Friday, November 30, 2007

Badass Bible Verses

The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses. Pretty much says it all right? seriously theres no point trying to sumarize this just go enjoy. Actually I changed my mind there is one part that should be noted. On the third page theres a bit about a dispute over who's god was better. So the two groups each made an animal sacrifice, when only one teams god was able to set it on fire they were declared the winners, and the other team of several hundred was slaughtered. I'd be happy to set this challenge up again, well the animal sacrifice would need to be done as humanely as possible and the meat eaten after if it wasn't burned by god. If god can set the corpse on fire then I've been wrong, if he can't then religion is wrong. This challenge has been done before according to their book, so why not do it again as proof? Do they not believe that god can still conjure fire?

OH and the picture that says, "Kids: Don't fuck with god, or bears will eat you" is good too.

Hat Tip to PZ.

Answer to the simple question

When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
- Marquis de la Grange

The reality is I found a lady that seems interesting, worth giving a chance for sure. So all I really wanted was confirmation that I wouldn't be seen as a dirty old man if I tried to date someone 5 years younger than myself. Yes she is 20. Everyone was trying to be more helpful and give legit dating advice and all I wanted to know was if her Father was going to kill me for being 5 years older than his baby. This is important for some very important reasons that I'm not going to discus here, at least not yet. So you guys were all very helpful and I truly appreciate the help, but you're not as good of accomplices as I had hoped for, luckily my sister said to go for it and she trumps all of you, sorry blood is thinker than binary.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

I <3 Onion

For those not down wit da iznet lingo <3 = Heart.

And this is why, just click the damn thing.

Simple Question

I've been meeting some nice people lately of college age, many of them hover right around what I would consider my lower cut-off point. I'm just making sure my cut-off point is reasonable, I'm 25, how old should she be?

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Thank You Mr. Obama

In a nutshell, when kids said did you ever use drugs? Hes said, yeah I did, then I decided to do something with my life. There's something fucked up in our political world when someone can seriously ask the question, Was Obama's answer about drug use too honest? Yeah because thats my biggest concern, will he be sure to lie to me enough if he becomes president? I know a few heads might explode if we had a president who could occasionally speak the truth but I think its worth the risk. What the fuck is wrong with people? Don't lie to children, they're not as stupid as we like to think, speaking of which fuck Santa and that whole craziness soo many people put their kids through. But seriously I'd love to have too be concerned about too much honesty from the white house. Plus having someone who's willing to admit they've done drugs in office might just get some of our ridiculous drug laws changed. Sure Clinton was a closet pot-head, and Bush was a coke-fiend but neither was willing to just say, "yeah I did it, it was dumb but I learned from that experience and moved on with my life." This has only increased by respect for this man.

Forgetting all that its also a stupid question because Obama has admitted to his past drug use in his book, so even a child might call him out on it if he tried to lie, then again children probably do better fact checking than our media, or Mitt Romney.

UPDATE: and to the 45% who say they're less likely to vote for someone who's used drugs, just remember Alcohol is a drug, ya fucks.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Economic Consequences

This article probably won't tell you anything new, but it lays out so clearly what should have or at least what could have been done, and what actually has been done. It's called The Economic Consequences or Mr. Bush, and it pulls no punches. I've got more to say but what I'm lacking is time. srry.

health care

I know I've been slacking lately so I'm trying to churn out a little outrage today, seems a good follow up to the fun of the long weekend, hopefully yours was fun too. Anyway here's why our health care is fucked. Actually I found the article a bit lacking when it came to solutions. It sort of dismisses single payer out of hand by saying medicaid spends too much and their isn't enough political support. Um, K, what does political support have to do with informing people of their best options? Anyway its worth a read.

Vile Parenting

This is just sick. I'm pretty sure if this had happened to my kid (if I had one) the whole town would know exactly who did this. I see no reason to protect the innocent, the innocent party is dead. Had this been a typical quarrel between friends that ended tragically then fine protect the kid, but when consenting adults get into the fray then no, fuck them. I hope every person in that town knows exactly what happened so those parents feel the ironic pain of being insulted everywhere they turn. It was all fun and games when you did it too a child, it's not so fun when it gets turned around is it? I hope the town turns against them until they are driven out. Not forcibly, but because they are shunned everywhere they go. As for a law to protect children, well first off the child that died was too young to be on that site in the first place, second its open and anonymous, I'm not sure there is anyway to really protect kids without some overbearing nannny laws which I also despise. The sick parents who decided the only way to help their daughter was to initially cyber-stalk their child's friend need to be taught how to parent. I think most parents could use some lessons, it's not an insult no-one knows everything. OH sure our basic parenting instincts are pretty good but why is it so insulting to say that parents should get some education on the matter. In the end I'm not sure I can suggest anything to absolutely prevent this from happening again, but following the minimum age requirement is probably a reasonable start. Not being an asshole to a little kid is probably another reasonable step. This is when I wish I was a judge, there is no punishment that can bring back that child, but at least I could do my part to make sure those parents knew what if felt like to be humiliated, to be laughed at by everyone. I don't blame them for the suicide, I do blame them for being assholes.

Noah's Ark Vs. Math

You can probably guess who's going to win this fight. The quick of it is that the two of every kind cannot mean two of every species the Ark would have to be impossibly large. No real argument there even most apologists will admit that much. The claim is we gotta go up a couple steps to families of animals in order to get to a reasonable number. Unfortunately for the bible thumpers this leads to a massive amount of microevolution in a very short period of time in order to account for the world we see around us. Jeff the Fish lays it all out there in a quick and succinct manner thats well worth the couple minutes it takes to read.

HT to PZ.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.

- Jon Stewart

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Theocracy

I bust on religion on a fairly regular basis, I despise system that tries to segregate people, I see Money, Religion, and Nationalism as the greatest dividers of human society, in that order. Today I'm going to give an example of why I'm despise religion. I usually pick on the christians because thats who I'm surrounded by and it's what I was brought up as so I know their stories better. Plus in this country it's the christians I see as the greatest threat to our democracy. As Sinclair Lewis so poignantly stated, "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." But today I'm giving the silly christians a pass and going after another easy target, Islam. The reality though isn't that I'm attacking Islam or any other religion, what I'm attacking is those who think the religion needs to be a part of the government. This is an attack of theocracies in general.

My example, a Saudi woman who first committed the crime of venturing outside with a man she was not related too, horrific. Then she had the audacity to allow herself and her male friend to be gang-raped by seven men. Now the rapists have gone to jail, and she gets 90 lashings. Before anyone tries to claim this only proves that Islam is evil needs to read their bible. According to the bible if you rape a woman you must pay her father 50 bucks and then marry her, as long as shes a virgin otherwise its death to them both, the woman is killed for not screaming and the man is killed not because of the rape but because he ruined another mans property. Fuck the bible it's just a sick a basis for a legal system as the Koran. Oh and because she allowed her story to be hear by the media her sentence was increased to 6 months in jail and 200 lashings plus the judge was so angry at her attorney that he has been dis-barred and she stands without a lawyer.

So as I've said many times before anyone who does not think separation of church and state is important, look at Saudi Arabia or Iran, anyone who is actively opposed to Separation of Church and State, you go ahead and move to Saudi Arabia or Iran ya fucks.

And thank you to UTI for making me aware of this fucked up case.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Golden Compass

I don't know much about this film/book other than it's written by an atheist and its driving christians crazy despite having watered down some of the atheistic themes to try to avoid pissing off the fundies. Some are even upset that they watered it down, they claim that people will see the tamer movie then buy the book as a back door way to get children to question their faith. You just can't win with some people. Just by the random clicks across the Blogsphere I ended up at a site called Christian Apologetics Ministries, and of the 9 or 10 posts (at the time of writing) one of them was NOT about this movie. Now I knew a few people were annoyed but holy crap bro, even when I'm obsessing about a chick I break up the monotony a little bit. And why do people care so much? It's a movie, its fiction, I could see people getting upset about documentaries that deal with controversial issues, but with only a couple exceptions documentaries don't get enough audience for anyone to get upset about their content. I'm not really sure why I care enough about this apologists opinions to even bother with a reply, maybe I'm just trying to break up my monotony a bit.

Fun Phrases

Deo vindice!

Gott mitt uns!

Deus vult!

Allahu akhbar!

Yeah I had no idea what they meant either until I read this fantastic article over at Daylight Atheism. I suppose some of the better educated might recognize them.

Despite their origins in different languages and cultures, all four of these phrases express basically the same proposition: that God is on our side and will grant us victory over our enemies. Under all four of these mottoes, armies have marched to war, secure in their faith that the Almighty was championing their cause and would permit them to slay their foes with terrible slaughter.

Seriously go read the article, it's good, a little long but worth the time.

This is why I suck

I suck at life. I'm a smart guy I can do almost anything if I really want to, unfortunately I've never been much of one for trying very hard at anything. The one thing I absolutely suck at not matter how much I try is women. As everyone has pointed out I think way way too hard instead of just letting things flow. One of my problems before was I'd flirt with a girl and they would have no idea, that drove me nuts. Other times I've gone the opposite direction and as soon as I'm interested I just tell them straight out. This hasn't been anymore effective.

So yeah I fucked things up with the new girl. I took option two this time. I do believe it was the king of rock who said, "only fools rush in." Guess I'm a fool. I also failed to fully account for the stress of starting a new job and everything that goes along with that, not the opportune time to try to make a move. If I was better at this I'd have been serious about trying to be her friend first, just be the co-worker buddy then see where things went. Actually I think I did attempt that, but I can't hid shit, my true intentions were clearly visible and so she read the book I leave around called my heart and she said, whoa buddy backdafuckup. I can't really be mad at her for that, but I can be mad at myself. the only thing that genuinely annoys me about her reaction is that she goes out of her way to avoid so much as eye contact with me. This is a person who has to deal with some fucked up people, and put on a smile and treat them like gold, but to me she won't speak or even look at me, what the fuck did I do that was so terrible? Oh well, hopeful this shit blows over, who knows maybe we can even salvage a friendship out of the whole deal. Life was easier when I had given up on women, I can't decide if it was better, probably not, but man it was easier.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Water

This is a very important issue to me and should be to everyone but I've now been inspired to actually post about it because of the recent events. Unfortunately I do not have the time or the expertise to really cover this properly.

Besides oxygen water is the single most important resource on the planet. I don't think anyone is going to argue that point. So why are we so inept why it comes to thinking about water. In so many ways we've shown that we think of water are limitless, admittedly 70% of the world is covered with water so it's pretty easy for the average joe to think that we can't run out of water. While there is some truth in that, we're not going to "run out" of water in the literal sense. But its pretty easy to run out of Clean water. The vast vast majority of the worlds water is salt water, while its possible to desalinate water its extremely expensive and wasteful so the only countries that I'm aware of doing this are some oil rich nations in the middle east where they have cheap energy and very little rain.

Water is critical to life, we need it for ourselves and we need it for everything that we eat. If you're stranded on a deserted island a clean water source is you're first priority, then probably some shelter then food. Anyway I don't think I need to further explain why clean water is important. There are quite a few serious, life threatening, threats to our public water supply. The one that is in everyones mind right now is the drought in Georgia. This type of thing is going to continue as our climate changes. Our entire society has been built around fairly stable weather systems, those systems are changing. Living in NY people are able to grow plants that never could have survived a couple decades ago. Place that once got plenty of rain may turn to deserts and what are we going to do? Besides doing everything we can to prevent global warming which is of the utmost importance for innumerable reasons there is also the importance of city planning. Atlanta is a fast growing city, the infrastructure needs to keep pace, but also must remember that water is not an unlimited resource, this cannot be solved by larger pipes and mechanical means. We need to realize that a given space can only support a limited number of people I'm not sure that you can put an actual cap on the population of a city, but when you know that there is an impending problem and there is simply not the time to make the necessary fixes you need to look in other directions, the first being don't encourage growth when you know there is the looming risk of a water crisis. I know its easy to say this now, hind-sight is 20/20. It would be political suicide as a politician to say well we had a water problem this year, and next year could be much worse but if it rains enough we'll be fine. No politician is going to discourage growth even if growth means destruction. This also says a lot about our political system but we already knew our political system was fucked.

So what can we do? What can we do NOW? My first order would be to limit the amount of water usage, right now you can get a fine for using too much water, that will work for the lower and middle class but in the now famous case of the guy who was using simply obscene amounts of water a fine is clearly not enough. Some would say jail, I have a much simpler solution, turn off his water. I've had mine shut off because I forgot to pay a 30 dollar bill, if you use 14,000 gallons a day during a water emergency then fuck you, its shut off for a week. Do it again and its shut off for two weeks and 40 hours of community service, do it again and the three strikes effect comes in, its off till the drought is over and you have to do 400 hours of community service. Thats an obvious start. Another option is to pray for rain from your invisible sky daddy who must also be responsible for the drought in the first place, the problem is this doesn't actually accomplish anything, although if you do it right before the forecast calls for a little rain it at least gives people false hopes. I'd like to rant about the stupidity of praying for rain but PZ pretty well covers that. Another huge problem here is that Atlanta is getting all the attention because its a big city, but its the small towns that will be hit first and hardest often because cities like Atlanta are using their water, an especially cruel irony when its that cities lack of planning that caused the problem in the first place, the small town might have been ok on its own, but now its water is being used by the city because the city screwed up. I'm not saying you let the city dwellers die because of the poor planning of that cities leaders, but is it better to let the small town die because of things it had no control over simply because its smaller? I don't have a solution to that question.

The final huge problem of water is privatization. I will not beat around the bush here, Water is essential to life, I refuse to put the lives of entire communities in the hands of a corporation. A corporation by law must place the interests of the stock holders, aka short term profits, above all competing concerns. Imagine if all of Georgia's water were privatized and this drought were going on. Is it really cynical to think that they would take advantage of the situation and say that supply is down therefore price must go up. They might claim this is a way to encourage conservation which it might, but their motivation would be the drastically increased profits. Enron created power outages just to increase the price of electricity, imagine if a similar move was done with water? Some may claim I'm taking this too far but why is it the least bit implausible, the reality is it has already happened in other countries, do you really believe that corporations have loyalty to any particular flag?

This is also tied into one of my other biggest issues, the fact that a Corporation in legally considered a Person and therefore has all the same rights as a person, until Nike can be thrown in jail for breaking the law it is not a person, but this is a huge subject that I cannot cover as a minor side piece so I'll just leave that alone and get back to it another day.

Those who oppose giving control of our most important resource to corporations that are unaccountable to those they serve and driven solely by greed see bottled water as the leading edge of the wedge towards water privatization in this country. Bottle water is also a terrible idea because of the massive amounts of waste created by the millions of plastic bottles that are manufactured and then thrown away all so we can consume a product that is available at extremely low cost right in your home with minimal waste besides having to wash a glass. This article shows how even when the media covers the problem they simply say that we need to recycle the bottles, the problem is the bottles shouldn't be created in the first place. Plus there are huge problems with recycling plastics but again thats a subject for another day.

UPDATE: It should also be pointed out that Bottled water does not have to meet the same standards as tap water, the EPA does constant testing of public water. Bottled water on the other hand can be regulated by the FDA as long as it crosses state lines, but the FDA does not have as stringent rules and lacks the enforcement.

In the end all I'm saying is be aware. Water has been called the Oil of the 21st century, the corporations are battling for position to be able to reap the benefits of selling a product that everyone must buy. We must stay vigilant, throw down that Fiji bottle and if the water from you tap doesn't taste right then complain to the officials. Right now your water is controlled by people who must answer to elected officials, meaning you have some say. Fight back, because once that control is in the hands of corporations your options will be to pay whatever they ask, for water of what ever quality they deem acceptable, or die. Thats not a very democratic system.

I'll end this with the only song I know that touches on this issue, New World Water by Mos Def, this is the only video I could find.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

D'oh part 2

You, you got what I need but you say I'm just a friend
And you say I'm just a friend, oh baby
You, you got what I need but you say I'm just a friend
But you say I'm just a friend, oh baby
You, you got what I need but you say I'm just a friend
But you say I'm just a friend

The only reason I feel like a total ass right now is because even before she knew I was interested she had said she wasn't looking for a relationship, and because I told practically every person I know that I was chasing her. It's that second part thats the real embarrassment.

We had a nice lunch at a local pizza shop of her choosing, with a nice relaxed conversation. She had already figured out that I was interested so before we even got there I cleared the air by saying, yes I'm interested in you but I know your not so this is just as friends. It's probably a good thing because even if things had been going to my original plan I would have been nervous and wouldn't have been able to enjoy myself or her company.

This next part kind of wanders through theoretical relationship with any girl I like or this specific one without really making it clear because well they're both theoretical at this point. The truth is that I like this girl, and when I think of a perfect relationship I essentially think of finding your best friend of the opposite sex (or same if you swing that way). What I'm saying is that I'm ok with trying to be her friend first because I truly believe that a relationship should be based on friendship first. She knows how I feel, I'm going to continue to try to be as good a friend to her as I can and hopefully she'll realize that there aren't too many out there like me, especially in this town. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I think I could make someone very happy, if they'd just give me a chance. I think my biggest stumbling points in no particular order are I don't make much money, despite what Anonymous said I'm not very good looking, and a combination of too much raw love and too little experience. I say that love is a problem for me because I've been so long without anyone to give it too that if anyone shows the slightest interest I fall head over heals and fawn all over them. They give me an especially nice smile and I'm envisioning growing old together, I'm seriously that bad. This is a problem because for obvious reasons it's very easy to come across as like a freaking stalker or something. The lack of experience pretty much explains itself, I've never had a real girlfriend, and there isn't really anyway I can get around that fact. The lack of money, well not everyone is that interested in money, and I've never been without a job so I might be broke but at least I'm stable. Plus I might have a new roommate soon which will put quite a bit of cash into my pocket be greatly reducing my bills. As for the looks, well despite the good natured ribbing from Byshop I am starting to lose some weight and while I've been a bit stagnant lately I think part of that is because I'm building a little muscle. My original bench press weight was pretty pathetic, partly because I wanted to get my form down and ease into it so I didn't fuck myself up, but also cause I work in an office and I'm weak. But in the oh 6 weeks or so that I've been working out with my friend I've gone from benching about 115 to 205. 205 isn't exactly something to brag about for a guy who tips the scale around 250 but its still a 90lbs increase which I'm quite proud of. With enough determination I might just be able to get my weight and my bench to pass each other before the year is out. I said I'm going to try to lose 10 lbs by christmas so if I can do that and increase my bench by another 40 lbs I'll be happy, ecstatic really. I have no intention or desire to look like one of the huge muscle freaks but I'd like to get into shape and a little muscle couldn't hurt, In the words of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, "I want to look good naked." Probably not an image you wanted to haunt your dreams but hey thats your problem not mine. Anyway I think those are my biggest faults and I'm addressing them all, except the one I can't address alone, and in reality there is a better solution to the financial woes but thats not going to happen right away. So thats how it is.

Peace!

D'oh!

I forgot something important about the lady I've been trying to pursue. When she said she was single she also said she's enjoying being single and intends to stay that way for the time being. What can I say I'm a quixotic fool who simply let that part slip right on by. Of course she did say that she wants to be single because she doesn't want the drama, I hate BS drama, maybe thats why I ignored that part. I'm fairly sure that I'd be able to have a relationship with a minimum of fuss, but then again she doesn't know that about me, plus I don't really know that about myself seeing as I've never had a real relationship in my entire life. So now I just need to keep reminding myself that my best chance of turning the corner with her is to simply be myself but I need to be the happy me, when I'm in a good mood I can keep people laughing and thats how I hope to win her over. If I'm all bummed and depressed then I'm not going to get anywhere. I'll probably have more to say on the subject in about 4 hours when we get back from lunch.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Das Weekend

I know I've been slaking on the world politics, the war, corporate control of everything and the battle with religion and all that other fun stuff, its true. I have something of a one track mind and at the moment it focused pretty intently on one person and one person only. I was even able to spend a little time with that person this weekend. But in a rather uncharacteristic move I'm not going to talk about that much. Basically on friday I said hey we're (another person from work and I) going to the bar, wanna come with us? She said maybe, and ended up being there. Turns out shes good friends with a kid I've know since, well as long as he's been alive. We had a nice conversation, or at least about as good of one as you can hope for at a bar, and that was that. Not much to report.

Then Sunday I had a thanksgiving party at the friend who threw the halloween parties. I wasn't expecting like a full freaking thanksgiving dinner. The food was good, excellent when you consider that it seemed like one of the five girls actually knew what she was doing. One later admitted she had never cooked a real meal before, a huge turkey dinner isn't a normal starter but hey it worked. Then it all ended with a pie fight between the guy who's house we were at and his girlfriend. It was hilarious, just to be clear it was a fun fight no anger, started by eating whip cream outta the can, then feeding each other and missing and well, you know how that shit can escalate. The finish was the big chocolate mousse that went every where. I then pointed out how we did lots of drinking at the last few parties and nothing crazy happened, we don't drink but have food and suddenly the place is trashed. I think we're going to end up painting one of his walls. Good times.

Now I've just got to get the nerve up to ask new girl out on a proper date, I think I'm going to try for the classic dinner date, wish me luck.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Hmm.......

Well good news is that new girl at work is single. My friend tried to make it easy by giving me the option to ask her to come out with "us" as if that was our plan anyway. Admittedly I'm sure my friend would have been fine with me tagging along either way but the reality is I hate bars, and I particularly hate the bar they are planning on going to, if new girl isn't going I have no interest what so ever. But if shes there then, well I think its obvious.

Push-ups

We've had a little joking conversation about weight loss and so you might be thinking I'm going to talk about how I'm doing push ups because they are a great exercise that requires nothing but your own body. All thats why I SHOULD be doing push ups. I have a friend on the other hand who is doing push-ups for those reasons. Well and because he's going to be doing weekends in jail for like a month and a half. While he is there they don't have time to do a TB test so they just throw him in quarantine for 2 days (TB test takes 5 days) so he's got nothing to do but study for school and do push-ups. So he's got two goals, the first one I'm going to help him with which is learning ever muscle in the body so he can win a five thousand dollar scholarship for school, massage school hence the muscles. The second goal is he wants to set a world record for push-ups. He wasn't sure how the records were set, most in an hour? most in a row? So I looked them up for him. He's going to be mad. He was rightfully proud that he did 1000 push-ups in a day. Unfortunately the records for regular push-ups are 10,507 in a row, or 1781 in an hour, except thats using the back of hand style which sounds quite painful and they warn it can lead to injury. Oh here we go a full list of records... ouch some people do way too many push ups.

WORLD RECORDS

  • non-stop: 10,507; Minoru Yoshida (JAP), Oct 1980 DETAILS
  • one year: 1,500,230; Paddy Doyle (GBR), Oct 1988 - Oct 1989
  • 24 hours: 46,001; Charles Servizio (USA), 24/25 April 1993 at Hesperia
    (new record claim, not yet verified: Jeffrey Warrick (USA), 46300)
  • 1 hour: 3,877; Bijender Singh (IND), 20 Sept 1988 DETAILS AND NATIONAL RECORDS
  • 30 minutes: 2,354; Rolf Heck (GER), 13 Nov 2000
  • 10 minutes (women): 426; Renata Hamplová (TCH), Rekord-Klub SAXONIA Record Festival in Schwedt, 2 Sept 1995
  • 5 minutes: 441; Giuseppe Cusano (GBR), Loftus Road Soccer Stadium at the Fulham v. Portsmouth game on 24 Nov 2003
  • 3 minutes (women): 190; Renata Hamplová (TCH), Record Festival Pelhrimov 1995
  • one minute: Record claims up to 199 in one minute have been made. We do, however, not continue to publish these record claims, because it became impossible to judge about the correctness of the exercises at this speed.
  • one-armed, one week (168 hours): 16,723; Paddy Doyle (GBR), Feb 1996 in Birmingham
  • one-armed, 5 hours: 8,794; Paddy Doyle (GBR), 12 Feb 1996 in Birmingham
  • one-armed, 1 hour: 2521; Paddy Doyle (GBR), 12 Feb 1990 in Birmingham
  • one-armed, 30 minutes: 1382; Doug Pruden (CAN), 30 July 2003 at the Body Quest Health Club Edmonton
  • one-armed, 10 minutes: 546; Doug Pruden (CAN), 30 July 2003 at the Body Quest Health Club Edmonton
  • one-armed, on back of hands, one hour: 441; Bruce Swatton (GBR), 12. May 2003 in Plymouth
  • one-handed handstand pushups: Yury Tikhonovich (Russia) did twelve pushups while standing on one hand in June 2006 at the Starclub variete in Kassel (Germany). He repeats this feat almost every day in the rehearsal for his show VIDEO (AVI, 1.3 MB)
  • on fists: 5557 (in 3:02:30 hours), Doug Pruden (CAN), 9 July 2004, Body Quest Health Club Edmonton
  • 1000 pushups on fists: 18:13 minutes, Doug Pruden (CAN), 9 July 2003 at the Body Quest Health Club Edmonton
  • on back of hands, 15 minutes: 585, Doug Pruden (CAN), 29 April 2005, Body Quest Health Club Edmonton RECORD HISTORY
  • on back of hands, 30 minutes: 1045, Doug Pruden (CAN), 29 April 2005, Body Quest Health Club Edmonton RECORD HISTORY
  • on back of hands, 1 hour: 1807, Doug Pruden (CAN), 29 April 2005, Body Quest Health Club Edmonton RECORD HISTORY
  • finger-tips, 5 hours: 8,200; Terry Cole (GBR), 11 May 1996 in Walthamstow
  • one finger: 124 Paul Lynch (GBR), 21 April 1992 in London
  • 100 push-ups with feet at a 80 cm [2 ft 7 1/2 in] high table: 45.7 sec; Roy Berger (CAN), 24 Feb 2001 in Ottawa
  • with a 50 lb [22.68 kg] plate weight on his back: 4,100: Paddy Doyle (GBR), 28 May 1987 in Birmingham
  • with hands on raw eggs: 112; Johann Schneider (AUT) / a video can be downloaded here as Quicktime video (1.2 MB) or AVI video (1.4 MB)
  • 4 hr relay (team of 10): 14907; Gatwick Airport Fire Service (Andrew Horstead, Clwyd Jones, Stuart Coxhill, Steven Bartlett, Jerramy Davison, Darryl Graham, Albert Lawson, Luke Philpott, Darren Hollman, Ian Mclean, Great Britain) at 18 November 2005 at Gatwick Airport

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

I got into a fight with Mr. Morgan

Captain Morgan to be precise. I think I'm going to lay off the hard stuff for a while. I was trying to go that route as opposed to beer as a half assed diet idea. A lot less calories in liquor than in a shit load of beer. Guess I'll have to do some extra sit-ups because The Captain causes too many other problems. Namely getting wasted and passing out at a party. Real wasted. Like on the drive home I mentioned how the girl from last week was being pretty rude, she refused to so much as make eye-contact with me, let alone actually talk. To which my friend casually replied maybe it's because you were making out with Blah Blah Blah*. Um I did what now? First she was acting that way as soon as she showed up so no thats not the reason, but more importantly which one was Blah Blah Blah? He described her. Really? Sweet, she seemed pretty damn chill, cute too. Then he pointed out that she wasn't exactly single (either has a BF or very recently broke up, hear two stories) and so her friend stepped in to break us apart. Then I got worried, my drunk ass making out with an attractive woman and someone tried to interfere? Shit what sort of stupidity did I engage in after that. Nah you were very respectful, no one was made at you, she asked you to stop and you did. Oh cool, take that Mr. Morgan! I can retain some self control even while under your spell. Of course I'm guessing that rejection might also have led to my excessive alcohol consumption, it was probably excessive before but I can see myself being angry (or at least unhappy)at that point and just flipping the bottle vertical to drown any feelings I might have tried to experience. None of it really matters, other than the fact that I think I'm going to lay off the alcohol in general for a bit, but especially avoid the liquor, beer and wine I have half a chance at moderation. Oh and I'm hoping that Blah Blah Blah is in the recently single category, she was cool, well from the evening that I remember, and apparently even what I don't remember I considered a good thing at the time. I'm actually glad that things were stopped between us, I don't want to be the drunken rebound hook up. I'd like a relationship with someone, and thats not a good way to start. Of course if I'm not careful I could also develop a reputation as a man whore, which would be incredibly ironic. Then there is the new woman at work, I don't know if shes single but if she is well I'll probably make a complete ass of myself, wish me luck!

* identity hidden - thank you Biz Markie.

Monday, November 05, 2007

xkcd

Wikipedian Protester.I've seen a few of these over at Pharyngula and so now I'd like to say that I'm a fan of xkcd. not the best drawn cartoon but the jokes are good, and often nerdtastic.

Actually there is a lot of truth in this simple little comic. When candidates make claims they should have to be able to prove where their "facts" come from. I realize that this cannot go on during the actual debate, but there needs to be some fact checking. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.

UPDATE:People need to be reminded of this often.
Wow, just wow.

Update: A few more...How will people feel when spanish is the majority language, should everyone be forced to learn spanish because thats the democratic way?

Everyone loves a good Herpes joke.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Rock For Darfur

I know there have been lots of benefit concerts, and recently the rage is to try to have a bunch of concerts, possibly at the same time, all for one cause. Sounds great on paper, sometimes it even works. This one, Rock For Darfur, I like for a very selfish reason, NOFX. If I was forced to listen to one band for the rest of my life, it would be these guys. Ok now total respect for everyone try to do something to help the people in Darfur, which I always try to say and spell Durfar, but I have another reason to give props to NOFX. They are, at least according to the website, the ONLY show in Africa. Now I realize that people in Africa already know about Darfur, so they aren't exactly the target audience. But If you're doing a huge international fund raiser for Africa I would think you'd have more than a single major band playing on the continent your trying to help. But thats just me.

Anyway I hope this concert goes well, more importantly I help this helps to saves some lives in Darfur. And thank you to Fat Mike, El Hefe, Eric Melvin, and Eric Sandin for showing people what it really means to be punk while saving some lives. And thanks to all the other bands and those who donate their time and money.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Damnit Dennis

You know I really like Dennis Kucinich, He's exactly on target with just about every issue no chance of winning but hey I like rooting for the underdog. But then he has to drop the line about UFO's I'm sure you've all heard about it, Jon Steward obviously had to make fun of it last night and I'm mad for two simple reasons, but not at Jon ya gotta pick on both sides. One, people will laugh at him for saying he saw a UFO once, yet all the fundies who say they hear voices in their head love the idea of some magic sky daddy giving advice to the candidate. Which one is crazy?

The other reason is simple, it could have been avoided. You can say that you saw a UFO, then say that doesn't mean I think it was an alien invasion it just means that I saw something flying in the night sky that I could not Identify, thats all UFO means, Unidentified Flying Object.

Now back to the first point, I don't believe aliens from another planet have ever visited ours. I'm not saying its impossible, just highly improbable and lacking in supporting evidence. I like to think that we aren't alone in this mindbogglingly huge universe but I have no reason to think its true, I'd just like there to be other life, the notion of an afterlife is pretty neat too, but there's probably an even larger lack of evidence for that. Which is why its so fucked up, even if Kucinich had said he gets alien messages beamed to a transmitter buried in his left molar telling him what to do, how would he be any crazier than our moron president who said on many occasions that god has given him specific directions. BTW: god give really bad advice, maybe its that other god in christianity thats giving him advice. For any religious person who didn't get that other god reference there are up to four gods in christianity, possibly five now that I think about it. You've got the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost (who ever that is) then of course you have satan, who's supposedly just a fallen angel yet has the power to wage an endless war against god, meaning he must be an equal. So thats four, or two if you do catholic math (3x1=1) but then there is Mary who shouldn't be a god but those catholics love praying to her and so she must have some superpowers, so maybe shes a god. I'd probably consider modern Christianity to have three gods, the big sky daddy, J.C. and Satan. I say modern because Satan is a relative newcomer to the party. Why did I get on the subject of the myth of christianity being monotheistic? Doesn't matter, the point is that one person is crazy for believing in something without evidence, while so many others are considered virtuous for believing something even more ridiculous thats also completely lacking in evidence. This of course was probably best summed up as Russells Teapot, which also happens to be a funny comic that has the Teapot quote at the top so thats the link I'll use.

And because I've been talking about Kucinich, here's another picture of Elizabeth just cause I can.