BUZzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZzzzzzzzzzz - effing World Cup. I can't even stand watching any of it, because it sounds like there is a massive bee hive is inside my television. How do the South African's possibly think their stupid Vuvuzela's are at all not the most obnoxious thing in sports ever? They're soooo annoying.
Okay I'll be honest. I probably wouldn't watch much of the world cup anyway. Watching people kick a ball up and down a field for 90 minutes and score a combined "handful" of points is painstakingly boring. Three or four points in 90 minutes is not enough for any game. In fact to entice more American's we should make each point count as 6 and shorten the game to 60 minutes. Then we could let the backs touch the ball with their hands too. In fact kicking the ball through a goal is stupid, lets say if the ball is kicked through the goal it's only worth 3 points. Then we'll make the new objective of the game to carry or catch the ball past the opponents first end line and before their second end line in a place called the "end zone." Play will stop after every tackle. I like the sound of this sport better.
So as far as I understand, International soccer is about national pride. We should be hearing songs and chants that represent each of the 32 represented countries along with widespread mania and yelling of the word, "GOAL" when someone scores, but instead all we hear is BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Even the announcers seem to be droned out from time to time from the constant buzzing. Yes, constant. It doesn't just happen when the other team has the ball or after a goal or even "just" the 90 minutes of when the game is in play. It doesn't freaking stop. I'm all for tolerance and being unique in fan support, but this is absurd. You're not supporting your team, you're just making noise. Even South African players have said they have trouble communicating over the noise. It's not like college basketball crowds that make noise when the other team is on defense and the game is close, intermittently stopping to sing, chant or just take a break. No this is far far more obnoxious. I guess I can't completely blame South African's though. Quite often you'll see people in the crowd dressed in their countries respective colors playing a patriotic bee noise maker.
I guess basically all I'm trying to say is that I don't even care if these Vuvuzela's are a cool cultural symbol or something that brings something unique to the game. These factors of them are drown out by the constant droning hum they make to ruin the atmosphere of the game. No, they shouldn't be banned, as this wouldn't even really be possible and would cause quite the commotion. All I want to do is simply state that they are super annoying and a horrible tradition.
USA tied England. I guess I'm supposed to be happy about this since England is amazing and the USA is fairly mediocre when it comes to soccer talent. I find this difficult though, because it's a tie. No one won. I can't be disappointed at a loss to our Trans-Atlantic rivals, nor can I feel like we have bragging rights over them. All I'm left with after 90+ minutes of watching a rather boring and slow-paced game is an overall feeling of apathy and a realization that unless the USA makes it out of the initial round play there is nothing that's going to drag me in front of the buzzing swarm of soccer fans in Outer Lesotho.
Speaking of Lesotho, I learned that 40% of the country live under the international poverty line, which is approximately $1.25 American per day. I can't imagine what it would be like to live that way. I could not work for the next.. well I'm not giving an exact number as it seems incredibly stupid to state how much money I have online, so we'll just go with "while" and still be over the International Poverty Line. That's really sad and makes me realize just how much the United States rules. Not only do broke college students live well above the poverty line, but our citizens don't bring thousands of Vuvuzela's to sporting events.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
My dreams are so trippy
So last night I had a trippy dream at about 6am. I woke up and texted myself so I wouldn't forget it. Here's what the text said, "pitcher penguin and walsur talking penguin handstcoe bic man coffe shop latte is ink cup."
My best translation of this (and from what I can remember) is that I was on the Weber State campus kind of at dusk and a penguin dressed in a baseball pitcher outfit was walking towards me with a walrus and the penguin stopped and did a handstand on a globe statue and I was thinking, "holy crap, now I've seen it all." Then there was a coffee shop nearby so I went inside, but there was like a 30 person long line of nothing but 5 foot tall Bic Pen men, which were all colored white. I skipped to the front of the line and ordered a mocha latte, but all I got was a cup of ink. I threw it away and went in the bathroom, but the toilet was out of order because something (can't remember what) was in front of it. This is when I woke up. I then realized I had to pee and was happy the toilet in my dream was out of service.
My dreams are so trippy, haha.
My best translation of this (and from what I can remember) is that I was on the Weber State campus kind of at dusk and a penguin dressed in a baseball pitcher outfit was walking towards me with a walrus and the penguin stopped and did a handstand on a globe statue and I was thinking, "holy crap, now I've seen it all." Then there was a coffee shop nearby so I went inside, but there was like a 30 person long line of nothing but 5 foot tall Bic Pen men, which were all colored white. I skipped to the front of the line and ordered a mocha latte, but all I got was a cup of ink. I threw it away and went in the bathroom, but the toilet was out of order because something (can't remember what) was in front of it. This is when I woke up. I then realized I had to pee and was happy the toilet in my dream was out of service.
My dreams are so trippy, haha.
Dating in Utah blows
So I'm at my Grandpa's house tonight. Kinda bored. Found his little blood pressure machine and decided it would be fun to check my blood pressure. It's 135/72 with a pulse rate of 43. Am I dead? I'm not really that active, why does my heart beat so damn slow? Also the 135/72 thing doesn't settle too well with me. 72 is fine, 135 is pretty damn high though for a pretty regular build guy who isn't terrible out of shape. Then I found this other thing called pulse pressure. Supposedly you subtract the numbers and anything above 60 is pretty bad 135-72=63. Though one of the causes of this is hypothyroidism. I'm fairly convinced I have hypothyroidism. Now if only I had medical insurance I could go get it checked and be all medicated and stuff. I checked again a minute later and it was 120/80 with a pulse rate of 45. This is cool, pretty standard I guess. Oh well, I probably shouldn't worry myself over such dumb things.
So I basically managed to alienate myself from all 3 girls I was dating over the course of the last 2 weeks.
Girl 1: There was this girl from high school who'd I'd kind of started to develop a liking for. We'd been on two dates, one of which lasted quite a while and I was convinced she was attracted to me, then two days later she changed her facebook status to being in a relationship. Hmm, this slightly bothered me. About a week later she posted some pictures of her and this new boy and in my completely unbiased opinion if I were to rank him on a scale of 0-10 with Gary Busey being a 0 and Brad Pitt being a 10 I'd give the guy about a 2. When you're only marginally better looking than Scary Busey that's bad. This kind of bothers me too. Like, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I'm fairly attractive. I'd say if you're into thin guys I'd be an 8 or 9. If you're not into thin guys I'm probably still a 5 or 6. So what the hell? Am I annoying? Do I talk to much? Did I not try hard enough? I suppose I could ask her, but I don't want to be all 10th grade about it. We went on two dates, I'm really not that bothered. Besides, she was divorced (yuck.)
Girl 2: About 2 days later I went to my ex's house to watch The Matrix. She'll read this so I won't put too many details into this, but basically we kind of came to the conclusion that we shouldn't be around each other much this summer since we tend to get into trouble. First of all this sucks, because I rather enjoy this "trouble" and secondly I rather enjoy her company and could see myself spending a lot of time with her, she's great. I hate that Mormon culture makes having a normal more-than-friends-relationship with a girl in this God-forsaken state so impossible.
Girl 3: Two nights later we had a get-together in Bountiful with some friends and a friend of mine who I've dated off and on for a while came. Anyway, somehow we ended up kissing and without even doing anything that would be considered dirty by Mormon standards we had to stop because she felt bad. I was so confused. We weren't doing anything "bad," we weren't going to do anything "bad" and she's fairly single as far as I know so... what the hell is wrong with girls in Utah?
Oh well, I'll stay friends with them.. except girl 1, she legitimately pissed me off. Besides we weren't that tight to begin with. Probably could've been, won't ever find out now. Oh well, I guess in a sense I was playing her, but not with the intention of getting a girlfriend any time soon. I don't mind people dating other people, that's normal, but had she said, "Hey by the way, sorta dating this other dude - it's clearly going somewhere fast." I wouldn't have wasted an entire Saturday and $30 on her.
Anyway, I guess I'll go back to my normal summer activities. Seeing friends very occasionally, dating almost never, working and playing too much Sim City 4.
It's funny how things change. Had this happened to me 5 years ago I'd be all depressed and torn up over it and now it's like I've had so many stupid scenarios with women that I care so little. I suppose after being cheated on by Nichole and having Shelly try to convince me that I raped her because I somehow knew that when she was saying yes what she really meant was no makes things like Kelley dating an ugly boy over me and Trisha not being able to see me for a couple months seem like nothing.
While I'm on the subject of girls, this time last year I was in Los Angeles probably asleep next to Rachel. That seems like so much longer ago than one year. I kinda miss her. Not necessarily her specifically, but I miss a girl who saw me as a good and moral person. She thought I was so clean and so respectful of her. I honestly think she's the only girl who thought that of me. Kinda wish her and I still spoke. Not to mention I wouldn't mind taking a road trip out to Los Angeles right about now. It was so fun living in a little house with just a girl and I making breakfast, lunch and dinner together and going out shopping together then reading or playing together and falling asleep in each others arms, even if just for a week. I bet that's what being married is like... also for about a week.
What if we could rewind life and do things differently? Sometimes I wonder, had I gone right to college at 18 I'd have been graduated by 23 and could have moved to Los Angeles with her that summer. Wonder what life would have been like then? What if I would have just had sex with her? I think I may regret not doing that for many years, but when I get those thoughts I like to think of Captain Picard saying, "There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of. There were... loose threads - untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads - it'd unravel the tapestry of my life." I wonder what life experiences in the last year I would have missed out on. At this point I really can't see any, but I'm sure they exist. I made a lot of good friends last year. How many of them will I keep though? Over the summer the only college friends I've even so much as had a phone call with are James, Emily, Matt, Trisha and Rachel (Trisha's roommate, not California Rachel.) Matt just called to ask something about utilities and Rachel I only see by way of Trisha.
I sometimes fear life. What if I don't amount to anything? Sure I'll get my B.S. in less than a year, but what good is that if I never put it to use? All it becomes is a waste of $20,000 and 4 years of my life. What if I never marry? I'll be alone for 60 more years. What if I never have kids? My mom never had other kids so she'll never have grandkids. I feel like my life is moving so slowly and there is nothing I can do about it because I'm stuck. I'm stuck in my career (which hasn't yet begun) because I can't get a real job without a diploma. I'm stuck when it comes to a family because when I meet someone I legitimately want I can't have her unless I pretend to believe something which no matter how hard I try I can't bring myself to believe because it's so obviously wrong on some subjects and I'm stuck in Utah for at least another year (maybe 3 if I do a masters) because it's all I can afford.
This is making me depressed, I'm going to sleep before I become as unhappy as I was 5 years ago.
So I basically managed to alienate myself from all 3 girls I was dating over the course of the last 2 weeks.
Girl 1: There was this girl from high school who'd I'd kind of started to develop a liking for. We'd been on two dates, one of which lasted quite a while and I was convinced she was attracted to me, then two days later she changed her facebook status to being in a relationship. Hmm, this slightly bothered me. About a week later she posted some pictures of her and this new boy and in my completely unbiased opinion if I were to rank him on a scale of 0-10 with Gary Busey being a 0 and Brad Pitt being a 10 I'd give the guy about a 2. When you're only marginally better looking than Scary Busey that's bad. This kind of bothers me too. Like, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I'm fairly attractive. I'd say if you're into thin guys I'd be an 8 or 9. If you're not into thin guys I'm probably still a 5 or 6. So what the hell? Am I annoying? Do I talk to much? Did I not try hard enough? I suppose I could ask her, but I don't want to be all 10th grade about it. We went on two dates, I'm really not that bothered. Besides, she was divorced (yuck.)
Girl 2: About 2 days later I went to my ex's house to watch The Matrix. She'll read this so I won't put too many details into this, but basically we kind of came to the conclusion that we shouldn't be around each other much this summer since we tend to get into trouble. First of all this sucks, because I rather enjoy this "trouble" and secondly I rather enjoy her company and could see myself spending a lot of time with her, she's great. I hate that Mormon culture makes having a normal more-than-friends-relationship with a girl in this God-forsaken state so impossible.
Girl 3: Two nights later we had a get-together in Bountiful with some friends and a friend of mine who I've dated off and on for a while came. Anyway, somehow we ended up kissing and without even doing anything that would be considered dirty by Mormon standards we had to stop because she felt bad. I was so confused. We weren't doing anything "bad," we weren't going to do anything "bad" and she's fairly single as far as I know so... what the hell is wrong with girls in Utah?
Oh well, I'll stay friends with them.. except girl 1, she legitimately pissed me off. Besides we weren't that tight to begin with. Probably could've been, won't ever find out now. Oh well, I guess in a sense I was playing her, but not with the intention of getting a girlfriend any time soon. I don't mind people dating other people, that's normal, but had she said, "Hey by the way, sorta dating this other dude - it's clearly going somewhere fast." I wouldn't have wasted an entire Saturday and $30 on her.
Anyway, I guess I'll go back to my normal summer activities. Seeing friends very occasionally, dating almost never, working and playing too much Sim City 4.
It's funny how things change. Had this happened to me 5 years ago I'd be all depressed and torn up over it and now it's like I've had so many stupid scenarios with women that I care so little. I suppose after being cheated on by Nichole and having Shelly try to convince me that I raped her because I somehow knew that when she was saying yes what she really meant was no makes things like Kelley dating an ugly boy over me and Trisha not being able to see me for a couple months seem like nothing.
While I'm on the subject of girls, this time last year I was in Los Angeles probably asleep next to Rachel. That seems like so much longer ago than one year. I kinda miss her. Not necessarily her specifically, but I miss a girl who saw me as a good and moral person. She thought I was so clean and so respectful of her. I honestly think she's the only girl who thought that of me. Kinda wish her and I still spoke. Not to mention I wouldn't mind taking a road trip out to Los Angeles right about now. It was so fun living in a little house with just a girl and I making breakfast, lunch and dinner together and going out shopping together then reading or playing together and falling asleep in each others arms, even if just for a week. I bet that's what being married is like... also for about a week.
What if we could rewind life and do things differently? Sometimes I wonder, had I gone right to college at 18 I'd have been graduated by 23 and could have moved to Los Angeles with her that summer. Wonder what life would have been like then? What if I would have just had sex with her? I think I may regret not doing that for many years, but when I get those thoughts I like to think of Captain Picard saying, "There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of. There were... loose threads - untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads - it'd unravel the tapestry of my life." I wonder what life experiences in the last year I would have missed out on. At this point I really can't see any, but I'm sure they exist. I made a lot of good friends last year. How many of them will I keep though? Over the summer the only college friends I've even so much as had a phone call with are James, Emily, Matt, Trisha and Rachel (Trisha's roommate, not California Rachel.) Matt just called to ask something about utilities and Rachel I only see by way of Trisha.
I sometimes fear life. What if I don't amount to anything? Sure I'll get my B.S. in less than a year, but what good is that if I never put it to use? All it becomes is a waste of $20,000 and 4 years of my life. What if I never marry? I'll be alone for 60 more years. What if I never have kids? My mom never had other kids so she'll never have grandkids. I feel like my life is moving so slowly and there is nothing I can do about it because I'm stuck. I'm stuck in my career (which hasn't yet begun) because I can't get a real job without a diploma. I'm stuck when it comes to a family because when I meet someone I legitimately want I can't have her unless I pretend to believe something which no matter how hard I try I can't bring myself to believe because it's so obviously wrong on some subjects and I'm stuck in Utah for at least another year (maybe 3 if I do a masters) because it's all I can afford.
This is making me depressed, I'm going to sleep before I become as unhappy as I was 5 years ago.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Conspiracy theories are absurd.
I was mindlessly surfing the web a couple days ago and I came across a blog that was talking about how the music industry was controlled by the Illuminati. For those of you who don't hate conspiracy theorists, the Illuminati is some secret society of important people that was founded in 1776 and they held meetings in the German state Bavaria where they talked about how to overthrow corrupt European governments. Somehow, according to idiot conspiracy theorists, this society still exists today in 2010 and works to overthrow society as we know it and set in motion a New World Order. Not a cool New World Order with guys like Sting and Hulk Hogan, but an evil one with dictators and complete society control. Now this alleged Illuminati apparently finds music stars like Lady Gaga and Kanye West and pays them to write music about promiscuity and use occult symbolism to brainwash todays generation into becoming mindless slaves of this new world order.
How the nut jobs claim this works I'm not exactly clear on. Something to the effect of if we watch Lady Gaga make hand motions that look like an Egyptian Goddesses eye makeup and then she has an orgy in her music video we're all going to worship Egyptian Deity's, have orgies and mindlessly follow whatever the music says to do and that our generation is the one that is screwed. This, despite the fact that they also claim this same Illuminati is the same society that made the Beatles famous and had them put secret backwards messages in their music, but only when you warped it just right and would variate the speed at certain points so that it sounded like what you were looking for it to sound like and that these messages would ruin a previous generation. This is good science. When something doesn't fit with the point I'm trying to get across I simply change the way I test it until it does fit the results I want it to. No, I'm serious, it was the only way I got through chemistry lab. "Hmm... 16 g/mol? Well I know it's not oxygen that I centrifuged out of this because it would become gas and this is clearly solid so I'll double it and say it's sulfur then do the calculations from there." What? The class was straight regurgitation and I got an A.
So anyway, the people who believe in Illuminati are as good at life as I am at chemistry lab, which isn't very good.
Now when our generation becomes brainwashed by Kanye West andLada Niva, Lady Gaga, other Illuminati leaders like Barack Obama, George Bush, Yasser Arafat (who in all likelihood would never have any involvement with American political leaders) and Spiderman will proceed to guide us to following a single world government under which we are like the Borg from Star Trek. You know, this single world government thing (despite how ridiculous it sounds) doesn't sound half bad. No wars, no third-world-countries, no trade restrictions. Hell, if we can get a billion Hindu's, a billion Atheists, a billion Muslims half a billion Buddhists and 2 billion Christians to agree on any one thing let these Illuminati people work their magic.
Fortunately I am immune. I listen to alternative and punk rock and they don't follow the standards set by the evil music industry. They sing against mainstream society and therefore the Illuminati don't approach them with vast amounts of money to make them famous which is why it's alternative. In fact, here is my counter-conspiracy-theory. In the early 90's Illuminati saw that Nirvana was becoming popular among young people and singing about sex and drugs yet was not using the Illuminati devil horn sign of "rock on" used by mainstream rock bands. (seriously, google it, you can't find Cobain making devil horn signs) so Courtney Love, known member of the Illuminati took him out. Cobain was a martyr in the fight against the NWO.
You should probably pretend you didn't read that last paragraph as I'm obviously making it all up.
Another one I really like is that the moon landing was in some studio. This is because solar wind, cosmic rays, not enough time delay between replies and because there are no stars in the images. Well right, solar wind and cosmic rays are a problem because the astronauts were up there in shorts and t-shirts with scuba masks for air. Then the stars should have been there because it's always night time in space, because it's space and space is night. These people are morons. They didn't have 80lb space suits on or anything for protection and we didn't land on the LIGHT side of the moon where the sun and Earth radiate vast amounts light and cameras were set for daylight exposure since they were on the moon in broad daylight. Try this, go sit in a super bright room and see if you can see stars outside or try taking a picture at night with the flash on. See if you can see any stars.
Then the time delay, on the edited documentary tapes does not represent the actual real-time which was two seconds, as expected. That time delay one is just stupid too. Let's pretend for a minute that Apollo 11 was faked. They pulled off this amazing million dollar scheme which fooled the entire world, but when it came time to record moon-shots they forgot to delay their responses 2 seconds, yeahhhhh right. That would be like an NBA star preparing nearly his entire life to be a basketball player and then forgetting the goal is to get the orange ball in the hoop you're attacking and keep it out of the hoop you're defending.
Then of course there are the Hubble shots of the moon landing sites, the 400,000 employees of the Apollo programs and the fact that the Soviet's of the 1960's, who hated the American's, acknowledged the Apollo missions and congratulated us on the accomplishments. If your arch-nemesis compliments you on something, what kind of idiot citizen does it take to refute events supported by two competing and unfriendly factions that the same event did in fact take place?
This is becoming a bit wordy, so in short - conspiracy theorists are stupid. If you believe in conspiracies, and you're actually still reading them, you should probably reevaluate your thoughts pretty heavily. Now I'm sure there are certain conspiracies that may hold a little weight, such as the one where diamonds are neither valuable nor precious stones, DeBeers simply controls the market and sets the price at whatever stupid American's will pay for them. But Illuminati controlling the popular media, political figures and putting flouride in your water to make you easier to control? Hahahaha, we do live among some easily impressionable people.
Yes, great argument. Trace amounts of fluoride in water should be banned because healthy teeth are just a way for the Illuminati to control you and make you die younger. Then we have NASA faking the Apollo missions to gain a moral victory over the Soviet's and crashing our own planes into our own towers so we could start a war. If you believe any of these you need to quit watching Fox News and reading tabloid smut magazines. Yes, I just lumped Fox News and tabloid smut together. Fox News is bestowed this honor for their claims that Mr. Rogers is evil, therefore it should be regarded as highly (or lowly) as Weekly World News and Globe. The source for all your trashy made-up entertainment news. Seriously, if we're going to consider Mr. Rogers evil, then let's consider Bat Boy and Bigfoot to be real!
Oh and my friend informed me that she had to be mentioned in my blog, so Data > Spock & Picard > Kirk. Happy nerd pride day everyone.
How the nut jobs claim this works I'm not exactly clear on. Something to the effect of if we watch Lady Gaga make hand motions that look like an Egyptian Goddesses eye makeup and then she has an orgy in her music video we're all going to worship Egyptian Deity's, have orgies and mindlessly follow whatever the music says to do and that our generation is the one that is screwed. This, despite the fact that they also claim this same Illuminati is the same society that made the Beatles famous and had them put secret backwards messages in their music, but only when you warped it just right and would variate the speed at certain points so that it sounded like what you were looking for it to sound like and that these messages would ruin a previous generation. This is good science. When something doesn't fit with the point I'm trying to get across I simply change the way I test it until it does fit the results I want it to. No, I'm serious, it was the only way I got through chemistry lab. "Hmm... 16 g/mol? Well I know it's not oxygen that I centrifuged out of this because it would become gas and this is clearly solid so I'll double it and say it's sulfur then do the calculations from there." What? The class was straight regurgitation and I got an A.
So anyway, the people who believe in Illuminati are as good at life as I am at chemistry lab, which isn't very good.
Now when our generation becomes brainwashed by Kanye West and
Fortunately I am immune. I listen to alternative and punk rock and they don't follow the standards set by the evil music industry. They sing against mainstream society and therefore the Illuminati don't approach them with vast amounts of money to make them famous which is why it's alternative. In fact, here is my counter-conspiracy-theory. In the early 90's Illuminati saw that Nirvana was becoming popular among young people and singing about sex and drugs yet was not using the Illuminati devil horn sign of "rock on" used by mainstream rock bands. (seriously, google it, you can't find Cobain making devil horn signs) so Courtney Love, known member of the Illuminati took him out. Cobain was a martyr in the fight against the NWO.
You should probably pretend you didn't read that last paragraph as I'm obviously making it all up.
Another one I really like is that the moon landing was in some studio. This is because solar wind, cosmic rays, not enough time delay between replies and because there are no stars in the images. Well right, solar wind and cosmic rays are a problem because the astronauts were up there in shorts and t-shirts with scuba masks for air. Then the stars should have been there because it's always night time in space, because it's space and space is night. These people are morons. They didn't have 80lb space suits on or anything for protection and we didn't land on the LIGHT side of the moon where the sun and Earth radiate vast amounts light and cameras were set for daylight exposure since they were on the moon in broad daylight. Try this, go sit in a super bright room and see if you can see stars outside or try taking a picture at night with the flash on. See if you can see any stars.
Then the time delay, on the edited documentary tapes does not represent the actual real-time which was two seconds, as expected. That time delay one is just stupid too. Let's pretend for a minute that Apollo 11 was faked. They pulled off this amazing million dollar scheme which fooled the entire world, but when it came time to record moon-shots they forgot to delay their responses 2 seconds, yeahhhhh right. That would be like an NBA star preparing nearly his entire life to be a basketball player and then forgetting the goal is to get the orange ball in the hoop you're attacking and keep it out of the hoop you're defending.
Then of course there are the Hubble shots of the moon landing sites, the 400,000 employees of the Apollo programs and the fact that the Soviet's of the 1960's, who hated the American's, acknowledged the Apollo missions and congratulated us on the accomplishments. If your arch-nemesis compliments you on something, what kind of idiot citizen does it take to refute events supported by two competing and unfriendly factions that the same event did in fact take place?
This is becoming a bit wordy, so in short - conspiracy theorists are stupid. If you believe in conspiracies, and you're actually still reading them, you should probably reevaluate your thoughts pretty heavily. Now I'm sure there are certain conspiracies that may hold a little weight, such as the one where diamonds are neither valuable nor precious stones, DeBeers simply controls the market and sets the price at whatever stupid American's will pay for them. But Illuminati controlling the popular media, political figures and putting flouride in your water to make you easier to control? Hahahaha, we do live among some easily impressionable people.
Yes, great argument. Trace amounts of fluoride in water should be banned because healthy teeth are just a way for the Illuminati to control you and make you die younger. Then we have NASA faking the Apollo missions to gain a moral victory over the Soviet's and crashing our own planes into our own towers so we could start a war. If you believe any of these you need to quit watching Fox News and reading tabloid smut magazines. Yes, I just lumped Fox News and tabloid smut together. Fox News is bestowed this honor for their claims that Mr. Rogers is evil, therefore it should be regarded as highly (or lowly) as Weekly World News and Globe. The source for all your trashy made-up entertainment news. Seriously, if we're going to consider Mr. Rogers evil, then let's consider Bat Boy and Bigfoot to be real!
Oh and my friend informed me that she had to be mentioned in my blog, so Data > Spock & Picard > Kirk. Happy nerd pride day everyone.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Ah summer..
The end of the semester wasn't exactly my finest hour. I had to skip dead week so I could come home and learn how to harass people at their homes so the census can pay me, which is real brain busting work, let me tell you. Then I had a final in each of my classes. Finals which I didn't exactly do well on, besides the one in my Earth History class. I was afraid that I'd get pretty average grades after what I felt to be an impressive semester on my part. As my grades were posted they started about how I expected. First a B+ in Structural Geology, not as good as I would have hoped but I can't really frown at a B+ I suppose. Then Abnormal Psych (my easy gen ed class) was posted as an A-. This pissed me off, how did I get an A- in a bonehead psychology class? Well I suppose a 71/100 on the final may have helped. Then my Earth History grade was posted, an A. I was sitting at a 3.64 with one grade left, Geophysics. The hardest class I've taken in college and likely the class I've put the most effort into. I scored a 34/100 on the midterm and my average lab grade was right around the 50-60% range. I had no idea how the professor would be curving the grades, but talking to other people in the class my grades sounded about typical. Finally, the last day to post grades, still nothing. I looked again at about 6PM. I had an A. What.. the hell? I checked my email and had a message from the professor saying "Good job, you got a 96/200 on the final. Sorry the class and our field area was so difficult, I hope you got something out of it, you put a lot of work into it. Your final grade is an A." My final GPA was a 3.75. Best grades I've ever gotten in a full time semester and I was taking all 3000 and 5000 level classes. Quite proud of that actually :)
I wanted to celebrate by buying myself something nice and getting dinner. I went shopping and ended up realizing the same thing I always realize when I go shopping. I already have everything I need and I don't want to needlessly spend money. I ended up with a new rock hammer and ate a microwavable meal for dinner. I really live a sad life sometimes, but it's completely my fault. Oh well.
It's summer! Yay, summer. The weather is warm, the sun is out, I don't have class and I can more or less just do whatever I want. I moved home and I've been having a pretty fun time so far. I've eaten some gourmet tofu, gone car shopping for someone else, beat my friends at a board game that involves cows and corn, been a census robot and hiked halfway up what looked to be a really pretty hike. Not off to a bad start other than the fact that I've been sick for most of it.
So I think I went on a date today, okay yeah it was a date. I just tell myself that it wasn't so I feel better about it. I don't know what it is about dating that terrifies me. A girl from high school randomly wrote me on facebook and was like "Hi you're cool!" and it pretty much made my day so I had to befriend her and I realized she was pretty cool and that I had to meet her.. again.. so not meet her, but .. eh whatever.
So here's what sucks about dating:
First dates. The whole time you're wondering what's an acceptable way to act. Do I act my annoying self and be loud because I'm with people I'm comfortable with or do I act calm with an effort to not make her uncomfortable? Do I say the raunchy sexual remark that just came to my mind even though it will certainly not impress her or do I hide it and act on my best manners because that's what's appropriate? Do I ask her lame get-to-know-you questions when there is a pause in conversation or is some silence acceptable? Is it cool if I sit on the same oversized chair as her at the ice cream place? Do I walk her to her door or will either of these actions make her uncomfortable? Is it even remotely okay to talk this much about rocks?
Dating can be so awkward, but it's unfortunately one of the best ways to learn if you like someone or not. Today I did something rare - I was my normal self on a first date. I guess not ALL first dates suck. I need to learn to be that way on all first dates.
I just realized if I post this on facebook like I do the rest of my blogs and she reads this I'll feel pretty stupid - so maybe I'll wait a day or two on that. How arrogant of me to think people actually read these incoherent loosely related cluster of sentences. I should just post it anyway.
I hate the Lakers.
While I'm on the subject of girls, I think I want to fall in love (Don't worry, I'm not going to sell out for someone who is anything short of incredible for the sake of being in love, like so many people do). I've been doing the whole dating around thing for about... well basically since Shelly. Sure I've had a few relationships and almost-serious flings mixed in, but really my longest relationship since Shelly was a crazy girl from Los Angeles who I saw a total of maybe 15 days, and other that that basically dated via Skype. A girl who also liked video games more than she did me, which is cool, video games have their perks, but they've got nothing on me! At least she was considerate enough to have us be a Sims 3 family and put my computer outside because it made me happy to be outside. I'm quite certain Shelly screwed with my head more than I let myself believe. I think I subconsciously let that effect my relations with girls I'm interested in more than I know.
Speaking of female horror stories, I went out with this girl a couple times last semester and I kept it at a distance because I knew she had a guy who she was semi-serious towards or at least was, but she insisted they weren't together. Then we sort of ended up making out recently and a week later she tells me she's not coming back to Logan because her boyfriend asked her to marry him and move wherever the army takes him. Was I seriously just the other guy? Wow, that.. is horrible of me. I honestly feel bad about it despite having been told by a couple people that I really shouldn't blame myself. I think the worst part is that I was just like "Oh yeah, that's cool. Good luck." and this boy is likely head over heels for her and would have his week ruined if he knew she cheated on him. I really am angry at myself for that. He'll probably never know, but the fact that it happened kinda bothers me.
I hate Kobe. (What the.. Why is Kobe in my spellchecker, but Angeles is not?)
Makes me curious.. Lebron, Carmello, Shaquille, Deron, Rondo... oh c'mon... Rondo? Firefox is weird. It depresses me to have to re-accept every year that the Jazz will never with the NBA championship under Jerry Sloan and that without Jerry Sloan the Jazz would likely suffer a few years of not making the playoffs.
I watched this movie called Pandorum. It was kind of like Titan AE meets Event Horizon. A ship was traveling across the galaxy to colonize a new planet because we screwed up Earth too badly and then some evil force invaded the ship and a few people woke up out of stasis to it all freaked out. I was a fan.
Oh yeah, back to how I want to be in love or something. I don't really think I even know what love is, but I imagine it's pretty cool. The times I've pretended to be in love have been fun, so if I was really head over heels for a girl I think that would just make my day.. or possibly quite a few days.. I suppose to do that though, I actually have to commit to someone and put my heart into something without holding back or hiding at all. That could be hard for me. It takes me 2 minutes to choose which orange juice concentrate I want to commit to drinking for the next week and sometimes I end up with grape juice because it's on sale. I should sleep, it's almost 2 and I have important door to door census sales.. I mean.. government work to do tomorrow. You know, this job is serving some purpose - next year any time I consider quitting school or not working as hard I'll just have to think back to a crazy old lady with 3 psychotic Pomeranian's screaming at me that she already has a security system and slamming the door in my face or the interesting man who kept interrupting me to tell me jokes like, "How can you tell an Irishman has had too much to drink? - He's Dublin over." and I'll remember how important this college education is.
I wanted to celebrate by buying myself something nice and getting dinner. I went shopping and ended up realizing the same thing I always realize when I go shopping. I already have everything I need and I don't want to needlessly spend money. I ended up with a new rock hammer and ate a microwavable meal for dinner. I really live a sad life sometimes, but it's completely my fault. Oh well.
It's summer! Yay, summer. The weather is warm, the sun is out, I don't have class and I can more or less just do whatever I want. I moved home and I've been having a pretty fun time so far. I've eaten some gourmet tofu, gone car shopping for someone else, beat my friends at a board game that involves cows and corn, been a census robot and hiked halfway up what looked to be a really pretty hike. Not off to a bad start other than the fact that I've been sick for most of it.
So I think I went on a date today, okay yeah it was a date. I just tell myself that it wasn't so I feel better about it. I don't know what it is about dating that terrifies me. A girl from high school randomly wrote me on facebook and was like "Hi you're cool!" and it pretty much made my day so I had to befriend her and I realized she was pretty cool and that I had to meet her.. again.. so not meet her, but .. eh whatever.
So here's what sucks about dating:
First dates. The whole time you're wondering what's an acceptable way to act. Do I act my annoying self and be loud because I'm with people I'm comfortable with or do I act calm with an effort to not make her uncomfortable? Do I say the raunchy sexual remark that just came to my mind even though it will certainly not impress her or do I hide it and act on my best manners because that's what's appropriate? Do I ask her lame get-to-know-you questions when there is a pause in conversation or is some silence acceptable? Is it cool if I sit on the same oversized chair as her at the ice cream place? Do I walk her to her door or will either of these actions make her uncomfortable? Is it even remotely okay to talk this much about rocks?
Dating can be so awkward, but it's unfortunately one of the best ways to learn if you like someone or not. Today I did something rare - I was my normal self on a first date. I guess not ALL first dates suck. I need to learn to be that way on all first dates.
I just realized if I post this on facebook like I do the rest of my blogs and she reads this I'll feel pretty stupid - so maybe I'll wait a day or two on that. How arrogant of me to think people actually read these incoherent loosely related cluster of sentences. I should just post it anyway.
I hate the Lakers.
While I'm on the subject of girls, I think I want to fall in love (Don't worry, I'm not going to sell out for someone who is anything short of incredible for the sake of being in love, like so many people do). I've been doing the whole dating around thing for about... well basically since Shelly. Sure I've had a few relationships and almost-serious flings mixed in, but really my longest relationship since Shelly was a crazy girl from Los Angeles who I saw a total of maybe 15 days, and other that that basically dated via Skype. A girl who also liked video games more than she did me, which is cool, video games have their perks, but they've got nothing on me! At least she was considerate enough to have us be a Sims 3 family and put my computer outside because it made me happy to be outside. I'm quite certain Shelly screwed with my head more than I let myself believe. I think I subconsciously let that effect my relations with girls I'm interested in more than I know.
Speaking of female horror stories, I went out with this girl a couple times last semester and I kept it at a distance because I knew she had a guy who she was semi-serious towards or at least was, but she insisted they weren't together. Then we sort of ended up making out recently and a week later she tells me she's not coming back to Logan because her boyfriend asked her to marry him and move wherever the army takes him. Was I seriously just the other guy? Wow, that.. is horrible of me. I honestly feel bad about it despite having been told by a couple people that I really shouldn't blame myself. I think the worst part is that I was just like "Oh yeah, that's cool. Good luck." and this boy is likely head over heels for her and would have his week ruined if he knew she cheated on him. I really am angry at myself for that. He'll probably never know, but the fact that it happened kinda bothers me.
I hate Kobe. (What the.. Why is Kobe in my spellchecker, but Angeles is not?)
Makes me curious.. Lebron, Carmello, Shaquille, Deron, Rondo... oh c'mon... Rondo? Firefox is weird. It depresses me to have to re-accept every year that the Jazz will never with the NBA championship under Jerry Sloan and that without Jerry Sloan the Jazz would likely suffer a few years of not making the playoffs.
I watched this movie called Pandorum. It was kind of like Titan AE meets Event Horizon. A ship was traveling across the galaxy to colonize a new planet because we screwed up Earth too badly and then some evil force invaded the ship and a few people woke up out of stasis to it all freaked out. I was a fan.
Oh yeah, back to how I want to be in love or something. I don't really think I even know what love is, but I imagine it's pretty cool. The times I've pretended to be in love have been fun, so if I was really head over heels for a girl I think that would just make my day.. or possibly quite a few days.. I suppose to do that though, I actually have to commit to someone and put my heart into something without holding back or hiding at all. That could be hard for me. It takes me 2 minutes to choose which orange juice concentrate I want to commit to drinking for the next week and sometimes I end up with grape juice because it's on sale. I should sleep, it's almost 2 and I have important door to door census sales.. I mean.. government work to do tomorrow. You know, this job is serving some purpose - next year any time I consider quitting school or not working as hard I'll just have to think back to a crazy old lady with 3 psychotic Pomeranian's screaming at me that she already has a security system and slamming the door in my face or the interesting man who kept interrupting me to tell me jokes like, "How can you tell an Irishman has had too much to drink? - He's Dublin over." and I'll remember how important this college education is.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Satan is necessary.
This blog post will probably be nothing short of blasphemous to most people, but I think it's a fun thought.
So assuming you believe in Christianity (specifically Mormonism) the kind of general story is that Satan has to tempt us so we can prove our worthiness. The Mormon story goes that Satan had a plan to force us to all be perfect so we could return to heaven and worship him for saving us then Jesus was like no, you all can go make your own choices and if you decide to accept me I'll be punished for you and you can come back and worship God. Meanwhile Satan gets kicked out and decides he wants to screw with our heads and tempt us to do wrong things to get as many people to come live with him in "hell" instead of with God in "heaven."
Satan sounds like a pretty bad dude at this point. What has to be considered though is that for Christ's plan to even exist, Satan must exist. Satan is what creates evil, the required antagonistic force in Christ's plan. He's what tempts us to do wrong and sin as to not go back to Christ and God, but he is completely necessary.
So did Christ and God banish him for the sake of having an element of evil? It almost sounds like had we just gone with "Satan's plan" there would have never been evil, he wouldn't have been "forcing" us to be good, there just wouldn't have been any evil to participate in. However when God denied him permission because of his arrogance in wanting the glory of a people who he didn't create evil was created at this point. This became part of Christ's plan. Satan was needed in it. Without Satan, Christ wouldn't need to be our savior.
Why does Satan get such a bad reputation then? He's just a misunderstood and incredibly arrogant individual (assuming he even exists) who made a bad choice. We should feel sorry for the guy and help him if we want to be "Christ-like," right? Also what would life be without temptation? Some of the greatest feelings in the world come from either overcoming temptation or temptation itself and without it we would never be able to prove ourselves to God to be rewarded with whatever he deems us worthy for.
This has further implications though. Satan isn't the cause of all evil is he? If a hurricane happens and kills some people is that Satan's doing or is that just natural evil? If you answer that it's Satan's doing then you have to accept that Satan helped create the universe which means he has powers similar to what we know of God. If you say that this was not Satan's doing then you have to accept that God created a universe with built in evil. If God is capable of creating evil, then would this not mean he has to have an understanding and desire for it? Furthermore, God created Satan, according to LDS beliefs. God created Satan, who is the father of all evil, so God did create evil, or maybe he just messed up a little in the whole creation of beings and some of them (a third according to Mormonism) came out wrong.
My mind just went spiraling off on a new tangent. I have to study for finals, I'm done thinking about this.
So assuming you believe in Christianity (specifically Mormonism) the kind of general story is that Satan has to tempt us so we can prove our worthiness. The Mormon story goes that Satan had a plan to force us to all be perfect so we could return to heaven and worship him for saving us then Jesus was like no, you all can go make your own choices and if you decide to accept me I'll be punished for you and you can come back and worship God. Meanwhile Satan gets kicked out and decides he wants to screw with our heads and tempt us to do wrong things to get as many people to come live with him in "hell" instead of with God in "heaven."
Satan sounds like a pretty bad dude at this point. What has to be considered though is that for Christ's plan to even exist, Satan must exist. Satan is what creates evil, the required antagonistic force in Christ's plan. He's what tempts us to do wrong and sin as to not go back to Christ and God, but he is completely necessary.
So did Christ and God banish him for the sake of having an element of evil? It almost sounds like had we just gone with "Satan's plan" there would have never been evil, he wouldn't have been "forcing" us to be good, there just wouldn't have been any evil to participate in. However when God denied him permission because of his arrogance in wanting the glory of a people who he didn't create evil was created at this point. This became part of Christ's plan. Satan was needed in it. Without Satan, Christ wouldn't need to be our savior.
Why does Satan get such a bad reputation then? He's just a misunderstood and incredibly arrogant individual (assuming he even exists) who made a bad choice. We should feel sorry for the guy and help him if we want to be "Christ-like," right? Also what would life be without temptation? Some of the greatest feelings in the world come from either overcoming temptation or temptation itself and without it we would never be able to prove ourselves to God to be rewarded with whatever he deems us worthy for.
This has further implications though. Satan isn't the cause of all evil is he? If a hurricane happens and kills some people is that Satan's doing or is that just natural evil? If you answer that it's Satan's doing then you have to accept that Satan helped create the universe which means he has powers similar to what we know of God. If you say that this was not Satan's doing then you have to accept that God created a universe with built in evil. If God is capable of creating evil, then would this not mean he has to have an understanding and desire for it? Furthermore, God created Satan, according to LDS beliefs. God created Satan, who is the father of all evil, so God did create evil, or maybe he just messed up a little in the whole creation of beings and some of them (a third according to Mormonism) came out wrong.
My mind just went spiraling off on a new tangent. I have to study for finals, I'm done thinking about this.
Monday, April 19, 2010
"Global warming"
I posted this as a comment to remarks on facebook and thought I would post it here so I can copy and paste it in the future when people are being lame about climate change.
"If you don't believe in global warming maybe you can answer why gravity data from GRACE satellites (GRACE data) show that continental ice sheets are melting at rates of well over 4 cm/yr while global sea levels are rising slowly? I'm sure myself and the entire scientific community are open to other possibilities.
Until then I would say that looking at increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 (Recent CO2 trends) which were down at ~270ppm before 1800 and CH4 concentrations being more than anything analyzed from core samples in the last 600,000 years (CH4 data) and the fact that we know those gasses trap infrared radiation, which then re-radiates back to Earth, (CO2/temp correlation) makes human contribution to the melting of continental ice and rise in temperature a pretty viable cause."
"If you don't believe in global warming maybe you can answer why gravity data from GRACE satellites (GRACE data) show that continental ice sheets are melting at rates of well over 4 cm/yr while global sea levels are rising slowly? I'm sure myself and the entire scientific community are open to other possibilities.
Until then I would say that looking at increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 (Recent CO2 trends) which were down at ~270ppm before 1800 and CH4 concentrations being more than anything analyzed from core samples in the last 600,000 years (CH4 data) and the fact that we know those gasses trap infrared radiation, which then re-radiates back to Earth, (CO2/temp correlation) makes human contribution to the melting of continental ice and rise in temperature a pretty viable cause."
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