Quintessential Rambling

Been a while

2010-09-17T10:13:00.002-04:00

So I recently had a comment on a very old post which showed up in my e-mail to remind me that I still have a blog lurking around the interwebs. I see it's been just about a year since the last time I posted anything. Quite the year it's been. I used to write about politics because I hated bush and the neocons, then I was filled with hope of restoring dignity to our country with the election of Obama. And now we are nearing another election which has sucked that hope right out of me. I'll admit that politics has gotten entertaining and if we were all just sitting around laughing at the fringe candidates and their sheer insanity then it would be a good time. The problem is people are voting for the crazies. We have a nut case with a legit shot at becoming governor of my state. Official e-mails would probably get more interesting...
I'm ok with politicians who are a little less polished, a bit more raw, but beastiality? seriously? If he was caught with it on his computer I'd be a little concerned, but when he finds that acceptable enough that he e-mails it to people then something is seriously wrong. If he was a boyscout leader I'd be concerned for those children, when he's running for governor it's a little bigger concern. The scariest part of all is that people are voting for him...

Memories

2009-09-26T02:18:00.001-04:00

Warning. It's late I can't sleep and I'm not doing much editing for spelling, content, factual errors or reasoning. Enjoy!

A friend got me thinking about memories. I thought of how it's usually imposible to know, what is really a memory and what is just remembering the story. It's part of the computer code, it saves the data but just like how text takes less space than video. Anyway she talked about specific things, like colors, stand out for her. My memory is pretty vague. I just remember some basic rough draft type info and a feeling, maybe an image or two. It's the feelings though that really stand out. Feelings, they're so primal and simple. I can't always tell you why I like something, wine and movies come to mind. I can't always explain why one stupid comedy is hillarious and another is just stupid. But there is a difference. My dad has a great method for judging a live singing of the star spangled banner. Side note for all the shit I give our country for not living up to our own ideals I must say we have a pretty bad ass national anthem, done right it's impressive. You can tell a good rendition of it because the hair on your arms and neck stand up. Which is my fathers test. Feelings, they're strange things, sometimes they're a real pain in the ass. But sometimes they're great. Didn't mean to sound emo there, most of my life is reasonably happy, some things are great. And because as I already said most of my memories are just vague images attached to feelings it's really easy to sort the ones to keep, the good days, from the less important ones, the bad days. Then again that means I could have a pretty terrible life and barely even know it. Nah my life doesn't seem terrible, Oh no! Trapped in my own pointless lodgic.

I was about to say that I lost track of the point of this a while ago, but I'm not sure this post ever really had a point. I think I'm just confused as to why I'm not asleep.

Well thank you to the person who made me think about the past. You know who you are.

And thank you to ABC for being mostly awesome.
Or was it amazing?

Life

2009-09-24T09:50:00.000-04:00

So I've got a new job. Just part time at the bike shop. I like it. It's nice going to work and actually having work to do. Plus I get a discount on bike stuff.

The complicated situation I talked about before has changed, we got in a huge fight over the douche bag, then we were cool again for a little bit. Then she said we couldn't talk for a while. Her life was getting too complicated and stressful. So she wanted to kick both of us out of her life, at least for a while. I thought that was pretty fucked up, yet understandable. Part of me just wanted to show up on her doorstep, if she really wanted to say goodbye I felt like I at least deserved a goodbye in person, not a text. But I said fuck that, if I mean so little to her that she can just be done with me like that then fine it is better to just walk away. So then after a week she started talking to me again. Apparently she saw this blog and said I should update it because my feelings have probably changed. It's true they have. Even within a couple days of writing that things had changed. I really care about her a lot and thats all i know with any certainty. I hope we can stay friends, it's nice to have friends with differing views.

It's complicated

2009-09-01T16:11:00.001-04:00

Ok I haven't posted anything in a long time. Sorry bout that. I'm now unemployed so I don't spend hours staring at a computer screen. That probably sounds kinda backwards but I had a really boring job. Plus last time I wrote something from my phone in never posted which sucks cause i put some effort into it. I'm so far behind with what's going on in the world I can't really say much as far as that goes.

On the other hand part of why I'm so detached from the world is because I've been spending a lot of time with a beautiful woman. She's fun, she's crazy, a really great person. So of course it can't be quite that simple. Ok she's a mom but that's not the issue. The real hold up is she is very religious. We met about a year ago at school. I'd been checking out the selection in the room and there isn't much other than ones I later described to a friend as, "really cute little girls."
"little girls?" she says.
"yeah, so you see the problem."
Then just as the class is supposed to begin in walks this gorgeous tall thin redhead. My curiousity was piqued. A few weeks later were get put into a group to make up a little psych study, no big deal stupid little classroom project. But most of my group was fucking idiots. I basically had the project done as I read what we had to do. So I'm fighting with the stupid and gorgeous is making it he'll. It was weird because the others seemed genuinely stupid, she just confused me. The ideas that this person I've never spoken to before is just fucking with me to get me riled up didn't occure to me but that is in fact exactly what was going on. You can see why I like her so much.

We got to be pretty good friends but she made it very clear from the start that there was no possibility of it going beyond friendship because I wasn't a Christian. We still had fun, a lot of flirty and even quite dirty conversations but all just joking around, well mostly joking. Then she started dating this douche canoe. She said he was great but everything she told me just threw up one giant red flag after another that he was going to use her. I told her this repeatedly, but to no avail. Then we fooled around a bit one night and she decided she couldn't have a long distance relationship with the douche and be flirtatious friends with me. Unfortunatle for both of us she dropped me instead of him. We didn't talk for many months. Eventually she realized that he was just using her and dumped his ass. Then oh a month or so ago she starts talking to me again.

I stuff my foot far enough into my mouth that I'm licking the back of my knee, then she pisses me off. Somehow that brought us even closer together. So my feelings waiver as to if i could date her, could it possibly work? We continue to spend a lot of time together and have just become closer and closer. I don't think she is quite ready to date an atheist, but I know the wall has been severely damaged. It's a weird spot. We both really like each other and care about one another. Were comfortable and honest which is huge to me. But the fact that we have such opposite world views is clearly a problem. I did go to church with her last weekend. That should tell you how much I like her considering I have the big scarlet "A" on this website and this post will be posted on planet atheism. Oh but it should be noted that I'm not the kind of asshole who's going to pretend to convert just to get with a girl. But I will sit through some crap I don't like to get this girl. Even without dating she makes me a better person, Ive hardly drank at all since we started hanging out. I'm not sure what's going to happen but I really like her and she likes me too. Oh and I've even met her family at her sons birthday party, her mom apparently really liked me and said that if I was a christian I'd be a keeper. We know each others flaws, and we accept them so maybe there is more than just friendship in our future.

Start Happy

2009-08-17T13:09:00.002-04:00

I've got some ranting to do so before I get there I want to start with something cool. So here's a link to a living bridge.

Beyond that I'm closing one chapter in my life and hopefully starting a new one. This week is my last with the non-profit I've been working for these last 4+ years. It's been a great place to work but as anyone who knows me is well aware it was always a dead end job and I should have left about 3 years ago. So thats the chapter thats closing.
The new one (hopefully) is that I'll be going back to school full time at Elmira College. I say hopefully because I'm actually still in the process of applying, the transcripts should be in by now or very soon and so I'm hoping to hear if I'm in by the end of this week. Luckily the school starts a little later than most so I've still got a couple weeks.

So thats my news, I'll also warn that I'm going to have much less time to waste online so expect my posts to get even less frequent, although I can now blog from my phone so maybe I'll keep it up to date.

Seneca Falls by The Distillers

2009-08-06T12:49:00.002-04:00

I should play this for my former, and possibly future, history teacher. I can't say the lyrics entirely make sense but at least they are trying. Also one of few female singers in a punk band I like, of course she doesn't have a very feminine voice.

Founding Fathers

2009-08-06T10:41:00.003-04:00

If there's an afterlife, and I really really don't think there is, then the founding fathers would be haunting the shit out of some motherfuckers. Thomas Jefferson was given an rough draft of the Constitution, he immediately criticized the lack of a Bill of Rights and then listed some important ones such as freedom of religion, speech and the press. Those probably sound familiar, wanna know another one? He wanted to make sure the Government could not create a standing army. Think how that would change this country....

Oh and James Madison wanted to make a set of laws limiting luxury and conspicuous consumption. Again think how that would change this country. Protection of property had already come to be an major part of our idea of freedom at this point so it probably wouldn't have tried to prevent individuals from owning large amounts of land or large companies (although what constituted a large company at that time was a very very different thing) but would have prevented unnecessary luxury in keeping with the way americans lived simply during the revolution in order to free themselves of the binds of europe. I'm not opposed to international trade, but I'm hugely in favor of living more simply.

Taxpayer Status

2009-08-06T10:11:00.003-04:00

This is an interesting case, the issue of the actual case is fairly humdrum, a muslim charter school funded with taxpayer is in violation of the establishment clause. The interesting part is the fact that it's usually not possible to sue the government for spending your money in an unconstitutional manner. There is a loophole allowing lawsuits for violations of the establishment clause but only if the money was directly allocated by the Legislative branch. So if the president or you governor spend your money illegally there isn't shit you can do about it. That seems reasonable.... or not. I'm assuming that the theory is that if these lawsuits were permitted then people would be suing every time their money was spent on something they didn't like. I can just picture the teabaggers trying to sue of their money being used to save lives. So I'm kinda torn on this, I think it's terrible that an individual is barred from suing the government for breaking the highest law in our land. Thats fucked. But I can understand how big of a pain in the ass that would be. Then again if the government didn't break the law their would be no lawsuits. If they do break the law they need to be held accountable and thats the point of the judiciary branch, ya know the whole checks and balances thing. But the judiciary can't just strike down an illegal law, someone must bring the case, if were aren't allowed to start the case then how can the judiciary do their job? I guess I'm not as torn about this as I thought I was.

And the fact that the loophole only applies to the legislative branch and not the executive seems particularly odd to me. Why should the executive branch get a free pass to spend my money illegally? The article sites the Hein case where the Freedom from Religion Foundation sued the white house over things related to the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, but seeing as the White House spent it's own General Funds (which are still our dollars) and wasn't appropriated by Congress the FFRF couldn't sue. WTF? How does that make sense in any way? Grrr... That seems like the most egregious violation of the Establishment Clause which they didn't claim was legal, the simply said there is nothing you can do about it. Fuck that shit.

Illegal is illegal, no one is above the law. At least thats the theory...

the British Chiropractic Association

2009-08-05T15:24:00.002-04:00

If you happen to have read the last post you'll see that if you're going to make scientific claims you need to be able to back them up. You need evidence that supports your views or else someone is going to come along and tell you that you're wrong. If or when that happens you start by checking if they are correct in their assertion, if they are you can change your hypothesis or throw it away. So what do you do if that hypothesis is that Chiropractic methods work and you've just had your ass handed to you by someone who simply pointed out that none of your claims are backed by evidence? Well if you happen to be the British Chiropractic Association, and I hope you're not, then you sue the shit out of that person for pointing it out!

This is a horrible precedence if it stands. It's ok to promote unproven medicine, but if you point out that said medicine is unproven and possibly dangerous you can be sued for libel. Holy fuck batman, glad I'm not living in England.

Aww... we weren't swimming apes

2009-08-05T11:38:00.002-04:00

Ok theres a fringe hypothesis that at some point in our evolution one of our ancestors spent a bit of time in the water. It's known as the Aquatic Ape Theory or ATT for short, but in keeping with scientific norms it should be called a hypothesis and not a theory as it is far from an established theory. I know very little about serious biology but I know more than most people, which isn't saying much at all, hell I'm not even sure if "most" know that evolution is real. Anyway I heard about this theory, er hypothesis, at some point and found it interesting. It seemed to explain a few odd things, such as why aren't we covered in hair like other primates? From the view of a layman it seemed possible and interesting. But it appears that from the view of someone who knows something about biology it's not a very convincing argument at all. This is how and why science works, anyone is welcome to come up with a hypothesis, and anyone is welcome to try to prove it wrong. Contrary to what the haters think taking down an established theory is what makes the greats the greats. You've heard of people like Einstein and Newton right? It's important to note that Einstein was not a famous scientist who proved Newton wrong, he became a famous scientist BECAUSE he proved Newton wrong. When he proved Newton wrong the second time he was famous.

Anyway the point is that if you are going to venture into science then you'd better have skin thick enough to stand some criticism because it's going to happen, thats how science works, its why science works. I bring this up once again because if I get to it this will be an important part of the next post.

"Alternative Medicine" vs Science/Reality

2009-08-03T12:19:00.003-04:00

This isn't exactly breaking news as the report came out several weeks ago, not to mention the fact that the study only confirmed what should be obvious. Alternative, Holistic, Unconventional, Complimentary, Unorthodox, or whatever else you want to call it, Medicine does not work. Shocking right?
"But come on man they've been using this for thousands of years, western medicine doesn't know everything."
And what was the life expectancy for those thousands of years, and what is it since western medicine has taken over? I know it sounds like crazy talk but sometimes it's a good idea to see if things actually work, a great case for that would be medicine right? Maybe apply the scientific method and, oh lets really get crazy, test that shit? So the government spent a decade and a few billion to see if maybe there was something to all this mumbo jumbo. The only one they found to work was Ginger helps prevent nausea associated with chemo.

Here's a short little article on the matter and I think this sums up the biggest problem with "alternatives."

Any treatment that has proven to provide reliable benefit, is automatically added to the canon of ‘western’ medicine. Therefore the only treatments left available for ‘alternative’ to claim, are those that are unproven, or worse, treatments known to be actively harmful.

I could have quoted that entire article, seriously read it. To me this whole thing is just another part of our societies problem with science. Our society thinks that faith is a good thing, our politicians are forced to pander to the masses and say, "Yes, I think that things are true despite a complete lack of evidence" and the crowds cheer. Why is faith a good thing? I just don't get it. I much prefer knowledge to faith but for some reason I'm in the minority on that one. So how do we know something as opposed to just thinking something? You test it, you try to prove your own guess wrong, if you can't (and it's an idea that can be proved wrong) then it's probably right. Makes sense right? Hey that fucking science! And its the reason we Know some shit, we don't know everything and no scientist would claim we do, if we did they'd be out of a job. To tie this back in with the original part, the government is also looking into some even kookier ideas like distance healing, spiritual energies and prayer. Not that I put much value on case studies but here's someone who decided to use prayer to cure their child of Juvenile Diabetes. God came through and she is doing much better, doctors are now prescribing two teaspoons on god for all sorts of illnesses... oh wait that isn't what happened? The child died a slow and agonizing death because the parents refused to give her a shot of insulin? Hmm... well at least they'll have some time to think about their choice while they sit in jail for Second Degree Reckless Homicide.

So yeah western medicine has its problems, for one it's not available to everyone, it's regulatory agencies are too deep in the pockets of big pharma, Doctors are too overworked to spend enough time with their patients, and with the incredible amounts of money being made it's no surprise that there are some shady dealings and outright corruption. I think this is another reason why people are nervous about trusting the guy with the PHD who has $200,000 worth of college loans he needs you to help him pay back. So they go to the nature loving hippie who only smells a little and is in touch with your individual life energies and wants to simple help refocus your chakras. Of course it should be noted that the bullshit sales of alternative meds is a 34 Billion dollar industry, with no proof at all that any of it works.

Obama Birth Certificate

2009-08-03T09:39:00.000-04:00

Seriously folks? There are still people talking about this? He has shown his birth certificate and two birth announcements from local papers, what more can you ask for? Seriously if you asked any American to prove they were born here what more could they have as proof, hospital bills? They're just sippin the Haterade and can't stand that some of his shit is working, like the Cash for Clunkers program.

50 miles!

2009-08-01T16:43:00.001-04:00

Woohoo! My first fifty mile ride! Ok well actually it was like 23 miles to watkins, that part was awesome as it's almost all downhill. Then I got some grub at the Italian festival which I didn't even realize was going on. The way back was a whole lot slower but otherwise fine. It was a great day for sure.

I couldn't help but think of vonegut at this point, "if this isn't nice then I don't know what is."

Beer Summit

2009-07-30T11:53:00.002-04:00

Ok so Obama has asked the cop and the professor over for a beer. He wants to deal with this but not make too big a deal out of it either, diffuse the situation and shit.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32210408/ns/politics-white_house/

(this is my first attempt bloggin from my phone and I'm not sure how to make links pretty, hopefully they don't try to make me learn HTML at this point)

But I have one major major concern here. The cop asked for blue moon, a tasty brew, the harvard bloke wants red stripe, horray beer! And the leader of the free world is going to sip on bud light.... BUD FUCKING LIGHT!! Seriously? Ok I'm sure it's a calculated move like everything he does, he probably had advisors telling him what would be the exact right beer so as not to look pretentious, it had to be an American beer obviously. He probably just said what's the best selling beer in the country and figured that would be a good pick to look like an average Joe, but as I've said many times you're the fucking president you are by deffinition the elite, pretty much as high up there as you can get without Simon clapping for you, you don't need to pretend to be average Joe. Yeah it worked for the last guy but it's probably best not to look at him for ideas on how to be prez. He should have had an Arrogant Bastard Ale then wrote a note to the company saying, I am worthy.

Oh and yeah he should have had an American beer, I almost forgot bud isn't American anymore, I think some Belgian company makes that swill now. I realize he can't show up with ahold bottle of Sam Adams utopia and not catch shit, although a regular Sam would be a good choice. Then again maybe he just doesn't like beer so he got water instead, or bud light which is close enough.

As for the meeting itself, meh. It makes sense, just try to get that little mess behind us so he can get back to letting the repubs and bitch ass dems fuck up any chance for useful change in health care.

I want the dems to grow a pair, they got a real mandate during the election but still all they can
talk about is bipartisan bullshit, personally I think it's so they can keep blaming the rebups, and that's the issue they are still in the mindset of avoiding blame for fuck ups instead of wanting credit for a job well done. They need to stand up and say ok here is our plan, yall on the othe side of the isle are welcome to join us working out the details but if you don't like the basic plan that's fine, whine and bitch but stay outta the way. Yeah go cry to ORielly and his little impersonator (not Colbert, the other one the shitty one) about how making sure everyone can see a doctor is evil socialism. Instead they just water shit down until the repubs are sorta ok with it, and the "blue dogs" who are actually the bigger problem here. Where's the other side in this debate? All I hear is how it's socialist, where are the rest of the comentators screaming cause it's not social enough? I want single payer national healthcare! Fuck the insurance companies, they've fucked us long enough.

UPDATE: lots of people have rambled bullshit about this, the only reason I did is because I don't care for Bud Light and i think his choice was a political move, i just think it's sad that politics have gotten to the point where the President can't even drink a beer without thinking about how it will look to the people. Of course there is the chance that he just likes Bud Light, my dad does, it's not terrible beer its just dull beer.

"How is American beer like sex in a canoe?"
"It's Fucking close to water!"
- Andrew, someone I knew when I flew. He was a character...

Plz don't steal mah phone

2009-07-29T15:57:00.000-04:00

this could suck....

Stickers

2009-07-29T12:23:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure why but I want to slap stickers on my bike, the single speed not the TCR. Environmental stickers seem appropriate, but then again I also like being confrontational about my world view so there are some others I like too. But there's also the issue that it's a bike so there's not a ton of room. I could probably fit a full size bumper sticker on the downtube but anywhere else would need to be smaller.

In no particular order here's a few I like.
Two Hands
Fascism

Oh good site here.... and they're bike sized
Welfare vs Military
TV Transmitters
Meat

And a Pin,
Programing?

Are Helmets Useful?

2009-07-29T11:30:00.002-04:00

It's come up a few times and from what I can tell the basic answer is, meh. Even wikipedia's entry seems pretty ambivalent about their use. There are a few problems. It's almost impossible to build a helmet thats going to provide serious protection while still allowing enough ventilation so you don't overheat your noggin. Another problem is the testing method which makes it so the only way a helmet will pass is if the foam is very hard, which means that your head deforms before the foam. If the foam doesn't deform then it defeats the point of a helmet. From what I read it seems like a helmet is quite good for preventing scrapes and even serious skin damage. The problem is they don't seem to be effective at preventing life threatening injuries. Plus they actually increase the risk of rotational injuries. You don't want your brain to twist inside of your head, its very bad.

To be honest though I'm biased. I hate wearing a helmet, it's uncomfortable and goofy looking. I do my best to ride safely which I think provides far far more security than any lil chunk of foam and plastic can provide.

Some ideas are more equal than others

2009-07-22T16:19:00.001-04:00

PZ posted a fantastic comedian that I need to link to, enjoy!

T-Shirts

2009-07-22T14:45:00.002-04:00

Just some random ass shirts that I found amusing. They aren't T-shirt hell amusing, but some of these I'd actually wear... some
Friends actually let friends do lots of stupid things. It's true ya know.
Horray for sarcasm.
Shirt from the future.
Life is like a box of terrible analogies.
Honk if your about to run me over.
The Internet was closed
Psychic Career
Only way I fight
The Communist Party
Spoiler Alert
Goldilocks
Stop destroying our planet
Emo Poems

Great Pic of Cool Places

2009-07-22T14:43:00.001-04:00

The Most Alien Landscapes on Earth, which means none of them are actually alien, but some are pretty freakin cool.

Need a laugh?

2009-07-22T14:23:00.002-04:00

The editors at Vanity Fair decided to take a look at Palin's resignation, school style. Ya know with a red pen. It's pretty funny, others are getting a kick out of her tweets.

Heroes

2009-07-22T10:24:00.003-04:00

The term hero gets thrown around pretty flippantly in my opinion. For one thing victim of a tragedy is NOT synonymous with hero. This may offend some folks but when has that ever stopped me before? For example an office worker who died in the WTC trying to get out is a victim, the Police and Firemen who ran into that same building putting their own lives on the line to save others, those are clearly hero's or at least attempted hero's. Being a hero means putting your own safety aside in order to help someone else. Not every soldier is a hero, thats why they have medals for the exceptional ones. Like I said some people might take offense to this idea that just being in a certain uniform doesn't automatically make you a hero, to me it is offensive to the real heroes when people who haven't earned it are referred to as heroes.

Why do I bring this up? Because here are some real heros they saw a tragedy unfolding and they ran to see what they could do to help rather than running away.

If I could go anywhere right now....

2009-07-22T10:11:00.002-04:00

It might just have to be here...
Come on who doesn't want to have breakfast with a Giraffe? Check out the link it actually sounds like a really cool family, and now you can stay with them at the worlds only giraffe hotel.

another pic of my bike... bikes

2009-07-21T14:53:00.003-04:00

They're taking over! Lets see, in the foreground without the wheels is my baby. I was cleaning it and decided to take some pics. Behind that is my Bowery, my single speed beast that I tear around town on. Behind that is the tank, it easily weighs more than the other two combined, it's my dads old Schwinn super sport. Barely noticeable is my old Trek 800 mountain bike off to the right without wheels. I also had a POS huffy beach cruiser but I gave that to a friend.

Oh and I was reminded of something very important last week. If you are leaning hard into a corner, DON'T PEDAL! If you do the inside pedal can strike the ground lifting at least your rear tire off the ground at which point you're pretty much fucked. The problem for me is I'm still used to cars where you want to power out of the turn. Which does leave me wondering how one turns quickly on a fixie? The gray bike has the option of being a fixed gear meaning that if the rear wheel is turning then so are your feet, I tried it once and didn't care for it but maybe I'll try it again, its supposed to be good in slick conditions because you can tell the instant you lose traction.

Retesting Drivers

2009-07-21T13:30:00.002-04:00

This subject came up at the time of the last kid getting hit by a car on a bike because the driver was 81 years old. But it wasn't talked about much because the police said age was not a factor it was a blind corner and there was nothing she could have done. I was recently reminded why retesting drivers is a good idea at any age.

I met a very cute woman who has gone partially blind in one eye. She warned her passenger, my friend, that she isn't a very good driver, especially at night. There was a little bit of driving on the sidewalk involved with there commute. This isn't just an age thing, this woman is probably younger than me or about the same age. She is a very nice person from the one time I met her but her ability to drive safely has changed. She had a tumor removed from her brain in the the process lost considerable amounts of vision in one eye. Not trying to say anything bad about this wonderful person I'm just using her as an example of why retesting drivers is not just an age issue and should not be thought of as one. People change and just because they knew the rules when they were 16 doesn't meant they are still capable of driving in a safe manner. Plus anyone who claims age discrimination is forgetting that we already discriminate based on age when it comes to driving, but apparently age discrimination is only acceptable when discriminating against those who can't vote, which is also age discrimination.

I need one of these

2009-07-20T13:35:00.002-04:00

I'm in no rush to get a biking jersey, they seem really handy as they have pockets on the back so you can grab stuff you might want while riding snacks and what not. The problem with them is they are meant to be rather tight fitting and at this point my torso does not need to be shown off for the world. Plus they are freaking expensive as a cheap one is $45 and can easily cost double that. Next year I plan on having a body that I don't mind people seeing, the idea that I could really do that still amazes me but that is the goal. So I'm screwing around and saw some beer jersey's, now that seems fitting. I figure you have immediately lower expectations from other riders if you're wearing a beer jersey. Unfortunately they didn't have many brands of beer I like and most of them looked like normal jerseys which is exactly the look I'd like to avoid.

But I would totally rock this (next year - not sure what size yet)
Or if I felt like being less offensive, hey it happens occasionally, then this is also a good one. Actually I like their beer better.Either one, or both would make a great christmas present.

Speaks for its self

2009-07-15T11:24:00.003-04:00

I didn't have the sound on cause PZ warned me to turn it down at work, and I'm at work, actually it was already muted... not that you care. Now watch some evolution.

If that seemed slow it was roughly 800 million years a minute.

UPDATE: that should be 800,000 years not 800 million, Thank you Riker for pointing that out. So yeah its about 3.5 million years of evolution not 3.5 billion years. Sorry for the brain fart.

Another Bike Incident

2009-07-13T11:43:00.003-04:00

14 year old airlifted to hospital after being hit by a car. That sucks kid. Hope he's doing alright. Hate to say it but thats why you're supposed to ride with traffic and not against it. The report says that the 81 year old driver never had a chance of avoiding the cyclist because of a blind curve. I do have a hard time believing that reaction time couldn't be a contributing factor, but either way it was still the fault of the kid on the bike.

I'm starting to think that I should wear my helmet more often. Then again I don't ride the wrong way down the street, and at the speeds I'm usually going if I hit a car head on a helmet isn't going to do shit, unless I wear a motorcycle helmet which would probably weigh about the same as my bike. That said there has been one incident (I try not to call them accidents, they may not be intentional but they are still someones fault) where a guy on his bike was minding his own business going down a busy four lane 40mph road that I've traveled myself a few times when someone turned into a gas station and hit him. Guess shit can happen to anyone.

Gettin in shape

2009-07-09T14:50:00.002-04:00

I've always been in some sort of shape, now I'm just looking for it to be more renaissance and less modern art, something a bit less free form.

So here are a few links for training stuff, the first is about VO2max which is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use for a sustained period of time. This number they said is pretty much set by genetics, if you're totally unfit you can increase it maybe 15-20% an athlete can only hope to increase it by 3-5% The one you can really do something about is Lactate Threshold the subject of the second article.

I'm contemplating my first group ride. The local bike shop (Kingsbury's Cyclery - slightly more info) is the meeting point for twice weekly rides. Tuesday's and Thursday's, I was warned to avoid Tuesday because they are far more competitive and will leave me in their dust. I haven't seen the Thursday crew but they are supposed to be more relaxed. I'm not sure if this means I'll be able to keep up but I think I might try. Wish me luck, I might need it, especially if they go after the hills. I hate hills.

0.2 seconds behind

2009-07-08T10:48:00.003-04:00

Not bad Lance, not bad.

I really do have a one track mind. For a few years I was into politics, that made me realize how much religion fucks with the political process, that got me into the science vs religion battle, which got me into science. All of these issues have been given plenty of play here at QR, there has also always been a healthy dose of personal catharsis via writing here what I often can't say in life. I just seem to get focused on something and I get really into it for a while, some of these last longer than others. The paintball thing didn't last very long, probably because my marker (AKA - gun) didn't last very long. Now I'm focused on biking. I'm really loving it, and with all the stuff thats been going on with my personal life I wasn't able to ride much and when I did hop back on my bike I noticed how much lung endurance I had lost in that short period of time. I'm really hoping this isn't a fad, for quite a while I've been trying to lose weight and it's going quite well. I've gone from a peak of 273lbs to 211 today. My goal used to be to break 200 and call that good enough. I just didn't want to be fat anymore, but thats no longer my goal, now I want to actually get in shape. I even bought my first pair of Lycra shorts yesterday, and while I know I'm going to get teased they do make for a much more comfortable ride. My upper body is still very squishy but my legs are looking pretty decent so I'm honestly not that embarrassed with the skin tight shorts. Anyway at least for the moment my mind is stuck in biking mode, although I am talking to a lady but thats far to early to be concerned with. Plus as I get in shape my confidence is increasing and thats really what I've been lacking when trying to approach the fairer sex. Shit I've spent so long slowly writing this that the next stage of the tour is probably over and now my headline is silly. Guess I should just post this already.

Bike Stuff

2009-07-07T11:23:00.002-04:00

Basically I just wanted to post a pic of my bike to use on a forum.
Plus there's a bunch of crazy people riding really fast all over France right now. Those dudes are good.

Grandpa

2009-07-02T10:07:00.002-04:00

My Grandpa has passed away. I had a whole thing written about him but then my computer froze and I'm heading out. He was great and he will be missed.

updates

2009-06-29T10:03:00.003-04:00

First off my grandfather is doing a little better. I also found out that the guy who got killed on the bike was coming from a concert I almost went to. Several of my friends knew him and saw him before he left on that ill fated journey. I will say that it seems as if cars have been extra nice to me lately and I must wonder if its because of that, or maybe they're just in awe of my badass bike.

Speaking of which I finally got passed by a cyclist. The vast majority of folks on bikes in my town, and there are a lot of them, aren't in a hurry. Flying past a kid on a BMX bike isn't exactly thrilling. Although it is funny when they are pumping away going over one of the bridges, usually riding illegally on the sidewalk and I casually go past. Pretty much the same feeling when I blow by people on mountain bikes. So over the weekend I'm riding back from corning and I hear someone say something, I look over my shoulder and there's a guy right beside me, we say hello and he goes by. I then followed him for probably a mile or two and while he was clearly faster he wasn't that much faster which made me feel good. Maybe I'll try a group ride later this week. And while in the biking world a 13 mile ride is a freaking warm up I'm still pretty tired after riding 13 miles, doing physical labor for a 6 hours or so then riding 13 miles back home. There was one person on a forum claiming the first 30 miles of their commute is rolling country hills then 12 flat miles of increasing traffic as they get into town. I can't imagine what must be a 2.5 hour or more commute each way. My commute to my normal work is just under 2 miles, it takes like 6 minutes and I'm still drenched in sweat when I get there. Then again I do tend to move along pretty quickly, slow is boring.

UPDATE: Shit. It's a different story everyday. I just got a message from my sister, apparently grandpa's non-responsive and his kidneys are shutting down.... Shit.

My news

2009-06-26T10:55:00.002-04:00

There's news in the world, Iran is in chaos, North Korea is pretending to be a tough guy, Jackson died, but none of that really interests me at this moment. I'll probably get informed about Iran at some point soon.

First I'll give my good news. I got a new bike and it's awesome!

And then there's the bad news. My grandfather is in the hospital, and he's not doing well.

Bike Safety

2009-06-22T09:01:00.003-04:00

A man was killed on a bicycle over the weekend. Several co-workers said they thought of me but assumed it wasn't just because of where the crash was and it would have been an odd place for me to be at 1am. I don't know anything more than what was said in that article but my condolences to the family.

It's never nice to blame a victim but if you're traveling, walking, bike, motorcycle, or car then you need to be aware of whats going on. If you're walking you're going slow enough that there is almost always plenty of time to react. I'll come back to bikes. On a motorcycle you know you're at greater risk than in a car, you can go just as fast (most motorcycles are very fast to accelerate) and are considered an equal to a car in terms of the law, one of the big dangers is from reduced visibility. A motorcycle is quite small in a rear view mirror. Another issue with motorcycles is that contrary to what many who ride them think, a motorcycle does not stop or turn as well as a car, well a sports car. Cars on the other hand are quite safe, which is their greatest danger, people become too comfortable and complacent while driving. And finally Bikes. Bikes are kinda weird, they're too fast for the sidewalk but not quite fast enough for the street. So first off stay off the sidewalk, it's dangerous and illegal if you don't believe me about the danger just think about crossing a street, are the people in cars looking for cross traffic in the street or on the sidewalk?

So how about some basic bike safety. First if you are riding at night you are at significantly greater risk, but their are some simple things you can do to reduce those risks, first USE LIGHTS!!!! If I was driving a car down the road at night with my lights off and got t-boned would anyone have sympathy for me? Hell no. So if you're riding a bicycle at night on the shoulder of the road without lights then you're insane. Follow traffic laws, at least most of the time. If I'm sitting at a red light and can see clearly both ways up the street I might not wait for a green, when I come to a stop sign, I slow way down, but if no ones coming I'm not going to hop off my bike just so I can hop back on. Once I get clipless pedals I really won't want to stop if I don't have to. But I think I'm quite sensible about when I wait for a green and when I don't, the short of it is I don't want to get hit by a car. One thing I'm not good about is wearing a helmet, I know I should but they're uncomfortable and I'm vain. The best retort to that was a friend who said, "yeah its hard to get laid wearing a bike helmet, its even harder to get laid if you're drooling on yourself." Considering the fact that on a bike I'm not just putting my safety in my own hands but in the hands of every idiot who drives past me, I probably should wear it. Some other advice, be assertive, a bike has every right to the traffic lane as a car, if you act like a second class vehicle you will be treated like one. If you get in the proper lane and demand respect you'll get it. That doesn't mean riding in the middle of the lane pissing everyone off but if you're turning left then get out there. I only have to make one left of significance on my way to work and its on a fairly busy street, also one of few places in town with a bike lane, so I stay in the bike lane till I'm about a block or so from my turn and start watching traffic behind me, as soon as their is a good break I quickly get in the middle of the lane, get up to a good speed and give a hand signal, I keep cranking and then just turn, or wait if their is traffic coming the other way. First thing in the morning barreling down the road with a big rig gaining on you beats coffee every time. The important thing in all of that is to make your intentions clear.

If you're on a bike, be careful, and if you're driving, be considerate. And if you think I'm being a dick by swinging further out into traffic than I need to to get around that parked car costing you an extra 7 seconds on your ride home, I'm just leaving room in case a car door opens, catching a door has to suck.

Lakes on Mars?

2009-06-18T14:27:00.002-04:00

When I see a headline such as "Evidence found for Ancient Mars Lake"my first reaction is to see if its true. My first place to check is of course Bad Astronomy. As of this posting their isn't anything about this which increases my skepticism. If there's convincing evidence of water on Mars, even in the distant past, it would be huge. I'm not saying it's not true, I'm just saying that I want further verification from people who know more about the subject matter than a journalist. A good reason why I like blogs, its easy to get info from actual experts in various fields.

But this is a freaking awesome video, unless of course you have an ego then it might hurt, unless you're Zaphod Beeblebrox...

Murder at the Holocaust Museum

2009-06-11T13:31:00.002-04:00

I really don't have much to say about this. It's a terrible tragedy. I feel for the families, I'm not real good at expressing empathy. If its a friend I'm more the silent shoulder to lean on, I'll be there for ya, words of sorrow aren't my strong point.

Guess that report about right wing extremists should have been taken more seriously, although in this country there isn't much you can do about a psycho who walks into a public building with a rifle. He was a convicted felon which limits his legal access to guns, I'm not sure if the gun he used was legal or not but it's irrelevant because in this country it's not hard to get a rifle. Hand guns are more tightly regulated but the streets are obviously still awash with hand guns.

I want to say more but I gotta run. Heres some shit from the rude one.

Stupid Republicans

2009-06-11T11:17:00.002-04:00

Theres so many examples of stupid republicans, come on they describe Newt as being energetic. More to the point is the threats about "not wanting to filibuster" judge Sotomayor. Claiming its the only way to keep it fair, because otherwise they'd be in too big a rush. And this is where it gets particularly amazing, part of their argument is that they need time because she has "the longest judicial record in recent memory," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader. So it only took 72 days to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts, but to ask this congress to confirm Sotomayor before recess, 73 days, is unfair because she has a way more experience on the bench. Stick with that.

Of course the republicans are doing a pretty good job of making themselves irrelevant and that will be complete once Frankin is finally seated, so its probably not entirely stupid of Norm Coleman to kill his own political career by doing everything possible to delay that glorious day. But on the upside the court has told Norm that he owes Al about $95,000 plus interest for everyday he doesn't pay. If he actually had to pay it out of his own pocket he'd probably be concerned but I'm sure he doesn't. So maybe he's not a stupid republican but he is an asshole.

One Less Unwinnable War

2009-06-11T10:06:00.002-04:00

US Drug Czar wants to end the "war on drugs" and it's about time. It's ineffective, a waste of money and far more importantly a waste of lives. Non-violent criminals shouldn't be in jail. They are heading off hopes of what many, myself included, consider the real solution - Legalization. They are NOT going to legalize drugs or marijuana. Maybe during his second term...

But yeah a war on drugs is a stupid as a war on terror, its like a war on sadness. Guess what people have been finding ways to chemically alter themselves for thousands of years. We know beer has been around for at least 4,300 years possibly more like 9,000. Oh and in case the beer reference seems outta place, alcohol is a drug, a very very popular one thats socially acceptable here but its still a drug, so is caffeine. Natural drugs like marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, and peyote to name the first three that come to mind have probably been used even longer but it's harder to tell, less evidence left behind. The only way to get people to not want to get fucked up is to make them perfectly happy while sober, which of course isn't going to happen and really isn't going to happen in our consumer driven keeping up with the Joneses society. So as long as people are going to be indulging in their vices we might as well make a profit (taxes) off it on the front end so that as a society we break even or maybe stay a little ahead when we then have to pay for the damages done by said vices. Its a whole lot better than the current situation where we lose money, time and resources ineffectively try to stop the flow of drugs, lose more time and money when we catch people and throw them in jail, ruin those peoples lives making them no longer productive members of society, and in the end still have to pay for the damages done by the vices cause you only stopped a tiny percentage of the users.

I'm not even going to get into the obvious similarities between the "war on drugs" and prohibition, I've done it before, so I'll just say how did we solve all the problems caused by prohibition?

Homegrown Terrorists

2009-06-10T15:43:00.003-04:00

I didn't get a chance to finish reading this so I'm leaving it here to find later. This was a link in that article that sounded interesting. Oh and this too! Liars for Jesus.

Futurama!

2009-06-10T11:55:00.001-04:00

They're bringing back Futurama! It's nice to have some truly good news to report once in a while. Much love Comedy Central, much love.

Clunker Bill

2009-06-10T11:14:00.003-04:00

It's a hand out to the auto industry, they added the fuel millage part so that its a little bit environmentally friendly but this is about helping the auto industry. Then again considering how much we've got invested in that industry its probably not a bad idea. I wish it would apply to used cars but that wouldn't help the auto industry. The quick of it is this.

Under the House bill, car owners could get a voucher worth $3,500 if they traded in a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon or less for one getting at least 22 miles per gallon. The value of the voucher would grow to $4,500 if the mileage of the new car is 10 mpg higher than the old vehicle.

Sounds reasonable. Feinstein has a plan that goes quite a bit further but for some reason only applies if your trading in a car getting 17mpg or less, what if I want to trade in my VW that gets like 32mpg for a Prius or to stick to the spirit of the bill one of the new ford hybrids thats supposed to get 40+ mpg? But that one isn't going to happen so instead I want to direct you to the udder stupidity that was shoved into the bill that has passed the house.

Owners of sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks or minivans that get 18 mpg or less could receive a voucher for $3,500 if their new truck or SUV is at least 2 mpg higher than their old vehicle. The voucher would increase to $4,500 if the mileage of the new truck or SUV is at least 5 mpg higher than the older vehicle. Consumers could also receive vouchers for leased vehicles.

So I can turn in a 89 K-9 Blazer for an H2 and get a check for $3500? Thats fucking retarded. Maybe we sould be encouraging both consumers and the auto industry to get away from SUV's already. On the upside I will be hanging on to my truck, wait till someone is buying a new car then sell them that and split the $4,500 with them. Its a hell of a lot more than its worth otherwise. Probably not really in the spirit of the law but this is America and we're all trying to make a buck.

Torture

2009-06-09T15:51:00.005-04:00

Well of course a former Gitmo victim who spent 7 1/2 years in hell would claim he was tortured. But I wonder what Dick Cheney's opinion is?

Come on this terrorist worked for an elusive terrorist cell known only as "The Red Crescent" he must be evil!

Hope everyone catches the mockery here, I don't normally take torture lightly but you can't be serious all the time, and my real reaction to this should be pretty obvious to anyone with any sense of decency whatsoever.

UPDATE: when I wrote this I didn't even think about the irony of the fact that he worked for the Red Crescent, AKA the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement which helped create the original Geneva Convention back in 1864, the same series of treaties which the US violated while keeping him detained.

Ranting against Religion, again

2009-06-09T14:25:00.002-04:00

A friend once asked me if I had a bad experience with church, trying to understand my disdain for religion in general. That simple question has stuck with me and I think I've mentioned it before. The reality is I was forced to go to church most sundays as a kid, I hated it and I fought against it but other than being boring it really was about as nice a church as one could hope for. I once asked the preacher how dinosaurs fit into the whole 7 day creation story, and he simply told me that it didn't necessarily mean 7 24 hour days, AKA it's not literal so don't worry about it. Even as a child I knew enough about the age of the earth that if he had tried to take the fundie route my battles with my mother would have had gas thrown on the fire. But it wasn't that kind of church, the lesbian couple had their child baptized there, the church was "open and affirming" and proud of its history as a party of the underground railroad. We imagined what it must have been like as we wandered the slightly scary dirt floored basement, only upon our return to find out that this church was build later, the one that was part of the underground railroad was on the other side of the park... Oh and I recently heard that the Beecher family that was long ago a part of the church was the Beecher family as in Harriet Beecher Stowe. Why do I give this little history lesson?

The truth is my experience with the church actually tempers my anger with religion, I've been to a mission in Guatemala that really and truly helped make people's lives better, otherwise I'd be even more angry about what goes on in this world in the name of religion. And that's a problem. I'm quite sure that there are a great many moderate people of faith who's own generally positive experiences with faith lead them to not blame religion when a crazy person invokes god while saying some crazy shit, or worse yet otherwise fairly intelligent people will listen to and even respect the word of a crazy person because they are a "man of the cloth." Guess what I'm legally an ordained minister myself does that make me an expert on a fucking thing? No, but it does mean I can legally perform marriages!

What all of this is getting at is that if a crazy person kills a doctor that crazy person should go to jail. And everyone should be outraged, if another crazy person says they had been hoping that doctor would be killed they should be watched carefully. If said crazy person then goes on to say they're also hoping the president will die and that the president is actually part of a conspiracy that killed the original doctor in order to advance his agenda then that person should be watched very very closely, by the secret service. (I'm too big a believer in freedom of speech to lock him up for that but maybe a little chat would be ok) Unfortunately because the guy is a pastor claiming he wants the president dead is just fine, and he can shout all the crazy he wants because their are millions of reasonable people of faith who shield these psycho's usually without even realizing it.

A "perverted notion of honour"

2009-06-09T14:14:00.001-04:00

Sad story. Sure the murderer will be in jail for life but that doesn't bring the victims back.

Classic Henry Rollins

2009-06-09T11:04:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine just reminded me of this old video and I laughed so here it is...
Henry Rollins Letter to Ann Coulter

"Ghetto Loans"

2009-06-09T10:06:00.002-04:00

Great article from the NY Times about Wells Fargo's business practices and the federal lawsuit that is accompanying those practices. The company in its words had an "emerging-market unit" or as the employees who were more honest about their racism called it, "ghetto loans" for "mud people." I will say that I need to assume anyone using the term mud people was just a racist in their own right and the company shouldn't really be judged on that. But the rest of the shit they can, so fuck 'em.

Fuck Oprah

2009-06-08T13:07:00.002-04:00

I generally don't care what she has to say but she has a frightening amount of influence so it's very important that she doesn't give harmful advice. Sadly she has been known to give some very bad advice and Newsweek of all places took her to task for it. I'm not usually a fan but this was a great article.

Dr. Tiller

2009-06-08T12:48:00.002-04:00

I know I'm late with this, hey I was on vacation I tend to ignore the news and assume that the worlds been here a long time and it can take care of itself for a week, I was sorta right.

I'm not going to get into what happened, you already know, a Doctor was murdered by a psycho because he performed abortions. But I wanted to put up this link to the Rude Pundit who shares an e-mail sent to him by a person who at one time volunteered at Dr. Tiller's clinic and who was familiar with the deranged individual who killer the Doctor. The basic point is that yes this man was insane, but someone was with playing him like a marionette and just as important as bringing the killer to justice is to bring the person, or persons, who lead Mr. Roeder to do this.

Supreme Court Still Sucks

2009-06-08T12:42:00.002-04:00

And don't expect the new nominee to fix that. The latest one is that they have said it's ok to discriminate against gays in the military. I wonder if these same justices would have upheld a segregated army? It was the same reasoning, "rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion."

Good to be Home

2009-06-08T12:27:00.002-04:00

I had a wonderful time on vacation, went to Tucson for my cousins wedding. It was a wonderful reception, the ceremony itself was a freaking catholic mass type wedding to you can pretty much assume correctly my thoughts about that. Then we headed north to Sedona, which is spectacular. Well the area itself is wonderful, I had a very hard time trying to come up with a redeeming feature for the town itself.... smooth road. I rented a nice road bike (bicycle) one day so the roads did matter. We also checked out some huge hole in the ground.... the grand something. Although as cool as that was, and I'd love to go back so I could hike it, in many ways Sedona was even more picturesque. The Grand Canyon is just too big, Sedona you look at a red rock and think hey, I wanna climb that, and then you go climb it. At the Canyon it's like hey thats cool, and if you're good you can get there in two days.... oh.

But there has been quite a bit of shit going on so I feel like talking about the world instead of myself.

Bike v. Dog

2009-05-27T11:22:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I was riding in the pouring rain when I heard an odd noise, looked back to see a very excited looking pit-bull closing in on me, OH SHIT!

He wasn't a real tall dog but he looked pretty damn muscular, his face had more of an "I wanna play" look than an "I wanna kill" but if he gets caught up in my spokes I'm still going down really hard so I didn't want to find out how he likes to play. Instead I stomped on them petals for all I was worth and we raced, it was tense for about a block and then I started pulling away, he tried to keep up but stumbled at one point and knew he lost so he peeled off and I kept going, didn't want to give him any ideas of trying again.

-A quick word about Pit Bulls-

I'm not a dog person, I'm generally not a huge fan of pets, love animals just prefer them wild. But I think pit-bulls get a bad wrap quite often and I don't want to contribute to that. Suppose I could have told this story without mentioning the breed at all but I'll be honest and say that because of the stigma with pits it makes the story more impressive. Like I said, I don't think the dog meant me harm, I think he just wanted to play and I didn't want to play at 20 mph. I'm saying this because the only two dogs I'm in regular contact with are both pits, one is pretty much the chillest dog ever. He's probably 60 lbs and the only thing I don't like about him is that he started licking a lot, and that annoys me. He is also quite aggressive toward other dogs which I've been told is a legitimate issue with the breed, but I'm not a dog so I don't care. (I've also been told pits aren't a true breed, but breeds are totally arbitrary anyway, they're all the same species so whatever) The same friends also have another pit that they estimate around 100 lbs, mostly muscle. This one was basically a rescue dog and so it does have some bad behaviors that they are still trying to break him of, I blame him for teaching the other dog to lick all the time. But his biggest problem is really just that he doesn't know his strength and craves attention. He spent much of his first years in a crate so this is understandable. The dog itself though is just happy and stupid, he just wants to play and be friends with everyone, and lick. It's hard to fault a creature for that. Anyway all I'm saying is that yes, Pits are very strong dogs and can be taught to be very dangerous, but they have to be taught to be mean and they aren't mean by default. So don't hate on 'em, at least not any more than other dogs.... I'm not realizing that I'm being hypocritical because their are breeds I generally detest, chihuahuas and pugs come to mind, although I don't hate pugs, I hate people who own pugs and whoever spent time to breed a creature into existence based on their person view of "cute" at the expense of the dog being able to breath. Plus they're fucking ugly but thats just preference. Chihuahuas are just annoying and highly temperamental. Thats probably enough about dogs.

3/4ths the man I used to be

2009-05-27T10:38:00.003-04:00

So we've been doing a "biggest loser" competition at work. For the first like 2 of the 3 months I lost like 3 lbs, but I was biking a lot and it was clear that I was turning fat into muscle so despite not losing much mass I was still pretty happy. And then like a sprint at the end of a race the weight has been falling off this month and I'm down about 10 more. We're doing it by percentage for the same obvious reasons as the show so I've lost 6.79% in three months. I was hoping to get under 200 but I knew all along that wasn't terribly reasonable. I will be under 200 before this summer is out. More impressively I've lost 63 lbs total, which is 23%. So this song is half-way true.

I was never a big STP fan, and I generally don't like lethargic music but I still always liked that song. Then again I really don't like Radiohead and yet I like this song too, thought of it cause it got the same name -Creep.

Hating on the Media

2009-05-26T15:55:00.002-04:00

Yeah I know everyone busts on the media, but I'm not sure if this says more about the media or about the people who read it. Yahoo had four news stories on their home page, Cali upholding the (unconstitutional) ban on gay marriage, something about hockey (maybe?), something about about Jon and Kate (I think they have a reality show, the ones with the kids but not that other lady with all the kids that looks like angelina jolie but really doesn't) and Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. Which one of the four was the one featured?.... The reality show. I don't hate the media, I hate people because that probably is the most popular of them. So yeah I hate people, with a few exceptions. If you're reading this, you MIGHT be one of them.

No Death by Willful Ignorance

2009-05-26T15:52:00.003-04:00

The kid is in the hospital, he's still going to have a pretty shitty time but he's got a good chance to live. PZ has more, albeit not a lot more.

Sucks to be poor

2009-05-21T15:58:00.002-04:00

I only read the first page of this, the high cost of poverty, ran outta time and I want to read it later.

Basically it's showing how the poor get fucked over and over again.

Death By Willful Ignorance

2009-05-21T14:02:00.002-04:00

It might seem like I'm unduly harsh towards religion quite regularly. If religion was just a harmless sham then I would agree that my attacks are unwarranted, but religion is NOT harmless. Case in point, Daniel Hauser, has been sentenced to a horribly painful death from Hodgkins lymphoma by his loving mother. I'm not using the term loving sarcastically and thats what makes it all the worse. I have every reason to think that his mother loves him and wants whats best for him, but because of her religious views what she considers the best for him is for god to protect him rather than let doctors help him. Even before this disease his mother's views had already done harm to him. He was home schooled and apparently reading wasn't considered important at that education facility.

PZ is angry about this too.

The Gitmo Boys

2009-05-21T11:30:00.002-04:00

So as you probably know Obama wants to close Gitmo, for what should be obvious reasons, unfortunately they still haven't resolved what to do with the prisoners until their trials. I want them to come to New York. We have a Maximum security prison in my town that I would be more than comfortable having these guys at. (actually we have two but Southport is more secure than the hill although they did recently increase security their after a couple guys escaped, I don't think anyone has ever gotten out of southport) Unfortunately it's not a federal prison so it probably can't happen. But we have federal prisons in this state and I think it would be perfect if NY the site of 9/11 was the one state that steps up and says we're not scared of them, and despite the fact that these men may have had something to do with the attack on our state we still think they deserve to be treated humanely. Then again the humanity of a super-max can probably be questioned seeing as the isolation there is quite extreme as well. I've been told that Southport is locked-down 23 1/2 hours a day, the prisoners getting half an hour to walk in the "yard" which is basically a somewhat larger room without a roof. But thats getting into a much bigger question about our legal system when right now we just need to worry about the issue at hand.

If we really want to be symbolic we should send them to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. It's tough enough to handle Bernie Madoff I'm sure it can handle people driven insane at Gitmo.

I'd be curious to hear a good reason against bringing them to NY. I personally already e-mailed Gov Paterson telling him that as a New Yorker I'd be proud to show the strength of our state by bringing those who (maybe) attacked us, and treating them like people. That is real strength.

More Military Intelligence

2009-05-20T11:47:00.002-04:00

I think this story is pretty self-explanatory. Guy is a damn good fighter pilot, plenty of awards and shit. Now he's training the next generation of pilots here in the US, We've spent about $25 million on his training. He's about to get kicked out for a pretty heinous crime, he admitted he was gay. Seems like a good plan doesn't it? I'd like to see every homosexual member of the military come out at once. Can our military really stand to lose a significant percentage of its fighting force right now? Even if it's 1% that would be a serious problem for them. As much as I dislike the military my point obviously isn't to cripple our military it is to force them to take a long hard look at their policies and decide if they can afford to keep it. I think this would force the military to abandon don't ask don't tell.

They should pick a significant day, maybe November 27th - the day Harvey Milk was murdered. Or if they want to do it sooner, Milk's birthday is May 22nd.

So what do you say? May 22nd every gay soldier comes out of the closet. It's not mass desertion, it's a simple protest against a stupid law.

Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)

2009-05-20T11:37:00.003-04:00

More like Sofa King, as in Sofa King We Todd Id.

Iraq: Get out of our cities by June 30th.

US: Fine.
Oh and btw, Baghdad isn't a city, at least not the part with the US military bases.

Iraq: (cough) Assphinctersayswhat?

US: What?

Iraq: Hehe. Uh yeah I guess you guys can keep doing whatever you please in our "free" country.

US: Ya damn right.

Oh why do they hate our freedom? And why the fuck is Obama allowing this. They want us out, lets get out. Maybe we can't fully pull out in six weeks, although I bet we could if we wanted to. But we could at least honor what they have asked for and get out of the cities.

Still Slackin

2009-05-19T14:07:00.002-04:00

What? You still check this shit even though I haven't written anything in a week? Thats very sweet of you. For your patience I'll give you links to some insanity.

A Softer World

Overqualified

And right now I'm exhausted cause I didn't sleep last night. Ugh. Oh and I need a new book. I'm going on vacation and I have some long ass layovers. Any recommendations?

TV worth watching

2009-05-12T11:03:00.000-04:00

Sounds like The History Channel has some cool shit coming up.

Slackin

2009-05-12T10:04:00.002-04:00

Yeah I've been pretty busy lately. Sorry folks. Still really don't have much to say. Although I did recently remember how much I like the band "The Vandals." If you don't know them I highly recommend them, well as long as you like happy punk rock. This is quite possibly the happiest song ever, called I Have a Date. Although they do have one song thats about as depressing as any I've ever heard, seriously don't watch this if you're depressed, especially at christmas time, which it's not.

Beyond that... I don't have much to say. Finals are this week. Birthday was last weekend. 27 woohoo.

State of the Nation

2009-05-06T10:30:00.002-04:00

I haven't had much to say lately, so just read some Rudeness instead.

Here's where we stand as a nation: Right now, it is more likely that someone or some entity will be punished for the split-second exposure of Janet Jackson's naked titty during the 2004 Super Bowl than for authorizing the torture of detainees at our prison in Guantanamo Bay.

It's sad 'cause its true.

Mo Bike Shit

2009-04-29T15:22:00.002-04:00

Not really much to say, other than that the weather is perfect right now. Well that and I wanted to toss up a couple of links to some sites.

No Drive, Just Ride and Fat Cyclist

Crazy People On Bikes

2009-04-29T14:01:00.001-04:00

Does look fun... if you ignore the possibility of severe bodily injury

UPDATE: Somewhat different type of crazy... the first tiny bit is kinda lame, but then it gets good.

Swine Flu - the other white death

2009-04-29T09:50:00.004-04:00

Unless this turns into a pandemic this will probably be the last time I mention this. Lets do a quick comparison.

Swine Flu death toll approx 160 world wide, 1 in the US
Regular Flu 13,000 dead this year in the US

(UPDATE) Shit.. this story just won't die, just like swine flu victims. According to the WHO (World Health Organization - not the band) only 7 people have been confirmed to have died by swine flu.

(Another Update) The WHO had me feeling better yesterday, today not so much.

Torture Memo's

2009-04-28T14:29:00.002-04:00

I've been quiet about this because I haven't read them yet, now it's looking like I probably won't, at least not any time soon. I'm fairly busy and I just really don't expect to find anything I hadn't already assumed. So for my fill of outrage I've got my old buddy, The Rude Pundit. He's been pretty active talking about this, and the latest one is a bit of a surprise. He quotes someone from the National Review Online who was a bush supporter and defended illegal wiretapping and shit. But even they can see this goes to far. Here's the quote,

"I personally believe torture is wrong. We shouldn't do it. Even if it means me, my husband, and my two sons get blown up. Seriously, if I had to choose I'd say: Death is common to us all; torture is a choice."

I couldn't agree more, even if I don't have kids, or a husband....

Arlen Specter (D-PA)

2009-04-28T13:24:00.003-04:00

Yeah that's right. D-PA!!! Arlen Specter, Republican since 1966 just gave the democratic party the 60 votes they needed to break republican filibusters. Well they'll have the sixty as soon as that SOB stops trying to prevent Al Franken.

Which reminds me, we really need to go back to the old rules of filibustering, you know where the old gas bags actually had to get up and talk for hours on end. Now they just say, "uh hey by the way we're filibustering, so don't plan on accomplishing anything." Then they would actually have to suffer a little in order to be obstructionists.

Bacon Flu

2009-04-28T10:20:00.001-04:00

The tastiest way you'll ever die.
Then again if you want some real info about the current situation go here.

Darfur Protests

2009-04-27T16:35:00.002-04:00

Where 5 US Lawmakers were arrested!

The arrested lawmakers are Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, John Lewis of Georgia, Donna Edwards of Maryland and Lynn Woolsey of California.

You all just won my vote.... even though I can't actually vote for any of them.

Decriminalization

2009-04-27T16:26:00.001-04:00

Just a neat story from Time about decriminalization of drugs in Portugal. BTW, it's working.

More biking

2009-04-27T13:27:00.002-04:00

So it decided to get hot out this weekend. Friday is was perfect out so I decided to try to ride to corning, which I thought was like 18 miles but just checked the almighty google and found that it's only 12.8 from door to door. Unfortunately I didn't make it to the second door. I stopped into a bar thats 2/3rds of the way there, had some lunch, hopped back on the bike feeling refreshed go for a minute and BANG Thhhh..... Popped a tire. I called a few people but no one was around so I started walking, I had probably covered five or six miles before a friend was able to come get me on her lunch break. So I went back to the bike shop and got a new tire put on. I went with the more puncture resistant tire, hopefully I won't have to worry about it anytime soon. But it does mean that my tires don't match.

On the positive side I can feel the difference in my legs, can even see the difference. So assuming I don't have anymore flats, I'm prepared now so it probably wont happen, I'm really liking the whole no car thing. Just wish the laundromat was a bit closer, not quite sure how I can do that on my bike, either tiny loads or I walk. It is only like 6 blocks. Like I said so far so good with the biking and at this rate my legs are going to be diesel by the end of the summer, hell by the end of next month.

Earth Day

2009-04-22T13:40:00.005-04:00

Ok this has nothing to do with earth day but I guess its fitting, I bought a new bike. I'm a sucker. I bought the Bowery.

I'm brand new to this so I have basically zero experience to base this off of but damn that bike is quick. I've only gone on a couple five minute rides, one was a test drive and the other way back to work, but wow. As a kid it was the mountain bike craze so I had one, actually I still have that bike, and then I bought that cruiser. I also had a BMX bike that I won which was my first bike that was actually mine. So I've never been on a quick bike before. I will say that I didn't spend MSRP on it, but it wasn't cheap so I really hope I like it. And if my folks read this, yeah I know I could have insured the car for quite a while for what I just spent, but I just really want to go without a car for a little while.

I'll also say that now I'm going to have to buy a helmet, damn. They are fucking ugly. With my slow ass beach cruiser bike I wasn't too worried about crashing. It was slow, a bit of chrome, and an upright seating that easily allowed me to look back to check traffic. This one isn't leaned over like a racing bike, but its far more leaned over than I'm used to, it's flat gray, and will actually go fast enough that I don't want to crash. Plus I'd be willing to go down a hill on this one, the coaster brake on the other was so bad that I was as worried about going down the hills as I was going up them, albeit for different reasons.

I'm a little nervous about the seat, it seems awfully little compared to my ass. It wasn't noticeably uncomfortable, but I've only ridden it for very short runs. New seats are pretty cheap. So are petals which I've been told are pretty flimsy on this model. Some people don't like the handle bars, I've laughed at how many people have mentioned swapping the straight bars for drops or drops for straight. It's available either way, why not just buy the model and not bother with the swap, maybe they like one paint job over the other.

So I have new toy and I'm just a tall little kid, I want to ride bike. I really don't want to be stuck behind this computer.

Bikes

2009-04-21T11:09:00.002-04:00

I recently picked up a cheap-ass bicycle at first it was just for fun and exercise, then it became something of a necessity as I no longer have a car. It's actually a little more complex than that but thats the part that matters. It's starting to get really nice out so right now I really don't mind at all. Actually I'm enjoying it. To the point that I kind of want to pick up a decent bike now. The one I got is this P.O.S. as you can see it's an $80 bike a wally world, I later read a review that said as cheap as it is, it's such a pile it's still not worth it. I only paid 50 from a pawn shop so I don't mind. Then again it's practically brand new and I've already had to tear it apart a bit. Was making gnarly noises. I love the old school cruiser style, so I thought maybe something like this would be cool.But then I started reading about some other bikes and realized that if I'm actually going to use this as transportation I should probably worry more about practicality and less about style. Bikes are more specialized than I realized. I don't want like a full on racing style bike, or a ten speed as we called them when I was a kid, not really sure why ten was the common number of gears on those bikes. I'm not ready to rock the spandex just yet, plus they're fucking expensive. I also kind of want to stick with a single speed. They're cheaper and a much better workout. Read something from an old school guy saying how great fixed gear bikes are (I'm not that hardcore) and one thing he mentioned was how gears are like cheating. If you hit a hill with a geared bike it makes it possible to get up the hill easier, and slower. With a single speed you just have to stand up and take it. I realized what he meant as I came up to one of our bridges, which are steeper than I ever noticed before, and there was a guy on a bike ahead of me. He clicked down a few gears and just kept pedaling along, I had to stand up and get up as quick as I could before I run out of wind at the top of the hill at which point my heart is racing and I'm nearly sweating no matter what the temperature is. If I could afford it I think this would be quite perfect, ok so its got gears, but it also has a belt instead of a chain which seems like a really good idea to me. Unfortunately the MSRP is damn near a grand so thats out. They do also make a single speed and it is a shit load cheaper, but still outta my range. They have this one at the local bike shop, and I thought there was a way lower price on it. I might go take it for a test ride this afternoon. They only deal with Giant and Trek so I'm looking at the cheapest bikes from those two companies... I'm reading a lot of reviews but I guess what I really need to do is just pedal my ass down to the bike shop in a few minutes and try a few out.

The Food Safety Modernization Act

2009-04-15T13:14:00.002-04:00

Is seriously fucked. It would basically make it so that the only crops you could legally grow would be government regulated ones, and they would have to be sprayed with certain pesticides and use certain fertilizers. It would technically be illegal to even save the seeds from you're own plants and use them next year, but realistically they can't patrol that shit. It does mean wave goodbye to all organic veggies in you're grocery store. No more picking strawberries or blueberries from the local stand. There might still be farmers markets, but what would be the point?

Basically Monsanto is pissed because of the whole organic food movement, it does imply that organic food is healthier and safer, which of course means non-organic food is less safe and less healthy. Not to mention they can't sell chemicals to organic growers, or at least not as much.

Shit. I ran out of time. I really wanted to work up a good rant about this even though I don't grow a damn thing myself. I guess my favorite argument was that Michelle Obama's garden at the white house she's been showing off would be illegal. Oh and fuck monsanto.

Audacity of Hope

2009-04-13T14:01:00.002-04:00

I guess Obama was right when he named his book Audacity of Hope, it is audacious to hope to expect real change from within our political structure. I tried not to set my expectations for Obama too high, and I think I kept my hopes tempered with reality, but he has failed, miserably, at something that it didn't even occur to me e could fail at. He wanted to close Guantanamo, he was going to restore due process, Habeas Corpus and all that good stuff. Those were campaign promises that I really expected him to keep. Make this a country of laws again, but now he is making me question if even this relatively easy promise is not going to be kept. He is appealing a court ruling that says their must be judicial oversight for detained persons. Where did those damn activist judges get such an idea?

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Maybe thats where.

He is also apparently trying to make it illegal to sue the government for illegally wiretapping, unless the government then makes the wiretapped info public, then you can sue. For some reason it seems to me that this issue was already settled... again by the founding fathers.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I don't think I'm asking to much for my president to fulfill his campaign promises (ok maybe that is too much), obey the law, and uphold his oath of office. His sworn duty is of course to uphold the constitution, right now I'm not impressed.

I should say that I wouldn't normally use Jesus General as a source, it is satire. But it was the first place I heard about this and now I'm doing some more searching. Washington Independent has some info, but it's tricky cause many on the left don't want to go after Obama yet while the right can't go after him for trying to continue with what the shrub started. But I've always been a particularly harsh critic towards those I like (higher expectations) so I feel no need to not take Obama to task for tis shit.

Superstring Theory

2009-04-09T09:19:00.002-04:00

I'm not a physicist, not even close. I am tempted to learn more math just so I can try to wrap my mind a little further around some of the theories out there. At this point though I'm stuck reading the popularizations, I read "Search for Schrödinger's Cat" a while back and now I'm working on "The Elegant Universe." Ironically I bought both of these at a local used book store, thats not ironic, what is ironic is the fact that it's run by fairly fundamentalist christians. I always wondered why the christian section was right at the front of the store, the science being all the way at the back, then again its a very small store. I found out for sure when I ran into a co-worker, the fundie one, and she was talking to the owners, who go to her church. Ah... Anyway back to the shit that matters.

String theory. Crazy shit. Then again once you understand the old theory (and I'm only half sure I do) it isn't that weird. The old theory was that everything is made of 0-dimensional points. That alone is pretty much impossible for me to really grasp. How can it exist yet have no dimensions? So string theory say's no everything is made of one dimensional things, seeing as their one dimensional, they're string like. Of course then these one dimensional strings turn into loops yet somehow that doesn't count as two dimensions. (?) For whatever reason I can just smile and nod through these parts.

The biggest problem I had with it, and again maybe I'm reading it totally wrong not to mention I'm only halfway through the book, is this. Ok everytime we find out that our elementary elements were wrong there was more than one thing below. We thought Atoms were the smallest thing for a long time. Then we found out that all the different types of atoms are made of various combinations of just three things, atoms proton and neutrons. The simplest of which of course has one electron and one proton, the other end has 92 electrons 92 protons and 146 neutrons, ok some get even bigger but on earth uranium is as big as you can expect to find. you get the point anyway. Well then we found out that protons and neutrons aren't even elementary elements, they can be crushed further into several types of quarks. Same book different chapter, neutrons are one arrangement of quarks and protons are a different arrangement, if I recall right each is made of three quarks. So then it's supposed to be a few orders of magnification later and we find strings. And what I had assumed was that considering I've previously heard that the difference in size between an atom and a string is about the same as the difference between an atom and the galaxy. So logically, and I guess I should by now know that what we consider logical on the macro scale has no meaning at this point, I was expecting a whole shit load of strings to make up a quark. Or at least a few. And with all the uncertainty stuff I was expecting all the strings in each quark to being doing its own thing at any given time and only by canceling each other out and does it average out to what we see as a quark. On the up side, reading this stuff does give you the opportunity to say Quark a lot, and Quark is probably the most amusing word to say that I've ever said. You know you want to. Just say it out loud a few times wherever you are, Quark Quark Quark. Nah bitch I'm not a duck don't be simple, this is cutting edge science I'm talking about... try not to giggle at any point in there.

Oh so my problem other than getting funny looks by people who think I have a fetish for ducks is that the book claims there is just one string. Now I realized a long time ago that the entire universe is made up of alomst nothing, but damn. Thats a whole lot of nothing. Again I very well might be reading this wrong, it was fairly late and my brain was probably a little fried after reading half the book yesterday. But if my conclusion is right that would mean that an atom the size of the galaxy is made up of just a like a dozen atom sized strings... Like I said, damn, thats a lot of nothing. I should probably just go ask someone who knows about this shit. I might have to drop a question over at Bad Astronomy.

Post-Christian Culture

2009-04-08T10:21:00.002-04:00

I think I like this guy R. Albert Mohler Jr. He's the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, yeah an unlikely ally I realize, but check this out.

The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western...

OH... wait. He thinks this is a bad thing. You can go check out the article over at newsweek. It's pretty good. It of course focuses on the 10% decline in self identified christians along with the doubling of unaffiliated folks. Mentions that atheists have quadrupled, I like that it then points out there are twice as many atheists as episcopalians, hehe. Being a cynical bastard I can't help but get a chuckle out of this part either.

many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world."

That seems about right, church works best if it's separated from the world. When it's forced to interact with reality if often come across as a bit kooky.

Oh and this is why you have to love editors. Here's what it says in the article.

Let's be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated.

Just one little problem, the name of the article is "The End of Christian America." Then again I did read the article because of it's title so I guess there's two sides to that.

More good shit.

The orthodox tend to try to live their lives in accordance with the general behavioral principles of the Bible (or at least the principles they find there of which they approve)

So true. I'm not done reading this but one thing I have to say is that the author notes that conservative religion is gaining ground while religion as a whole is losing, but doesn't draw the connection between them. The moderate religious folks aren't confrontational, they don't challenge science or try to push their views on others. They're more open to asking questions instead of unquestioned obedience. It's that expectation of unquestioned obedience that has probably driven many from the flock and into the realm of simply "spiritual" there is some sort of higher power looking down on me and thats all I need to know. Those that approve of the unquestioned obedience also tend to want to clash with science. They think they will win because they have a really old book. They simply can't understand that it's a battle they cannot win. You can be sworn into court on a bible but thats about the extent to which it has any sway. They don't seem to understand that courts are about evidence, and so are scientists. Which make sense considering both are looking for the truth in a complex world. Also explains why they use somewhat similar methodology. Science works by coming up with a hypothesis then trying to prove it wrong. In the court each side lays out its story and the other side tries to prove it wrong. Yeah thats and over simplification of both but you get the idea. The point is that science is really good at defending it's theories, thats how they became theories in the first place. If a hypothesis couldn't withstand the most brutal skepticism it wouldn't be a theory and sure wouldn't be in a text book. Religion on the other hand, especially the religion of unquestioned obedience is by definition not used to being cross examined and therefore does not hold up very well. So if religion wants to stay relevant it should really avoid attacking science. The last third of the article is about how religion should stay out of the political arena too which is probably good advice. Although I hate to admit it but if they want to push through some stupid shit they'd be much better off trying to do it through legislation than the courts. Courts require evidence, Legislation only requires a majority of like minded people. But they blew that chance. I could probably continue but I've lost my train of thought and it's lunch time, priorities man. Just one last thing. I'm so glad the author included this line.

Religious doubt and diversity have, however, always been quintessentially American.

Starts with a Bang

2009-04-07T10:01:00.001-04:00

New Astrophysics Blog, Starts with a Bang. Lord PZ told me to check it out and obviously we must obey. Actually at first glance it seems interesting, although the profile pic is a little creepy.

The Warm Embrace of Apathy

2009-04-07T09:09:00.002-04:00

So things are over between Marque and I. I saw it coming but I still expected myself to go into one of my little emo slumps I usually go into after being rejected, the weird thing is I didn't. Probably because I went into that slump while trying to save our budding relationship and it was so damn stressful that when I just made the decision to stop talking to her, and if she wants to then for once she can be the one to initiate contact, it was kind of a relief. She was great and I think her crazy could have been a nice compliment to my own, but I was just never important enough to her. So thats that.

Since then I met Lois that I mentioned before, haven't seen her since but she's an interesting prospect. Shit I'm not even entirely sure that she's single.

I've hung out with another gal that I had a think for quite a while back, unfortunately she then dated my roommate who was, er is, a womanizing scumbag so she's always been tainted in my head since then. So thats a long shot. Maybe it's fucked up of me to be that judgmental. Then again you trying having a crush on a chick then not seeing her for a while only to come home and find her on your couch with your junkie (ok he was actually clean still at that point, otherwise he wouldn't have been my roommate) roommate. Thanks for twisting that knife while you pull it outta my spine.

And then I was sort of mean to someone who is playing the role I usually do. The old study partner. She really likes me but I'm just not interested in her. We didn't talk for a while after she left for school, then she started texting me again. This saturday I was bored as hell and she kept asking me to come up to her school. So at damn near midnight I said fuck it and headed up there. I didn't realize just how far away it was. About 2:30 I got there. I drank too much once I got there. Damn DOD (delayed onset drunkenness). She always wants too fool around but it never goes too terribly far. Unfortunately every time we do she gets renewed ideas and then I get awkward messages the next day. As I've said before, for once being on this side of things has shown me why desperation is a turn off. Anyway I really need to stop doing anything with her, its just not fair to her.

My only real concern is that when I go back into apathetic mode it's often accompanied by the resurgence of Blackout Kilgore, and that guy is an asshole.

At Least 13 Dead

2009-04-03T14:19:00.002-04:00

There is has been a shooting in Binghamton, it's about an hour up the road from me, where the initial reports are that 13 people are dead. I have no snarky jonke to go with this. It's going on right now.

Subtle take on the Vaccine Issue

2009-04-03T12:43:00.001-04:00

The Jenny McCarthy Body Count
Yup.
Pretty much says it all in the title.

Attack of the Human-Animal Hybrids!

2009-03-31T10:10:00.004-04:00

Just caught this over at Punk Ass Blog, it comes from an old Bush quote

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms; creating or implanting embryos for experiments; creating human-animal hybrids; and buying, selling or patenting human embryos.

I never realized just how stupid it was before. At first to a laymen like myself it sounds stupid because I highly doubt anyone is trying to create super-humans by mixing DNA in a way that would give Hitler a chubby. Then I feel stupid when I find out that the real reason the quote is so bad is because we've been doing this for years and you know what one of the major products produced from human-animal hybrids is? Insulin. Yup that shit thats keeping thousands of people alive everyday is created by sticking some human DNA into E. coli bacteria. This is another example of why it's so exciting to have a president who actually give a shit about Science again.

To be fair, Chimera's can get tricky and we probably should be careful with how far we take it. There will always be people who want to push the limits, do shit just to see if it can be done and sometimes maybe it is appropriate to head them off before they go too far. Again thats why having a government that knows what it's talking about is so important.

Oh and this shouldn't be confused with Chimaira, that shit should be wiped out of existence with all deliberate speed. What can I say I don't like metal.

V Day

2009-03-30T09:10:00.002-04:00

Went to my first Vagina Monologue this weekend. It was a blast. Ok yeah its obviously not all fun and games, there are some truly horrifying stories told during the event, but they're mixed in with fun skits like the angry vagina and the one my friend did which was the moans. Then a bunch of us went to a bar on Market St. If you're ever in Corning you have to go to Market St. It's a throwback to what downtowns used to be like. Then we go hungry and went across the street for some pizza and eventually down to another bar where our numbers had dwindled down to just the fun people. This is when it really got interesting. Their was a good band playing and quite a bit of dancing. One girl that came with us, I'll call her Lois, was a riot. She dances more than I do, she's actually an occasional belly dancer, and she's fun. If you need more proof, she does roller derby. Roller derby? So yeah I'm looking forward to seeing her again. Oh and while Marque hasn't officially broken things off with me we've barely spoke lately and I'm done pushing it. If she wants to make it work then we will see but I'm not going to drive myself insane pursuing her anymore.

So back to the weekend. Having fun, listening to some tunes, dancing, drinking, and general merriment. I was DD, gave Lois and a particularly drunken lady a ride, first to drunk lady's house where we chatted for a bit and sipped a few of her beers. Then dropped Lois at her car and the three of us went on home. Oh that would be my friend that was in the Vagina Monologues and her husband. She was pretty tanked herself. Anyway, good times were had. Hopefully I'll have more to tell about Lois at some point, were probably going back to corning next weekend to see the band again, maybe my friend will invite her....

Prayer Can Kill

2009-03-25T09:52:00.002-04:00

Tis guy just got sentenced to 10 years in jail because he prayed people to death. Did he put a curse on them? Nope those don't work. No he cursed them by asking a non-existent sky daddy to save himself and others rater than deal with the situation himself. Oh it's probably important to point out that the situation was that the guy was the pilot of a plane that was going down. He could have aimed for a nearby airport but instead he decided to pray and when the non-existent sky daddy didn't save them it was too late. He and the Co-pilot were convicted of manslaughter. You can argue that this is harsh, he did the best he could and didn't come out on top. The problem is that at the critical moment he gave up, he handed over command and because he panicked people died. I was a pilot at 14, my engine couldn't go out because I didn't have one. But I flew solo at 14 and I knew the one thing you could never do was panic. You have to take control of the situation. I remember the first time I got a little ballsy, probably 15 then, and ventured further than I should have. I really wasn't sure if I was going to make it back to the airport. Did I panic? Did I freak out? No. Was I scared shitless? Absolutely. But I did what I had been trained to do flew at the proper speed, best l/d plus a little because of a head wind, and did a reverse approach because I couldn't make it to the regular one. I had the emergency strip in mind if things got ugly. I was young and inexperienced but when shit happens you deal with it or you die. If you can't handle that don't be a pilot, and if you're a commercial pilot you accept that it's not just you that will die if you fuck up. If that guy who ditched into the Hudson's plane had snapped in two no one would have pressed charges. It still would have been clear that he did everything right. This guy failed at his job, and there are some jobs where you hold other peoples lives in your hands doing them and must face the consequences if you fail. Again the critical thing here is that at the most important moment in his life he gave up and there will always be consequences for that.

An Army of One

2009-03-25T09:31:00.002-04:00

I never understood how that was supposed to be a promotional tool for the Army, be all that you can be... in the army! Way better jingle. But it does seem rather prophetic as their is new indications of injured soldiers being mistreated. This time injured soldiers are simply telling brass that they would rather go back into combat than stay at the Ft. Bragg hospital. I'm not sure that you can give a worse review than that.

Which reminds me, one of my oldest friends is getting ready for deployment to Afghanistan. Good luck man.

Winning the Unwinnable War

2009-03-25T09:25:00.002-04:00

As this guy says, the only way to end the war on drugs is legalization. Period. He doesn't get into the effects of what would happen if drugs were suddenly legalized. One thing I've always pointed out is that if heroin was legal, most people still wouldn't want to try it cause its fucking heroin. I'm not going to suddenly start smoking crack just cause I won't get arrested for it. It wasn't the cops that kept me away from Meth, it was Meth and knowing what it does to people that kept me away. I like to think that this is true for most people, unfortunately I'm sure there are some folks who would be more willing to try shit if it wasn't illegal. The fact that you wouldn't have to deal with drug dealers is probably the thing that would cause the biggest increase in experimentation.

Dolphin Safe Tuna

2009-03-24T14:31:00.001-04:00

Wow just learned a bit about Dolphin safe Tuna. Sounds pretty shitty.

Rough Week

2009-03-24T14:17:00.002-04:00

Things were going great with Marque, then things got a bit more complicated this weekend. I'm not going to get into the details of it here but I'm not terribly happy with her right now. Theres two main problems. Not knowing what the situation is. And being lied to. The first is easily resolved, the second is going to take some time no matter what happens.

But to put things into perspective there's always this guy's story. He had the bad luck of being on a business trip in Hiroshima on August 6th 1945. He survived and was released from the hospital. By August 9th he was back home, in Nagasaki.... Yup the dude got nuked, twice. He's the only person so far certified to have survived both atomic bombs.

Unwinnable Wars

2009-03-19T16:17:00.002-04:00

I don't have time to write about this right now but I wanted to put this link up for later.
Mexico's Drug War

Cockpunching the Pope

2009-03-18T10:41:00.002-04:00

The pope said that condoms are making the AIDS situation worse in Africa. First off, never take sex advice from a celibate man thats like taking musical advice from a deaf person. The church is of course defending the popes comment. They're saying that it was taken out of context but that it is basically correct. According to that the pope didn't really say shit. Either way the official catholic stance on birth control and condoms in particular is killing people and no clarification can change that.

Cramer on The Daily Show

2009-03-17T11:17:00.002-04:00

If you haven't seen this yet then you're missing out. Jim Cramer the annoyingly loud guy on CNBC who tries to give stock advice apparently got caught up in a feud between Stewart and CNBC generally. Being a loud mouth he became the face of the feud even though it wasn't about him. Anyway Jon Steward takes him to task. Cramer comes in like a dog thats been kicked too much, tail between his legs before they even start. His humility is the only thing that saves him. He admits that he could and should have done more. Jon really is at the top of his game in this amazing interview. He clearly states what so many of us are feeling, and if you aren't feeling the way he describes then either you are someone who was part of the problem, or you aren't fully aware of what was going on.

Fuck AIG!

2009-03-17T11:05:00.003-04:00

Pretty self explanatory, the people directly responsible for creating massive wealth without producing anything while destabilizing the entire economy leading to the market collapse who's asses were then saved by people who's life savings were wiped out by said collapse were expecting the get a nice fat bonus check of our money for their diligence. The good news, Obama is pissed and Cuomo is coming after them. I'm not sure what they can do because due to the lack of any controls on the $170 billion we gave to AIG they may not have broken any laws at all. When criminals can legalize their activities we end up with vigilante justice. I'm not necessarily condoning vigilante justice but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it happened. I'd probably be happy if it did, which still isn't quite the same as saying I want it to happen. I'm clearly too soft to actually do any vigilante shit myself. Anyway I'm hoping that for this St. Patrick's day the Leprechauns get their gold taken away. Those mischievous little bastards.

UPDATE: WTF? Yo Obama there is a very very simple fucking answer to this. You're currently working on another $30 billion bailout to AIG, all you need to say fuck you're contracts that somehow require bonuses (is that still a bonus?) here are you're options. You take the $30 billion and not one upper level person sees a single cent above their salary, or you don't. With oversight that if bonuses are paid then we get at least the $30 Billion back, or if you really wanted to stick it to them say you want the entire $200 Billion back. If they are doing so well that their CEO's deserve bonuses for their good jobs then they obviously are doing well enough to pay back their debts.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

2009-03-17T10:15:00.002-04:00

Everyones Irish today! I've said this in years past but that phrase alone make this one of my favorite holidays, well that and the drinkin'. So drink some green beer or better yet some beer that you can't dye green, like Guinness. Irish car bombs are also highly recommended, the drink not the explosive.

F My Life

2009-03-17T09:55:00.002-04:00

Awesome website that's been absorbing my time the last two days. F my life. It's quite simple, people send in very short stories that show how their lives suck. They all start with "Today," and end with "FML" which is of course fuck my life.

Here's a quick example:
Today, my parents met my boyfriends parents for the first time. Bailing us out of jail.FML

I think you'll enjoy. Oh and cause I've been doing an econ test, this site is an example of network externalities. The more people that use it the better it becomes, just like dating sites or social networking sites.

Kids are Great

2009-03-16T10:30:00.002-04:00

Marque has a couple of awesome kiddo's. It was finally nice out this weekend so on sunday we took them park hoping, and to a St. Patrick's day parade. Marque and I sipped Guinness while sitting on the curb and the kids gathered up the candy being thrown. Probably the most random thing I've ever seen during a parade was when in with the firetrucks was a bread truck. An Italian Bread truck at that, we made a few jokes and then as it went past there were people handing out loafs of bread... Yup. It was cool, who doesn't need bread. But at the same time WTF? Who gives out loafs of italian bread at a St. Patrick's Day parade? I'd tell you that it was good bread at least except I gave to to the friend who's house we were sitting in front of. His hungover ass had gotten us folding chairs and stuff and it seemed like the nice thing to do.

I must admit that dating a mom, even a MILF, isn't exactly my ideal situation. It does make things far more complicated, it means that she need to take a lot more into account before things get serious. It means that she doesn't have much free time, it means that sometimes she wants to be the big spoon with one of her kids, instead of being my little spoon. Ya know what else it means?

I can go down the slide at the park without people thinking I'm weird. Awesome! I have no idea how long it's been since I've just been on a swing. I'm just a big kid and probably had more fun at the park than I should have. I was disappointed at my old school. While I was there we build a great wooden playground and they've really let it fall apart. One of the cooler things was gone, probably because some kid got hurt. Other stuff needed to be repaired. I guess they thought it was a better move to buy a new plastic playground and put it up on a different part of the school than to do some maintenance on the one that a lot of community member put a lot of effort into. I still have a minor scar from building that playground. Oh well. One thing that was interesting was under the modern playground they had shredded tires instead of stones or wood chips. Makes for a soft landing, does smell a bit though and I bet it's a lot worse when it's hot out.

Anyway we all had a blast. Like I said at the start of this she wants to take things slowly which I totally understand and respect, even if it sucks. But I was happy when she mentioned that one of her daughters referred to me as her boyfriend. So I asked if her daughter was right? "Probably" she said. Yeah I know thats not much to get excited about, but we haven't used that terminology yet and I'm a simple bastard. And I like her a lot. It was a great weekend and I'm looking forward to a summer full of many more weekends like it.

Oh almost forgot, we built a leprechaun trap for her older daughter. It was supposed to be a family project and it had to have at least one moving part, it is a trap after all. So my job was to take care of function and I'd let them worry about aesthetics. I made a very simple little trap and everyone was very excited that it actually worked. I think I also showed a little of my McGuiver when I realized we didn't have a drill, but it was a shitty little craft box so I just "drilled" the wood with a very small screwdriver. Then I realized the wire wasn't stiff enough and so I wanted a tube for it to run through. I took an old ball point pen, clipped off part of the ink tube, cleaned it out and viola! the trap worked. I thought it was pretty resourceful. I also thought it was cool because it was a family project and I was asked to help. I just got a text from her telling me they re-painted it and it looks great. Ugh, now I gotta go do some homework.

Ahhh

2009-03-13T12:46:00.003-04:00

UPDATE: This is rather incoherent.... It's supposed to say that I let myself get neurotic for a little bit but then I realized that I was being neurotic and I need to knock that shit off because things are going great with someone who makes me happy.

A friend wrote me quite an e-mail about some issues she's going through. I didn't really have an answer and basically responded with a rant of my own. Nah not a rant but a venting for sure. Then after stewing in it for a while I realized something important. The venting was about Marque, she's amazing but there is one issue that I can't seem to get out of my head. Then it hit me. Things have been going great and I'm just being myself. Our time together is laid back and fun. So why am I trying to push things now? Everything is going to turn out great so long as I just let things progress on their own. Not to mention the fact that I fall too quickly so I should expect it to feel like it's going too slowly. Plus it's not like she is in the simplest of spots and I respect that. She's too great to lose over something as petty as the pace of our relationship. Plus it sounds like it's going to be a nice weekend after all. She has the kids which sounds like the perfect ingredients for having some fun at a park or two. So ya, I need to stop thinking so much about shit and just let it happen. Which in every other part of my life is really easy for me to do.

Moral of the story. Things are going great, I'm very happy, and thats all I should be thinking about.

Hell of a Game

2009-03-13T11:06:00.002-04:00

Went to Marques last night. Watched Grey's Anatomy. Bit too melodramatic for me but thats ok, I spend half the time gazing at Marque anyway. Then we watched some spin off of it which was worse. Then we watched a basketball game, the last few hours of it anyway. Syracuse, Marque's team, beat UConn in what turned out to be one of the longest and closest games in college basketball history. 6 fucking overtimes! I'm not a big sports fan and we were half asleep by 1 am but wow it was an amazing game. I don't know how those guys were still standing let alone playing some tough ass basketball. What really sucks for them is that they have another game tonight.

More Good News

2009-03-10T11:48:00.002-04:00

(probably not worth reading the first paragraph)

I'm still trying to get used to not cringing when I hear about a new law being signed by the president. Seriously, I was a kid/teen through Clinton. The only reason I paid attention at all was because of a friends mom who I used to love to argue with. To be honest now I can't even remember which side she was on and which side I was on. She may have been the pro-Clinton one, I was (am) just a pain in the ass. So then I turned 18 and there was an election coming up. I shouldn't admit this but this RATM video had more influence on me than it probably should have. I remember driving home from college along with a friend who had already voted by absentee. I obviously couldn't vote for bush, but Gore just didn't impress me so I voted for Nader. The point of this, which could have been summed up in like two sentences, is that the entire time that I've paid attention to politics was under Bush, until recently of course. So yeah I've been well trained to expect the worst from my government.

So it's still a system shock to hear that the president is going to encourage scientific research. Specifically stem cell research. I don't think I really need to explain why this is freaking awesome. Using science to cure diseases has a pretty good track record, at least when you compare it to medical care prior to modern medicine. So while many are pissed at Obama because he doesn't have a magic wand to cure the economy he's doing what he can and to my utmost joy he isn't ignoring the other problems of the country. Speaking of which I see that in a move that not only makes me happy but is fairly shocking Obama is not trying to implement merit pay for teachers. Something the teachers union has been fighting for years. Why a concept paying people based on how good they are at their job. I haven't looked into this too deep but Obama clearly thinks that real education reform is critical, and I couldn't agree more. In another move that makes me smile Obama has also said they are going to "not rely on" the 1,200 signing statements that bush made. So they are going to follow the laws that congress wrote, not the ones bush wrote, sort of like how the constitution says its supposed to be. Fuckin' socialist.