Mindless blathering go!

The Death of Christmas

2011-12-13T14:17:00.001-05:00

This is what Christmas was when I was young:

I am no longer young. As I aged, Christmas, or as I will type it from now on, Xmas, slowly lost it's luster. I used to like buying things for people, and would plan out everything in advance, but grownups don't have the same time (or frankly the enthusiasm) as younger people. Eventually I felt like I was buying things for people not because I wanted to give them something but because I felt obligated to do so. If you know me at all, I don't do things just because I'm supposed to. I challenge all traditions and I've realized that if I feel like buying something for someone, I just do it. I don't need or want to wait for a specific holiday to give that person said gift. I just give them the gift because I care about the person, not the holiday.

So where does this leave me? Xmas, like all religious holidays, has become an irritating family obligation.Why the hell can't we just get together whenever? Why do families only feel the need to tolerate one another on holidays but no other time during the year? The cool holidays, like Halloween and New Years are for friends to drink (St. Patrick's day is almost non religious at this point as well), and Thanksgiving is for families to gorge themselves on food they really shouldn't. So wtf Xmas and Easter?

Religious holidays are becoming more and more pointless. For those few people who still believe that Xmas is about Christ, this time of the year must be a depressing cavalcade of consumerism and greed that has totally gone off message. Now that everyone's saying "Happy Holidays" to be polite to the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, etc, and basically just going on present fueled binges, does Christ even cross the minds of the average person anymore? I know some Christians are screaming about the "War on Christmas" but, let's face it, it's a secular holiday now, and kind of a disgustingly materialistic one.

So that's me, Xmas Debbie Downer. What's the male equivalent of that? Bobbie Bummer? Anyway, yeah, Xmas lost it's appeal to me. I get a day off work and I get to see my family, but honestly I'd rather skip the holiday and go see my family because I want to see them, not because I'm obligated by some holiday that no one really understands anymore.

Vaccine Awareness Month

2011-10-18T10:24:00.001-04:00

Has it already been a year since the last Vaccine Awareness Month? A whole year has passed and people still are on their crusade to declare vaccines to be the greatest threat to human heath in like forever. Of course, they declare this in the face of the fact that general human health has vastly increased since the advent of vaccines. They scream about evil vaccines, apparently forgetting that smallpox is gone, polio is being wiped out, most people haven't even heard of whooping cough other than the outbreak last year, and that vaccine preventable diseases are slowly being diminished if not eradicated throughout the year.

To deny that vaccines work is attributable to only two things: gross and negligent ignorance of reality or a willing and somewhat impressive if frightening ability to lie to oneself. Well, technically there's the third option of sociopaths who are doing this because it's fun for them, but that's just scary. Simply put, there is no way to be anti-vaccine and be a rational person. "Too many too soon" is irrational fear not based in reality. "Vaccine preventable diseases aren't that bad" is cruel, evil, and obviously untrue. "I just want to make vaccines safe" is a lie, not even wrong, and makes me want to punch their infant children.

In short, as I don't need to be a windbag about this one, vaccines are very safe, they do what they're supposed to do quite well, and ever time you hear some asshole yelling about how dangerous vaccines are, you can now safely remember that that person is dead wrong. And if you want actual proof/citations of what I've said:

Immunize for Good.

'Nuff said.

My first Capoeira test

2011-10-14T17:18:00.001-04:00

I've been taking Capoeira for over two years now, but until last night, I had never been tested. I'd never been tested simply because my first instructor never had tests because it was a UD club and not a formal class and my second and current instructor really could give less of a shit about structure like that. I was sort of vaguely tangentially involved with an actual school, but as I studied with those guys all of never, getting tested or going to a Batizado never happened. My current instructor got involved with another school and I got a third instructor who is actually a mestre, a master, and as I started taking classes up through the UD group I'm still involved with, I was invited with the UD group to participate in their Batizado.

What the hell is a Batizado? Well, according to Wikipedia it's a yearly event thing where students are baptized and officially recognized as students of a school. It's also, according to hearsay and my other research on the Internet, basically a Capoeira party. Also, someone is probably going to knock me down and baptize me with the floor. A, that's really entertaining and, B, after my test last night my mestre basically threw me at the floor, so at least I have experience with being baptized by the floor.

However, as I found out last week, the test isn't the Batizado. No, the test is done before the Batizado, usually with little warning. That may just be my luck, it may be a thing, I don't really know, all I know is I had been training my ass off for this test expecting it to be a lot later than it actually ended up being. So though I was fairly prepared, I could have been more prepared. Moving on.

Given that Capoeira is generally very laid back, the testing itself is actually laid back as well. I've been to many other tests in several other schools, and none were close to as laid back as this. However, don't even begin to imagine that it was easy. Crotch no.

Here's how it went down. I showed up, I was told I was testing, I warmed up a little, then me and the guy running the test went to a corner of the classroom and I got my test on. My tester said do ginga. I started to ginga. I didn't stop my ginga, other than for a few seconds at a time, for the rest of the test. I couldn't say exactly how long the test was, but try doing a ginga for five minutes and your legs will burn. The test was at least forty five minutes long, and the ginga was the easiest part.

To prep for this test, I had been given a sheet for the beginner, level one, and level two tests and as I was going to level two, yellow cord, I had been studying that sheet and was fairly confident with most of it. Unfortunately, as this was my first test, I had to do everything on all three sheets once on my left side and once on my right side. No pressure.

So the test was basically kicks, acrobatics, movements (called floreios), and combinations. Ok, there was also singing and playing music, but that was the cake walk. So for kicks I had to do all the kicks I'd learned, around fifteen of them, but not just the simple kick! No no, I had to do multiple variations of each kick. Acrobatics? A cartwheel is the main one, except that I know at least a dozen different varations. Of course the various cartwheels can be worked into the florieos of which can easily be combined into dozens, if not hundreds, of different movements. That wasn't even including the combinations! There were fortunately only like ten combos to do, but they could include all of the shit I was being tested on, so they got a little nuts. And all of this was done between ginga steps.

In terms of difficulty, I sweat so much that I had to wipe down the floor three times, and eventually, after nearly killing myself by slipping, my tester took pity on me and we found a carpeted area for the flying, spinning, jumping, flipping end of my test. I say in jest that I sweat out a gallon, but I'm not sure how much of a jest that is because my shirt was disgusting by the end of the test. Also, though I had prepared greatly, I still didn't know like five moves, so I had to figure them out during the test. No pressure.

All told, though, the test was within my bounds. It was intimidating as hell, but I stared it in the face and did my best and I passed. All that's left is the Batizado. So I go to a party and get my belt? Oh, yes, it's so easy. Except for that little minor detail thing where the Batizado is actually spread over many days, with lots of other workshops, music, and dance lessons.

I love Capoeira... but sometimes it loves me back a little too much.

I hate nutrition more today

2011-09-29T13:13:00.001-04:00

So as I may have mentioned I take a drug that helps me sleep called Seroquel. It's hardcore, to quote Wikipedia, "an atypical antipsychotic approved for the treatment of schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder." No, I'm not psychotic or schizo, I just don't sleep well and one of the off label uses for Seroquel is sleep aid, and it's unmatched in being able to help people who can't sleep otherwise. Since being on this drug I have been able to sleep better than ever before, but it does have a downside: weight gain. Ever had a full meal and then been just as hungry after that meal as when you started and have a desperate compulsion to continue eating? Yeah, that's Seroquel. I'm hovering around 205 lbs lately, which is really bad on the BMI scale, though not actually that bad in reality. Still, I'm bigger than I want to be.

I have fought tooth and nail to bring my weight back down. I eat much less food that I really enjoy (read high flavor high calorie) and much more reasonable stuff (fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, etc). I have slowly been cutting calorie sources out of my diet, losing sugar where I can, eating healthier breads, not eating those chips with my lunch, limiting my happiest food (desert) to one small serving a day. However, I never saw much of a difference in my weight.

A couple of weeks ago recently, I decided I needed some downtime from my very restricted diet and just ate whatever the hell I felt like for two weeks. It was glorious and delicious. So much bad food. And you know what? I didn't see a difference in my weight either up or down.

After that came my return to the UD Capoeira classes, where I decided to increase my workout schedule to a ludicrous 5 days a week. Granted I've only managed four days a week so far, but that's still doubling my already challenging workout schedule. I've been at this for weeks. Net result on my weight without increasing the amount or badness of the food I eat? No change.

I was starting to think I'd gone insane. Maybe I was sleep eating? Maybe I was unconsciously eating an additional 1000 calories a day somehow? Maybe my 15 minute walk that I've been forced to skip more often due to the new job was actually burning more calories than I thought? Then I turned to the Internet.

As it turns out, people on Seroquel who have a problem with weight gain have noticed a weird phenomenon: they gain weight to a point they hate and then that weight remains constant no matter what changes to diet or exercise are made. The only people who saw any weight loss were the ones who cut back on Seroquel or transitioned to different drugs.

Apparently if I ever want to not be 205 pounds I have to cut back on my only hope of sleeping at night. I don't have to work out or eat differently, I just have to stop sleeping. This is a really, really big problem for me, as I'm not willing to go back to the land of sleep deprivation, but I really want to get some weight off. I'm doing well in Capoeira, but if I lost even ten pounds I could be doing so much better, not to mention I'd look better.

For now, at least, I'm going to stick to the status quo. I may not be happy with my weight, but at least it is stable and not disgusting. We'll see if continued increased activity over months has some long term gains or not and, come my next doctor's apt, see if there aren't any new viable sleep aid choices.

I hate nutrition

2011-09-27T10:16:00.001-04:00

I may have bitched about this before, but one of the side effects of one of the drugs I'm on is weight gain. I work out and do my best to eat right, but it's ever a problem for me feeling like I'm carrying more weight than I should. Because of this, I'm careful to try to eat better most of the time. Recently I started eating at Moe's and became a big fan of their burritos. I didn't want to look up the caloric info on it, mostly because I was sure it was going to be bad and I was going to have to eat them less. However, when I finally looked it up, even when I included every single ingredient, the burrito was less than 450 calories. I was pleasantly surprised. Then, just because I was there, I glanced at how much the 2 ounces of queso I had was, expecting bad things. 150 calories. Really, not that bad. So overall, 600 calories, not bad. Then I looked at the tortilla chips.

600 calories? Six the fuck hundred calories? For a few chips? The burrito and the freaking cheese sauce combined equals some chips? God dammit. So now I guess I just get a burrito. I hate nutrition.

Sexist, racist, homophobic thinking…

2011-07-29T10:43:00.000-04:00

Despite being a privileged white male, I am not sexist, racist, or homophobic. I was raised in a color blind, gender blind, sexual preference blind house. When I was a child I made friends with white and black children without preference because I didn’t know there was supposed to be a difference. I was about as competent with girls as a child as I am with women as an adult, but I never thought of them as anything less than my equals. As a child I was brought up in a church with active and out gay members and talked to them like all the other adults because they were all just adults to me.

I never knew I was supposed to care.

As a result I grew up with the attitude of “I don’t care if you’re not white/a woman/gay” because I didn’t know that wasn’t a good thing. I thought it was. However, as learning is one of those things I just won’t stop doing, I’m coming to realize that my attitude isn’t the best one. It’s not that I don’t care that you’re different from me, it’s that it doesn’t bother me that you’re different from me.

As the best example I can think of off the top of my head, my Capoeira instructor Rasai is a dreadlocked Jamaican man with huge muscles and a larger than life personality. He was raised on a farm, really finds our concept of holidays annoying, and is a very dirty old man. None of this got in the way of me being his student or becoming his friend. Sure we bicker about how he should chill out about having his picture taken or maybe consider getting a goddamn cell phone, but we’re still friends. Do I not care that he’s black? Am I ignoring his heritage?

What I think I’m doing is outright accepting that he’s different in many ways and not letting those differences make me think less of him. I take these different experiences he’s had as just a fact of life because everyone is different. This is autopilot for me. Rather than being a point of contention, I find his very different outlook on life refreshing and interesting.

So from now on it's not, "I don't care if you're X." I don't have a simple one-liner to replace it, but maybe that's the point.

The Internet/atheist/skepticism/sexism shitstorm you probably don't know about

2011-07-15T15:14:00.000-04:00

I was going to ignore this issue, mostly because it's aggravating to watch this much fail, but after reading Greta Christina's post, I came to the conclusion that talking is better, so here's a post about sexism in the skepticism / atheism world.

Here's where it started: Rebecca Watson went to some atheist shindig in Ireland, gave a speech about sexism, and later went drinking with friends. At 4 AM she headed for bed. A guy joined her in the elevator and chose that moment to say that he was impressed by her and invite her to his room for coffee. She declined and in a blog post mentioned this and said that it made her feel uncomfortable and suggested, "Guys, don't do that." That like two minutes out of the video here.

Here's where it went wrong: though some people agreed with Rebecca that the dude in the elevator (later dubbed Elevator Guy), some people, both men and women, disagreed with Rebecca. Those who disagreed were often men aggressively insisting that Rebecca was wrong, she shouldn't have been creeped out, that she was a man-hater, and other very sexist things that went all the way from slightly misogynistic to OMG WTF misogyny.

Here's where it went explode: Richard Dawkins, Dark Lord of the Atheists, posted on PZ Myers' blog some very sarcastic and dismissive comments that enraged the pro Rebecca side and fueled the fires of the misogynistic idiots. It's been an ongoing shitstorm of idiocy ever since. From "guys, don't be creepy" to massive Internet flame war spanning dozens of sites in just under a week.

Now, I think that Rebecca's comment was reasonable and, even if Elevator Guy's intentions were the purest of gold, the dude did something creepy possibly inadvertently. That's where it should have ended. Maybe some people could say, "Poor socially awkward guy." Instead, people, admittedly including women, but mostly men, made complete asses of themselves by letting both privilege and disgusting sexism flare up and out of control. And they're still going. Calmer heads have tried to calm shit down, but Mansplaining abounds.

The bad thing is a lot of guys are sexist idiots. The good thing is that as this gets SO MUCH attention, at least some guys are finally starting to actually hear what women are saying: context matters. Yes, technically guys can hit on women anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances, but sometimes that's going to be inappropriate or creepy. Picking the correct moment to hit on a woman makes a world of difference.

As an aside, my favorite part of this situation is that Richard Dawkins is a dick. Back in the "Don't be a dick" conversation Phil Plait started, Dawkins came out against not being a dick, as did a lot of other assholes. Very recently Dawkins spoke out against Phil's position again, pointing out that being a dick could be useful. Back when the conversation started I commented, "The dicks also clearly don’t care who their target is..." Well, now Dawkins has proved my point. Despite the fact that Rebecca Watson is popular, and very intelligent, and a great help to both the atheist and skeptic movements, and was in theory actually a friend to Dawkins, he chose to be a douchebag over being polite and did so publicly no less. Many of the people who advocate that being dicks is useful don't give a crap who their target is. They're too interested in getting their petty digs in to worry about offending someone, even if that person is a friend or an ally.

Before my whole figuring out out I was an atheist thing, I'd thought poorly of Dawkins, thinking him an asshole. As I was reading up on atheism, he was referred to and said some nice things enough so that I was grudgingly changing my opinion of him. Now, however, he's proved what I always thought about him: he's an asshole. He may be smart, and he may write good books, and he may even say useful and helpful things, but above all he's an asshole. I choose to listen to atheists and skeptics who understand that, yes, context matters. I have friends who are religious, and while I may completely disagree with their religious views, I'd rather have them as my friends than get in some petty digs about religion.

Priorities. I has them.

Sort of a retraction...

2011-06-22T14:46:00.000-04:00

So this is sort of embarrassing, but as it turns out I am an atheist, I just didn't know it. Yeah, really. In fact I have been an atheist for a very long time, I just wasn't aware of it. How is this possible? Allow me to quote YouTube user AronRa: "Atheist does not mean that you reject the possibility of a god," and "The only thing that defines an atheist is that you are not convinced that there must be a god." I am not convinced.

What's more amusing to me is that I wrote AronRa an email to thank him for helping me figure this out and he actually responded that it was his intention to share this story at future atheist meetings and conventions. That is, I think, freaking hilarious.

In further researching this it turns out that Greta Christina had something similar to say about atheism. "For me, and for the overwhelming majority of atheists I know, our atheism is a provisional conclusion, based on careful reasoning and on the best available evidence we have. Our atheism is the conclusion that the God hypothesis is unsupported by any good evidence, and that unless we see better evidence, we're going to assume that God does not exist. If we see better evidence, we'll change our minds."

Seems that what I though atheism was isn't what atheism is. I thought that atheism is the belief that there is no god, and that is apparently the general belief. Instead atheism is the lack of a belief in god. A bit of a quibble, but it shoots the "is atheism a belief?" question right in the face. I don't believe there is no god, I lack the belief that there is a god. If you could give me indisputable evidence that god existed tomorrow, I'd change my mind. Even Richard Dawkins, Dark Lord of the Atheists, said that on a scale of 1 being an absolute certainty that there is a god and 7 being absolute certainty that there is not a god that he was at a 6.

Granted, if you did give me that evidence, you'd still have to work to make me care much, so even though my atheism might change, my apatheism probably wouldn't. And, yes, it's possible to be both. It's possible to be an agnostic and an atheist at the same time as well apparently.

So what does this change? In many ways, not much. I think the same things I thought before this revelation. But in some ways, huge changes. I used to be pissed off because the Pledge of Allegiance (yes I will not shut up about this) was an insult to a group I cared about but didn't consider myself to be a part of; now the Pledge is an insult to me. Every time I see "In God we trust" on a coin or dolla bill, it's me that's devalued. I'm as patriotic as the next guy. I'm more patriotic than the next guy. But because I lack a belief that some people have I'm looked down on, considered unelectable, and untrustworthy?

In some ways I'm the same guy. In others I now burn with an anger I didn't feel before. I may be the same shouty, opinionated, arrogant, patriotic, pro underdog guy as before, but it's different now... Now I am the underdog.

Should you be afraid of high fructose corn syrup?

2011-06-08T16:03:00.000-04:00

No. No you shouldn't.

...

Yeah, I know, you've heard that HFC causes all kinds of things from obesity, diabeetus, and high blood pressure to heart attacks and cancer! Everyone's heard about how bad HFC is for us. Well, the truth is, HFC is not dangerous and it isn't the cause of modern American obesity.

HFC is a sugar and, chemically speaking, a sugar is a sugar is a sugar. There are lots of sugars: glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, and many others. Your body, assuming you aren't a diabetic or lactose intolerant, treats them all generally the same way, that is as a sugar. That means that your table sugar and that "healthier" raw sugar, are just different combinations of the same simple sugars. The flavor may be different, but your body breaks them down easily with no regard to flavor.

So why have you hear SO MUCH BS about HFC? Because somewhere someone reported that ingesting large amounts of HFC can cause cause obesity, which can lead to diabeetus (and then idiots on the Internet lay on the cancer BS). What everyone neglects to mention immediately following that is that EVERY SUGAR CAN DO THAT. If you eat two pounds of table sugar a day, you gonna get fat and are increasing your chances of getting diabeetus. Remember how eating anything to excess is bad for you? That's true here. A diet with HFC in it is not automatically worse than a diet high in honey, which is largely fructose as well.

As our country becomes more and more health obsessed, people continue to look for single bullet causes for obesity. There isn't one. Still, HFC is popular because it is cheap and readily available, so people will try to blame it. But the problem lies not with HFC, but with stupid people who drink the equivalent of two pounds of sugar in soda a day, or have a high calorie diet with a lot of HFC in it in some other form.

So don't avoid HFC as a sweetener. It won't cause cancer, it won't give you diabeetus, and it certainly won't make you fat. Eating like a fatass and not exercising will make you fat.

Skepticism

2011-06-02T15:19:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time I believed in the possibility of all sorts of things: gods, ghosts, demons, angels, aliens, yeti, energy flows, ley lines, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, folk remedies, and so on. Over time I became more skeptical and started questioning things I previously believed. Why is it that photos of alien craft have deceased as the prevalence of camera phones has increased? Why do ghost hunters present laughable evidence and get taken seriously? Why does acupuncture perform no better than a placebo when tested outside of China? Why do soft-style chi masters get massacred by MMA fighters?

Now I consider myself a hard line skeptic. All that shit I mentioned above? Either intensely unlikely (99% probability) or complete bullshit (like homeopathy). Every new claim I see (e.g. "1 tip to a flat belly" ads) is viewed with great distrust. Nothing is free of the question, "How does that work?"

One issue I have run into, as have many skeptics, is that skepticism is viewed pejoratively, that we skeptics are Debbie Downers, the people out to ruin the party. I have run into this with both family and friends and have had arguments over many things. In my experience, people seem less mad about hte topic and more angry that I am objecting at all.

I don't understand this. I think that the general perception is that I am only being skeptical to be annoying, or a know-it-all, or even just to alienate people. I fail to see how going through life credulously believing every stupid idea thrown at me is a bad thing. Despite this, I'm the jerk for pointing out that homeopathy is complete BS.

The reason I am a skeptic is, despite what some seem to believe, is because I value knowledge. I want people to do what works, not fall for an anecdote strong but evidence weak fad. I don't want friends or family wasting money on scams or wasting hope on anything that won't ever work better than a placebo.

So what is a skeptic to do? I'd rather not be seen as a jerk by family and friends, but I'm not going to back down about any quackery or other BS that can hurt people or waste their money. I try to keep an open mind about new ideas, but considering the cavalcade of nonsense I see every day, it's hard to not just assume that everything is a scam, a lie, or worse. Suggestions?

Interesting...

2011-05-11T16:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my boss sent out an email saying that another team in the company had an opening and was anybody interested. The way the email was framed, it was pretty clearly just an "I sent this email out because someone asked me to, but no one will actually say yes, so there's no danger of losing any people here" email. I thought about it for a few minutes, then responded that I was interested and found a person on that team and talked to her about it just so I was sure they knew I was interested.

This new job would be much more like an actual job in that I would have stuff to do constantly, would actually involve more writing and less actual technology (something I've been interested in for a while now), and would be with a team full of people I generally enjoy, so there aren't many downsides (though there are some big ones, like many more meetings). I have my reservations, but this sounds like a good move for me, so I'm moving forward to see what happens.

I haven't heard anything interesting today and have had some free time to fret about it, but with any luck, I'll have information soon. Maybe I'll be able to move out of my boring stressful and into a busy stressful job! If that sounds dumb to you, I can say with great confidence that I would rather be busy and stressed then bored and stressed. More news as it appears...

An eloquent defense

2011-04-27T13:29:00.000-04:00

I don't know who this Stephanie Z chick is but her comment is a very clear and calm explanation why atheists can seem aggressive.

It’s worth remembering where this debate came from. Atheists, only recently starting to stand up and be counted in any number, are seeing the people who have been saying the same things that atheists have been saying for centuries (as noted in comment 5, then largely ignored) being told to hush up because they’re being noticed for once and that’s making trouble. These are frequently also the people who gave your rank-and-file atheist the courage to come out and who provide sympathy when coming out results in the crap it always results in. But hush, because what these other people are doing is really important.

Of course, it is important. But so is being supported and encouraged as an out atheist. So is being able to tell people how religion hurt you or those you love without having to put bows on it. So is being able to tell other people that they have a real choice to get out of abusive religions. So is being able to run for public office. So is being able to keep your job. So is being able to keep your kids.

But hush. And be really nice to the people who are telling you to hush. Be nice to the people who are telling you that you matter less than what they’re doing. Be nice to the people who are doing good work but only talk about why people like you are bad. Be nice to the people who might, someday let you eat at the grown-up table if you stay quiet enough at the children’s table first (and when there are no more grown-up problems you might interfere with). Hush and trust them, despite the fact that they’re calling you the problem.

Yeah, no. Atheists are being aggressive, in part, because they’re being told to go back to being passive. They’re being argumentative because there’s a constant onslaught of messages leveled at them and everyone they have to deal with that becomes the unquestioned social background if they don’t. They’re being rude because everybody is rude sometimes, and they’re not going to be left out if you’re not. They’re being condescending because you’ve been told this before in some form, but you can’t seem to move past the fact that someone insulted you in order to hear it.

Damn straight.

Oh, the sprain!

2011-04-25T15:11:00.000-04:00

So my instructor sprained my ankle two weeks ago today. What, I didn't do it? No, it's legitimately his fault. I was doing a leg kick, he caught my leg with both of his legs and twisted, and with a resounding pop my ankle was sprained. Now, I've had sprains before, and they've been usually painful and annoying but short lived. This situation was quite different as there was no pain. That's right, sprained ankle, no pain whatsoever. It led me to wonder if it was actually sprained, but as it swelled up like a wee balloon, yes I'm now sure it was sprained. However, the lack of pain really confused me. Anyway, the usual response to a sprain is RICE:

Rest
Ice
Compression
Elevation

So did I rest it? No. It didn't hurt, so I kept working out on it, not just immediately following but in the past two weeks as well. Did I ice it? Not initially, but when the swelling didn't go down I iced it some to no avail. Elevation I tried, but again lack of results. Eventually I decided to try compression, and that seems to have worked to some degree, as my ankle now actually hurts sometimes. However, the swelling is still there, so I'm going back to mostly apathy.

I'll ice it and compress it some more tonight, but I doubt it will make a difference. Besides, since I'll only be working on the ankle after Capoeira tonight I'll be at a disadvantage anyway. You'd think my trip to FL this weekend might force me to rest it, but as I'm already hunting down a Capoeira school to play at while I'm out of town, I don't see that happening.

If my foot rots off or something equally horrifying, I give you full rights to call me an idiot.

Attempt eight...

2011-04-18T17:30:00.005-04:00

Religion, the lack, and everything else, is a difficult subject to tackle. The problem here is that I have friends on all sides of this argument. I have atheist friends. I have friends who range from casually to devoutly held faith. What's important to me is that I keep these friends. Unfortunately it's also important that I speak my mind. This is a post I've been unable to finish several times, but I'm having another stab at it. I may even post this one.

What I am is apathetic, an apatheist to be precise. Basically I don't care if there is or isn't a god. God or not god has had no meaningful or relevant affect on my life other than to be something to argue about, so fuck it. I have better things to do with my time, like stare at walls, chew gum, or get in pointless arguments on the Internet. I don't agree with atheists or theists, so once again I'm in a tiny corner where few others bother to tread. So what do I think about everyone else?

Atheists first. The following is why I'm not an atheist courtesy of Carl Sagan: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." I actually agree with atheists for the most part. However, there are New Atheists, or Gnu Atheists, who basically called open season on religion and are attacking religion at every step. They are rational thinkers and back up their assertions on typically good evidence, but they don't care who they offend at the end of the day calling the religious deluded and worse. While I appreciate the sentiment, being dicks about it isn't really helping as I see it, so I find them annoying even as I agree with much of what they say. But there are plenty of atheists with a live and let live attitude, so fine.

Now religion. Religion is based on faith; that means that you can't prove what you believe but you believe it nonethless. I do not discount that it takes strength to have this faith; I respect that it's difficult. However, what I don't respect is when the faithful viciously attack atheists for daring to dissent or even just for asking questions. Still, there are plenty of religious people with a live and let live attitude, so also fine.

Then we get to politics. Who are the people who hold political offices? Christians. Sure there's the occasional Jewish or Muslim person, but 99% of the time Christians. Most people wouldn't vote for an atheist no matter his qualifications. That attitude is so un-American it makes me want to punch babies. When politicians start bitching about being persecuted by the atheists, secularists, or anything else like that, I want to punch their infant children. That's like republicans AND democrats complaining about being persecuted by libertarians! Like atheists, we libertarians aren't even invited to the party. However, I've never heard anyone say they wouldn't consider voting for a libertarian based on his party alone (just because we're crazy). I can say that I've heard, many times, that people wouldn't vote for an atheist entirely because that person was an atheist. That, in a nutshell, is why I'm so aggressively pro-atheist. If you hate blacks you're a racist and that's not ok; if you hate jewish people you're anti-Semitic and that's not ok; if you hate gay people, you're a homophobe and that's increasingly not ok; if you hate fat people, you're an asshole and that's not ok; if you hate atheists, well, that's just fine? Fucking no.

We are guaranteed religious freedom by the Constitution, all of us, every single American. Choosing to not follow a religion, while unpopular, is something that, as Americans, we should be defending. Unpopular views, even those we find extremely distasteful, are the right of all Americans. I may hate what the Westboro Baptist Church is and says, but they have a right to say it, just as I have the right to revile their existence.

So what's my point? Whatever you believe, so long as you accept the glaring flaws of your belief and don't force it upon others, is fine by me. Whatever you believe, so long as you agree that people who completely disagree with you have the right to believe what they want, then we're good. Fortunately, I think this includes nearly everyone I count as a friend. I am a lucky man.

I hate my fucking job

2011-04-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

I have been asking for programming work for now no less than nine months. Last week I was finally given a programming project which I got quite far into on Friday. Then today, I come into work and my computer is hosed. Can't work! I put in the request to get it fixed, but how fast do they get here? They don't. So the only programming work I've had in forever is immediately passed on to another programmer. And it turns out that the information I was given to complete this task was actually wrong. So even if I had finished the stupid programming job, it wouldn't have been right and I would have taken shit for that, despite the fact that I would have been doing what I was told in the first fucking place. Fuck my life.

Breaking up is hard to do

2011-04-17T21:27:00.000-04:00

I just ended a relationship with a young lady I had met on the Internet. The attraction was there and while I did like her, I knew that long term potential wasn't there, so I broke it off with her. I did the best I could, I was honest and clear, tried to blunt the hurt as much as possible. She really liked me and she didn't take the news too well, and I hate giving good people bad news. I don't know if it speaks well of me or makes me a wuss, but I really feel like a jerk right now. I made the right choice, that I'm sure of, and I made it very clear to her that she did nothing wrong, but she was shocked and hurt and I hate that I had to make her feel that way.

In a way it's almost better when relationships explode in a fiery conflagration that makes everyone involved angry and screamy. That kind of pain is easy to deal with, or it is for me. This quiet, sad, and drama-free breakup just sucks. I wish there had been something I could have done differently to make it better, but short of staying in the relationship till something better came along which is a most dick of dick moves, there was no way to avoid this.

Stupid emotions. I should, like, be a robot. Or something.

Admitting weakness...

2011-04-15T15:20:00.000-04:00

Pull ups, chin ups, you name it, I couldn't do them. I've taken many martial arts, but the ability to pull oneself up was never really called upon. As such I never actually did any pull ups or chin ups. So when my Capoeira instructor brought in a chin up bar, I expected to have a poor showing. Well, worse than that, I couldn't do a single chin up, much less a pull up. I felt appropriately shamed. Though Capoeira is lotsa legs, having appropriate upper body strength is also important, so resolved to start training towards pull ups. I suppose it's worth mentioning that if I cheat, that is I don't start and end at a dead hang, I can muddle out a few chin ups, but do it right or don't do it at all, so my goal was a full pull: from a dead hang all the way up and all the way back down to a dead hang.

After a few weeks of being a cheap bastard and not buying the really expensive bars you hang in a doorway, I eventually found one for a reasonable price and started trying to do what I call L ups because the part of the bar I'm holding are parallel bits that stick out, a nice in between setting of chin up and pull up. Since I couldn't even do one up I decided the best was was to start with dead drops, that is to hop up into position and then very slowly lower all the way down to a dead hang. I found out the next day, with screamingly painful arms, that this kind of workout, while effective, is the most painful way to start. OUCH. So I looked at the other options for people who can't do any ups and found that if I put my feet behind me on a box or something that I could do slightly assisted L ups, so there I started.

It's been a few weeks and I was showing small amounts of improvement but I still couldn't do a single anything up. I had been concentrating on chin ups as my unassisted attempts as they are the easiest to do, but no luck. It was like I was pulling, and could get my shoulders to move a bit, but nothing after that. I was missing an entire muscle group or something. It was depressing, but I soldiered on as I usually do. Then, yesterday, before my full workout, I successfully struggled through a single chin up! I was totally psyched. I tried for a second one, failed, and went back to my normal workout, but I managed it!

With one down now it's just a matter of time before I get to my goal. It may be a long time, but patience is a virtue I have when it comes to strength training. My goal is going to be hard to get to but it is as follows: ten chin ups, ten L ups, and then twenty pull ups alternating pulling up to chest and up to back. From one chin up to forty assorted ups. This ain't gonna be easy, but it will definitely be worth it.

The Pledge...

2011-04-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

The Pledge of Allegiance was, originally:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In 1923 the pledge was changed so that new immigrants wouldn't confuse loyalties with their country of origin. It was:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In 1954, after years of pressure from religious influences, the words "under god" were added, bringing the Pledge to the wording we have today.

Why is this not ok? Because "under god" is an insult to every American who doesn't believe in this nebulous "god". Atheists, obviously, are the first people that pop to mind for who's being insulted, but let's not forget Apatheists, Secularists, Humanists, Wiccans, and anyone else who isn't Christian. Oh, yes, the non-specific "god" is supposedly intended to include other religions, but the words were added by Christians for Christians. This is where the bullshit of "we are a Christian nation" began, and here it must end.

We are not a Christian nation. That's what the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state are all about. We are a nation of all religions and none, or at least we're supposed to be. So every time someone posts their little "say the pledge like we always did" bullshit on Facebook or sends on a forwarded email chain of the same crap I get pissed. This isn't a little deal. It's a big deal. I thought the "under god" line should be removed when I was active at my parents church, I thought the same when I flirted with atheism, the same when I went Buddhist, and the same now that I'm an apatheist. It has nothing to do with my religion and everything to do with believing in liberty and justice for all, because there are no exceptions listed after "for all", and until 1954 there weren't any exceptions in the Pledge either.

To put it in terms that might resonate with you more, imagine if instead of "one nation under god" the pledge read "one white nation". Would that be just as ok? No! It would be unimaginably racist and wouldn't even be considered to be added to the pledge. So how is "under god" any better? It isn't. If you'd like to see this horrible and apt comparison thoroughly examined, read this. It gets the point across more eloquently than I could.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: If the pledge is to be spoken in schools, in government buildings, or in the public square, it must be representative of ALL Americans. Excise two inappropriate words, and no one in the country would ever complain about the Pledge again. That way we truly could get back to being, "one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Why I'm pro-atheist.

2011-04-11T15:51:00.001-04:00

I still haven't yet figured out how to write my religion/atheism/etc post, but I do have a number of examples as to why I am very pro-atheist when it comes to politics. This probably won't surprise you, but these examples come from republicans.

Newt Gingrich:
"I have two grandchildren: Maggie is 11; Robert is 9. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

Me:
This horrifying secular atheist country will be dominated by radical Islamists? What?

Mitt Romney:
"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone....[I]n recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning....It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

Me:
Separation of church and state is pretty clear just from the name itself. Stating that religion is a prerequisite for freedom is mind-bogglingly stupid, only beaten by calling secularism a religion.

Sarah Palin:
"...hearing any leader declare that America isn't a Christian nation and poking an ally like Israel in the eye, it's mind-boggling...."

Me:
America isn't a Christian nation. Fish in a barrel. Moving on.

Mike Huckabee:
"If integrity and character are divorced from God, they don't make sense."
"I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced — forced at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen."

Me:
I know people of integrity and character who don't need a God to tell them that rape, slavery, and murder are wrong. I bet you do too.
Forcing people at gunpoint to listen to David Barton is in what possible way acceptable in your mind?

Tim Pawlenty:
"We need to be a country that turns toward God. Not a country that turns away from God."
"We have, as a country, a founding perspective that we’re founded under God; our founding documents reference and acknowledge God, and acknowledge that our rights and privileges come from our Creator."

Me:
We do? Why?
No, actually, that's a bold faced lie, as God isn't mentioned in the Constitution. It's like the founders, men I might add, were deliberately separating church and state. Shocking.

This is the kind of shit that gets me so angry I can't think straight. How are these people supposed to lead a country when they're busy denying and vilifying an estimated 10% of the population based on a bigoted belief that is expressly forbidden by our founding documents? If we did have a leader who was saying things about atheists, I wish it would be something more like this:

"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers."

Oh, wait, that one was President Obama. Looks like someone might get it! And he's not a republican. Shocking.

What a difference an inch makes...

2011-03-29T14:59:00.000-04:00

.
So I've been taking Capoeira for just over two years and you'd think that, in this time, I'd have made some serious progress. Yet despite all my work and effort, even the simplest things it turns out I still have room to improve on. The ginga, the basic step or stance of Capoeira, I had been doing wrong until just recently, maybe three weeks ago. My legs have hurt ever since, as I'm trying to start doing it right, which is good. It's not necessarily that I was going ginga completely wrong, it's that some of the finer details of the technique were eluding me. Just one class with a different instructor and bam, I'm learning new things.

As for why I'm talking about this now, last night I learned something equally mind-blowing. Cartwheels, called au by Capoeristas, are a basic thing. I was taught them either my first or second night of class. I've been doing them ever since. I thought I was getting pretty good at them. Turns out that during that time I had been placing my hand ever so slightly wrong all this time. The difference in hand placement is at most a couple of inches, and is probably just an inch, but it has such an impact on not only all my au, but handstands, back bends, and other stuff that it's incredible. Honestly, if I showed you the difference, you might not even see it. I wouldn't have until last night.

I'm often awed not by how much I've learned, but how much more I have to learn even about things I thought I knew. Sometimes, like last night, I got this by asking an insightful question that led to a sudden realization. Other times I learn things through instruction. I'm not sure which is more but I definitely believe one thing:

Never stop asking questions. Sometimes the answers will astound you.

Technique vs. Strength in Capoeira

2011-03-24T16:54:00.000-04:00

One of the most commonly repeated comments I hear while reading about Capoeira or watching videos is that Capoeira moves are more about technique than they are about strength.

Bullshit.

Yes, absolutely, if you do the move with incorrect technique, it is harder. But ALL Capoeira moves require a certain level of strength and flexibility. Even the most basic step, the ginga, takes strength to do right. Practically anyone can do a half-assed or incorrect ginga, not that hard. To do it right, however, requires a lot of leg strength. I only recently started doing ginga right, and I'm on my 2nd year of training! I'm pretty good at back bends, but it wasn't learning the technique of the move that was hard, I didn't have the upper body strength or back flexibility to do the move in the first place! I imagine most people can't do a back bend, and they certainly can't roll into a back bend from the side.

Specifically the Macaco is the move that I've heard this nonsense the most about. It's essentially a back handspring from a crouch. Technique is important, but if you don't have the leg and back strength to kick up, technique won't mean squat to you.

I'm not sure why people like to spout this nonsense, though perhaps it's some attempt to make Capoeira seem more accessible to people. Technique or not, you gonna take Capoeira, you gonna work and you gonna work hard if you're ever going to get past ginga and some kicks. I'm just sayin'.

Of Mice and Me, Part III

2011-03-22T11:35:00.000-04:00

So remember how I said Facilities came and got my dead mouse? Well, they lied to me. The mouse and its stench remained. I complained many times and was ignored so eventually I took it to my boss and told him "fix it, I'm working from home till it's over." Even after my freaking manager gets involved Facilities tried to play it like there wasn't the smell of rotting dead thing in my cube. My boss then played the "I'll CC everyone who can fire your stupid ass on this next email". Then, and only then, did the actually nice people in Facilities show up. And tell me to GTFO of my cube. Seriously, they moved me.

Awesome!

No, really, awesome! I got moved from a cube with a view that was right next to a conference room and had foot traffic going by it all the goddamn time to a cube with half a view and zero foot traffic. I'll miss seeing 100% of the outside, but I'm stuck in a corner where no one can see me unless they walk all the way back here and the all the way into my cube. Freaking sweet. I'm so happy back here I even have some comics back up! My only actual complaint is that I have to walk forever to get to a hot water source that works for my tea, but aside from that, I am pleased.

So, live mice, dead mice, and now? New cube. I like how this turned out.

Death of religion?

2011-03-22T11:27:00.000-04:00

The BBC is reporting on the supposed death of religion. I should only be so lucky. The comments are rather entertaining since, at the time of me writing this, most of them are in moderation. However, I think it's pretty telling that this report is coming from the UK and not the USA, as I'm 90% sure the religious seriously outnumber the irreligious here.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is… right?

2011-03-16T17:17:00.000-04:00

Why is this phrase something I remembering hearing a lot when I was younger and one that I have not heard in recent history? That used to be common sense, a reasonable response, the smart response. Everyone knew it, and everyone who didn’t follow it and got burned admitted they knew it sounded too good to be true. Perhaps I’m viewing my childhood with rose-tinted glasses, but I swear I remember people not falling for stupid shit all the time.

Today things seem bleak. Anti-vaccine, anti-science views are on the rise; homeopathy and naturopathy are alive and well; psychics and astrologers are doing good business; that Nigerian scam made loads of bank and apparently still does… what the hell is going on? Was I sheltered from stupid when I was young or are people just getting more stupid, more credulous, and less skeptical?

If someone came up to me after I was in a car accident and told me that to cure me of my accident he’d take a piece of the car that hit me, dilute it ten million fold in water, then put three drops of that solution on my tongue, I would think he’d lost his mind. If I had a child and someone suggested to me that instead of preventing things like polio, rubella, and measles with vaccines, that I should not vaccinate because my child might suddenly become autistic and those other diseases weren’t that bad anyway, I’d assume that person was a lunatic. If someone came up to me after a funeral and told me they could help me talk to my dearly departed, I’d assume that person to be a scam artist and a genuinely evil person. If was engaged to that special someone and some guy told me that, due to the star pattern that I’d be born under, our marriage would fail, I’d think him insane and an asshole to boot. If someone from Nigera emailed me and told me they could help me make money if I’d only give them my bank account information, I would giggle at the utter ridiculousness of that request.

People fall for each of those situations I listed every single day. Beyond that, people don’t seem to be ashamed for falling for this crap; they seem to be even more stubbornly arguing that these fairly pathetic and obvious scams must actually be true because they heard about some guy somewhere for whom it worked. Anecdotes trump evidence these days.

When did skepticism, questioning the unlikely, and belief in science take such a fall? Why is it when I question something that sounds ridiculous, like taking royal jelly from a bees to improve fertility in a human, do I become the asshole? Why is not just accepting something that sounds insane now a bad thing? Are the kids not asking questions anymore?

Unfortunately, I think I have an answer: despair. Life is hard right now, there’s no denying that unless you’re ungodly wealthy or a Republican with your blinders on. People are struggling with jobs, money, housing, health care, children, and more. Businesses are closing, even when they aren’t being run by idiots. The world is heating up, bacteria are becoming more prevalent and more dangerous, and the calamity is Japan is fresh on everyone’s mind at the moment. How is this an answer to why people are more credulous? Simple: people need hope.

Hope is powerful. Hope can make life bearable again. Having recently had a complete 180 in my hope situation at work, I can attest that this is a real thing. And, though it pains me to say this, what I think all these things I mentioned have done for people is given them hope. It’s a long shot, but given how people still buy lottery tickets religiously, long shot hopes might be even more appealing to desperate people. And these days, with hope being in short order, any hope in a storm will give succor.

Even though I can be an asshole when it comes to believing stupid shit (especially homeopathy and vaccines), I have a hard time denying people the only hope they have, no matter how stupid the hope. This may shock you, but sometimes even I know when to just nod, smile, and say nothing. I guess I'm going to just have to bite my tongue for a while. Either that or accept that I really am a know-it-all asshole.

Wow. Just wow.

2011-03-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

As reported by Bad Astronomy, House Republicans to a man (or woman) "...voted down a simple amendment declaring the reality of climate change. Not that it was human-caused, or dangerous, just that it existed. Which it does." Holy fucking shit.

You want to argue that global warming isn't caused by man you can get some backup, some evidence that says you might be right. But that global warming is happening? That the planet is warming? You have to rely on cranks and discredited pseudo-scientists to get any evidence to merit your claim. Which is to say, you have to ignore a vast amount of evidence to believe your claim. Or, which may be the case here, you have to be a deluded idiot or being paid for your belief, and in the case of the people who are, in theory, running this country, I'm not sure which of those options I find more horrible.

I disagreed with Anthropogenic Global Warming (man made) for a long time. But now that I've actually spent the time and read a lot of data, I found that the science is sound. Also, 90%+ of climate scientists agree that AGW is real and 97%+ of climate scientists at least agree that the warming trend is real. This little demonstration by the Democrats, for whom I hold little love, just goes to prove one thing: the Republican party is anti-science. That is fucking terrifying.

Democratic Congressman Ed Markey gave a sarcastic speech that summed up the recent attacks on science by the Republican party fairly well.

I have never been prouder to be a Libertarian.

Of Mice and Me, Part II

2011-03-14T16:23:00.000-04:00

Well, now that I went out and said how cute mice are, they got revenge on me the only way they had left... The little fucker died somewhere in my cube. I came in today and was greeted by the stench of dead rodent, and as a bonus, I couldn't find the wee body. The bastard had crammed himself into some part of my cube and perished. What a wonderful morning. Fortunately the lovely people from facilities found him somewhere and got rid of his remains while I was out to lunch. Now his mousy remains are gone and I can get back to working without a stench in my nostrils.

Now I'm depressed.

2011-03-11T16:51:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows things are going a little rough in the economy. Yeah, you hear "good news" on the news from time to time, but as everyone I know agrees, things are hard right now. It's hit close to home in several places, but it's punched hard with today's revelation...

Between Books may close soon.

My favorite bookstore, my favorite place to get gaming supplies, my comic outlet is close to going under. I spoke to the owner today and he's been having a rough few years, and recently he had to let go one of his only other employees, a staple of the place. Lots of things about today's economy are depressing, but that I might lose my very favorite place to buy books? That one of my friends might lose his life's work? That really hurts. The best I can do is buy some books, which I will do, but unless other people also go buy some books, it's only a matter of time.

Go buy books!

Of mice and me. No, that's not a typo.

2011-03-07T15:02:00.000-05:00

So there's been mouse sightings in my workplace. I know this because of the ear-piercing shrieks that come from the women I work with when they catch sight of mice. The otherwise sensible woman I work next to is rendered nearly inconsolable when a mouse appears. More than once when there's been a sighting of these little rodents work has, for those women, ground to a halt as they scream, discuss their terror with other women, jump at every unexpected movement, and pull their feet up onto their chairs.

Now, as a concerned and indeed compassionate adult, after a mouse sighting I take great time and care to make sure these women hear what they need to hear: that they are complete pansies and absolutely entertaining to me in their terror. And, no, I'm not kidding, I rail on these women for being afraid of a thing the size of my Mr. Potato-moto chip-clip. Seriously, the biggest mouse we've seen is, including the tail, maybe the length of one of my fingers.

Maybe I'm just a jerk, but I cannot get worked up over a tiny rodent and find it silly that other people do. A spider the size of my finger would concern me a bit; a wasp that big would get me to arm myself with smashing weapons; but a mouse? A cute little mouse? No. I had lots of little pets when I was a child, including mice, and have seen adorable little rats and whatnot as a grown man. Sorry, not scary. Startling when you're not expecting them, certainly. But that startled turns to "aww" very quickly for me.

One important detail to this story is that in all these scream-inducing mouse sightings, I have barely ever even gotten the slightest glimpse of the little bastard. I think they're adorable, so that annoyed me. However, since the mouse generally ignored me, I didn't hold much hope of seeing one.

Then I neglected to put my breakfast bars into plastic tubs! I didn't see a mouse, but I saw the signs of the little guy eating my breakfast bars. Rather than throw them out immediately, I decided to wait and see if I could see the little guy. And, with my continued neglect of throwing mouse bait out, today I finally got to see the little dude! Twice! And he was a tiny, adorable little mouse who ran away from me with all possible speed.

Obviously, as I value my ears, I haven't told anyone this. The women would either freak out or get mad at me for taunting my mouseless fate; everyone else would just tell me to stop it since it's hard enough to get rid of mice as it is. But, through a combination of neglect and patience, I finally got my very own mouse sighting here at work that didn't involve screaming.

And, yes, I threw away the mouse bait. Otherwise I'd probably get more screaming at some point soon.

The common cold

2011-02-16T10:40:00.000-05:00

Everybody's had a cold and nobody like them. Everybody has their own remedies for colds and no one agrees on which ones work. Well, as it turns out, there is evidence based science that tells us what works.

What works: aspirin and other such pain pills; antihistamines combined with decongestants; possibly hot liquids; irrigating the nose with a neti pot may also work. That's it.

What doesn't work: basically everything else. That's right, no echinacea, no vitamin C, no boiled limes, no nothing.

My source is Science Base Medicine's Treating The Common Cold post. It's really depressing, but nothing works on the common cold because the common cold is a freaking badass apparently. Science may sometimes depress me, but at least they aren't telling me to drink disgusting tinctures and cod liver oil. At least, they aren't telling me to do so without good evidence anyway. What's your favorite cold remedy?

Aural fixation

2011-02-15T23:02:00.000-05:00

Though I am sure you're probably thinking, "Tee hee, oral fixation," no, this post really is about my aural fixation, that is, my fixation with sound. The first, and most obvious part of my fixation is my musical tastes. I don't just like music. I like all kinds of music, a little bit of almost everything. Music can make me energetic, angry, sad, even bring me to tears. I love music and though I can't spend all my time on it, I listen to music every day.

One of those things about a movie, or tv show or video game that can make or break it is the score. An excellent example of a game made incredible is the original Halo game. That score is dark and beautiful, evoking feelings of sorrow, horror, rage, and righteous might. It's been out for years, but every single time I listen to that track, it takes me back to playing that game. If you've never heard the score and like orchestral music, I highly recommend it.

As a more recent example, thanks to the horrible time sink that is Netflix, I found an anime I'd never heard of called Mushi-Shi. On the face of it, it's a series of disjointed stories with little more than a main character to string them together. It's not very anime of an anime, if that makes any sense, but the idea you get is that the show is supposed to be either creepy or just interesting. It's the music that takes this show to new heights. In the show episodes that are meant to be creepy are made so much creepier by the music while the interesting episodes are still brilliantly scored if less creepy. The music makes you love and hate the characters just right. It's scary good.

I can love a crappy move if the score is good (like Crank) and can despise an anime series if the music is horrible (like Blade of the Immortal). Anyway, that's my take on it. Do you ever feel the same?

That's a bit less maudlin of a post, yes?

Goodbye

2011-02-15T16:57:00.000-05:00

Last year, which I really do have to say now, I dated a woman who I had a great time with. Things took a surprising and unfortunate turn for the worse and we sadly but amicably parted ways. Though I'd felt strongly towards her, I figured I'd get over it quickly as we'd only dated for almost two months.

Here I am many months later and I still haven't gotten over her. She's been hovering in my thoughts for this entire time and despite my attempts to move forward, something's kept her there. I'm fairly sure I know what it is now, and I think I know what I need to do... I need to say goodbye.

I did say goodbye to her, but I didn't get to say everything I needed to say. Now I need to say them. I don't know if she ever even got this blog location, or if she did if she follows me or not. I wouldn't if I were her. So me posting this may be just talking to myself. But I think it's important that I put into words what I need to say. Writing what I need to say has a permanency to it that thinking does not. I hope that this is what I need to finally move on.

Yes, this post will be very personal, but I'll maintain appropriate anonymity levels.

Dear Shock,

It's been, well, a pathetically long time since you said we couldn't be together. I know this isn't anyone's fault, and I know it's not what you wanted, but that's not why I'm writing this. I'm writing this to explain a few things it's taken me this long to figure out.

When we parted ways I figured you would get over me in short order and wouldn't waste time looking for someone else. I thought I would too. I went on some dates, met some people, but nothing really stuck. Then I gave up. I didn't try anymore. I chalked it up to a temporary slump, but it's persisted to this day.

When Valentines Day hit yesterday and I saw some of the most foul pessimism about the day and some of the most wonderful and heartfelt attempts it finally made me admit something.

I was with you for less than two months, but in that short time I fell in love with you.

It's not just that I wanted to have someone to give flowers to yesterday, it was that I wanted to give them to you. I wanted to be able to do something sappy and stupid and get you to smile that smile at me. I wanted you to laugh at some stupid joke I made, or throw a chocolate at my head, or comment on my shirt. I didn't care what it was, I just wanted you to be there.

I am intensely aware that this is pathetic. You're some woman I met online who I went on some dates with. Yeah it was great, but it ended and I should have moved on. But you know what? I didn't.

To say you were great isn't sufficient. To say you amazed me doesn't even begin to cover it.

You left me breathless, stuttering, and blushing like every time we were together.

Things weren't perfect, even in my rose colored glasses. You and I were eventually going to have a knock-down, drag-out brawl over astrology and other magical thinking at some point. It's possible we wouldn't have made it past that point. My skeptical thinking and your open mind were bound to have clashes. But I didn't care.

I wanted to try, to give it my all, to be someone you could be proud of being with. I wanted to know that even though we disagreed, we still cared enough to respect each others opinions. I wanted to be with you for more than a few dates. Those fantasies of being with you forever were more than I gave them credit for. I wanted to walk in my parents door with you on my arm and watch that potential catastrophe all the while smiling knowing that you would be with me, no matter what they thought. I wanted my friends to meet you and finally get why I was so excited. I wanted my sister to approve.

None of this will ever happen. I know that. And it hurts to say this, but I'm finally ready to accept that. Goodbye then was goodbye forever. I've immortalized you in my writing, but beyond that, you are gone, out of my reach forever. It's come to this...

I loved you. I really did. I wanted forever with you. But that dream is over. It's finally time to say it and to really, really mean it.

I miss you.

Goodbye.

-S

While I'm on my soap box

2011-01-12T11:15:00.000-05:00

Homeopathy is water.

Lots of people out there think that homeopathy is some kind of "natural medicine" (both false) that is a reasonable comparison to "western" medicine. These people have heard all sorts of things in the news making homeopathy sound like a reasonable choice. But, in my experience, almost none of these people realize that homeopathy is almost always 100% water. So, in my tiny effort to spread the truth about this nonsense, the following is how to create your very own homeopathic cure! Specifically the homeopathic product Oscillococcinum, a product that is marketed as flu relief.

Step 1: Get a duck heart and liver and grind them into a paste.

Step 2: Take a single drop of that paste and dilute it with 100 drops of water.

Step 3: Shake vigorously.

Step 4: Take a single drop of this new solution and dilute it with 100 drops of water.

Step 5: Shake vigorously.

Step 6: Repeat steps 4 and 5 four hundred (400) times in a row.

Step 7: Drink 1 gram of this solution!

...

Yes, that's really it. Check out homeopathy and Oscillococcinum on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. How does this in theory work? Well, you see, when you shake the solution the water "remembers" the important bits, and you therefore gain all the benefits even though you are diluting the original solution.

...

Doesn't make any sense, does it? That's because homeopathy is batshit insane. Water memory? Diluting it makes it stronger? And why in the fuck would you start with a freaking duck heart and liver?

So remember, next time someone mentions homeopathy, there's only one response to that: "Homeopathy is water".

I will also accept "Homeopathy is bullshit." Not technically true, but it sure gets the point across.

Immunize for Good

2011-01-12T10:41:00.002-05:00

http://www.immunizeforgood.com/

I have become a crusader for vaccines, as you may have noticed. Now whenever I need someone to read up on vaccines and get the actual unvarnished truth, I have a great website to send them to, that being Immunize for Good as seen above. It gives direct honest answers while not sweeping anything under the rug. As sources of information about vaccines go, this is about the best one I've seen. It's easily accessible for anyone who can read, laid out simply and logically, and a lot better than trying to wade through forum discussions to find the truth. Spread the word!

The AZ nightmare

2011-01-11T17:03:00.000-05:00

As someone who found out about the shooting thing early this morning by reading a blog, I'm a bit behind on the commenting/twitter/whatever conflagration that's going on right now. I have thoughts that I really want to work through, so here I go.

"Don't politicize this tragedy!"

It's kind of hard not to politicize an attempted assassination of a political figure. However, it's really easy to hide behind politicization to avoid actually having to think clearly. This whole Sarah Palin nonsense is just that, utter nonsense. Yes she made an inappropriate graphic, that's not in question, but did that graphic cause this situation? Um... That's one hell of a stretch. Yes it would be nice to have someone to blame, but life is never so easy.

What about the fact that it was a right wing psycho that killed a left wing target? Well, Loughner (the assassin) wasn't a right wing psycho. He was described as liberal by his friends, he has been reported as a registered Republican and Independent which is confusing, and unless the Tea Party put the Communist Manifesto on their reading list recently, he's just not fitting the cookie cutter "right wing" shape.

Well Giffords was obviously a right wing target, I mean, remember that Sarah Palin document? Once again, details cloud the issue: Giffords was a "Blue Dog" democrat, which isn't the leftest of the lefts. As much as it would be easy to say this is is Red on Blue crime, reality complicates things by not making perfect sense.

Most importantly, we don't, as far I as know right now, know why this happened. It may not have been politically motivated. It seems to make logical sense, but as someone once said "Logic is a method by which we go wrong with confidence." This situation is neither simple nor easy and certainly isn't logical. I read today that Loughner had a gripe with Giffords because she failed to answer one of his fairly incoherent questions to his satisfaction, but was that enough to drive him to try to kill her? As he's not talking, we may never know.

Guns

I have heard over and over that if this man didn't have access to a gun this never would have happened. As this particular event took place outside, Loughner could have done as much damage, or more, with a well aimed car. One of the main reasons the shooting stopped where it did was because Loughner took time to reload and was overwhelmed by two bystanders. Imagine if he had brought a sword and was any good with it? Don't need to reload a sword. He could have done as much damage and more. Yes, the gun is bad, but if sufficiently motivated, any weapon would have done.

I have also heard that a bystander helped the situation by pulling his legally concealed weapon and firing on Loughner, but I can't verify that.

I'm sure I'm beating a dead horse here, but it's not a gun that killed those people, it was a person. He made the choice.

Mentally Ill.

As I am mentally ill, this particular point is really grating on my nerves. I am mentally ill; I have mentally ill friends; the stigma attached to "mentally ill" is not fair to the millions of people in this country who are mentally ill but wouldn't ever do something like this. Not every person with a mental illness is sitting on the edge of a knife, a random thought away from a murder spree.

I've heard it guessed, by a doctor no less, that Loughner was very likely a paranoid schizophrenic and I tend to agree that this is likely. I still have to point out that for every paranoid schizophrenic that does something horrible like this, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands who do not. Demonizing the diagnosis isn't helping anyone, and may indeed endanger people who have this diagnosis. It makes as much sense to say that every person who has a heart defect will eventually die because of that heart defect.

Jared Lee Loughner

This man killed 6 people and wounded at least 14 others. It bothers me that this, his defining moment, will be all we're ever likely to know about the man since he's not talking. He'll be branded as left or right wing, a psycho, and a killer. But is that all there is to him? Just some political beliefs and that he killed people? He liked the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, but is that it?

It is the usual reaction of people to take someone like this, paint him in black and white, and leave it alone. But this young man made choices, some good, some very bad, and I want to know why. Aside from his choices, he was also a son, a friend, someone who read a lot, and had strong opinions. He liked YouTube and MySpace. He read The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Gulliver's Travels, and Through The Looking Glass. I want more.

My point is Loughner was a person. Whatever his faults may have been, however bad his choices, he was still a person and should be treated as more than just a killer. Yes, he killed people, but if we brush the person off, accept the "right wing psycho" label, and don't try to understand why he did what he did, how can we ever hope to prevent this in the future? He had friends and family. They could see he was unhinged. Could they have done anything to help? Is there anything useful we can learn from Loughner's tragically bad choices?

Imprisoning all the mentally ill isn't an option. Telling politicians they can't do anything that can possibly be taken out of context in a bad light isn't going to work. Restricting guns from responsible adults won't work. We need to find out, from Loughner, how he could have been reached, how someone could have helped prevent this tragedy. Otherwise, we're doomed to repeat this tragedy.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare... Or more proof I'm weird.

2010-12-09T23:09:00.000-05:00

A while ago I played Red Dead Redemption and, though I admittedly spent more time playing poker and wandering around the wilderness looking for stuff than playing the actual missions, I thought it was one of the better games I had played in a long time. However, far more important, I felt it was one of the best stories that any video game has ever tried to tell with a main character that was very well fleshed out. Possibly the best fleshed out video game character ever.

Why do I say this? John Marston, a former outlaw, forced to hunt his old old gang members to be reunited with his family, was more than just a 3D polygonal thing for me to drive around in a video game. From the very beginning of the game, the personality of John, a very tough man with a softer side that shone through from time to time, was very clear. John was a hard man, vicious when he had to be, but honest and loyal, turning down the offers from prostitutes with a polite but firm, "I'm a married man, ma'am". He wasn't hunting his old friends for any reason but because he had no choice. John would do anything for his family, that was made quite clear.

As the game progressed, John grew beyond the basic shell of a character he started with. He was a hard man, but he had motivations beyond the "save my family" standard, and he made friendships and relationships with the strangest of bedfellows work through a combination of his unerring blunt honesty and his harsh and demanding attitude. He worked with the ranch owner that saved his life (who clearly grew sweet on him over time), grave robbers, snake oil salesmen, sheriffs, marshals, corrupt government officials, and more, never changing in his determination to save his family. As I played the game I grew not only to like John, but to respect him. He was never shy about his past, but had clearly worked hard to become something more. Now he was fighting, tooth and nail, to be sure he could have that back.

Eventually the game did end, and I had played poker and looked for stupid freaking weeds for long enough, so I bid the game adieu and moved on to other frontiers. Still, I was sad to put the game down. I really liked the game, especially the story, and it's hard to not want more of that.

Time passed, then I heard about this new Red Dead Redemption, Undead Nightmare thing, I thought, "Oh cool! Zombies and Red Dead! Could be fun!" And in as much as that, I was dead on. But there was something surprising for me.

Playing the game, hearing John's voice, seeing him interact with his family, brought back a rush of feelings. I realized that, in seeing this video game character, a written fake person, that I had quite literally missed him. That seeing him again, hearing him talk and interact with his family and others, truly brought out a feeling of seeing an old friend again. I'm dead serious, after putting down RDD and thinking I'd never see him again, getting one last real time to see John Marston in action a completely unexpected treat.

It may signal that I'm really insane, but I think it shows just how good the writers were for this game. I missed John Marston, I missed hearing his voice, I missed his aggressive manner of handling his less honest companions, I missed watching him tease his wife and clumsily try to be a good father to his son. I missed his attitude, his smile, and his unending efforts to be a good man in a world out of control.

Now that I've beaten Undead Nightmare I am sad that it's over. I'm losing a friend again. I'm losing John Marsten, and the second time is harder because I really now know what I'm going to miss. John isn't a real person, I can't go find him, or drop him an email. All I can hope is that somehow Rockstar makes another game with John as the main character without screwing everything up, as usually happens.

Goodbye John. I will miss you.

Oh, right, the actual game. As zombie games go, I enjoyed it. Things get really hectic and annoying when zombies get all up in your business, and the first level is a desperate dash to try to find ammunition, but you're blasting away the undead in a myriad of fun settings, you have the opportunity to catch and ride the Four Horses of the apocalypse, and you get to visit, and sometimes kill, all those characters you loved from RDD. It's a great add on to a great game. Visiting with John is just the kind of perk I get worked up about.

Vaccines... Government / Big Pharma conspiracy?

2010-11-05T14:42:00.001-04:00

I have heard this particular line of nonsense before, usually from anti-vaxers, but occasionally from well meaning if misinformed people. I mean, really, who doesn't want to mistrust the government? Buncha taxing jerks, and they're in bed with the Big Pharma jerks who want to poke us with expensive needles, right?

First, look at this from the view of the greedy government types. They get money from us via taxes, and boy howdy do they get our money. But that one important prerequisite of getting that money? The people they are taxing have to not only be alive, but live long enough to get some serious cash. And the higher quality of life those people have, the longer they live, the more taxes they pay. So in the view of the greedy government, those vaccines better work really well. Therefore, in this case, it is in the government's best interests to make sure Big Pharma is getting those vaccines to everyone they can.

Now, Big Pharma is clearly in it for the money, right? So they're charging thousands of dollars per dose of vaccine, right? Well, actually, no. If you really want to squeeze all the money you can out of not only America but indeed the entire world, you have to make that vaccine as cheap as possible. A $5 injection is a tiny deal here, but in poverty ridden Africa? If we are really going to reach those millions of potential customers then those vaccines have to be as cheap as humanly possible. And if one pharma company puts out a vaccine cheaper than yours, you scramble to find a cheaper way to get your vaccine made.

Oh no! Cutting corners is a clear sign of shoddy and even dangerous vaccines, right? Did you forget about the greedy government? They want their people alive and taxable, and Big Pharma damn well better keep people alive or the government will remove your funding and give it to the other guys making the cheap yet still effective vaccines. On top of that, cheaper vaccines mean more Americans to tax, so the government is pushing on Big Pharma to cut costs as well.

How does that big pharma government conspiracy sound now? Two huge greedy groups who both benefit from cheaper and more effective vaccines. They may be greedy jerks, but there's no money to be made unless the vaccines work and are affordable.

Again with the personal anecdote ending... My old Capoeira instructor, Gorilla, don't ask, got his PhD in micro biology, or something similar, and got a job with a pharmaceuticaal company shortly thereafter. His job was to find a way to reduce an already cheap vaccine to less than $.05 a dose. Big Pharma reducing costs, not at government behest, but in an effort to make the vaccine so affordable that they could help prevent that disease in as many people as possible. Making money? No. Helping people acoss the globe. That is what the real goal is: saving lives by preventing horrible diseases. You can take that to the bank.

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It's Vaccine Awareness Week!

2010-11-03T14:49:00.001-04:00

Hopefully you've either never heard or this or at least heard about it from either sciencebasedmedicine.org or scienceblogs.com/insolence/. See what's going on is there's this Anti-Vaccine/Anti-Science, trying to be polite here, person by the name of Joe Mercola (to whom I will not link for fear of speading his lies) who has dubbed this week the title above in an attempt to bombard the Internet with his misinformation and falsehoods regarding the dangers and efficacy of vaccines. The doctors at SBM and Respectful Insolence decided to mirror that... Guy's idea by trying to spread as much truth about vaccines this week. While I am aware that like three people actually read this blog, I'm still going to throw my hat in the pro-science/pro-evidence side of this little online tussle.

Vaccines work. Want proof? Find me a case of Smallpox. Go ahead and look! I'll wait... Note how the only Smallpox on the planet is frozen in researcher's labs under high security? That there is proof that vaccines work. There's other evidence, but it doesn't get better than Smallpox, a horrifying disease that was completely eradicated by vaccines. If you insist on more proof, SMB and RI both have dozens if not hundreds of posts on vaccine efficacy that you can check out.

Don't vaccines cause autism or something? No, they don't, but if you've heard this there's a good chance it's because of Mercola or Jenny McCarthy by way of Oprah. Not only is this false, but it's the most pernicious attack on science, relying on emotion fueled rants from parents who believe their children were thusly affected by vaccination. Science and studies don't make these parents feel better, and all the evidence in the world won't change the mind of a parent who "knows" what really happened. That Mercola and his ilk use these poor people's tragedies to fuel their weapons is deplorable. Vaccines do not cause autism. Parents beliefs aside, the evidence clearly shows this. Again, SBM and RI have all the information you need.

I implore you to read the evidence about vaccines. Not just from the shrieking people, but also the calm doctors and medical professionals who really are helping people and aren't the "big pharma" schills they are being made out to be.

As a final point, a personal anecdote. My father is having some health issues and can't afford a bout with the flu because he might die from it. Because of this, for the first time in my life, I am getting a flu vaccination. I'm doing this because it might save my father's life. Does this seem reasonable to you? I sure hope so.

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I was wrong again...

2010-09-09T11:35:00.001-04:00

A couple posts back I said I'd found and researched the drifting in neutral vs drifting in gear thing and found the latter to be more fuel efficient. Since that post in July I have been testing what i suggested. I went into hypermilling mode and tested using drifting in gear and found that it was good when engine breaking was appropriate, but annoying all the rest of the time because I kept having to hit the gas to maintain speed when normally I would not. Still I stuck with it and got 34.14 MPG after a full tank of gas. Then I switched to drifting in neutral using all the same driving techniques I had before. When I finally got through that tank, found my MPG had improved to 34.94. I'll grant you there isn't any statistical rigor here and any number of influences might have affected my results, but nearly a full MPG more says a lot to me. So I have to say that while technically the drifting in gear is more fuel efficient, in practice you may find it to either not make much difference, or even make your overall performance worse. I'm going to stick with my tried and true thank you.

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A delicious mistake

2010-08-18T10:35:00.001-04:00

So after running out of the lovely tea/care package from my beloved friends in Boston, I bit the damn bullet and went to Teavana. A clever salesperson upsold the shit out of me, and I spent way more money than I wanted too. But the tea! I got several types of tea, but far and away the best is the Oolong tea.

You may never heard of this, but there is a type of Oolong tea that is collected from tall trees by trained monkeys. Really. It's called monkey picked Oolong. Really. It's supposed to be great, but it sounded really stupid to me.

Then I tried some. Holy crap was I wrong. This tea is just fantastic. The aroma, the flavor, everything is amazing. Is it worth the money I spent? That's arguable, but was it a good mistake? Yes. A great mistake. And because of that clever salesperson, I won't run out of this stuff for at least a year. Yum.

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The Ballad of Drinking Tea at Work

2010-07-28T13:40:00.001-04:00

As you may or may not know, I am a tea drinker. I really dislike coffee, and I don't care if you think me weird for it. Be it black, green, oolong, white, or something in the middle, I like most teas. Obviously this should be my drink of choice at work then, and it is, but there is, as always, a snag.
Everyone knows that tea bags are how you drink tea. In this country. In more civilized countries, people make their teas from loose leaf tea, which is, to any tongue, far superior to tea bags, known as "tampon tea" by the Brits. I, having tasted both, can say with great certainty that loose leaf is better... Provided it is brewed correctly.
How hard can it be to brew tea? Pour hot water over leaves, steep, drink! Right.
Nerd powers engage!
Tea, depending on style, likes to be brewed at a specific temperature. Each tea may have some wiggle room on temp, but black tea likes water just off a boil and green tea likes water closer to 175 degrees. Easy enough, right? Well, the only access to hot water I have is the crappy coffee machine at work, and while I haven't been so nerdy as to bring an instant read in to find the exact temp of the water, I know it's much shy of boiling. For green tea, that's fine. For black, not so much.
Why not bring in an electric kettle? Because that's a fire hazard and I couldn't leave it in the break room anyway since someone would definitely steal it.
So here's what I'm stuck with: draw water from coffee hot water tap, place chopstick in water to prevent superheating water, place mug in microwave, heat for 2 minutes or until boiling, put loose leaf tea into French press, pour water over tea, steep 3-4 minutes, sugar to taste, enjoy tea. I do this three times a day, sometimes more. And let's not forget that oolong tea, a favorite of mine, likes water a couple minutes off a boil, so that becomes more complicated.
The more tea astute of you might also note that using the water from the coffee machine might not be the optimum choice since some of the oxygen has been boiled out of the water. To you I say what Teddy Rosevelt may have once said, "You do the best you can with what you got where you are."
Getting a decent cup of tea might be annoying, but dammit, a good cuppa is the best way to start the day.
Today's post brought to you by the Corporation for Stuff You Probably Don't Care About.

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An error old...

2010-07-26T11:14:00.001-04:00

I'm not obsessed with hypermilling lately, what with gas being semi reasonably priced and all, but I am obsessed with making sure I at least know what's going on with hypermilling, and beause of this I am forced to make a correction about my previous hypermilling post.
In my post I said that coasting in neutral can save you gas in some situatuons. It turns out that I was wrong. Logically it makes sense that if your car is idling rather than in gear that your car has lower RPMs and is therefore saving gas. However, after some research, I have determined that to be wrong.
The truth is that when in gear and going down a hill in a fuel injected, stick shift car your engine senses the throttle position and RPMs and put your engine into an extremely low fuel injecting state, one that is, oddly enough, using less gas than just being in idle. Rolling down a hill in gear without using the throttle is therefore more fuel efficient than coasting in neutral.
Frankly this sounds very counter intuitive to me, but I checked a dozen or so sources, and while a lot of people believe that coasting in neutral is better, the only people with actual proof are the gear heads who say otherwise.
So I was wrong! I don't know how much difference in terms of MPG this is, but I can say for certain that it is greater than zero, so it could be worth while.

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OMFG GO SEE INCEPTION

2010-07-20T23:06:00.000-04:00

Dealing with my depressing life nonsense over the past few weeks has included me going to the movies. A lot. Obviously explaining my Shamwow post. I also went to see Predators, meh, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, pretty good, and then Inception.

HolEEEEEEEEE shit!

Not since Memento have I seen a movie this... Awesome. And I don't mean, dude, sweet, awesome. I mean the original meaning of awesome: that which inspires awe. To watch this movie, to watch all the twists, the turns, the layers in layers in layers in... Just trust me. You aren't going to see a movie like this anywhere ever. Christopher Nolan is clearly an incredible director and I will follow him anywhere after this one.

It's over

2010-07-20T12:30:00.000-04:00

She ended our brief relationship today. I may not like it, but better that she end it now than drag it out and end up making things worse. I had to say goodbye today. It was not easy nor remotely nice to do, but it was the right thing to do. It hurts, but it will fade. I am again single, but at least I know that if I can score someone as amazing as her, then I can do it again.

All I need to get started is pack of cigarettes and a fifth of burbon followed closely by getting the fuck out of DE. All of these shall occur very soon.

Fate keeps to her status quo

2010-07-15T22:18:00.001-04:00

I made little mention of is here, for I am lazy and shiftless, but sometime not so long ago I met a lady, a woman, whom I was most impressed by, even intimidated by. She was described by a friend as "perfect on paper", and while I shy from calling anything or anyone perfect, things were going well. I was pleased with her and she with I.

Clearly it was here that Fate decided to step in and fuck things up.

For reasons that I will not go into here because they are not my reasons to make public, things took an unexpected turn for the worse. This is no one's fault. I did nothing wrong, she did nothing wrong, this is just a shitty situation that there was no preparing for and hurts all the more for it being just plain unfair.

I have not spoken to her in nearly two weeks. For the first week, I was just plain, old-fashioned depressed. A case of the blues made no better by my insistence on listening to the actual blues all week. No appetite, little joy found in anything save a good book and a little Zero Punctuation.

It's now the second week. I intend to send out a sitrep request soon, but I will give it a bit more time. Rushing this can only make things worse. Still, I am much better this week. It feels good to back in my own self again. If things go badly from here, I will be ok. Not happy, but ok. I can't ask for much more.

I hope that things will go well, but they don't have to. If this goes well and then goes badly again or takes a different turn for the worse, it likely will be more than a week to recover.

Regardless, in the face of this uncertainty, I say wholeheartedly: Bring your shit, Fate. Bring your biggest disappointments, your harshest turns, and your most crushing defeats. I will endure them and I will live on, no matter what you throw at me. If things turn for the worse, I will sing songs and tell tales of the time I did have with her, for every second I had with her was worth the pain I feel now.

Of those seconds, may there be more.

Fuck you M. Knight Shamwow

2010-07-14T21:20:00.000-04:00

I'm not gonna lie. I love Avatar. The series on Nick, not the over-hyped piece of soft-core, blue-person porn that James Cameron put out. It was a brilliant show: clever, funny, fun, excellently crafted, with characters that grew, evolved, and learned. It was both ridiculously funny and incredibly epic, and without hyperbole it is one of the best shows ever made.

Though Nick did its usual thing and screwed around with schedules, nearly took the show off the air without finishing it, and generally did a bad job, it still ended up being spectacular. Beloved by all the show ended its run on Nick as one of its most popular shows.

Realizing that they could try to squeeze blood from the Avatar stone, and figuring that they could rely on a big name director, they turned to M. Night Shyamalan, who shall forever be referred to as M. Night Shamwow, as their guy. In typical Shamwow style, he promised the world.

He delivered a steaming pile of shit.

Ok, you have a show with millions of fans. They know the series from beginning to end, they love the characters, they want to see this series converted into a move befitting the show. You have the entire series as a guide. Clearly you can't do everything the show did, but keeping to the spirit of the show should not be difficult.

Step one: If a character named Aang is pronounced like "bang", then you do not decide to have Aang pronounced like "bong". Neither do you decide to have almost every single name in the movie pronounced differently from it was in the series. You are going from a TV show to a movie! This isn't a book! There is no question of how to pronounce the name! It's already been done! Changing this is fucking retarded!

Step two: If a character like Aang is a goofy, funny, fun little kid who loves nothing more than to play, then don't make him into a dour, boring, little bastard that no one could like. In fact, keep the personalities of all the characters as close to what they were as possible, because that's what the characters are supposed to be like!

Step three: If a character with a dark past has a huge burn scar on his face that no one could possibly miss, don't replace it with what may as well be a shaving cut.

Step four: If a character is a jolly old, short, fat guy, do not replace him with a goddamn tall, muscular, and serious guy!

Step five: If a show is, by and large, funny, then your movie should be funny! If it's dull, slow, and utterly without humor, then you've done something very wrong.

If you're worried about spoilers, don't, because all of that shit happens in the first five minutes of the fucking movie. There's a whole hour and a half left to fuck up.

I could go on, and Jesus I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Shamwow, by my guess, probably never saw more than bits of the series when his kids watched it and raved about it. He then read the text synopsis of like six episodes and changed whatever he felt like so he could make the series conform to his opinion of how the show should have been.

If Shamwow was to throw a rock and his target was the entire planet Earth he couldn't have missed the target worse if he had thrown the rock directly into the fucking Sun! Shamwow now joins Uwe Boll on the list of people who should be banned from making movies.

One last thing. Repeat after me: "3-D is a gimmick." It was a gimmick in the '50s and today it is a more technologically advanced gimmick. Until we get true 3-D movies, and I mean holographic movies, I'm going to save the money and see the 2-D versions.

I had a good weekend

2010-06-01T13:23:00.000-04:00

First, I bought a new car. I did some pretty good wheeling and dealing, and got a very good price on my new '06 Honda Civic LX coupe, took advantage of a couple of deals, and now have an almost ridiculously low monthly payment. Booyah.

What made the buying process very funny was that I had a date very shortly after closing on the car, and I let my sales dude know that. They then rushed me through the process quickly and I was off to meet my date in Phily.

This was a first date with a person I'd met on OkCupid, always slightly scary, but part of the dating world I live in. I was anxious as always, not the least of which was because she was considerably older and I thought she might meet me and think "pff, young idiot, pass".

As it turns out, I didn't have to worry. We hit it off immediately, talked for hours, and without going into any lurid details, had a great time. So great, in fact, we set a second date for two days later. Alls I gots left to say about that is, so far so good. :)

Music

2010-05-06T20:02:00.000-04:00

I like music. I like lots of music. I tell people that I like all kinds of music. Yet, even with such warnings, when I mention that I like something that seems so out of character, say Owl City, I get questioned who I am and what have I done with me. Never mind that I like everything from the growliest of death metal all the way to post rock indie love fests, never mind that I love dance music, and weird atonal techno music, and obscure British women singing. Seriously, there isn't a genre of music I've ever met, ever, that I haven't been able to find an example of that I like. This even includes country and hardcore rap. So why are people so consistently surprised when I like music? It's weird. Yes, I probably listen to more wimpy music that most people would say is a sign that I'm very gay than even gay people listen to. But so what? I like what I like, and isn't that what music is about? So if I want to listen to Owl City, or Imogen Heap, or Lily Allen, or Sigur Rós, or Röyksopp, or Cascada, or Lightning Hopkins, or Chopin, or any other thing you can think of that seems bizarre, so what? I guarantee whoever you are you have a musical guilty pleasure, because everyone does. Except me, because I never feel guilty for loving music. You shouldn't either, even if Achy Breaky Heart is your thing.

And just so we're clear that I'm not losing my touch, three of my favorite bands right now are Arch Enemy, As I Lay Dying, and Five Finger Death Punch. Death metal, metalcore, and heavy metal. Booyah.

Swell

2010-05-05T15:57:00.001-04:00

Just put the final retouches on the final pages of my fourth book and before I could back them up to my flash drive, my computer won't boot into Windows. Great timing. Now I'm running fixer programs hoping to get the thing running again long enough to save some files, before looking into a new laptop. Convenient that nearly every electronic thing I own broke nearly simultaneously. Stupid coincidences.

Hooray!

2010-04-29T20:39:00.000-04:00

My XBox has returned! And, much to my surprise, the repair was under warranty! Free but for the cost of mailing the fucker to them! So I got a repaired game system for about $10 and a couple of weeks. I give Microsoft a lot of shit for being a shitty company, but as of right now, I'm pretty well please with them.

Just the XBox part though. Their software still sucks.

The following is an accurate portrayal of my past few days...

2010-03-09T13:47:00.001-05:00

hack hack cough cough wheeze... sniffle... sniffle... sniff-blow nose... hack hack... check for fever... cough cough cough COUGH augh bletch... sniff... sniff... SNIFF... sniff sigh blow nose... sniff cough sniff hack sniff cough while blowing nose... yuck.

The moral of todays post is: if I take care of my sick parents they infect me with the plague.

This brain addled post brought to you by me on no cold medication whatsoever.

The Car Saga

2010-02-16T10:56:00.001-05:00

After the pair of snow storms here (Stormageddon, and Stormageddon II: The Omen) I was very pleased to have finally gotten my first snow days with this company ever. I dug my car out carefully and completely, ready for work on Friday. So, on Friday, of course, my car wouldn't start. I had to call out, which was bad considering how much work I had to do (and still do), but my choices were limited. After much help from my father, we decided a new battery might help. One battery later, no, that didn't help. Without other options, it was time to get my car towed. Many calls later I had a potential tow in the morning, so I went to sleep at least confident that my car would be on its way soon. Next morning, many hours late, I called the tow company only to find that they had forgotten me and couldn't reschedule till Sunday. Fuckbeans. Many towing companies later, I finally found one that would tow me that day. That finally taken care of, I went to rent a car. All the rental places were closed! Great. Thankfully the online app was still up, so I was able to schedule a rental for Monday morning. So when I woke up, ready to be picked up, the tagline of the damn company, they said they wouldn't be able to pick me up for an hour at best. Given limited choices, I walked my ass to the stupid rental place. I got my car, little more than an engine and CD player with wheels in my mind, and after taking the full insurance option, I went to work. More snow this morning, no big deal, till I was nearly in an accident when I discovered that the car had no ABS or traction control. Brilliant! Now I am almost afraid to leave work in my many dollar a day deathtrap. Thank Christ my car is fixed. I just have to figure out how to get my damn car back before my rental gets me killed.

I has a girlfriend now

2010-02-02T14:41:00.003-05:00

I believe the subject doth eloquently get my point across. I am happy to say that things seem to be going well so far. Don't worry, there's plenty of time for things to go down in flames yet.

I has a girlfriend now

2010-02-02T14:41:00.001-05:00

I believe the subject doth eloquently get my point across. I am happy to say that things seem to be going well so far. Don't worry, there's plenty of time for things to go down in flames yet.

I am... Batman!

2010-01-08T13:57:00.000-05:00

Or so I am told by one of my morning meeting cohorts. Apparently when I whisked myself down a flight of stairs in front of her my trench coat billowed out behind me and it looked cool enough that she had to comment. Which is funny since normally people view my trench as creepy or at least offputting. So, for today anyway... I'm BATMAN!

the inevitable

2010-01-05T10:19:00.000-05:00

Since everything known to man was blocked by those ... people I now work for this blog has seen littie love. However, all dumb things can be overcome with the appropriate application of high explosives. In this case it was more the application of my new phone, the DROID. This phone rules. You can keep your iPhones, the DROID is heavy, sleek black, the equivalent of several old mainframe computers, and not an Apple product. Also, it's finally a return to a phone that does absolutely everything I want and several things I actually like as bonuses. There's also stuff I probably won't use, like the Facebook app, but better to have everything and more than to find it lacking. The Internet is once again my friend. I may even post here again from time to time...

Well, they did it.

2009-10-12T21:16:00.000-04:00

The fuckers at work blocked everything. They blocked all social networking sites I know of, they blocked or destroyed the use of every single online radio service, they made blogs of any kind (including cuteoverload for fuck's sake), and they even blocked the fucking weather channel. Mother fuckers. The weather channel? Seriously? Who the fuck is spending so much time on the freaking weather channel that it needed to be blocked?

So since I no longer have any access to basically anything, I probably will be posting even less than normal! Isn't that lovely. I'm slowly starting to hate my job again. This whole bought by a new company thing is just getting worse and worse.

My new fact for the day.

2009-10-08T16:12:00.001-04:00

As I just found out from Wikipedia, a hoodie, or hooded sweatshirt, is called a bunnyhug in Saskatchewan. I LOL'd.

Now I really want to play this game

2009-10-07T14:39:00.000-04:00

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/10/sonys-uncharted-2-ad-funny-true-video.ars

Short story submission

2009-10-05T16:37:00.003-04:00

Just submitted a short story to an online magazine that caters to this sort of thing. Aside from the fact that they pay pro rate, submitting to them is a web interface that you send them an RTF file with. They believe in technology! That's a plus.

Fingers crossed people. :)

An example of me plus Imogen!

2009-08-26T13:32:00.004-04:00

Me buying CDs today was exactly the kind of thing that gets me weird looks from people who work at the places that I buy things. In one hand the new Imogen Heap CD, the other RA, a hard metal band. The girl, and she was definitely that young, gave me a really weird look after the double take on Imogen's CD. I love that sort of look, so I smiled, explained nothing, and left. I'm entertained by little things.

New Imogen Heap! Ellipse is very good. As I suspected this album is a lot like her previous album, but still a good step forward for her style. There's still no one out there quite like her, and that gap is getting larger with each album. One thing that I was happy about was that this album actually reached back to her first album, i Megaphone, and pulled from some of the darker tones and angst from that album and made them work with her new style.

Individually the songs are great, and I'm not going to review each song, but I like them all. I've listened to the entire album, and I think it's going to take center stage in my car CD player for a while.

I will take a moment to say that at the second to last track I was happy with the entire album, but there was a little niggling voice complaining that while all her songs were great, none of them really blew me away the same way Hide and Seek had. And then I listened to the last track. Musically it's not so different from the rest of her album, but the song punched me in the gut and left me breathless. Half Life is incredible. It almost hurts me to listen to it.

So, yeah, I'm a girl, but it's a great album.

Five good movies in a row...

2009-08-26T10:30:00.003-04:00

I've seen a surprising streak of good movies lately, so I figured I might as well talk about them. In order that I saw them, they were District 9, Inglourious Basterds, The International, Defiance, and Ponyo.

District 9. Wow, what a movie. Not what I expected, great story, well made characters, awesome effects, and generally disturbing and at the same time uplifting. No actors you've ever head of, unless you live in South Africa, but still a talented crew. I won't give anything away but to say that it is awesome and you should go see it.

Inglourious Basterds. This movie just drips with Quentin Tarantino. If you find him offensive, then you'll probably find this movie offensive, but if you enjoy his movies then I can almost guarantee you'll like this movie. Again, not at all what I expected, but probably the best Jews killing Nazis revenge movie ever made. Not exactly uplifting, but it maintains an air of humor that helps you get through the truly horrible things that happen in this movie.

The International. Clive Owen being a badass Interpol agent with the gorgeous Naomi Watts playing a NY DA working together to take down an multi-national crime syndicate funding bank? How the fuck did I miss this in theaters? The beginning of the movie is incredible, the end less so, but still good. I definitely enjoyed this movie.

Defiance. James Bond (Daniel Craig) is a Jew who, with his brothers, saves as many of his friends, family, and other Jews by hiding in a forest. It's another movie with Jews shooting Nazis, but a very different movie. It was rough, but again, I liked this movie. It was a great, and apparently true, story of people surviving in the face of severe adversity. And Daniel Craig is just awesome.

Ponyo. I have seen every major American release of a Hayao Miyazaki movie since they've been released in this country. This was, sadly, a movie designed for very young people, but even so, it was an amazing movie. The theater was barren except for me and three young women, and we all loved the movie. There were moments in the movie where I had to cringe, being old and all, but it was still better than My Neighbor Totoro, so I got no complaints. It's just further hammered home the point that I need to watch all the rest of this man's movies. Sigh. Including Kiki's Delivery Service. I will endure, I say.

Next movie on the list: G.I. Joe. I hold little hope that this will be a good movie, but I want to see it, dammit because it may still be bad in that entertaining way. Stupid movie, but stuff blows up, chicks walk around in skin tight leather, and there's a ninja. Could be worse.

What else is there to look forward to? Ninja Assassin of course. :)

Back in the saddle. And soon to be very sore.

2009-07-30T21:03:00.002-04:00

That's right, I'm back in Capoeira classes! Run by one of my buddies from the UD Capoeira class, I'm now stretching, kicking, and doing all sorts of interesting and mildly painful exercises! Fortunately, what with the solid wooden floors, my feet weren't torn to shreds with this class, and since we're usually working in a gym, they won't be nearly as bad to break back in. However, solid surfaces provide new forms of pain, such as lowering from a standing position into a slow controlled somersault into a leg stretch. Not my favorite thing in the world. But this feeling, the nearly dead, hard to walk, totally going to be in agony tomorrow feeling is... Indescribably awesome. That exhaustion I can only get from that kind of work out, that sense of satisfaction of kicking my ass and getting through it, that joy of music and kicking and dancing... I missed this so much. And now it's back! I may get those beach abs yet!

My Job, II: The Omen

2009-07-29T11:11:00.002-04:00

More weird job news. Apparently I'm a consultant now. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Best case scenario I just got a little raise. More likely scenario, my paychecks are bigger but my taxes are worse enough to make up for that increase. Worst case scenario, smaller paychecks and increased taxes. Most likely scenario, however, is that nothing changes at all and I just have a new meaningless job title to go with my other meaningless job title. However, you know the luck I've had with this sort of thing, so hedge your bets.

My job

2009-07-22T15:53:00.002-04:00

For those of you wondering about my whole job situation, this is what I know: I have a job. Yes, that's all the information I have. However, there are no rumors of doom and gloom. There are almost no rumors at all, actually, which is weird. I've heard people say we might be in good shape, that it looks like the new parent company is just going to leave well enough alone for a while, which is good I guess, but there's no proof to back those statements up, so they're conjecture and little more. Back to waiting, etc. The upside is there's not immediate threat obvious, so if I do lose my job, at least it will be a surprise? That sounded better in my head.

Girlish excitement

2009-07-22T15:51:00.003-04:00

August 25th 2009. Important date. Why? Imogen Heap's new album, Ellipse, is coming out. Based on the two songs released on the Internet so far, it's going to be on par with Speak for Yourself if not better. I'm so excited.

God, I am such a girl sometimes.

Dating! Success may vary.

2009-07-17T16:35:00.002-04:00

So I met someone on OkCupid recently, and we decided to go on a couple dates. That whole city phobia I had once upon a time seems to have dissolved. I say this because the young woman who caught my eye lives in Philly at the moment, and going to the city was way second place to meeting her, so go me for getting better.

We went on a grand total of two dates. I really liked her. She didn't feel the spark, however, so the whole dating thing didn't work. However, I don't feel that bad about how things went. I enjoyed our dates, I got into Philly, further crushing my stupid phobia, and I definitely didn't mind spending my time looking at this girl. Wow, she was gorgeous.

I'll admit I'm mildly depressed that she didn't find me up to par, but whatever. Such is life. Dating is finding the people where the spark is there. I'm off to find someone appropriately sparkly. (Not a vampire.)

Working on the weekends

2009-06-24T15:10:00.002-04:00

One of the things I actually like about the company that I work for is that they never asked me to work on the weekends. Until recently. We were in a team meeting and the pregnant question of "who's free on Sunday" was asked. Being the youngest member of the team and the only unmarried member of the team, I sighed and threw myself on that grenade. I figured, you know, one time thing, that's cool.

I've just been signed up for the fourth weekend so far, the second in a row.

You know, I know I'm supposed to be stuck with this kind of job, being the lowliest member of our team in basically every way, but still! I just hope that my working all these weekends with a minimum of whining counts something good towards my yearly review or something. This is, of course, assuming I still have a job in a week.

BTW, my company is officially being sold in about a week. No one knows what will happen. It's an exiting time to be me! And if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

African Rooibos Red Tea

2009-06-24T14:06:00.003-04:00

Because I'm a geek and know things like this, Rooibos (pronounced "Roy-boss") herbal tea isn't technically tea. All true teas come from the Camellia sinensis plant whereas Rooibos is the name of the plant from which the tea is created. Rooibos plants are only found in the Cedarberg Mountains in South Africa; true teas are cultivated in many countries around the world.

Now if you know me you know I'm not an herbal tea kind of guy. Peppermint, chamomile, whatever, I like the flavor of real tea and find herbal teas to be lacking in what I'm looking for. True teas have character and flavors that I would compare to fine scotch or burbon for their taste complexities. Really the only advantage that herbal "teas" have is that often they are caffeine free and are often fire and forget (meaning they won't grow bitter when left brewing for too long). Other than that they're pretty lame in my experience.

Enter Rooibos. For a long time I'd heard of this tea, but never tried it directly. On a semi recent date I got the opportunity to try Rooibos for the first time, and wow did the drink impress me. Sadly more than the date. Anyway, for the flavor of Rooibos, I would compare it to a smoky scotch. It's dark and reddish (duh), but other than the smoky flavor it's actually naturally slightly sweet like some of the best green teas. So flavor-wise, it's great. It has all the health benefits of tea but with one distinct advantage: no caffeine. I can drink it all day should I so desire, which often I do.

I have not acquired loose leaf Rooibos yet, but that's on my list. According to what I've read, brewing is much easier than true teas. Rooibos tastes best brewed with boiling water, but will brew in much cooler water, even in room temperature water. You only get really one brew out of a single batch of tea, but unless we're talking really good green tea, you shouldn't be brewing twice with most teas anyway.

So go! Buy red tea! It's good and it's good for you!

No more on call!

2009-06-18T14:04:00.001-04:00

I was on call all of once and the got rid of the damn phone! Woohoo! That's a hugely wonderful thing. When I asked they said that they'd try to call me at home from now on. And to that I said "good luck!" Don't recognize that phone number? Ignore! Hee!

Something you probably don't care about

2009-06-18T09:49:00.004-04:00

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I should probably start with something that my elusive readers might give a shit about, but I feel like talking about a comparison of two recent sandbox-style video games, inFAMOUS and Prototype, so that's what I'm talking about. They are very similar, and the comparisons are inevitable, so I'm jumping on the band wagon early.

Both games, as I mentioned, are sandbox games, that is large, open world games that you can traverse through a variety of means. They both feature a main character with a recently twisted past who struggles with the choices laid out before him and questions the powers he has recently developed. Each has interpersonal relationships that build and grow as the game progresses through its twisted plot. Both men fight against dark forces both external and internal.

However, there are notable differences. Infamous is a largely ranged fighting game with the main character, Cole, blasting electricity at people, whereas Prototype features the lead, Alex, who beats his foes mainly with melee fighting. While Infamous does feature several types of electricity based powers, Cole looks more or less the same throughout the game only gaining and improving his electric powers. Alex, on the other hand, not only gains powers and movement skills, but he also gains forms to shapeshift into, each having its own set of skills to grow.

Cole runs around with his powers, and only his powers, for the entire game. Alex, again, gets more choices. You can run around just punching people, and that is entertaining. But you can also absorb other people, gain their powers and skills, and do interesting things. You can steal weapons, tanks, even helicopters, all helping you get to your goals and blow things up. All of this adds a stealth aspect to the game as well, something lacking in Infamous.

Cole is stuck in relatively small game world, Empire City, that is broken up into three districts, each having its own set of missions and challenges. The world you're in seems familiar even though it has recently gone through a cataclysm and many of the buildings are broken or run down. Alex gets Manhattan. All of Manhattan. And where Cole can run around rather quickly, riding on electric wires or grinding on train tracks, Alex can run far faster, climb faster and farther, and can glide from the highest roof tops to cover huge amounts of ground quickly.

One thing that Infamous has that Prototype does not is the played out moral choice system. At times in the game Cole is faced with a choice between selfless hero and cruel madman. Not only has this been played out in like, oh, a billion games before, but also the dichotomy of the choices, Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, is just boring. Choices should always have a neutral option, in my opinion, and there just isn't one here. Basically it's a system to get you to play the game twice to see both outcomes. Kind of annoying.

So Prototype is the clear winner here, right? Hell no. I am fully intending to play Infamous again, while I am merely chugging through Prototype, impatiently waiting for the damn game to end so I can see the plot through and be done with it.

Not what you were expecting, huh?

As we've all been told, be it true or not, bigger is not always better. Yes, Infamous has a smaller powers system. However, this lets you get used to the one form of combat you use each new weapon in your arsenal (minus maybe one power) as an absolutely necessary addition. By the end of the game you're zapping people a full city block away with your regular zappy power because you've had enough practice to learn how to do it well. You learn new tricks based on being good or evil that you can use to help yourself avoid murdering people by accident, or to just wipe out everyone unfortunate enough to be between you and your goals. In Prototype, I have like six forms, and I use two because I can't find any reason to use half of them since they don't seem to really make that much difference than just keeping the damn claws out. Shapeshifting is, while entertaining, rather irritating when it comes to combat.

Cole's Empire City is significantly smaller than Alex's Manhattan. However, a smaller game world makes you become more familiar with the worlds as you do missions and search the world for hidden missions and upgrade items. Climbing around in this game reminds me of Assassin's Creed, rewarding your climbing with beautiful if tragic cityscapes, views of a broken world. Cole my wander this world more slowly, but it's so well designed and attractive that the slightly smaller size is actually a benefit to the game. Prototype is just not as attractive a game. Arguably the game is graphically equivalent, perhaps even slightly better, but Infamous' artistic direction is much better. And, yes, Alex can race around Manhattan much faster than Cole, but the damn man moves to fast. There's little reason to climb a building other than to jump off a higher building for father glide distance. Though Alex's world is more dark than Cole's, it's just not as nice to look at. And the huge world only makes finding the hidden hints and landmark items that much rarer.

Cole gets missions, and Alex gets missions. They both get side missions. However, with Cole's side missions, he gains something besides just running around. He actually makes a difference in the game world, by doing missions, he cleans out enemies, making running around the city easier. All Alex gets is a bunch of races and skill missions, none of which do anything other than give tiny amounts of experience, and are often more difficult than they are worth and have no other benefit.

So what about the crappy moral choice thing? I do have my complaints about it, but the choices that are presented, as obvious as they are, aren't always an easy good/bad choice, because sometimes the "bad" option is good for you and your friends. Is that really bad? The first choice you're given (This happens in the first 5 minutes of game play, so it's not a spoiler) is to pick between sharing food with the people, or scaring people away and keeping it for your friends. And the choices are often varied like that. Some of them were hokey, but others I really did have to think about. At least if you're playing out an overplayed game system, you can do it well.

Ultimately, what makes Infamous better than Prototype is the writing. I found myself caring about Cole and his friends as I played the game. They were like real people, with real concerns and real choices. As things got better and worse for them I really felt a concern for how things would turn out. Alex? He's just some unlucky prick who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. His story is boring, the plight of Manhattan boring, and the characters merely there to progress the game through its increasing bullshit difficulty curve. Both games were hard, yes, but Infamous gave me something for my efforts; Prototype merely encourages me to rush through the game.

So there you go. Infamous is a better game than Prototype because rather than trying to be big and impressive, it took less and polished it to a brilliant shine.

Yeah...

2009-06-10T09:41:00.001-04:00

This just got put in my break room. Let's see how long before someone pulls it down...

Cat.. uh... yodeling?

2009-05-22T09:08:00.002-04:00

An Engineer's guide to cats:

And the follow up:

Advanced Cat Yodeling.

Wow.

Medication malady

2009-05-07T11:24:00.001-04:00

So there are two big problems I'm finding with my medication. The first, from the Seroquel, is that one side effect is an uncontrollable need to eat. Weight gain is very common on this drug at the dosage I'm at. I'm working very hard, working out every single day in one form or another, and I'm still only seeing very small results of working out so much. That's frustrating.

The other problem is that I want to try to get to bed at a reasonable time, so I take my anti anxiety drug with my seroquel so that I can be relaxed and get to sleep easily. Unfortunately, taking the stronger dose of my anti anxiety drug lets me relax, so much so that getting to bed when I should be going to bed suddenly seems like less of a big deal.

So getting my beach abs is difficult because the only drug ever made that helps me sleep makes me eat, and getting to sleep on time is difficult because I'm too relaxed to worry about going to bed on time. Side effects are annoying.

Please kill me

2009-05-07T10:04:00.003-04:00

I'm now stuck in an hour long meeting on a subject I neither care about nor understand with people I wish I could throw off a building. And the annoying people are yelling into their phones. And the one bitch won't shut the fuck up for more than two tenths of a second at a time. I don't even know why I'm in this meeting.

It's times like these I wish I could kill people with my mind.

Imagine

2009-04-28T11:20:00.002-04:00

A Perfect Circle's cover of John Lennon's imagine.

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

Starting over

2009-04-21T17:06:00.002-04:00

After a lot of thought, I've decided to listen to the advice of my editor and rewrite my first novel. The whole thing. From scratch. Oy.

Yes, I'm really going to rewrite the whole thing. I've actually already started writing and finished the first two chapters. All things considered, it's going fairly quickly. While I say I'm rewriting the whole thing, I don't mean I'm making up a new story. The story is generally the same, and all the same characters will grace my pages, but I'm rewriting because, obviously after the rejection, something needs to change.

One of the biggest problems with my first novel, I think (as does my editor), was that when I started writing it I hadn't learned my own writing voice. I found it by the end, but the beginning of the novel has always suffered as I tried to keep it as close to its original form as I could. Though I wanted to keep what I could, ultimately I wrote it with a different style and no amount of tweaking could ever fix that. Starting over, using my old book as a guide more or less, I'm going to bring my book up to my new standards, and I think it will be better for it.

Of course, once I finish rewriting this, I'm going to have changed things. This could mean that I'll have to rewrite, or at least seriously revise, all my books. Or it could mean that when I finish my first novel and reread my second novel, I'll find that the voice sounds similar enough that I can ignore that and get back to trying to get published again. I'm not really sure.

All I know is I'm enjoying rewriting my book far more than I thought. I think it's been long enough that I can admit to myself that my first book, while it had good ideas, wasn't well written. I have the opportunity to fix that, and so I will.

It's still probably going to take forever and drive me crazy at points, but ultimately, I hope, it will all be worth it.

In several months anyway.

REJECTION WATCH!

2009-04-08T11:36:00.002-04:00

Novel rejections: 1.

Short Story rejections: 1.

Agent rejections: 0.

Publishing: fail.

2009-04-08T11:23:00.002-04:00

So my first submission to a publisher has been rejected. This is not surprising. Everyone gets rejected initially, and I am no different. It's unhappy, sure, but I'm really not that bad off. Given the craptacular state of the world, including the publishing industry, it's extremely hard to get published. This is all part of the process. It's not like I've stopped writing.

I've decided that, while looking for a literary agent, I'm going to adjust my focus to trying to submit short stories. Apparently, they're a better way to break into the industry than whole novels. If you've been following my writing blogs, you've probably seen my shorts slowly evolving from pieces of crap to less crappy bits (or you think I'm just a horrible writer). I haven't posted some of my better works because I'm going to be submitting them to different online and paper magazines.

As I submit to different places with short stories I'm sure I'll update with my new blog feature: Rejection Watch! I've already been rejected by two publishers, so let's see how high I can get that number! If I get rejected by agents, I'll count those towards my Rejection Watch as well. And, yes, I'm turning rejection into a joke, but it's much more fun to find this amusing then to actually get upset or care.

Worry ye not... I'll be published someday.

If you don't watch Castle you should be ashamed of yourself

2009-04-07T10:48:00.002-04:00

Castle!

This is one of the best new shows ever. Aside from the fact that the main character, Richard Castle, is played by Nathan Fillion (that's Mal from Firefly), the show is impeccably written as if tailored to amuse writers. The basic plot of the show is that someone starts killing people using the scenes from Castle's books, and then Castle himself is called in on the case to assist Detective Beckett in finding the perpetrator. After helping with the first case, Castle then finagles his way into being a consultant with the NYPD to research his next book.

What makes this show so amazing is that Nathan Fillion is an extraordinary actor and he plays this part and makes Castle both incredibly likable and incredibly frustrating, making the interplay between Castle and Beckett all the more entertaining. All of the main supporting characters, including Castle's mother and daughter, are well fleshed out and great sources of humor. The show is very funny as well as clever and not entirely predictable. There hasn't been a show yet where I haven't laughed so loud I had to rewind a bit to catch the next piece of dialog.

Castle is on ABC on Monday nights at 10:00. I love the show and you probably will too. Check it out!

New toy

2009-03-26T16:55:00.002-04:00

Behold! The Slacker G2!

I finally caved in and bought a portable music device. Still cheaper than an iPod, maybe a little more than your average MP3 player, but a reasonable choice all the same. Why? Because of the 4,000 songs I have on my G2 I paid for none of them. Not one. See, Slacker is a radio service, and since I can personalize it, I now have thousands of songs that I want to hear at my fingertips. Granted, I can just listen to exactly what I want, as I don't have the premium service for that, but at $4 a month, I think it'll be a worthwhile investment. Not only will I be able to listen to exactly what I want, but I also have a device that will update itself from wifi and from being connected at home with new songs and artists from the stations that I like.

Are there problems with the device? Sure. Every gadget has something wrong with it. I think the G2 is just a little too slow to react when I click buttons, and it does take a good 20 seconds to boot up after it shuts itself off. I think the battery life could be better. However, none of these are bad enough for me to really complain about them. The buttons work, they're just a tad slow, and the battery still runs for more than my full days work, so after I've conditioned the battery properly, I don't think I'll have any issues.

And, as I just found out, this thing gets really loud when it's asked to. Now I can't hear my coworkers bickering! I might do permanent ear damage if they don't shut up soon, but at least I can't hear them.

I takes what I can get. And in this case, I got a cool toy that's exactly what I wanted.

Olberman is my hero

2009-03-20T10:36:00.001-04:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#29783656

Probably the best anti bank rant I've heard, especially since it's so well thought out and researched. I may invest in a pitchfork.

Ow ow ow...

2009-03-12T16:53:00.002-04:00

Well, I took Capoeira last night and my feet hurt again. While I did not actually end up with bleeding feet as it was predicted to me, I did end up with feet that are very torn up. I don't have blisters: I have what happens when you do something that gets you a blister and then you just keep going, tearing the blister to shreds, and then rubbing the skin under that raw. It hurt a lot last night. This morning was pretty bad too, but after two walks today, the hurt has dulled a lot. Did I have fun? Would I have put myself through so much pain if I wasn't? I had a great time.

Now, however, I'd like to complain about a phrase I keep hearing and reading: "not combat effective." Other than Krav Maga, the official martial discipline of the Israel Defense Forces, I've heard that phrase applied to basically every martial art I've ever heard of. "Karate's great, but it's not combat effective." "Kungfu is great, but it's not combat effective." "MMA looks good for TV, but it's not combat effective." Let's just get this out of the way: every time someone says that or any variation on it (e.g. (Karate/Kungfu/Taiji/Taekwando/Akido/Jujitsu/Judo/Hungar/Hapkido/etc) isn't combat effective for (whatever reason)) this is what you should be thinking: BULLSHIT.

I've heard over and over that Karate is not combat effective. What a load of shit. I trained in Karate for fifteen years. I've seen Karatekas get into fights and win. I've seen Karatekas get jumped by several people and win. I know a pair of brothers who I worked out with each of whom was mugged by the same guy in the same night, and the first brother beat the crap out of him and the second brother put him in the hospital. Karate is, without any doubt, combat effective.

I've also heard that Kungfu is not combat effective. Putting aside the point that there are over a thousand modern styles of Kungfu, I've seen the results of Kungfu fights and they're no prettier than Karate fights.

Lastly, and lately, I've heard that Capoeira isn't combat effective. I'll grant that my new favorite martial art doesn't exactly look effective, what with all the jumping around and dancing and what not, but Capoeira is supposed to look innocuous. It was developed by slaves who were hiding their martial art in dance moves so that their owners wouldn't just kill them. But do you really think that a guy who can easily dance, kick, and do acrobatics for hours on end isn't going to be strong?

Will it help you in a fight? That's what answers if something is "combat effective". Will Karate help in a fight? Well, with the intense training, the pushups, the kata, you're strong, flexible, and fast. Also, depending on how long you've trained, you probably know a lot about anatomy and where to hit for maximum benefit. When you hit someone in an adrenaline pumping situation, it's going to hurt them. And who are you fighting? A soldier of an enemy army, or some jerk in a bar? More likely the latter. You're probably going to win.

Kungfu? Same basic story. You're trained, you're fast, you know how to move. You might know moves in animal styles that are designed to cripple your opponents. Use them in a bar fight and watch yourself win. Kungfu is absolutely combat effective.

Capoiera? Even with only having trained for two sessions, it is VERY clear that to be a Capoeirista you must be immensely strong. You're used to falling down a lot (a LOT) and getting kicked. You're incredibly fast, know how to play the distance game, and you kick like a fucking mule. Some guy in a bar throws a punch and you kick him in the face? He's going to lose teeth and the fight.

You might be wondering, "Who is the idiot telling you these things aren't combat effective?" The answer might surprise you: people in martial arts. Other than my Karate school and one of my Taiji teachers, almost every single martial artist I've ever known has dropped that line or at least said that whatever they were studying was better than any of the other options. Nothing frustrates me more than someone studying a martial art who looks at another art, say Karate, having never studied it, and then says something derisive about that style.

I have studied no less than seven martial arts seriously. If you consider all the other styles I've had experience with either through demos, workshops, a teacher giving me something new, etc, that number triples. I have studied all these arts, and you know what I think? It's all good. They're all combat effective. People are constantly trying to compare one to another and say one can beat another, but it's all nonsense. Sure a professional MMA fighter can probably beat any average Karateka, but can an MMA fighter beat a Karateka who trains as hard as the MMA guy? You can't just definitively say yes or no. The argument that the MMA is better on the ground and therefore means he'll win is a stupid argument since any Karateka worth his salt will either know what he's doing on the ground via Karate, or simply won't go to the ground at all knowing how to do that via Karate.

I'm not saying Karate beats MMA. Neither am I saying MMA beats Karate. I'm saying that all this macho bullshit "my martial art is better than your martial art" is a waste of time. It's no more useful than kids telling each other "my dad can beat up your dad". You want to tell me how Kungfu is better than Karate? Study Karate for as long as I have. Then, when you tell me that Kungfu is still superior, I might listen to you. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

Lastly, is the phrase Battlefield Effective. This I don't mind so much. Is Karate battlefield effective? No. Sorry, but modern armies employ machine guns, guided missiles, helicopters, tanks, battleships, and freaking laser weapons at this point. All of these martial arts I've mentioned fail in the face of an enemy army. Though armies do employ martial arts for hand to hand combat training, like the IDF with Krav Maga, the main thrust of fighting is with deadlier weapons. So talk shit about MMA, or Karate, or Kungfu, but on the battlefield you better pray you have an army with you and some goddamn guns of you're going to die. This phrase I don't mind hearing, mostly because I love imagining some douchebag who knows some martial art trying to jump kick a missile out of the air.

The point I've been laboriously avoiding is this: martial arts are combat effective. That's why they exist. No one martial art is better than another, because they're all good. Some may be more effective quickly, some may take a while, but you get no more out of a martial art than what you put into it. There are individual instructors or schools that may be less good than others, but the martial art itself is not to blame. Martial arts are good for you. Go, take, have fun. Just ignore the my martial art is better jingoism you're likely to run into. An open mind is always better than a closed one. Empty your cup.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Capoeira win!

2009-03-05T09:48:00.002-05:00

Looks like I'm going to have to learn Portuguese. Though that might seem strange to you, it makes a lot of sense to me. While learning Karate, I learned a lot of Japanese, both counting and names of kicks, punches, take-downs, etcetera, so I sort of half expect that from Capoeira. However, what I wasn't counting on was the singing. Yes, singing. At the end of our Capoeira class, we gathered in a circle, or Roda, and sang some songs. Which is to say that the instructor sang the songs and we students sang back some choruses. I can't remember any but one that I can't possibly spell, but it was surprisingly a good way to end a class. It was a cool down as well as another new learning experience.

As for the class, it was mostly an exercise in pain. I haven't done anything that demanding in... well, a long time if I'm kind, and a really, really long time if I'm truthful. The things we did to our legs were just shy of torturous at points. My legs sting quite a bit right now. So does my back, my neck, and of course my feet. Why feet? Because doing two hours of essentially dancing on rough carpet does nothing good to one's feet. They tell me that this week is blister week, next week is bleeding all over the floor week, and then the calluses will start. As I walk two miles a day, I think that maybe I'll do better than that, especially since my blister almost doesn't hurt (much) now after having walked on it.

I didn't learn a lot of Capoeira, exactly. Most of what I learned was exercises, and a lot about Capoeira, but if you want an example of what was new that I learned and practiced, here you go:

The Jinga is most of what I learned.

One thing I really appreciate about this class is that it's so calm and relaxed. I mean, yeah, we're working hard, but since Capoeira fights aren't called sparring but playing, it really comes across that what we're learning is how to play Capoeira. It takes that stupid testosterone edge off things and lets us concentrate on having a good time while playing. Add to that the constant emphasis on flow practically like dancing, and the steady stream of encouragement and jokes from the instructors, and I'm a chill happy guy. I don't think I've had as much fun in a martial arts class before. I can't wait for next week.

The cute girl in the class didn't hurt either. :)

Capoeria update...

2009-02-23T12:35:00.002-05:00

Unless I misunderstood the local instructor (who goes by the handle Gorilla... seriously), the classes at UD I'm trying to take are being moved, seemingly at random, by the university between several buildings and times because apparently even if this group books a room, UD reserves the right to rebook it without warning or update. So, once again, UD is fucking up something I'm trying to do. I don't know why I would have expected otherwise. I went to UD. I should be ready for this shit. Ugh.

Anyway, the good news is that I will have an updated schedule for Wednesday on Wednesday, so even if they've rebooked, at least I'll know where to go when. The other good news is that the instructor was quite enthused about having a new student, which I usually take as a good sign. Capoeira is no longer a dot on a distant horizon... it's just of the bow of the good ship me.

Thought... Thought... Fail.

2009-02-18T18:59:00.002-05:00

Thought one: I watch too much Burn Notice.

Case and point: Some guys are doing some work on our emergency generators at work. In so doing they have left behind some barrels of diesel fuel. Normal. Unless you watch too much Burn Notice. I found myself cautiously checking out the barrels today, looking for detonators, exposed wires, and then got into an argument with myself about how big the blast would be and if where I sat was likely to be destroyed. Yes, it was. I then remembered that diesel fuel, on its own, wasn't a good explosive base, so I almost went inside and started Goggling what would make diesel into a more effective explosive. It was at that point that I remembered, that looking up explosives at work was, how you say, BAD. I thought better of it and got back to work.

Thought two: I watch too much Supernatural.

I have been hearing things. Seeing things. I keep thinking I'm seeing things moving out of the corner of my eye at my desk, in the sewers outside, hiding in the woods. I hear weird creaks in my house and my scary room actually scares me till I remember that, oh yeay, IT'S A FREAKING TV SHOW! Then I calm down.

And Fail.

Tried to go to my first Capoeria class this evening. I made it all the way from work to Newark in under an hour, found the classroom and it's full of yoga people. So I checked with the people and the class started two hours later than I expected. Dammit. On the plus side, it's easy to email them and double check when the damn classes are. Try again next week I will.

Good things

2009-02-16T09:51:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I feel like my life is a cavalcade of screw ups and bad things. Sure some things go well, but there's always a steady stream of things going on that make me unhappy, or at least try my patience a little. Well, this weekend I finally got something done that not only has nothing but positive implications, but lead to other even more positive things! Let's start with the big news, pun intended.

My old TV is gone, and I didn't have to touch the fucker! A friend who initially wasn't going to take the TV, changed his mind, found a new entertainment center, and took that bastard out of my house! No fingers were lost in the process of it getting to where it was going. Now my friend has a TV that does all the colors rather than just green and occasionally blue. Good for them.

With that thing gone, I started to re-org my house by putting my new TV on the entertainment center. Realizing I had some more to do, I ended up cleaning, dusting, re-wiring, throwing out a bunch of stuff that I realized was useless, and playing with my new TV. Now I have everything attached to that TV, including my PC! Videos on YouTube are somehow cooler when they're a couple feet wide. And, with my PC moved, I now have a much more open downstairs once again. This makes me happy.

There's still things wrong in my house, stuff I'm not sure what to do with or how to deal with, but for the moment my success in finally getting my living room in order is all that really matters. And my new TV rules. :)

Holeee shit it's windy out there.

2009-02-12T15:59:00.002-05:00

I took a walk this morning, sans jacket, assuming it would be a bit windy but warm, what with the temperature being above 50 degrees. Well, I was sorta right. When the sun was up and I was walking at a good pace, I got somewhat warm. It was definitely chilly doing Taiji, but I made it.

This afternoon I was wise enough to bring my jacket. Holy shit was that a good idea. The so-called temperature was still in the fifties, but with the wind that was literally strong enough to keep me from moving forward at time, there was definitely a good wind chill.

Not that it wasn't fun. Call me a child, but I think it's hilarious to go walking in strong winds and think about jumping to see how far the wind would push me. Nearly getting blown over makes me giggle for some reason.

What I did over the pat two days...

2009-02-12T15:26:00.001-05:00

I counted 12,919 methods. By hand. No more maths. Brain hurty.

An entertaining meeting.

2009-02-12T13:15:00.002-05:00

Well, part of what I just said is a lie, since the meeting I'm talking about actually made me consider suicide no more than twenty minutes into the meeting, and then went on for another two hours, but as I had to amuse myself somehow I came up with some entertaining things worth mentioning about the meeting. At least I found them amusing. Who knows what you people who actually read this blog think?

Now, I normally don't use people's real names on my blog, but this guy's name is too classic not to mention. Also, since I'm not mentioning anything else about him, probably won't help you if you decide to try to stalk him. Anyway, the meeting was run by a guy named, and I'm dead serious here, Jason Steele. I almost snorted myself inside out when I noticed his name. Yes, his real name is a god damned porno name. Given his facial hair, I did have to wonder if he didn't do some porn consulting on the side or something. Cool guy, but hilarious name.

The only other thing worth mentioning was the accent situation. Anyone who knows me knows that I occasionally bust out with an accent, be it good or awful, and find accents interesting. Well, in this meeting I had an issue: there were so many accents to try to understand all at the same time, that my brain wasn't keeping up. There were no less than three distinct Indian accents, a Manhattan accent, a British accent, a South African accent, and a Russian accent. My brain couldn't process them all at the same time and it was just confusing trying to understand them all.

Anyway that's all that was interesting about the meeting. Now perhaps the contemplation of death makes some sense.

I'm reading a new comic!

2009-02-06T16:05:00.001-05:00

Can you tell?

http://buttersafe.com/2009/01/15/last-night/

unclean

2009-02-06T11:10:00.003-05:00

The following link leads to what just jumped to the top of my "worst puns ever" list. The second link is just so you can read another terrible, terrible pun.

http://buttersafe.com/2007/12/04/happy-graduation/

http://www.partiallyclips.com/index.php?id=1591

Read 'em an weep.

According to Cosmo

2009-01-29T16:04:00.003-05:00

These are the 40 things you ladies could learn about me in ten minutes:

I am an independent thinker, usually on the sensitive side, because I don't like sports.

Loyalty is one of my strong suits, but it will take a while for you to win my trust because I have long lasting friendships.

I'm self-sufficient and independent because I pay with cash.

I could be a hard nut to crack because I don't like phones. (Somehow this means I'm inscrutable)

I'm an earthy, laid-back guy who likes equally laid-back, low-maintenance chicks, because I like women who don't dress up every night.

I'm likely to have more self-control because I don't have road rage.

I'm steady and dependable, but also a little unadventurous because I like steak and potatoes.

I'm looser and more open-minded because I'm neither a neat freak nor an obsessive compulsive hoarder.

I'm analytical and thoughtful because I don't watch sitcoms.

I'm usually a responsible, take-charge kind of guy because I'm the first born of my brood.

I'm likely to let you steer the relationship at least some of the time because I don't always insist on driving.

I'm a low-key, less conceited guy. I might be less ambitious, but I'm easier to connect with emotionally because I'm not superficial. This is because I'm not a narcissistic freak who checks out his own reflection every ten seconds.

I might be trying to intimidate you because I make eye contact when speaking to you.

I typically play it safe because I don't talk a mile a minute.

Now, those math majors out there, or really anyone who's capable of counting to fourteen, you might notice that there aren't forty things listed here. That would be because Cosmo writers apparently think that if you could learn one of three possible outcomes from a single observation that all three count instead of just one. It would appear that Cosmo writers aren't math majors.

Also, if you're like me, you're also looking at some of these things you could "learn" and thinking, "Dude, seriously?" I don't like sports, so therefore I'm sensitive? What? Isn't that a wildly sweeping generalization that is as likely to be untrue as it is to be true? I won't go so far as to say Cosmo writers are misandronous, but they sure think we men are predictable.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't read Cosmo? At the very least don't take it too seriously.

This is almost too much cat

2009-01-23T15:34:00.001-05:00

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/6798/af20907621cbf76cee7547eco9.jpg

Almost.

CHICK BANDS DON'T HELP EITHER!

2009-01-22T09:44:00.003-05:00

Ok, that is all.

Mental note

2009-01-22T09:34:00.001-05:00

When you're dealing with the anxious period of meeting a girl and liking her, what's the one thing you should avoid like the plague?

LISTENING TO THE BLUES YOU IDIOT.

That is all.

So I met a girl...

2009-01-21T09:41:00.002-05:00

Yes, yes, very funny. I met a girl. I know, it's shocking. You're such a comedian.

Moving on.

I met a girl, for reals, via a friend whom I owe a fairly serious favor. I heard stories from my friend of how I might just like this girl. She likes some of the music I like, isn't remotely bothered by gaming of any sort, might find the fact that I am a writer neat, etc etc...

The first I saw of her was actually via OkCupid since I am still a Facebook snob and refuse to join up, even if it is an easier way to "meet" the girl. The pictures she posted were far better than the average OkC user, as hers included both face shots and "action" shots where you could see below her neck. The fact that she was very attractive was almost an afterthought. Almost.

We started talking, emailing, and immediately seemed to get along. Cheesy movie? Mel Brooks? Monty Python? Check, check, and double check. Asked her out just short of immediately? Hell yes. Though the first plans fell through, I still got to meet her on Saturday past.

Meeting in person was nice since she a) looked like her pictures, b) looked better than her pictures, and c) was just as interesting in person as she was online. I really liked meeting her, and I thought maybe she liked me too. The friend who arranged the meeting told me, after she had to leave, "Stop grinning like an idiot." I gave him the props he deserved.

So now we're in the realm of we've met but we're still not sure what exactly is going on. I really want to play it cool, but it's hard not to be overly enthusiastic about this. We've exchanged emails, mentioned the idea of plans, but nothing is solid yet. I hope it will be soon, but I will still try to play it cool...

Ish. Coolish. Down enthusiasm! Down!

Sushi is complicated!

2009-01-21T09:30:00.003-05:00

I stole this video from Digg. They stole it from YouTube first, but I'm stealing it second! And it's about Sushi! Yosh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruh0TJJopn8

This is a weird video. If you get Japanese culture it will be a lot funnier since it's basically eight minutes of mocking Japanese culture, but it's kinda funny on its own just from being insane. Even while trying to mock the Japanese the video itself is very Japanese. Anyways, I thought it was hilarious, so I share!

The Rule of Threes + ice = adrenaline rush

2009-01-19T10:21:00.002-05:00

So a bit over a week ago, one of my D&D friends got into a fairly serious accident. Though both cars were seriously injured, no one was hurt and it was relatively easy to deal with the insurance and police. It was a fairly shitty night for my friend, but all in all it wasn't the worst case scenario by any stretch of the imagination.

Perhaps a week later, while giving my friend a ride to something or other, my sunroof, rather than opening, jammed itself into a partially open state and then refused to anything else. I tinkered with it, but I'm going to need to take it to Saturn to get it repaired, or at least closed so rain and show don't just melt into my car.

Last night I heard from another of our D&D friends that he, who drives school buses, got into an accident. Someone decided to stop dead ahead of him in the middle of a 55mph zone and though the idiot who stopped escaped without being touched, my friend's bus totaled the poor car between them. This may lead to immediate termination of my friend's job.

So last night at the game, the bus driver made a comment about the "rule of threes", how bad things always seem to come in threes. The first accident, my sunroof breaking, the second accident. I didn't say anything, as I had no wood to knock on, but I thought "my broken sunroof hardly seems like it counts." Turns out I shouldn't have even thought anything.

When leaving the D&D game last night I had to take several minutes to de-ice my car, as everything had frozen nicely. The roads were also dicey at best, so I was definitely both on my guard and driving slower than normal. It didn't help that I was dog tired, but one does what one must to get home at night. When I was only two, three minutes away from home, that "rule of three" came after me with a vengeance.

I was driving slightly above the speed limit through a long since green light when the person coming up to the red, who hadn't noticed the red, tried to emergency stop. On ice. So he pulled out directly in font of me when I had just entered the intersection.

Motherfucker.

Fortunately my nearly instantaneous reaction of punch brakes, depress clutch, and grab the steering wheel prepared for emergency avoidage was perfectly timeed. The idiot, realizing that both I and another car behind me were in danger of crashing right into the guy jammed on his accelerator in an attempt to get out of the way. At this point my ABS was clicking like crazy, trying to help me stop on the slick roads. When the idiot's back tires let go and started to swing at me, I realized I had two choices: hit this idiot, or steer like a madman and potentially crash into a curb.

While not letting up on the brakes, I steered right to get around the idiot, and managed to miss his rear bumper by about, oh, six inches. Then I immediately turned left, hard and prayed my tires and brakes were up to the job. Thankfully they were, I managed to miss the curb by inches as well. It was then that I noticed I was between the wildly fishtailing idiot and the curb, so I just kept the brakes on till he moved away from me.

"Holy fucking shit that was close!" I believe is what I said. I let the idiot pull away and turn at the next corner before I started moving again. I had to move quickly as the people behind me didn't appear to have noticed the near accident and weren't slowing down. My adrenaline was pumping at that point, but I forced myself to calm down and drive home.

I made it home without further incident.

So I guess that Rule of Three is out to get me. Now I have to be extra careful about everything. Know what I have to say about that?

Fuck you Rule of Three!

Fox One!

2009-01-08T13:26:00.002-05:00

Two posts in two days! I know, I'm as confused as you are.Well, this is an interesting bit of news, so it's worthy of a post.

I've finally sent my submission packet for my first novel to Tor. According to their website I now have to wait four to six months before I can expect to hear anything from them, including "fuck off you talentless prick". So I've probably got a while to go before I even hear anything at all about being published. No matter, I'm working on short story submissions here and there. All I have to do is find online easy submission places and then tailor stories to fit within their draconian word limits. You'd think it would be easy to fit a short story in five thousand words, but then again, you wouldn't be writing like me.

Anyway, that's my publishing attempt news. I'll let you know more as I know more!

Flying Solo

2009-01-07T14:18:00.002-05:00

Today I reached a very important goal in my life: I ended my CBT sessions with my therapist. I didn't say "I don't feel like doing this anymore" and just quit. I didn't even bring the subject up. My therapist asked me if I felt that I was ok to start trying to make it in life without her help. She was encouraged by my recent successes, without much anxiety, in life, and job, and dating. And, as she had very good points, I took her up on her challenge.

This may seem like a bad idea to some of you, and I do have some reservations about being on my own again, but, to horribly massacre a metaphor, I have been riding the bike of life with the helping hand of therapy firmly on the handle of improvement while I traverse the rocky road of life, job, and dating. Over time the hand's grip on the handle has grown looser as I've gotten better, but eventually, as with every parent trying to give their children permanent road burn scars, the hand has to let go to let the bike so that he who rides the bike can move on and prove that he can ride without help or crash and burn and run screaming back to mom with blood dribbling out of his multiple wounds.

A perhaps less stupid way of putting it is: The next step in getting better is to do it alone. I'll still have my psychiatrist to help me, but he's more of a passive observer than a direct influence on my mental health. The drugs he gives me are what I need most now.

And, in case you were worried, there's no way in hell I'm going off the drugs. I ain't that much better. The drugs were necessary to get me to the point in life where I could actually get better. Now that I am improving, over time, perhaps I will begin to decrease the drugs, but for now, they keep me in a holding pattern of good health. With time, in theory, I will continue to get better, and will slowly lose the need for the drugs. I expect I'll always have trouble sleeping and will have occasional anxiety attacks, but it is my hope that I'll get to the point where the drugs will be there to help when I need them and I won't always need them. This may not be for years, but it's a goal.

And while I may be flying solo, I won't be alone because I know you'll always be there for me.