) about the person he is, but very very far from satisfied with his home/life situation.

I find the fact that he so rarely mentions his family more upsetting than the fact that they might have neglected him; he's not aware of them, seemingly, at all.

I don't know, this starts off pretty normally, but then gets technical, as usual :-)

http://www.ulillillia.us/myblog/2009mar.shtml

"#19 My parents wanted and got a Wii - what the!?: Now this is something I find very strange. Neither of my parents play video games at all. Nope, they've never played Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy, anything. But, suddenly, they were, during the Christmas time, looking desperately for a Wii but no one in town had one. I have no interest in the console at all solely because of the controller. I'd rather put up with the defective (weak buttons) controller for my Genesis to play Bubsy than use the Wii...."

Man Scik Mouthy I am with you 100%. This man and his site have stayed with me in a very tender way.

I read a lot of his site last night. His gifs are a riot:

http://www.ulillillia.us/images/theamazingrace.gif

Unlike most animated GIFs on the web where they rarely exceed 20 frames, these animations are far longer and far more complex than most anything you'll see on the web (You should see the spreadsheets I use for the planning.). Care for an animated GIF with, say, 3000 frames? 3000 frames is near my greatest potential and the longest one here has 3444 frames (3634 if not optimized)

His Major Issues section is really sad, especially the part about both parents encouraging him to seek employment as a janitor. Right beneath that, though, I love his note about the obstacles he faces in becoming a professional accountant: "I don't know what they are or what they do"

"I don't know what an accountant is. My parents have mentioned and suggested it a few times. The skill is unknown for this reason and compatibility is neutral (which is where things naturally start) for the same reason. This same reason applies to the limitations since I don't know much about it."

yeah abbott that's exactly how i feel about him.

the guy is obviously bright and despite his many limitations could probably be doing some good somewhere. i don't know if his parents are overwhelmed or disinterested or what but he has certainly not been put in a position to succeed. i'm def not one to bash areas of the country but north dakota has got to be pretty low on the list of places in the u.s. where he could function well.

that is as good enough a reason as any not to be an accountant. he should actually become a career counselor. (xpost)

I hope one day John D. will write a song named "Talkboy tape recorder triples the variety"

This man and his site have stayed with me in a very tender way.

Me too. His new photo is hitting that tender place even harder, too. The old photo was a dark blurry pic of a startled-eyed hairy overgrown kid crouched over a computer. The new picture is of a skinny indie-looking geek dude who looks a lot like an old friend of mine. I hope it's just the resemblance which is kicking me in the gut, and not just some kneejerk expectation that a guy who writes like this must look obviously other somehow, but... not sure.

I was hoping the vacation picture + not many updates recently meant he'd turned his life around a little, but the blog suggests things are much the same.

Sorry to double-post, but another friend of mine was a super-bright programmer but became schizophrenic. He's now largely unemployable but works on 3d graphics programming unpaid all day and all night. A very different condition, though, and my friend is lucky enough to have supportive family and govt assistance funding his place in live-in communal youth healthcare schemes which have seemed a really positive influence for him.

But this friend has a dream of having a company to round up all the IT geeks who've burnt out in one way or another and finding some kind of work scheme for them to use their skills which are being wasted now, so they can be made to feel (and be!) productive but have their mental health issues understood/supported/worked around too. A pipe dream, of course, but I just wished a little harder something like that could happen.

"I was otherwise very normal before I became 4 years old"

^^^ should be ilm board description.

This site is pretty poignant. From a computer game geek perspective the fact that he's obsessed with a game as shit as Bubsy on the Genesis adds to the poignancy.

I too really wonder about the level of his parents' involvement. There was a recent post about finally fixing a square foot hole in sheet after dealing with it for months and months.

I know I come off like a dick on this thread but... this guy's life and story still seem pretty depressing. he sounds pretty bored and frustrated and cut off from the rest of humanity in a fairly bleak way. (ie, yeah why the fuck are they keeping him holed up in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota?! His family seem pretty disengaged/uninterested in his wellbeing)

1.4.3 Meat trick - This was removed as it is very unwise to do.

This did give me a chuckle.

http://www.ulillillia.us/images/2006ricelake02.jpg

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-legend-of-the-10-elemental-masters/7691432

The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters
by Nick Smith
* * * * * (37 Ratings)
Paperback, 258 pages

£8.12
Ships in 3–5 business days
Nick Smith (aka ulillillia) writes a captivating story with many unexpected turns. Based on the concept of RPGs (role playing games), follow Knuckles, a powerful, spell-casting wizard, as he investigates a mystery of supernatural proportion. A powerful evil presence seeks after the elemental masters. Knuckles tracks the force's every move as he works on fulfilling his greatest dream. It is unknown what evil act the force has planned. (Note: the cover is brightness-adjusted, enhancing print quality.)

By eric.r.pfeifer
This novel is sheer genius. Nick Smith boldly reinvents the literary form, creating a gestalt blend of fantasy, insanity, mathematics, and narrative. Without a doubt this is the most innovative book I have ever read. A must own for anyone interested in avant-garde outsider literature.

You can preview the first few pages online.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2r2yj6f.jpg