Track 12: Everyone's in Love with You

I'm cheating. I'm publishing this now, and then I'm going to edit in the real entry in a bit, after I've been able to type it up.

Unfair? Yeah, probably. But, hey, it's the last entry, and I'm entitled. (I don't know why.)

A longer entry will be coming soon. Just wait for it.

Okay here's the entry I wanted to type up, but had run out of time earlier. It's a bloq!!
And it ties in (sorta) with the entry's title. Because it's about stalking. It's a stalk-bloq!!


<b>Do you think that reading people's blogs should have a different name besides "stalking"? Doesn't that seem a bit of a negative term?</b>

<b>Do you enjoy people stalking your blog? What about strangers?</b>

<b>There are many songs about stalking (the bad kind, that is. I don't know of any songs about reading blogs). What is one of your favorite "stalking" songs?</b>

<b>Do you know what time the celery stalks?</b>

<b>"Why are we so blind to see that the ones we hurt are you and me?</b>

and finally...

<b>Do you have any real life stalker stories? Please feel free to share and creep the rest of us out!!</b>


I saved that last question for...last, because its bound to be the one that generates the longest answers.

Well, that's it, folks. I know that I didn't go for 12 hours, exactly, but this is entry #12, and it will be the last one I do for the blog-a-thon. I think overall it was a smashing success. (Heh. I said 'smashing') Let's all give each other a round of applause.

And, I know most of you are still kinda exhausted...but...what do ya'll think about making this a semi-regular event?

Track 11: Walk on Water

Wow. I had almost forgotten that I wanted to talk about this. I had the idea to discuss this particular topic during the blog-a-thon like right after Stephanie came up with the idea.
I'm talking about the old story of Noah and the Flood. (It's Genesis 6:11 - Genesis 9:15. At least according to the site of the hour.)

In it, God decides that humanity has gotten it all wrong, and so he wants to start over with a clean slate. He decides to do this by flooding the world, and drowning everything.
"...all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the earth, and every man; everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died."
Despite the fact that the animals weren't what God had a problem with. Oops.

This would be really monstrous (well, it still could be viewed that way) but God has a soft spot, and doesn't scratch out all humans. (Although one's got to wonder, if he could make humanity in the first place, why bother saving any of us?) Anywhat, he picks Noah out of the crowd, and decides that this guy's good stuff. I won't snuff him.

He then tells Noah his plan. And instructs Noah on how to build a survival vehicle so that he won't be wiped out with 99.999999999999999% of the rest of life on earth.

And Noah agrees!!

Dude.

Okay, lets look at this from a "now" point of view. Say some aliens (or God, whatever) come up to you and say, "Hey. We're going to wipe out the planet, except for you, your immeadiate family, and these animals that you save."
What would your reaction be?

Personally, I don't think I'd be okay with the death of billions of strangers, billions (trillions??) of animals, and of course, all of my friends. I think I'd tell God, or the aliens or whatever exactly where they could stick their ark.

Barring that, I would at least try and convince other people to build their own ark, or invite friends and loved ones onto the ark with me. Or maybe I'd make the ark bigger, so it could accomadate more people (and animals).

Or maybe I'd say, "Hey. I don't really want to live in such an empty world. So if you're gonna kill so many innocents, you might as well add me to the list. What's one more gonna hurt, anyway?"

Or perhaps I'd try and find out why humanity deserved to be wiped out. And then I would see what could be done to remedy that, without resorting to the mass murder scheme, if it could be avoided.

The point is, there are plenty of ways around the idea of simply snuffing out so much life, and only sparing a few "innocent" beings. (Do you think Noah and his family had survivor's guilt? I think that I would.)

I read a short story a while back (I can't remember who wrote it, or even what it was called) but it had a similar situation. Wherein some aliens came to the president of the US (it wasn't Bush [wink]) and said, "Here's what you can do to save humanity. If you don't, it will be destroyed in X number of years." And the President (if I remember correctly) said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I can't remember the explanation the President gave, but I think the things I mentioned above may have been included.

All of this is interesting (to me) because in my Perth story, there is a character named Noah. And he does have an ark...of sorts. You'll see.

And hey!! Almost done!! Woo!!

Site of the hour - Really, really funny.

Track 10: The Moment of Conception

The song is just too brilliant.

If you'll indulge me for a moment:
At the moment of conception
I could see someone approaching
Will you be my disco dancer?
I could use a little coaching
Will you be my secret lover?
Mother, Father, Sister, Brother too

I was born without a conscience
Full of freedom, full of nonsense
From the mountains to the beaches
Eat the apples, steal the peaches
Will you be this wild child's lady?
Will you carry me to safety?

Lock me up & take me home
I don't wanna be free
Goin' crazy - on my own
It's not where I wanna be

I behave without compassion
I see things I want to smash them
When I put our love in danger & treat you like a total stranger
I don't really want to hurt you
I would stop it if I could do

Blame my school & blame my parents
& the genes that I inherit
Blame it on my older sister for showing me her dirty pictures
Blame the TV & the movies
Blame the lawyers & the juries

Lock me up & take me home
I don't wanna be free
Goin' crazy - on my own
It's not where I wanna be

At the moment of conception
At the moment of conception

I wish I was David Byrne. The man is incredible.

I feel the same way about Danny Elfman. And John Lennon. And Leonard Cohen. And, to a lesser degree, Ben Folds.
And Daniel Quinn (although not musically. Although I wonder if he's ever written any music.)

So many people have such incredible talent, and when I hear the songs by these people, it ...I don't know. I feel slightly inspired, to do my own writing. Even though I know that my stuff is nowhere near as good. And that doesn't really bother me, not like it used to anyway. There was a time (sometime in the past year,I'm sure) that I came to the point in regard to the Perth story that I was saying to myself:
"Self, it doesn't matter if I never get this story published. Or even if nobody even reads any of it. Or even if it sucks out loud. All you need to do, self, is write it, and you can enjoy it."

And that helped me feel really good about writing the story.

And then, of course, time passed, and I didn't write, and blah. I should try to get that mantra back, and see if the story will flow again.

I considered actually making my blog entries for the blog-a-thon be parts of the story. Of course, that goes against what I had just said about not needing other people to read the work, which is part of why I didn't go that route.
Also, I don't know that it's something that could really work in a blog-format. Or at least, not this blog. (heh.) [For those not in the know, I have a secret 'test' blog, wherein I put future-posts and play with HTML and whatnot. I might (might) start working on the Perth story there....]

Huh. And now, I'm all of a sudden thinking of getting all wordy (well, not really wordy, I suppose 'verbose' would be a more accurate phrase) and posting about my mum, and about the time I ran away, and about other personal stuff. Must mean I should take a break from being online. Or that I should do that. But save it for either another entry, or another day when I'm not in the midst of a blog-a-thon.

The last two entries aren't exactly ones that lend themselves to discussing either of the aforementioned personal tales. Although, it's not like I'm talking about conception (in regards to life) in this one. I am talking about conception of ideas (in a very roundabout way), so.um.

Ooh! The season premiere of Everwood is September 15th. That means I can go back to looking for Everwood/Buffyverse connections again. Huzzah!!

Speaking of premieres, when's Alias start up again? It feels like it's been two years since I last saw SpyBarbie and the gang.

Site of the hour - Genius at work.

Track 9: Smile

Wow. I've started this post four different times and each time, it's turned out to be something different.

Even now, though, I can't seem to get past the first few sentences. I just have nothing to say.

I guess this is why so many people have quit after the 8th post. (Well, part of the reason)

Gah. I've spent far too long staring ata blank screen, trying to come up with something (ANYTHING!!) witty to say. And failing.

And now, it's time to hit submit. Wow. Chalk this one up to the "really really crappy" pile. Sorry, folks. I'll try to do better next hour.

Site of the hour - Oddly addictive.

Track 8: Neighborhood

These are the people in your neighborhood. [grin]

Hard to believe I'm 2/3rds of the way done. Doing this certainly does make the day go by quicker. Although I'm still feverish. Which is fun in it's own way. (Note: not fun).

I don't really have anything to say in regard to the title of this one, so instead, I will ramble about...oh, something.

What to say, what to say?

I was thinking of talking Quinn (I've already been doing it in previous entries. Cuz I'm sneaky like that.) But I didn't want to appear monomaniacal. (Heh. Recently learned word!) And also, I'm feverish. So I'll find something else to talk 'bout.

I wanted to do some poetry. But:
nobody reads poetry
b) my poetry is especially bad
3) don't you have to be inspired to write poems? Yeah. And my inspiration is currently ...elsewhere. St. Elsewhere, maybe. Hey! That ties back in to my earlier post about TV Theme songs. I'm all...something.

The other day I was watching someone here at work play Civilization III. Or maybe Age of Empires. In any case, it was one of those computer games where you build a society, and attack the other folks, and spread and conquer and do all that Taker stuff.
Gah. I started with the Quinn talk again!

It looked fun, though.

Well, for a while. Then I was like, man, this could get old pretty quickly. Who knew that playing god was so time consuming? And monotonous.

Two sneezes! Three! Mm. Sickness = enjoyable. I'm being sarcastic, in hopes that it will make my body feel better. It's not working. I'll be sure to let the medical professionals know.

Speaking of professionals, I've not been to the WD today. !!! Freaky. I've been spending the online portions of the day either typing, or reading other blogs, or websurfing in order to provide an entertaining "site of the hour". (I don't yet have one for this hour. Crud.)

What was my point? Oh!! I was going to say that when I had last been at the board, I'd put forth the WD Book Club idea. And it had seemed (then, anyway, who knows 'bout now) to be rather popular. (Duh.) So I think when I go back (either later today, or, more likely, next month), I'll start it up. (Cue Rolling Stones guitar chords in my head)

I think I'll go with Slaughterhouse Five for the first trick. I reread it last month, but I might want to rereread it, if I want to be absolutely current with the discussion group.

Cindy's previous mention of the Book Club Blog was a great one, but that'll require a little more prep work, I think. In other words, I don't think it'll be up for September. But ya never know.

Site of the hour - M-O-O-N. That spells "site of the hour".

Track 7: Desconocido Soy

Esta entrada debe ser interesante. Voy a mecanografiarlo todo en español (con ayuda, por supuesto, de un traductor en línea). Tomé a año del español en High School secundaria, pero, tristemente, recuerdo muy poco. En hecho, mi conocimiento de la lengua española es mucho limitado bonito a lo que puedo tomar de Dora al explorador.

La cosa es, yo tomó a español (y latino, de quien recuerdo incluso menos, Y alemán) porque me forzaron a. Y, por supuesto, ése es porqué recuerdo tan poco de cualesquiera de esas idiomas. No eran importantes para mí, así que no las conservé.

Deseo a veces enseñar a las muchachas un idioma extranjero. Ahora sea el tiempo ideal - el cerebro de un niño tiene ciertas ventanas cuando aprender otra lengua es más fácil. ¿Pero sería importante para ellos? Probablemente no. Por lo menos, no ahora. ¿Pero cuándo consiguen más viejos? Sí. Puedo ver eso.

Significo, cielo sé que quisiera saber una segunda lengua. Especialmente como español llega a ser más y ma's prevelant en América. Por supuesto, se convertirá en quizá eventual una segunda lengua (si no está ya), y quizás las muchachas (y misma) lo tomarán apenas siendo alrededor de él.

¿Y por supuesto, con traducir tecnología, quién necesita realmente aprender otra lengua de todos modos? [lengüeta]

sitio de la hora - Excelente.

Track 6: The Accident

One of those 'unanswerable' questions is about life. Was it an accident, or is there some sort of 'grand design' to it all?

I think that it was serendipitous. I don't know why, exactly. It just seems that any sort of creator ...I don't know. [sigh] I don't want to think about it, really. Instead, I'll offer you another weird theory of mine, that has been brewing in my head recently.

Perhaps the universe goes through reincarnations. It was born (however that happens - Big Bang, or whatever), and it grows and forms itself, and da da da, the eons go by, and life occurs, and da da da, humans come along, and da da da, the universe "dies" (whether by contracting back in on itself, or by burning out, whatever works for ya). And then, somehow, it happens again. (This probably works best with the "contracting" universe idea. That once it contracts back to a small singularity, it re-explodes with another Big Bang.)

Once that happens, it would seem that the universe would be stuck in an endless loop of repeating everything exactly the same. But what if each time it happened, there was some sort of minute change? In popular SciFi stories, sometimes the change would mean that there would be a completly different universe (the multiverse theory). In my theory, there doesn't need to be more than one universe. It's the same universe, just going through different stages of it's life.

And maybe the universes "overlap" each other. This would account for such things as deja vu, psychic phenomenons (predicting the future would really be a glimpse of a universe that had already happened), and maybe "ghosts" as well. I don't know. Just a thought.

I might incorporate it into the ever-elusive Perth story. If I ever write the damn thing. "Who's still working on his masterpiece?" indeed.

Site of the hour - Yikes.

Track 5: Broken Things

So many things are fragile.

Heh. Fraggle. I miss Fraggle Rock. It was good times. Good times.

I downloaded the theme song to Fraggle Rock the other day. Stephanie and I were trying to remember what the Giants were called. I remember "Junior" was the big dumb one that liked (didn't he?) the "Fwaggles" and ...his parents were ...Mom and Pop? Hard to remember. Even though I watched that show religiously.

If I recall, didn't it turn out that Dozers evolved into Fraggles? Dozers were the little construction beings that were constantly working, building structures that were made of some sort of crystal like material that the Fraggles found delicious. The Fraggles would eat the buildings, and the Dozers would happily reconstruct them. I remember hearing (on the show?? or later on?) that some Dozers got lazy, and stopped working, and they became Fraggles. Not exactly evolutionarly truthful, but still kinda funny, if you think about it.

In addition to the Fraggle Rock theme, I've found myself downloading a lot of TV Theme songs lately. Mostly because they're short, and can be downloaded quickly. But I admit, there's another reason. I was going to put them all together into a big CD of TV Theme Songs, and perhaps do a mass CD burning, and send them out to people who wanted them. Because I'm weird, really. Even if I don't do that, I'd still like TV Theme song recommendations. So far I've got:
Fraggle Rock
Buffy
Angel
Saved by the Bell
Spongebob Squarepants
Jem (truly outrageous!!)
The Simpsons

um...I think there are others, but I'm at work, so I can't check for sure. I know I want the Alias theme. (Bawump! bum-da-bum-da-dah!) But I'd like to get some foreign TV shows in there as well, especially if I make the disc for you internet weirdos.

Site of the hour - I toyed with making the link "broken" but meh.

Track 4: Like Humans Do

"There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic. To human behavior."

And really, Bjork, why should there be? We are animals. Do you expect logic in cat behavior? Or in the behavior of salamanders? Or in robots?

Well, okay, in robots.

The thing is, too often we try to separate ourselves from nonhumans. Which is doable, I guess. Because we're different in a lot of ways, but the problem comes when we try to act like we're better simply because we're different.

I'd say that that is "just human nature", but for millions of years, it wasn't. It wasn't until recently (relatively speaking) that we began to act as though humans were the rulers of all around us.

Human. I like that word. I like that animal. (Sometimes.)

What else? I don't remember. I feel like I'm failing at this horribly. [crying] (I used the [crying] icon, because it's comical. The tears are just too dramatic to take seriously, ya know? And I was being ...what's the word? Melodramatic. yeah. Like Humans Do.

Site of the hour - picked semi-randomly.

Track 3: The Great Intoxication

I should be drunk for this one.

Oh well.

This will be my last entry at home. (For a while, anyway.)

I love this song, btw. "Who's still working on his masterpiece?" heh.

Speaking of questions that intrigue and annoy, I still need to type up the September PMQ. September!! Man.

It's funny how many different ways people will find to get high. Paint? I mean, seriously - paint!?!

Speaking of - when I was in junior high school, I thought it would be "witty" for me to snort eraser bits. You know when you erase stuff, and it leaves a little bit of the eraser behind? I lined a lot of those up and tried to inhale them through my nose.

End result? A rather painful headache.

I also used to pretend that if I drank root beer, and consumed M&Ms at the same time, I would get drunk.

I was very much a strange kid.

I guess not much has changed, really.

Well, some stuff has changed. But overall, I'm still crazy after all these years. Or is that still lazy after all these years?

Or perhaps, to make it fit with the title - I'm still hazy after all these beers.

Oy. I think I should apologize to Paul Simon.

Site of the hour - Mmm. Intoxicating.

Track 2: The Revolution

Revolutions never work.

Just look at the word itself. "re" volution.

I'm not sure what "volution" is, but the "re" part certainly means that it's gonna circle back around to where it once was. And that's the problem. "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." (heh. "Meet the new Bush. Same as the old Bush.") The reason that revolutions don't work is because they don't get to the root of whatever the revolutionaries are trying to "fix". As long as we keep the underlying system in place, all revolutions are are temporary fixes.

That being said, Revolution X sure was a fun video game. Aerosmith, guns, and CDs. Woo! The white trash in me loved it.

I'd completely forgotten about the game until the other day when we went to the Roller Skating Rink. That place had all the old classics. Revolution X, Road Blasters, Pong. Good times. Good times.

Anywhat, the Beatles asked us, "Ya say ya want a revolution?" And the children of the sixties said, "Yes! We do!" And then it failed. Because there was nothing to take the place of the underlying structure of society as we know it now. (There was, but we didn't know what it was.) Hopefully, when we're asked again (and we will be. Society is cyclical), we'll have an idea of what to replace the current sytems with.

What the hell am I blathering about? [shrug] I dont' know. All I know is I have a fever, and a sore throat. And while this blog-a-thon is going to happen, and is going to be ...fun?...interesting? ...something - this entry wasn't exactly the best one I've written. Oh well.

Site of the hour - I just wish he'd update more often. But I really like his writing.

Track 1: U.B. Jesus

It BEGINS!!!

A few notes. I decided that my way of doing the titles for the blog-a-thon would be to use the names of the tracks from David Byrne's excellent album, "Look Into the Eyeball". Because it has 12 tracks. (Well, 13, I discovered when I went to his website. So maybe you guys will get a "bonus" track as well. Never can tell!)

Anywhat, the entries might have something to do with the titles, might not. You'll have to read to find out!

Also, I'll end each one with a "site of the hour" (despite the fact that I'm going to attempt to post on the half-hours, and that my final post will end up being half an hour into tomorrow. Damn waking up so late!). The "site of the hour" will not necessarily have anything to do with the stuff I'd just talked about either. But sometimes it might.

Okay. All that out of the way, I can actually start this entry. (God, I'm long-winded sometimes.)

I used to believe that people would be happier if, instead of looking to Jesus to be their personal saviour, they would accept themselves as their personal saviour. I still think that there's some truth to that. However, it also reinforces the flaw in religious belief that people require saving at all!!

I had a lot more to say about this issue (I still do, of course.) But it's nearing the 12:30 mark. And looking ahead at the tracks, I see that I can definitely talk religion around tracks 4 or 11. [wink]

I'll sum up by saying that I would probably need to be Jesus in order to catch up on all the blog entries that have been made so far. Jesus!! (heee!!)

Site of the hour - It's the most logical one to start with, no?

Yay, titles!

Beth helped me get them back. Go team Me...rope!

I'm getting all giddy about tomorrow's blog-a-thon. I just hope that when it rolls around, I don't find myself idealess. That would suck.

It's nearly labor day! Or Labor Day, I guess, if you want to be technical about it. [drolleyes] (Hi, Jupe!)

I don't even know what Labor Day is, except that normal folk get the day off, and I get paid overtime for it.

I was going to blog about homelessness, but I find myself not really in the mood to be somber. (heh. If I were mayhem, I'd've said, "...not really in the mood to be sober.")

I've discovered that donuts are the most evil thing in the universe. Shocking, but true.

The fridge from Hell (the one here at work) has decided to start dying. Which means that my dinner is very nearly already room temperature. Yuck. On the plus side, though, that means I don't have to heat it up as long in the microwave!! (Always find the positive, folks.)

Insane idea: Going grocery shopping at midnight. I think we might just do it. No crowds!!

Mother fuck. I'm suddenly hungry like the wolf. Better go eat my already heated up food.

Still no titles.

I'm tired.

I veel like a big blob of blah. Of grey pudding. Of goo of nothingness. Just blah.

I want to sleep. So sleepy.

In positive news, though, the blog-a-thon is in a few days! Yay.

I mean "Yay!" but "Yay." is about all I can muster right now. Yay.

Wel

Doh.

Jupe is awesome. She's totally smarter than books. Soon, I will be more Jupe-like. Which is of the good.

The new number one hit song around here is...catchy. But I'm too embarrased to admit the title. Trust me, you guys are better off not knowing.

The girls just made some corn husk dolls. Nifty!

I have nothing to read. We need to go to the library. Or people need to blog more. Or both.

In conclusion, I am the P@, and I know all there is to know about this topic.

Fuck rules.

This post is odd. I REALLY want to write it, but something is holding me back. When we first got home from the roller skating rink (you can read the positive account of it at The 2 Girls Blog), I was all ready to go. I was angry and righteous and had several of my thoughts well-formed. I opened Blogger, and I stalled.
I started PMing people and chatting with Jupe through AIM. Then I got hungry.

And then whenever I thought about blogging this entry, my stomach would growl. It was truly odd, although slightly interesting, from a psychological standpoint.

I let Stephanie go online, and I ate. When I was done eating, I thought about blogging, and again, my stomach growled. I ate some more, and watched some tv with Saren. Once Stephanie was done, I decided to go on and give writing this entry another chance. I'm typing it now, and while my stomach is still grumbling a bit, I'm doing it. (Of course, I did sit here with a blank screen for at least ten or twenty minutes before hand)

My point in all of this pre-point ramble, is that obviously this issue is big with me, and I'm worried about getting it "just right". (Stupid school induced fear. Well, school and parenting.)

The bottom line of this post will be this sentence. "People matter more than rules."
I will ramble about this for god knows how long, and I'll raise several points about it, but in the end, that's all I'm going to be saying. If you want to stop reading the rest of the entry, you can. Because those five words are the key.

But they're not simple words. Or, apparently, they're not simple words when put in that order.

If you look at any organization (school, religion, politics, pretty much any corporation, governments, along with the way a good many people parent their children) you'll see that the action they convey is the opposite of the mantra I quoted above. These things care more about the rules than the people following them. And it's wrong.

We went roller skating today. It was, in many, many ways a bad experience. (Although Saren was able to overlook the badness, and just (for the most part) have a good time.)
The reason I say it was bad is because while we were skating, the employees who were skating along with us (teens, dressed in referee shirts) kept coming along to anyone who had paused momentarily and said, "You've got to keep skating. You can't stop along the wall!" (In fact, they were very rude about it.) The rules were more important than the people. Who gives a god damn fuck if I stop skating with my three year old daughter for a minute or two to make sure she's okay?

But that's the thing. The rules must be followed, even if the rules don't make sense. Or if a person's happiness be crushed beneath them.

Skating isn't meant to be fun, by god, it's got to be ordered. It's got to have structure. It's got to be disciplined. Everyone must follow the all important rules.
If you allow people to just stop skating, well, hell, you'll have anarchy in a matter of minutes!!

In a lot of ways, our night at the Roller Rink was a microcosm of school. It was supposed to be Family Skating Night from 7pm to 10pm. We started skating at 7. At around 8 or so, they had to "do the Hokey Pokey". (If you were just beginning to enjoy skating, too bad. It was time to do the Hokey Pokey. Dance, or get off the rink.) Once that was completed, it was open skating again.
Shortly after that, though, the announcer came on and forced everyone off the rink so that they could play limbo.
And open skating was interrupted again for races and "pushcart" racing. (Mmmm. Competition. Young kids have to be competitive. Young kids must race against each other for material prizes. Children can't just go to the fucking roller rink and have fun.)
Around 8:45, they instructed everyone to get off except for couples who had to hold hands. Saren and I stayed out there holding hands.
As we were skating, she asked me, "Why do we have to hold hands?" (she had been enjoying the independence of skating alone previously, and wanted to try it some more)
I told her that it was just one of their stupid rules, and we didn't have to. But I kept holding her hand. [/angry at my self]

At 9pm (yes, NINE, despite the fact that the sign said from 7-10), they kicked everyone off who had "rental skates". Grumbling, I returned my skates, and let Saren skate around the rink (alone) one last time. The only other person on the rink was an elderly black man. I wonder how the roller rink manages to stay in business. Of course, if it went out of business, after tonight, I don't think I'd shed any tears.

School, of course, has the same attitude when it comes to rules. The rules are what matter, not the people. The exact opposite of the way that it should be.
It's probably about this time that someone who is in favor of school would say, "But the rules are in place to protect the people."
And I think that that's crap.

The rules are in place to control people. And as long as people continue to value the rules more than each other, they'll continue to do so.

I'm losing my steam, and that's probably okay, because I'm sure most of the P@riots are either shaking their heads sadly, or rolling their eyes, or they've kinda just skimmed this entry anyway, because it's so long and ranty.

That's fine, because this mantra has become the new words I live by. People matter more than rules. It's why we unschool. It's why I dislike religion. It's what I despise about politics, and organizations. It's why I hate wage slavery. And in short, it really is the crux of what's wrong with our society. So I'm sure I'll blog about it again.

If you look around, you'll see it everywhere. (The opposite taking place. Where the rules have become more important than the people.) And once you see it, it should piss you off. And if it pisses off enough people, hopefully (hopefully!!) enough people will realize, "Hey! This is just ...bad." and then we'll stop.

I don't really have a way to wrap this up, so I won't. Instead, I'll simply say it again in hope that it will actually make an impact.

People matter more than rules.

I miss Channy.

She's one of the coolest people in the Unknown Universe, ya know.

I just wish she were able to be online more. The internet is a poorer place in her absence.

My blog is like therapy.

So there's this person over at the WD (quite a few, truth be told) who I admire, and sorta look up to, and wouldn't mind getting to know better.

But I have the distinct impression that this person doesn't like me. We've PMed a few times, and I just have this feeling that PersonX ...I don't know, thinks I'm beneath them.

And in a lot of ways, they're correct in that belief. This person is brighter than I am, more articulate, probably more popular (whatever that means - and it's not really an issue, I was just on a roll). But does that mean that I don't deserve a chance? That this person can't be my friend?

I don't know. Maybe (most likely) it's all in my head, and PersonX likes me just fine. Or maybe that's just the way PersonX is (stand-offish).

The thing that bothers me the most, though is the fact that I care so much. I don't know this person from Adam (or Eve), but the fact that they're denying me attention and friendship (whether in reality, or just in my mind) bugs the tar out of me. And the fact that it bothers me bothers me even more!!

No real point to this post, just sharing my psychosis with the world at large. Enjoy!

Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah? Blah blah blah!!

Blah, blah blah blah-blah blah. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah(blah blah blah blah blah) blah blah blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blahblah blah blah blah. Blah. Blah & Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah.

BLAH! Blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah. Blah.

Accomplishments are for losers.

God, I'm hiliarous.

Wow. I've got nothing to blog about. Sheesh. I hope that next week, during the blog-a-thon (heh. I originally typed out "blog-a-thong"), I dont' suffer from this problem.

I want a Pepsi.

Holy sheep!! It's almost September!! Man.

I was watching a baseball game today (I was being paid to watch it) and the following semi-formed thought(s) occured to me. Figured I'd share:

The umpires are shaping the future. They control how future generations will remember this game. If an umpire makes a call that a player struck out, when maybe in reality that player did not (say the ball was not in the strike zone, but the ump said it was), then that is how the game's stats will go down in the books. And in baseball they keep track of everything a player does. (I mean everything) So that call effects the "vaulability" of the player in the future as well.

Kinda powerful.

And then I started thinking about how it's done in society. How what judges say in a court decision effect future generations (as long as they continue to care about the law, that is).

Er...I don't know what I'm blathering about. Ignore me.

The sad thing is, now I'll end up getting baseball ads. Google is so lame-o patame-o sometimes.

A gimmick. From the mind of my wife!

In less than 10 days, you'll see a lot of blogging going on. 12 hours of blogging. From mucho cool people like myself. And Stephanie. And...um...whoever else wants to sign up.

Don't know what the hell I'm talking about? But want to? Go here and edumacate yourself!

This is no good. This is no good at all.

well, shit.

It all started yesterday after the stupid sizzler dinner thing. I started to have a mild breathing attack (for those not in the know, I've had asthma (in varying degrees) since my young childhood. I have very vague memories of having to be hospitalized when I was around 5 or so. The asthma attacks stuck with me through about the age of 14 or so, and then stopped. They came back about ten years later. Now, it seems, that every few months I have a rather mild breathing fit. Fun.)

Anywhat, started having trouble breathing yesterday night, but it went away. Until we laid down to go to bed (at 2am, when I had to wake up at 6). I also started to suffer from a headache around that time. I still have it. I also still have the stupid breathing difficulty.

I did feel a little better after eating this morning, but it didn't last long. I was holding onto the fact (er...possiblity) that I'd be able to leave around 1 today, instead of 3. See, the Dora the Explorer thing that the library is putting on is at 2pm. So, if we were going to attend, I'd have to leave work early. Which, wouldn't be a problem, because on Thursdays I'm the "extra man". If I'm not here, it's not really a big deal. And I'm sure Troy (my coworker) would've had no problem with letting me go home a few hours sooner than normal. (Especially if I was having trouble breathing.)

But Troy isn't here today. He called in, so I have to stay until 3pm.

And I can't breathe.

And I have a fucking headache.

And I just want to go home so I can take my baby to see Dora.

I'm so tired of it all. This job is just not worth it. money just is not worth it. god, my head hurts.

I'm irritated, and in pain, and just ...some word. I don't know. Whatever. I'm kinda hoping that I'll see my supervisor today and I'll explain the whole breathing thing to him (trust me, it'll be obvious to him. Wheezing is fun!!) and he'll let me go home. Of course, I've not seen my supervisor in person since...well, last Saturday. And before then I hadn't seen him for an entire week. So it's a crapshoot.

Yee-haw.

I've got to go take care of work related issues. Steph, when you read this, you can call me and I'll let you know if things've gotten better.

...and the chaos that surrounds me like a flock of screaming pigs...

Kudos to anyone who can cite the reference.
Actually, anyone who knows me super well won't find it that hard. I've only referred to the song like a gabillion times in my internet lifetime. [doh2]

So, yeah, some highlights from the past 24-ish hours:

Spent 30 bucks at Sizzler. (The Sizzle-ator!) Holy goddamn hell, Batman! Thirty dollars!?!?! For "salad" and two cheeseburgers? Lesson learned: Never eat at Sizzler again.

Went to the library - got some books and the soundtrack to Smallville. (Shut up!!) Lesson learned: Um...books are good?

Getting ready to watch the Daily Show. Lesson learned: news is something to mock, not take seriously.

Have to wake up hella fucking early tomorrow morning. Lesson learned: I need a different schedule at work. Or better yet, to not have to work.

Title loading. Time remaining: 34 minutes.

FUCK!!!!!

God, computers suck sometimes.

Or at least this one does.

Freakin' slowness. GAWD!!!

And to add injury to insult (or something), Stephanie is all sneezy. [sigh]

Tomorrow will be better. Because Stephanie will be feeling better. And because the page will have finally loaded.

Animal music

Shamelessly stolen from Bethy, I present to you a list of the songs from my mp3 collection that have animals in either the title of the song, or the name of the band that performs them.

• Built to Spill & Modest Mouse - Rentals
  
  
• Sheryl Crow - Blue Christmas
  
  
• The Eagles - Please Come Home For Christmas
  
  
• Mickey Mouse and Friends - Deck the Halls
  
  
• Alvin & the Chipmunks - Christmas Song
  
  
• David Byrne - Like Humans Do
  
  
• Eels - Novacaine for the Soul
  
  
• Eels - Fresh Feeling
  
  
• Black Sabbath - War Pigs
  
  
• Mercury Rev - Spiders and Flies
  
  
• Barney - The Ants go Marching
  
  
• Peter, Paul, and Mary - Puff the Magic Dragon
  
  
• Dr. Suess - Fox in Socks
  
  
• Bear in the Big Blue House - Cha, Cha, Cha
  
  
• The Wiggles - The Monkey Dance
  
  
• The Wiggles - Dorothy the Dinosaur
  
  
• of montreal - Peacock Parasol
  
  
• of montreal - Panda Bear
  
  
• Pavement - The Porpoise and the Hand Grenade
  
  
• The Monkees - Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees
  
  
• Dave Matthews Band - Proudest Monkey
  
  
• Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench
  
  
• Cracker - Guarded by Monkeys
  
  
• They Might Be Giants - Mink Car
  
  
• They Might Be Giants - Wicked Little Critta
  
  
• Al Stewart - Year of the Cat
  
  
• aquabats - Superrad
  
  
• Beck - Jack-ass
  
  
• Bloodhound Gang - The Roof is on Fire
  
  
• Dave Matthews Band - Monkey Man
  
  
• Devo - Go Monkey Go
  
  
• Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
  
  
• Harry Chapin - Cats in the Cradle
  
  
• 3 humpback whale recordings
  
  
• John Dowland - The Frog Galliard
  
  
• Disney Silly Songs - Three Little Fishies
  
  
• Modest Mouse - Night on the Sun
  
  
• Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven
  

I didn't include the Beatles, and there were a few songs that had "fly" in the title, but not in the sense of the insect, so I omitted those too.

I bring you love

God, that line kills me everytime.

First and foremost, thank you everyone who replied to my last post. I should probably respond to some of the responses, but I'm feeling rather...what's the word...self-absorbed right now (as opposed to when I'm not? [rolleyes]). Actually, I just want to get this post out first, and then I will (hopefully) go back and reply to other folks. My point was that even if you don't get feedback from me, know that I am reading all of the comments, and I do appreciate people taking the time. =)

The title of this post is from one of the greatest episodes of the Simpsons ever, and it's gonna be all about that freaky emotion known as love.

To tie back into the previous post, I wanted to bring up a point I forgot to last time. One of the draws of Christianity is the aspect that Jesus (or God) loves you no matter what. They have an unconditional love for you.

This is really pretty darn cool sounding, and I can see how a lot of people would want to believe it. It bothers me tremendously that we live in a culture that has had to create such a foma (Vonnegut reference), though.

I want my girls to never ever doubt that they are loved. I went through a good portion of my teenage years absolutely convinced that not only was I not loved, but that love itself was not real. Heh. I remember in 11th grade I wrote a 7 or 8 page essay on the illusion of love in an English class. The teacher ended up giving me a D, because what I had written about was not what the assignment was. Funny (in a extremely sad way) how often calls for help go ignored.

I'm jumping all over the place. Damn. Someday I will make an orderly ...something. Not today, though.

Love is a funny thing. You ask 500 people the deceptively simple question, "What is love?" and you're likely to get 500 different answers. I can think of at least 5 different ways to answer that question just off the top of my head.

In my life I've experienced a few different types of love, but I whole heartedly believe that the love I feel for my kids is the strongest I'll ever feel.

Something that is odd (and I don't know if it's just me) but I value my friends love more than that of my family (meaning my parents). And even more alarming (maybe. maybe not.) is the fact that my friends are all online people. My "real life" friends have all vanished, the way that friends sometimes do. Sure, Jared still calls once every month or so, and we talk about getting together, but it never seems to happen. And it's not that I don't want to. For better or worse, Jared is my best "real" friend (outside of my wife, of course. Stephanie is my best friend.).

I can easily say that there are people online that I love, and I'm fairly certain that they know it.

Of course, the question of whether one can truly love someone they've never even met is raised, but I feel that the answer is yes. In fact, I think the question would be why couldn't someone do that? Granted, it may just turn out to be that you are in love with the person's persona, but is that that much different from real life?

Bah. I'm psychobabbling again.

Here's something that's not very fun to do: explain why you love someone. Pick anyone in your life, and then analyze why you love that person. I've toyed with doing this before, and I don't enjoy doing it. Mostly because it's difficult (for me, anyway, maybe others have an easier time). The reason I think that it's such a hard task is because love is an emotion. Perhaps pure emotion. And logic just doesn't enter into it. Trying to explain why you feel a certain way about certain people is impossible because emotion and logic don't mix.

I know I'm forgetting some points I wanted to make, but I guess I'll save those for another time. As it is I've now posted two "thinky" posts back to back. Maybe I should have instead taken a page from bettie, who was taking a page from the Hulk, and just said:

Love wacky. Me like.

The smile on a dog.

Time for that long put-off post about religion.

Or so he said, self-confidently before actually starting to type it up. Now that I'm actually trying to do it, I've got bubkis. Or is it butkis? Whatever it is, I've got it. Or don't got it, as the case seems to be.

A while back there was a poll about religion on the WD. I didn't vote, because I couldn't quite decide what to choose. I suppose if a gun were put to my head, and I were forced to declare a title for my belief system, I would pick "atheist". (I was torn between that, "agnostic", and "other" in the poll, thus the nonvotingness.)
A choice that was not on there, but that has been attracting my attention of late (I still need to do some more research into this to determine whether I'd be willing to accept this label or not) is that of "animist". From the limited amount I know about this "religion", it seems to be mostly just spiritualness and ecology mixed together. In other words, treating the world as a source of awe rather than some fairy-tale Creator thing.

Something I was thinking about saying in response to that poll was that it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you worship. Even those of us who are devout atheists worship. And those who claim to be religious also worship, although, ironically, it's not necessarily the gods of their religion. I would venture a guess that most of the people reading this are similiar to me in the worship of technology (television, computers, telephones, etc), and the worship of money (to varying degrees). Other "gods" that are worshipped today by the masses:
School
The Military
The Government
The Media (I've done my fair share)

I don't think that most Christians actually "worship" Christ, or God, or anything like that. I'm not saying that they don't believe in their religion, just that it is not the important thing in their lives. Or perhaps I'm completely wrong.

My point in this matter was that all too often we get wrapped up in what someone believes, when really, what does that matter? You can't change what someone believes, and even if you were trying to convert someone to your religion, and you were successful in changing the belief of someone, if you don't alter (heh. pun.) what the individual worships, you ain't changed nothin'. (Does that make sense?)

Then, there's the whole aspect of "saving". Everyone needs to be "saved", Jesus is going to do all the "saving". In The Story of B, Daniel Quinn talks a great deal about religion. He mentions early on that you can go anywhere in the world and mention the phrase "Have you been saved?" and people will know what you are talking about. A key element of any religion, it seems, is being saved.

From what? is what I used to ask. And I still haven't gotten an answer to that that I find satisfactory. From eternal damnation?
Let's break that down a bit, shall we?

First and foremost is the problem that to believe in any sort of afterlife, one has to believe in a soul. I do not. That discounts me being "saved" right off the bat, but just for fun, we'll continue the examination and ignore the not believing in souls.
If one has to accept Jesus as a saviour (or whatever one has to do in the religion of one's choosing - they all seem to be hell-bent (heh. another pun.) on the issue of saving souls) in order to prevent burning in hell forever, is that really something you would want? You're spared eternal torment because God allowed you into heaven because (even though you supposedly have Free Will) you choose His side? It's not much of a choice, is it?

The other problem with "being saved" is that it reinforces the belief that there is something inherently wrong with human beings. Until you are 'saved', you're unworthy. You are flawed.

Lastly, being saved means nothing. You are not any more secure from the threats in the world because you have uttered some words. In other words, it has no "real world" effect. Just because you are saved, does not mean that your life will get instantly better. You have to wait for the afterlife to reap the rewards.

Fleh. I feel, mostly, like I'm preaching to the choir (hee!) or that I'm not making my points (did I even have any points??) clearly.

So. I will wrap it up with two short quotes. One is mine, the other is the lyric to a song I heard just the other day. They kinda coincide with each other.

Hell is other people. So is heaven.

I don't need no one
To tell me 'bout heaven
I look at my daughter and I believe

85

Didjya ever have one of those days?
Sure. I've also had "one of those nights", lovely days", "the worst day since yesterday", and a lot of other day and night songs. [up]

"Give me something to sing about!!"
Pancakes. There really aren't enough songs about pancakes. Also, I'm craving pancakes right now.
("Life's a show" from Once More, With Feeling)

I think that the word "August" would be a good name for an illegal drug. (Yeah, I'm weird) If you were going to create a name for a new drug (please, refrain from any Huey Lewis and the News references), what would you call it?
September. Heh.

What's the deal with gay marriage, yo?
I'm sure the conservatives are glad that the blackout moved that issue from the main page...

"If I could frame my mind where would it hang?"
Sadly, I've lost my mind, and therefore can neither frame nor hang it.
("Open Road Song" by Eve 6)

On August 22nd, I will have been here for 1234 days. My car's mileage recently hit 111111 miles. What milestones are you approaching?
Erm... Well, I guess the car's next biggie will be 123456.7. Should hit sometime in December?
And Saren just had her 6th birthday.
Otherwise, [shrug]

I know it's been asked a billion times before but...what new icon would you like to see on the board?
This is a reminder to myself to make (or have Stephanie make) that one icon ...

Do you keep a blog? If so, wanna give me the address and allow me to link to it from mine?
God, I am so lame.

If you had to change your username, what would you change it to?
I'd probably use username, which is what I am over at IshCon. [up]

and finally....

Go ahead, ask me a question.
That's not a question.

This was not what I originally wanted to post, but hey, whatchya gonna do?

They say it's your birthday!

Chuck E. Cheese has the most amazing ability to drain the power out of me. Not in a bad way, mind you, because we had fun, but now that I'm home, I'm beat.

Highlights of Saren's 6th birthday:

• Waking up at 11am. (Not that unusual. Although normally we wait until noon)
  
  
• Had breakfast at IHOP. (Funny face pancakes. And on the menu, Saren drew an invention of a robot/cat/monster with fire hair. Way cool.)
  
  
• Two holes punched into her earlobes. (Yep. We got Saren's ears pierced. She had been wanting to get it done for a few weeks, and we told her that it would hurt just a little, but if she really wanted to go through with it, we'd do it. She did, so she now has fairly cute flower earrings in her ears. She was totally thrilled with herself about them, and this may have been the apex of the day for her.)
  
  
• Talked to Annika. (With what seemed to be from my point of view a rather abrupt goodbye. Hey, bettie - was her decision to just suddenly go strange to you too?)
  
  
• Dinner at Chuck E. Cheese. (Way WAYY!! overpriced pizza & drinks & tokens + family + friends + giant anthromorphic rat giving hugs + games that give tickets + cake + presents = happy Saren.)

I'd make a list of the presents she recieved, but I'd be here until next year. Suffice to say, materialistically, she's doing fine now. (not that she was suffering beforehand)

Now we're home, and I'm blogging about it, and Stephanie still needs to do her writing and I'm going to play Battleship with Saren. [up]

Happy Birthday, Saren. I love ya.

They're STILL talking about it?!?!?!

That quote comes from my soon to be six year old daughter, regarding the fact that CNN is still reporting on the power outage. When a six year old can see the utter pointlessness of news, why can't the rest of us?

Sometimes the Internet is just really boring.

Yesterday night I stayed up until 3am reading a book I hated. The lesson from this is that I am, in fact, very stupid.

Sometimes mere oblivion seems.

Funny thought I had the other day - the fundamentals have stayed the same in our family. Steph stays home and roosts with the girls, and sends me out to "hunt" for the food. The hunting takes place in fast food drive-thrus, and I'm always guaranteed a victorious hunt, but the analogy is there.

About the tree thing - yeah, there may be (and probably is) scientific basis for deforestation to avoid extra trees being burned, but in the end it boils down to humans trying to control the environment. The forests got along just fine for millions of years without human intervention, and I guarantee that if we didn't cut anything down, there'd be no big problems.

I stink.

When I heard about the powerlessness of the East Coast, I thought of mayhem. And Jupe. And some of the New York WDers. Sadly, CNN didn't provide information about them specifically. Which just further proves the ineptitude of cable news.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky, followed by meteor showers and tidal waves...

We got our check from the government today. That was nifty. We've still not cashed it, and I dont' know what's the best course of action for it (put it in savings - (I've become worried about the plan to move next year. I worry that we won't be able to afford it ...at least not at the original time we decided on...) or use it for Disneyland (and the party in California) or pay off some enormous debts/bills). Stupid lack of ...whatever.

I think I need to eat. My brain is all distractionary.

[rollsigh]

Take that, Google!

Bad thing about not blogging for days on end - it becomes difficult to break the pattern. Despite the fact that enough "interesting" things have happened to me since the 4th, I have little desire to type them out for others to absorb.

I finished reading Michael Crichton's Prey. Say what you will about him, he certainly knows how to write "blockbusters". I could totally see Prey being a summer movie. I'll be surprised if they don't adapt it eventually. I won't give anything away, but I will say that the ...villians were quite creepy. Yay creepiness!

Speaking of "creepy" and "villians", George Bush thinks we should cut down more trees in order to save them from being burned down.

Actually, that's not what I was going to say. I was going to talk about how Freddy vs. Jason is coming out in 2 days, and despite all my brains protests, I still want to see it. Sorta. I am a strange bird.

Speaking of trees, we went up to Mt. Charleston today. Upon entering the picnic section (where you have to pay - [rollsigh]), the guard woman there told us that they were having a "wasp problem." They're not stinging, she told us, but they're simply a nuisance. She instructed us that if you were to take a piece of meat and set it away from your table, the wasps will go to the meat and leave you alone. She then said, "Do you want to do it?" Which made me think she was going to give us meat.

She didn't, though.

Once we got set up, we did take a piece of bologna from our sandwiches and set them aside from our table. Sure enough, the bees (they really didn't look like wasps to me) swarmed (heh. 'swarm') around the lunchmeat, and more or less ignored us. The ants and flies still found us worthy of investigation, though.

Long story short (too late!) the girls had a good time, Stephanie built a fairy house, and I didn't hate it. (I really didn't. Don't believe whatever Steph says.)

Nope, not dead.

Just...not dead.

Remind me to get a title bar thing

Those are pretty darn nifty, and I should install one soon. I keep meaning to.

My blog got half-eaten yesterday after I made the ultra-long entry. I had it saved (I learn!!), but not an updated version, so now I'm sans quote of the day (was anyone besides me reading it anyway?) and sans Babelfish. (aww.) But at least I've got entries again (which when it got half eaten, were not showing up) so that's good.

Blah. I'm hungry. I didn't want to rant about the hoo-haw going on at Stephanie's blog, and I'm not in the mood to discuss anything cerebral at all, but I can't think of anything light and fluffy either. I suppose I should get back into my book. It's another Robert J. Sawyer work (Illegal Alien) and while I'm only 5 chapters in, it's very good.

SHUT UP, P@!!

Long time no blog. And I've got loads on my mind. And time to blog it. So unless the hunger in my belly ends up driving me away from the computer (a very real possibility), I'm gonna type for a bit.

You've been warned.

So, it's August already. Saren will soon be 6 years old. SIX!!

Ahhh. Better. I just had a bowl of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. (*sings* "New Apple Cinnamon -- Cheer-e-ohs!")
Yes. I still remember the freakin' jingle from when Apple Cinnamon Cheerios debuted. Back in what, 1989?

Which leads me to the first thing I wanted to discuss. A hundred days ago, Jess said in a comment:
You know what's weird? For the longest time I had this impression of you as being a bastion of pop culture (in a cute way): TV, commercials (can you hear me now?), pepsi, etc. I don't really know how to finish this statement, because it's not like you've renounced those things, but the whole Daniel Quinn thing is a weird contradiction to that. But, hey, it's very human (very monkey?).
After looking up the word bastion ([grin]), I figured I would respond to her. (WOO! Go Jess! A whole new blog entry devoted (partially, at least) to a comment you left!!)
Yes, it was probably at one time accurate to describe me as a "bastion of pop culture". And the fact that I still remember a jingle from nearly 15 years back is evidence of that.
And while I'm not renouncing it, I think that my priorities have shifted. Or at the very least, are shifting. It bothers me (sometimes much more than I let on) that I can tell you who He-Man's alter-ego was (Prince Adam) or the names of Drew Carey's friends from The Drew Carey Show (Oswald Lee Harvey and Lewis Kinensky). But I don't know my neighbors names. Hell, I don't think I'd be able to pick them out of a crowd. Of 3.
I'm not saying that my dependance on pop culture is a bad thing (I still love Alias and Angel and the Bimpsons will be something I watch until the day I die) it's just that there were plenty of other things that I could have taken an interest in while growing up (and still can) but didn't.

Anywhat, I guess, Jess, that my point is that I'm kinda in a state of flux (a good thing, imo). I'm still attempting to find a balance between being someone like Harry Knowles (only, hopefully, less obnoxious) and someone like Derrik Jensen.

You know how humans are really short-sighted? I mean, try to envision 1000 years from now. I'd be willing to bet that most of you, when attempting this exercise will envision a barren nothingness wasteland in 1000 years. This raises two points. One - that most of us believe humanity won't be around that long. And two - that looking that far into the future is difficult, if not impossible.

Let's shorten it to 100 years from now. Same thing, no? Maybe not entirely. I mean, perhaps not everyone sees a lack of humans in 2103. But I'll bet that having a clear picture of what it's gonna look like then is hard to conjure.

What about 10 years? That becomes slightly easier, since we've got a basis for what 10 years feels like. We can postulate on how things are now, and how things are going, and how we'd like them to go (and how they might go) and we can sorta get a hazyish picture of what life will be like a decade from now. In fact, certain aspects of this are easier than others, depending on how much knowledge we've got about different topics. I mean, it's easier to guess what our personal lives will be like in 10 years than it is to picture the world at large.

My point (and I guess I should've just come out and said this 300 words ago) is that human beings are notoriously short-sighted. We build highways without taking into account that people will move here by the thousands in another 2 decades, and so we don't plan for it. We dump toxins into the ocean with no regard whatsoever for the lives of future generations that it will effect. We chop down tree after tree after tree and when we hear the environmentalists say, "If you keep doing this, we will all pay in 100 years" we shrug and say, "I will be dead in 80."

And while becoming ...less short-sighted would be a tremendous boon, my point is that we're short-sighted because for the first hundred thousand years of our lives as a species we didn't need to look that far into the future. There was no need to plan what we were going to do "next Thursday", because life was not that complex. (also, because there was no such thing as "Thursday", but I digress.)

I guess my point of the above ramble was merely that while being more aware of how our actions will effect the future is something we should all attempt to do, we've got a heck of a struggle ahead of us, since we're just not built that way.

What else? AH! Wal-mart.

Gaffer in that Wal-mart thread basically held the position that "even though people complain about Wal-mart crushing the mom & pop stores (the tribal businesses, Lisa), they must not really dislike it, because they keep going there." Or, put another way, the millions of people who shop at Wal-mart have a choice - go there, or don't. And they go. So stop bitchin'.

What gaffer is failing to see is that people will always choose the better. If given the choice between a black & white tv, and a color tv (same price), people will pick the color.
Wal-mart is better than the mom & pop stores. Not better for the employees. Not better for the environment. And (probably) not better for the economy, either. But it's stronger. Wal-mart has much more buying power than the typical small business will ever dream of having. Plus, they're everywhere, so it's just easier for most consumers to abandon the small business and instead go (in droves) to Wal-mart. And so the small businesses fall victim to Wal-mart's march of progress. Not because people necessarily want to shop there (although they'll think they do, due to the shiny ads, and/or the fact that Mom shopped at Wal-mart) but because they're ultimately not given much of a choice.

I complained about it the other day, the fact that I'm just as guilty. But I think (I hope) that Stephanie and I are going to put forth more of an effort to seek out the smaller (tribal, if we can find them) businesses and offer them our patronage rather than always simply going to Wal-mart or Target right away. It probably won't be easy - but that might then be an incentive to make sure that what we're going to purchase is something we actually need rather than something we're just picking up because we're in that aisle.
And if nothing else, it'll broaden our horizons and introduce new experiences to us. I mean, a Target is a Target is a Target. If you've been in one, you've been in them all. And that's just scary if you think about it. There is really no difference between the Targets in Las Vegas and the Targets in Des Moines, Iowa. But shopping at locally owned places will result in a huge variety. Of merchandise, and of the employees. I'm not the most people-friendly-person I know (in fact, I've noticed that a lot of the folks I talk to online...and in Real Life too...) seem to be very anti-social...
I'm beginning to suspect that our culture has something to do with that.

I lost my train of thought there. Or it wasn't fully developed. I'll come back to it sometime...

I was going to post about religion (and I will, someday soon, I promise!) but I think I've probably talked about enough things for now.