Game Show Network seems to be the only worthwhile television for the time being, and that's even taking into account the coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. If I want reliable news, I'll go to the BBC. In the meantime I'll watch mind-bogglingly stupid contestants make fools of themselves on unmemorable game shows.
These shows are idiotic by design, and quite obviously so. The prime example is Deal or No Deal, a show where nothing substantial happens and greed overwhelms what little sense these contestants have. Oh god... having Greed flashbacks... Chuck Woolery... No! Agh! Get away from me!
Where was I? Ah! Deal or No Deal, the show where 26 samples of eye candy present the player with 26 cases labeled with meaningless numbers that you can pick in any order without affecting the outcome of the game in any way. Each case contains an amount of money (okay, a tile with the number of the prize money on it) ranging from one cent to $1 million, and the contestant gets to choose one, since choice is the foundation of American life. Once you do the math and acknowledge the logic behind the design of the game, it becomes clear that your choice of a case does not affect your odds of winning for or against you. Which nicely sums up the impact of your case choices for the remainder of the show. The game proceeds with the contestant choosing and opening the remaining 25 cases, eliminating the hope that their case contains any of the revealed amounts. In other words, once you choose your case, if you open the case with $1 million, you know for a fact that you've lost the top prize. Isn't this a nice game? It tells you in advance that you're a loser the moment you started. Most game shows will bullshit contestants into thinking they can win more money than they'll earn in their whole lives, even though it's made perfectly clear from the moment of their introduction that all contestants are hand-picked for their blithering idiocy. For entertainment value, you see. Folks at home want to feel smart by comparison.
Despite this, many contestants on Deal or No Deal proclaim with very obnoxious attitudes that their case is indeed the million dollar case. Nooo, you don't know that, and you can't know that. You hope it's the million dollar case, but what you know is that odds are 25 out of 26 that you don't have it. In fact, your odds of having the million dollars are as good as your odds of choosing the penny. And even if you choose the right case, you have to play all the way to the end, eliminating alternate prizes until you decide to risk everything just to see if you got it out of sheer blind luck. In other words, there's no intelligent way to play this game. But chances are, if you're on the set, you're too stupid to know that. And it's great to watch. It appeals to the sadomasochist in all of us.
Oh, but there's more. Our host is Howie Mandel, a former comedian if you can believe it, and given his performances on the show, I find the "former" part highly plausible. Every so often the contestant must stop choosing cases so that Howie can pretend to talk into a ringing remote control, supposedly linked us with the "Banker", a man we can only see in silhouette in a booth overlooking the set. I'm sorry, but the Banker is not at all an effective villain, even for a game show, so stop acting like he's the biggest ass in the world. It has no impact on the show and he's not memorable at all. Although that lack of memorability does explain why they made Darth Vader the guest banker in a special Star Wars-themed episode...
Excuse me, a little part of me just died right there.
The Banker - who acts nothing at all like the respectable moneyholder all Monopoly players are familiar with - makes the contestant cash offers based on their odds of getting a better prize. The object of this is partly to tempt the players to stop, but mostly to expose them for the greedy fucks they are and later to taunt them mercilessly when they knock out all the big prizes and the offers drop. It is at the moment that an offer is made that a contestant can either say "Deal" and push the Deal button to accept the prize offered, or "No Deal" and close the plastic casing on the button to continue playing a mindless game of press-your-luck. Wait, no... Press Your Luck... Peter Tamarkin... Come on come on, Big Bucks Big Bucks Big Bucks, no Whammy no Whammy STOP!
Ack... I'm a very sad person...
So over the course of watching this show so many times, I and some members of my family have devised numerous ways to rob the show of any of its intended entertainment value.
1) Get rid of the cases. My father for once made a very wise observation: The cases choices are meaningless, so this game is essentially just offers with people declining them thinking they can somehow get something better. So if that's all the gameplay there is, then just get rid of the cases and the models and don't let the contestants choose any numbers at all. You could run this game with any random number generator. In fact, you don't even need a host or a Banker. That'd be quite the game show, wouldn't it? Just a contestant and a laptop, and a leering audience which finally gets to see just how much this game really amounts to on a personal level. The laptop assigns the contestant with a random unknown prize, then it eliminates prizes all on its own, only showing the results with the calculated offers for the contestant to say "Deal" or "No Deal" - represented in this case with the retro Interweb key placement of "Y" or "N". Basically the game will look like this:
Round one:
$18,000 - Y/N?
N
Round two:
$35,000 - Y/N?
N
Round three:
$22,000; You may no longer win $1,000,000 or $750,000 or $500,000 - Y/N?
N
Etc, etc. Reviting, isn't it?
2) Accept the first offer. When a contestant accepts an offer, they're asked what their hypothetical next choices of cases would have been if they continued to play, and the resulting offers are also displayed simply to mock them, before their own case is finally opened to reveal whether they made a "good" or "bad" Deal. Like it matters. So what if the contestant accepts the very first offer they get at the beginning of the game? For one, the audience and host would be baffled as something like that has never happened before and never will, since greed (not the show of the same name... >_<) is the driving force behind the whole show. The pointless involvement of a few of the contestant's family on the side will never have started. And best of all, all of the remaining cases would have to be opened one at a time. All of them. That's 19 cases after the first round to open. That's at least a half dozen hypothetical offers to blaze through. It would be the most pointless and tedious game ending of all, and I'd love every second of it.
3) Go with your case; play all the way through the cases without hesitation. This was my idea, and consequently my favorite. The best way to do this is to show how meaningless the order of case choice is, by choosing the cases in order. Your case is number 1, your next choices of eliminated cases will be 2, 3, 4, 5, etc, until the final two cases are your case 1 and the other case 26. The only way to thoroughly mock the game by playing in this way is to not even consider any of the offers. As soon as Howie raises the plastic casing around the Deal button, you have to slam it back down without giving any time to the offer or even for Howie to say "Deal or No Deal?" (I only recently saw someone do this after the first round. A contestant actually chose the cases based on random draws from a bag of numbered ping pong balls, and then when the first offer came up she closed the case before Howie could ask if she wanted to take the offer. I doubt I'll ever see how that show ends.)
So much of this game show is padding based on case selection and offers that you have to blow right past all of it and continue choosing the cases in order, despite all reason or force-fed tension. Since family members are asked to stand on the sidelines and cheer the contestant on, the family must also adopt this mindless mentality in order to shut Howie up and get the game over with. Contestant and family must all approach this without any hint of involvement or emotion (especially not humor, since cracking a smile ruins the dry feel of the joke being played on the show). Attempts at small talk should be met with direct monosyllabic responses (yes, no, etc), the face should be completely blank with the body giving no indication of disposition whatsoever, and whenever Howie tries to make the contestant or the family members stop and consider their odds of winning, all should give the direct and unthinking response of "Play the game, Howie." The facade must be complete, even for commercial breaks. The contestant should just stand there without saying a word until the game resumes and then they proceed selecting the cases in order and immediately declining all offers.
It would be a monumentally stupid occasion for all of television history. And I would bask in that moment of glory when pointless, mindless, boring game shows like that get contestants who treat the game in the same way.
All this is an excellent reason to move to Japan immediately.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
I'm mad as hell
And why shouldn't I be? Do you read the New York Post, or at least look at their headlines? Do you listen to talk radio constantly, or watch Fox News, or EWTN? Do you even know what EWTN is? Do your parents scoff at terms like "heterosexism" or such ludicrous left-leaning media outlets as... The New York Times? Does your whole extended family find nothing wrong with fundamentalists brainwashing little children into thinking their bodies are immoral vessels worthy only of contempt, except as baby-making apparatuses over which they have no right to control? Is your whole rational worldview persistently under siege by pestering about imperfections in the scientific method? Do you know what it feels like to be religiously proselytized by your own mother? Have you ever had your mind under constant siege from all of this bullshit at the same time for as long as a month or more?
Is it any wonder that I'm the psychological mess that I am today?
Goddamn, everything in this house seems like an insult both to my intelligence and to humanity at large. Think about what right-wing media does for a sec, and don't bother listing examples of left-wing bias either because all they ever do is highlight the icing on this shit sundae that is the religious right, and any way you put it they don't even stack up to what "Fox and Friends" do alone. Right-wing media is essentially telling America that half of Americans are irredeemable assholes who know nothing about anything and want to destroy America. Half. Anyone with a progressive or non-conservative idea in their head is presented as some kind of hippie/socialist/satanist. And that probably includes you, if you're reading this. How does it feel to have yourself collectively condemned with half of the nation for not being religious or nationalistic enough?
Do you realize what this means? It means that these media asshats are antagonizing conservative Americans into hating half of the nation's population, disregarding everything that half says and needs, and enforcing some loose form of authoritarian corporate theocracy. You may think that's an extreme take on the situation, but what the hell do you think the people who support this kind of garbage want? They want some idyllic perfection of the American dream, like some ultra-orthodox status quo middle class 1950's suburbia with not a tolerant or deviant thought in anyone's head. And since that Dream is impossible since half of Americans don't fit the standards to make that happen, the Right's failures will be continuously blamed on liberals until the right people are elected into office to implement enough of the right kind of control over people's lives so that the right people will be happy and the wrong people - people who, say, might think the idea of global warming might have some merit - are nicely marginalized into socioeconomic oblivion.
You don't fit the ideal? Into the loony bin you go. Because if you even think for a second that maybe gay people should be allowed to marry the person of their choice and adopt some kids, you're automatically lumped into the same category as pedophiles and incestuous devil-worshippers. (And where the hell are these secret enemies-of-the-state, these supposed gay atheist cultists who do nothing but devour fetuses and rape children so that they instantly become homosexuals? Do fundamentalists still believe that Dungeons & Dragons groups actually engage in witchcraft? And I have to wonder, where do these witches and sorcerers get their magical powers? From Satan? I didn't even know God let him give human beings any kind of powers, but that's theology for you.)
And I have to say here that the Right is very much concerned with controlling your life in particular ways. You can't get or provide an abortion, you can't get contraceptives, you can't be taught evolution without being told it has as much merit as 4000-year-old fair tales, you can't have any reasonable control over what substances go into your body, you can't trust scientists, you can't demand things of your government, you can't depend on anyone for food and shelter since that would perpetuate a "welfare state", you can't have dependable access to healthcare, you can't bring any charges against white-collar criminal pricks, you can't get married to the person of your choice, you can't adopt a child without the church's say-so, you can't demand better standards of living, and you can't care for the rest of the planet in any way whatsoever. But you can enlist in the army and fight wars nobody but a select group of people have interests in. You can mercilessly beat your children and force them to think the way you want them to think. And you can choose between a select range of expensive healthcare plans, low-income housing developments, and unhealthy fast food diets which a few big names in business and industry will be happy to oblige. And you're perfectly free to have no resources or choices or expression or freedoms of your own, as so many of our 3.5 million homeless do now.
But what can you do if the people closest to you since childhood (literally close in this case) actually believe this kind of bile that spews forth from the radio every minute of every day? What are you supposed to do? You can't very well get a new family, and you can't make a stand if you have to live under the same roof. But that's my situation, and it becomes more difficult to ignore all the time.
You know, it's not so much the ideological conflict that gets to me as it is the sheer offensiveness of the things being said. I can't help it if there's no reason to believe in God, so why am I condemned as if I'm some kind of anarchistic terrorist? I'm just a college student who's trying to find his own way in life, I can't be crammed into this picturesque world of religious devotion and political fervor. Hell, I don't ask the same thing of anyone else. I don't tell religious people to stay at home and not let me know what they believe, and I don't expect people to join the Communist Party or anything. I don't even expect anyone to like gay people. I just want to be left the hell alone, without having my ideas put into a forbidden category. I want people to coexist without fighting over the survival of their ideologies, as if their lives and their prospects at happiness depend on it. I'd rather people would learn how to manage their lives better and look at things a little more rationally and have more compassion for people who are just different and do no real harm.
I mean, seriously, it's the ideas that are corrosive and stupid. Not everyone who clings to them is stupid or intends evil on anybody. But I just get so fucking pissed off when someone says something so hateful and harmful, something that flies in the face of all established forms of logic, and so many people nod their heads and acknowledge their willingness to act on this kind of idiocy. Are you out of your fucking minds?
The New Jersey senate just said no to gay marriage. Why? Why? Why? What reason is there for denying people of the same gender to marry one another? Do they present any special threat to each other by nature of their relationship? No. Do they present any special threat to any children they intent to adopt? No. Do they present any special threat to the justice system or society at large? NO. Just NO. Okay? There is no social anarchy or "sexual madness" about homosexuality. How would allowing gay marriage lead to the breakdown of American society? Because Timmy will have two mommies?? No kind of marriage between two willing persons of different families could lead inherently to any level of social unrest. EVER. But who are we kidding here? It has nothing to do with what legalizing gay marriage will do to American law or the relationship between church and state (since churches can't be required to give anybody a marriage, and frankly I wouldn't want a religious wedding anyway.) It's just that certain people don't like homosexuals. Don't bullshit me with "It's not what they are, it's what they do". That's like saying "It's not that I hate you personally, I just hate the fact that you exist."
Okay, let's get more explicit about what we're talking about here. A man and a woman may hold, kiss, and have sexual relations with each other as they see fit. Well, okay, maybe they don't have that much freedom since some would say that the only kind of sexual contact allowed is conventional heterosexual intercourse within the context of marriage without the use of contraceptives. Ignoring for a minute the... utter strangeness of that level of authoritarian orthodoxy (don't pull any cultural relativist bullshit on me, it has nothing to do with what people should be allowed to do in reality), take a look at what is considered appropriate. A man can put his penis into a woman's vagina, and rub it anywhere around that general area, and in many contexts is allowed to put it (along with his fingers, tongue, etc) anywhere else on the woman as he pleases, and the woman is likewise allowed to fondle the man in any way that seems suitable to her.
Now, what isn't appropriate is for two men to put their penises anywhere on each other for the purposes of sexual stimulation, ever. They're not even allowed to use their hands, tongues, etc, for these purposes with one another. For some reason the act of placing the penis within another man's anus is seen as abhorrent, and I have to doubt it's for sanitary issues. And women are likewise expected to not couple with one another and stimulate each other's clitorises or vaginae for these same purposes. Even kissing and caressing man-to-man or woman-to-woman for the general purposes of romantic stimulation and expression is too much for some minds to bear. Why? There's nothing in biology that says you can't do that, since it's obviously possible to do it regardless of other people's discomfort at the idea. Religious texts hold no water on this issue since they elsewhere have no moral bearing on anything (unless you want to know how long a person may be kept as a slave), and saying "God says so" likewise has nothing to do with whether or not doing something to somebody is nice. Do conservatives simply not like thinking about homosexual intercourse? THEN DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! Nobody's holding you down and forcing you to watch people have sex, even if done in public! What does it say about social conservativism in general if the main driving argument is that homosexuality is icky? "Eww" should be the paraphrasing for any argument anyone makes against same-sex marriage.
What the hell am I still doing in Jersey? I don't want to be here, I want to be back at school learning shit and spending my time with people I care about. Dammit, don't you just get so fucking pissed off, just so fucking pissed off, that you can't even think straight anymore? Any semblance of daily life become impossible around this level of bullshit. Every day I'm wandering around going "It would be nice if this semester- FUCK, THAT'S STUPID!" God... you'd think that with all the time and energy that it takes to write something down and get it revised and get it produced and get it prepared to be put on the air, that a person would think to themselves "Wow... What I'm saying is really fucking stupid!" Somebody has to know! Somebody has to realize what's been happening with all this mass pandering to stereotypes and misconceptions and myths, all over the country. It's got nothing to do with people anymore, people are just treated as vessels for ideals, harbingers of American values, effigies of unpatriotic evil. And when people are acknowledged, the world is suddenly full of saints and demons, and it's okay to sling mud at one another like we're in a fucking zoo exhibit. Why don't we just pass out white hats and black hats and sort out who has to wear which hat so we know who's on which side? "Me? Oh, I'm against the death penalty, so I'll be over here with the abortionists, Wiccans, and necrophiles, thanks."
Doesn't anybody get that I'm not on anybody's "side"? There are no "sides", if there were there'd be 7 billion different sides right now, since nobody knows anything about what they stand for anymore. I'm either on everybody's side or I'm on my own side. I like to think I'm on my own side, and my side stands for helping everybody all at once. I don't care what they think about my methods, I'm just trying to accommodate everybody's needs and dreams. It makes no sense, since it's an impossible task, but none of this makes a lick of goddamn sense in the first place. Everything's screwed up, but some things work out, and that makes it worth trying.
Somehow that's part of the definition of doodlemastery. But that's just something that exploded into existence in my head one day.
I miss you <3
Is it any wonder that I'm the psychological mess that I am today?
Goddamn, everything in this house seems like an insult both to my intelligence and to humanity at large. Think about what right-wing media does for a sec, and don't bother listing examples of left-wing bias either because all they ever do is highlight the icing on this shit sundae that is the religious right, and any way you put it they don't even stack up to what "Fox and Friends" do alone. Right-wing media is essentially telling America that half of Americans are irredeemable assholes who know nothing about anything and want to destroy America. Half. Anyone with a progressive or non-conservative idea in their head is presented as some kind of hippie/socialist/satanist. And that probably includes you, if you're reading this. How does it feel to have yourself collectively condemned with half of the nation for not being religious or nationalistic enough?
Do you realize what this means? It means that these media asshats are antagonizing conservative Americans into hating half of the nation's population, disregarding everything that half says and needs, and enforcing some loose form of authoritarian corporate theocracy. You may think that's an extreme take on the situation, but what the hell do you think the people who support this kind of garbage want? They want some idyllic perfection of the American dream, like some ultra-orthodox status quo middle class 1950's suburbia with not a tolerant or deviant thought in anyone's head. And since that Dream is impossible since half of Americans don't fit the standards to make that happen, the Right's failures will be continuously blamed on liberals until the right people are elected into office to implement enough of the right kind of control over people's lives so that the right people will be happy and the wrong people - people who, say, might think the idea of global warming might have some merit - are nicely marginalized into socioeconomic oblivion.
You don't fit the ideal? Into the loony bin you go. Because if you even think for a second that maybe gay people should be allowed to marry the person of their choice and adopt some kids, you're automatically lumped into the same category as pedophiles and incestuous devil-worshippers. (And where the hell are these secret enemies-of-the-state, these supposed gay atheist cultists who do nothing but devour fetuses and rape children so that they instantly become homosexuals? Do fundamentalists still believe that Dungeons & Dragons groups actually engage in witchcraft? And I have to wonder, where do these witches and sorcerers get their magical powers? From Satan? I didn't even know God let him give human beings any kind of powers, but that's theology for you.)
And I have to say here that the Right is very much concerned with controlling your life in particular ways. You can't get or provide an abortion, you can't get contraceptives, you can't be taught evolution without being told it has as much merit as 4000-year-old fair tales, you can't have any reasonable control over what substances go into your body, you can't trust scientists, you can't demand things of your government, you can't depend on anyone for food and shelter since that would perpetuate a "welfare state", you can't have dependable access to healthcare, you can't bring any charges against white-collar criminal pricks, you can't get married to the person of your choice, you can't adopt a child without the church's say-so, you can't demand better standards of living, and you can't care for the rest of the planet in any way whatsoever. But you can enlist in the army and fight wars nobody but a select group of people have interests in. You can mercilessly beat your children and force them to think the way you want them to think. And you can choose between a select range of expensive healthcare plans, low-income housing developments, and unhealthy fast food diets which a few big names in business and industry will be happy to oblige. And you're perfectly free to have no resources or choices or expression or freedoms of your own, as so many of our 3.5 million homeless do now.
But what can you do if the people closest to you since childhood (literally close in this case) actually believe this kind of bile that spews forth from the radio every minute of every day? What are you supposed to do? You can't very well get a new family, and you can't make a stand if you have to live under the same roof. But that's my situation, and it becomes more difficult to ignore all the time.
You know, it's not so much the ideological conflict that gets to me as it is the sheer offensiveness of the things being said. I can't help it if there's no reason to believe in God, so why am I condemned as if I'm some kind of anarchistic terrorist? I'm just a college student who's trying to find his own way in life, I can't be crammed into this picturesque world of religious devotion and political fervor. Hell, I don't ask the same thing of anyone else. I don't tell religious people to stay at home and not let me know what they believe, and I don't expect people to join the Communist Party or anything. I don't even expect anyone to like gay people. I just want to be left the hell alone, without having my ideas put into a forbidden category. I want people to coexist without fighting over the survival of their ideologies, as if their lives and their prospects at happiness depend on it. I'd rather people would learn how to manage their lives better and look at things a little more rationally and have more compassion for people who are just different and do no real harm.
I mean, seriously, it's the ideas that are corrosive and stupid. Not everyone who clings to them is stupid or intends evil on anybody. But I just get so fucking pissed off when someone says something so hateful and harmful, something that flies in the face of all established forms of logic, and so many people nod their heads and acknowledge their willingness to act on this kind of idiocy. Are you out of your fucking minds?
The New Jersey senate just said no to gay marriage. Why? Why? Why? What reason is there for denying people of the same gender to marry one another? Do they present any special threat to each other by nature of their relationship? No. Do they present any special threat to any children they intent to adopt? No. Do they present any special threat to the justice system or society at large? NO. Just NO. Okay? There is no social anarchy or "sexual madness" about homosexuality. How would allowing gay marriage lead to the breakdown of American society? Because Timmy will have two mommies?? No kind of marriage between two willing persons of different families could lead inherently to any level of social unrest. EVER. But who are we kidding here? It has nothing to do with what legalizing gay marriage will do to American law or the relationship between church and state (since churches can't be required to give anybody a marriage, and frankly I wouldn't want a religious wedding anyway.) It's just that certain people don't like homosexuals. Don't bullshit me with "It's not what they are, it's what they do". That's like saying "It's not that I hate you personally, I just hate the fact that you exist."
Okay, let's get more explicit about what we're talking about here. A man and a woman may hold, kiss, and have sexual relations with each other as they see fit. Well, okay, maybe they don't have that much freedom since some would say that the only kind of sexual contact allowed is conventional heterosexual intercourse within the context of marriage without the use of contraceptives. Ignoring for a minute the... utter strangeness of that level of authoritarian orthodoxy (don't pull any cultural relativist bullshit on me, it has nothing to do with what people should be allowed to do in reality), take a look at what is considered appropriate. A man can put his penis into a woman's vagina, and rub it anywhere around that general area, and in many contexts is allowed to put it (along with his fingers, tongue, etc) anywhere else on the woman as he pleases, and the woman is likewise allowed to fondle the man in any way that seems suitable to her.
Now, what isn't appropriate is for two men to put their penises anywhere on each other for the purposes of sexual stimulation, ever. They're not even allowed to use their hands, tongues, etc, for these purposes with one another. For some reason the act of placing the penis within another man's anus is seen as abhorrent, and I have to doubt it's for sanitary issues. And women are likewise expected to not couple with one another and stimulate each other's clitorises or vaginae for these same purposes. Even kissing and caressing man-to-man or woman-to-woman for the general purposes of romantic stimulation and expression is too much for some minds to bear. Why? There's nothing in biology that says you can't do that, since it's obviously possible to do it regardless of other people's discomfort at the idea. Religious texts hold no water on this issue since they elsewhere have no moral bearing on anything (unless you want to know how long a person may be kept as a slave), and saying "God says so" likewise has nothing to do with whether or not doing something to somebody is nice. Do conservatives simply not like thinking about homosexual intercourse? THEN DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! Nobody's holding you down and forcing you to watch people have sex, even if done in public! What does it say about social conservativism in general if the main driving argument is that homosexuality is icky? "Eww" should be the paraphrasing for any argument anyone makes against same-sex marriage.
What the hell am I still doing in Jersey? I don't want to be here, I want to be back at school learning shit and spending my time with people I care about. Dammit, don't you just get so fucking pissed off, just so fucking pissed off, that you can't even think straight anymore? Any semblance of daily life become impossible around this level of bullshit. Every day I'm wandering around going "It would be nice if this semester- FUCK, THAT'S STUPID!" God... you'd think that with all the time and energy that it takes to write something down and get it revised and get it produced and get it prepared to be put on the air, that a person would think to themselves "Wow... What I'm saying is really fucking stupid!" Somebody has to know! Somebody has to realize what's been happening with all this mass pandering to stereotypes and misconceptions and myths, all over the country. It's got nothing to do with people anymore, people are just treated as vessels for ideals, harbingers of American values, effigies of unpatriotic evil. And when people are acknowledged, the world is suddenly full of saints and demons, and it's okay to sling mud at one another like we're in a fucking zoo exhibit. Why don't we just pass out white hats and black hats and sort out who has to wear which hat so we know who's on which side? "Me? Oh, I'm against the death penalty, so I'll be over here with the abortionists, Wiccans, and necrophiles, thanks."
Doesn't anybody get that I'm not on anybody's "side"? There are no "sides", if there were there'd be 7 billion different sides right now, since nobody knows anything about what they stand for anymore. I'm either on everybody's side or I'm on my own side. I like to think I'm on my own side, and my side stands for helping everybody all at once. I don't care what they think about my methods, I'm just trying to accommodate everybody's needs and dreams. It makes no sense, since it's an impossible task, but none of this makes a lick of goddamn sense in the first place. Everything's screwed up, but some things work out, and that makes it worth trying.
Somehow that's part of the definition of doodlemastery. But that's just something that exploded into existence in my head one day.
I miss you <3
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The most meaningless term in the world
Okay, maybe next to "doodlemastery".
But "faith" is the most empty and uninspiring concept I've ever had to confront.
When I was younger, this word meant everything to me ("faith", not "doodlemastery" you twit, keep your head in the game). Of course, remaining a Catholic would have been an unwise career decision for the 17-year-old I was when I finally came to the age of reason. So now the word has even less meaning for me than "tacorific".
That's a great word, by the way, I wish I had more use for it.
Every time the word is used it means something different, because everybody uses it in a personal way that reflects their beliefs. And everybody's beliefs are different by at least a small amount, even in a supposedly monolithic religion. Take God as an example. Some people think he's an invisible sky man, or woman. Or three people. Or several more. Some believe that he's the universe, or completely outside of it, or both (the hell does that mean?). Others will tell you that God is a sort of abstract concept encompassing the core nature of existence or morality. And others will try to snag you with the idea that God is anything that a person holds in their heart as being greater than themselves. One person on Penn&Teller's Bullshit! tried to imply that for an atheist, "God" could be a rock. So what, would an atheist be someone who believes that the rock doesn't exist?
Arockist. There's a new meaningless term for you. But still more substantive than faith.
So what does one mean by "faith"? Let's just say for the sake of argument that in a casual conversation mentioning the scientific theory of the expanding universe, your devout mother inappropriately posits that you need to accept that kind of belief based on faith.
Let's just say.
Well clearly in this case faith would be defined as something related specifically to belief itself. But it can't possibly be the same as belief, can it? I doubt that every little thing you accept to be true or probable would be considered by a religious individual to be an "act of faith". Although when you get in a prolonged conversation with just the right kind of rationally desperate mind, you'll find yourself confronted with the assertion that you believe the earth is round in the exact same way that they believe an invisible person sends hurricanes to collectively punish residents for housing those who wear feather boas and use nipple clamps.
So let us distinguish just what we mean when we say we believe things to be true. Yes, we are all the same in that belief means any one thing any one of us acknowledges as part of their personal worldview, something we really think of as part of reality. No, we do not believe in science and sandwiches in the same way as others believe in gods and ghost phalli, precisely because of the reasons we believe them. I'd wager that most of us believe most of the things we do for reasons in of themselves. Explanations, elaborations, facts, tidbits, data, hints, clues, signals, signs, patterns, consistencies, conclusions, necessities, and logic. This isn't just cold scientific shit either. I believe my girlfriend exists and cares for me since I can see and hear and feel her, and all my past experiences and all of the consistencies and logical conclusions in life would lead me to believe she's a person who cares for me. And she can use the same facts about me to realize that I'm a person who cares for her too. If I began to discount my senses (not question or doubt them, I do those all the time and I still get quite good results, thank you) then as far as I know I could be spinning ass-over-teakettle in a vat of tar, with no girlfriend and no sense of direction or reason.
Do people believe in the supernatural for reasons too? Well... yes... kinda... a lot of the time, I would hope. Although the reasons for religious and spiritual belief tend to be murky and vague at best and often using mixed data, if not precisely contrary to all available data. The belief in a creator God could be attributed to the rational conclusion that everything requires a beginning and an end, but this leads to the logical problem of where God came from and when he intends to end his existence. Where exactly do you leave a divine suicide note? Ah, but this problem was solved long ago, since we all know that God is beyond our rational laws of logic and so he can have no beginning or end. Then how can we conclude that anything else must have a beginning or an end? Why then does the universe need a beginning, and even if it had a beginning couldn't it also forgo the logic of requiring a creator?
How? Why? Because God says so, that's how and why. And who says God says so? Lots of people say God says so, including God, purportedly. And we all know how reliable the clergy and religiously orthodox are.
I'm not a big fan of the "just because" explanations, myself. I much prefer an individual to say "I don't know". I do it all the time. Does it mean I'm wrong, that I give up my beliefs? No, it means I'm not asserting anything for anyone else to believe and therefore am not the one who has to account for himself, so shut the fuck up, would you kindly.
So clearly faith is not synonymous with all belief. What is it then? Some beliefs? What is it about the belief in an expanding universe (a scientific fact) and the belief in a Jewish demigod (a not-so-scientific fact) that could lump both of them in the same category as beliefs taken on faith? Perhaps our purely hypothetical mother was implying that we don't personally know very much about either of these belief systems and therefore assume them both to be true for convenience's sake.
Before we get into just how belittling it is for religious people to be told their heartfelt beliefs about God are just an assumption, let's compare religious and secular assumptions, shall we? Of course we will, because it's my blog and my rules.
A layman can have a reasonable amount of confidence in scientific theories because science is a very rigorous process of eliminating erroneous notions in light of new data. Bullshit ideas are not highly publicized in scientific journals, and when they are they're quite open to review and revision. The same process of observation, controlled interpretation, experimentation, and calculation that tells you the universe is most likely expanding at an accelerating rate is the same one that's given you little things like medicine, atomic energy, modern engineering, information technology, fuel-efficient cars (well maybe not in America...), and ice cream. (Ice cream! Yay!)Science has an impressive track record and can only be improved with better science. You can't very well go about disproving scientific notions with half-baked ideas, random-ass guesswork, or "revealed knowledge". I have not yet seen a hypothesis being supported by the scientific method, then be disproved by some paranormal sort of gnosis. You'd think that someone could tap into the source of that knowledge and set everything straight, but apparently the money isn't good enough to convince "real" psychics and prophets to see daylight.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is assumed because of the overall weakness of the believer's original worldview. Do you honestly think it's a sign of strength for theism if it's just a convenient assumption? I'm sure that most religious believers would rather be certain that they have reasons for thinking there is a God. You know, like any other sane person. But if you just assume there is a God and then base your worldview on that, you've made your entire worldview completely fucking arbitrary. There's nothing to argue about or test with religious belief if that belief is already formed from an arbitrary baseless assumption. In science you can get things wrong, you can be disproved, unless you decide to forgo logic in favor of "faith". Isn't it beginning to sound like a vapid, insulting word already? Faith. "I don't need reasons, I have faith." Nobody wants to admit that they're stupid, but that statement comes close.
Maybe I'm being too harsh here and there's some other meaning to faith other than belief itself or assumed belief. Something more personal and heartfelt, like trust. Could that be what it means to have faith in something, to have trust in it? Possibly, sounds like a good match doesn't it? Aren't we faithful to our loved ones, and have faith in each other? We often mean it in the same way that we mean trust, personal trust. Which makes more sense, I suppose. After all, the devout are more likely to identify with a religion where you feel like you can trust whoever is on the other side of reality. Okay, so there's quite a bit that's still assumed in this relationship, like that the people on the other side (not to mention the other side itself) actually exist. But still, at least we have a definition that unites religious and secular worldviews, right?
There's only one problem. It doesn't work beyond that personal level of trust. Remember that in this case we're talking about the theory of the expanding universe, and by that connection the scientific method itself. Science has no personal identity, not even the scientists. What, is it implied that we have personal trust in the scientists collectively? I guess, but science isn't about authority, it's about facts and logic. If an idea has no reflection or base in reality, all of the scientific authority in the world couldn't make any more sense out of it. That's why science is so open to revision, so that nobody gets to declare a monopoly on truth, and bad ideas can be exposed and deconstructed and taunted, sometimes with pointed fingers and laughter. Creationists are still new to this sort of thing, so they think they're under selective treatment. But they're not, they're selectively intruding on science with no idea how it works, and accordingly they're surprised when they're ridiculed and their ideas are discounted as nonsensical nonsense.
Besides, there's one definition of faith that our not-at-all-real-life mother has neglected to consider, and this one's going to be a dandy when trying to apply it to "faith" in the expanding universe. When I was in high school, I was told by my Christian Ethics teacher that faith was a personal relationship that one had with God. Specifically this is referring to love. Thus it was explained to me the difference between knowing about somebody, and knowing somebody, biblically (Eww). Look, the universe and I have been through a lot together, we're virtually inseparable (what with me being made of matter and all), and it will continue to mean literally everything to me, but... I'm just not up for that kind of commitment on a cosmic level. And... there's someone else, a human girl I've been seeing for a few months. She means so much to me, and it may not seem fair, but I'm just not really into infinitely vast stretches of time and space. I'm really more interested in cute peeps, at a personal level at least. So this isn't goodbye to the universe, but I think that it would be best if the universe and I were just good friends.
And thanks, Bible, for making even the word "know" an inneundo.
"I knew it... three times."
The problem I always had with this definition of faith is that it's not exactly healthy to love someone you don't even know. Marriage arrangements on internet chat rooms are not encouraged, so why should anyone be expected to give unconditional love to some hyped-up ancient celebrity, a battered, bearded, tripped-out zombie man with an intellect from before the Dark Ages who no sane person has ever even met before? Unless you count rituals where celibate men in robes say some magic words over breakfast cereal and claim it's become the flesh of said zombie celebrity. Damn, this is some weird kind of kink. I'm not sure how eating one's flesh is an expression of love, but it's pretty sick, divine or not. You'd think that if a god wanted his "substance" - and I don't even want to know what the hell that is - to be put into a human being he would just will it, and not have to bother with this disturbing imagery. But then, that would make too much sense, and we've got a lot of irrational bullshit to accommodate. And the first time I heard this illogical definition of faith as love, I told my teacher "But I can only know a person if I at least know that they exist."
I never got a good reply to that. If I was manic enough, I'm sure I could think of something.
There's only one other definition of faith I can think of, and it's the one thing a religious mind would be holding onto at this point: hope. Faith defined as hope for something you cannot see. And it's at this point that the self-degrading of faith as a concept gets to truly pitiful levels. It's essentially admitting that there's no reason to believe in anything you claim to have faith in, so one can only hope that maybe everything will turn out alright in the end. This is stupid because if you have no rough guesses of the chances or the odds in your head, then you have no hope, it's all just completely random. If you have some idea of what your chances are, then you have that much hope to go on. None of this of course has anything to do with whether things will turn out the way you want them. This isn't Oprah, people. Hoping things will become so will not under any circumstances make it more likely to become a reality. You have to act if you want things to happen, and if everything in your mind tells you it's impossible, then you're just being stupid. I've heard of people acting with good reason while everyone else thinks they're crazy, but believing something you don't think you have good reason for? That's wishful thinking in a nutshell, and there is no genie in that nutshell. You get zero wishes. Divide those wishes by the chances that you're right and you get FUCK.
If a person is left without real chances of success, if they have nowhere to go, and things aren't likely to work out, then that's just sad. Can we accept that? Terminally ill patients, people under oppression, and people with very serious life-altering ailments are under unfortunate, often terrible circumstances, and that sucks. It's awful that bad things happen to good people, so can we just acknowledge that little fact? It's probably one of the more important things you'll ever learn, so don't pray for people, don't hope that Jesus will descend from the clouds and make everything picture perfect, DO SOMETHING. The only morally reasonable options are a) do something to give people hope b) if you have no hope, either try to fight all the way anyway or come to terms with it or c) cope. Being in a circumstance where you have no hope and can't do anything about it and can't even come to terms with it is probably the saddest thing conceivable, and you can only do what you can to get by until your suffering can be alleviated. But that is not how people who can act for the better ought to be thinking. Don't try to cope with the fact that there's no justice, no peace, no loving God in sight. Accept reality for what it is and work for the better.
So no, clearly-not-my-actual-mother, I don't have faith in the expanding universe, or anything else for that matter. I don't assume, trust, or hope that it is so. I'm what I call "reasonably certain with some degree of falsifiability". I'm also reasonably certain that regardless of the baseless, broad, insulting, stupid, offensive, demented, illogical, arrogant, authoritarian, high-minded, pseudo-philosophical, self-proclaimed to be "humble" bullshit claims that you have, that you're also reasonably certain about most things in life too.
I therefore have no use for the word faith, except to define that meaningless quality in certain religious contexts in which so many are still so intellectually preoccupied and so overly emotionally-invested. Belief, assumption, trust, love, and hope are all fine concepts all on their own. Faith has nothing to do with any of them.
Fuck faith.
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain
But "faith" is the most empty and uninspiring concept I've ever had to confront.
When I was younger, this word meant everything to me ("faith", not "doodlemastery" you twit, keep your head in the game). Of course, remaining a Catholic would have been an unwise career decision for the 17-year-old I was when I finally came to the age of reason. So now the word has even less meaning for me than "tacorific".
That's a great word, by the way, I wish I had more use for it.
Every time the word is used it means something different, because everybody uses it in a personal way that reflects their beliefs. And everybody's beliefs are different by at least a small amount, even in a supposedly monolithic religion. Take God as an example. Some people think he's an invisible sky man, or woman. Or three people. Or several more. Some believe that he's the universe, or completely outside of it, or both (the hell does that mean?). Others will tell you that God is a sort of abstract concept encompassing the core nature of existence or morality. And others will try to snag you with the idea that God is anything that a person holds in their heart as being greater than themselves. One person on Penn&Teller's Bullshit! tried to imply that for an atheist, "God" could be a rock. So what, would an atheist be someone who believes that the rock doesn't exist?
Arockist. There's a new meaningless term for you. But still more substantive than faith.
So what does one mean by "faith"? Let's just say for the sake of argument that in a casual conversation mentioning the scientific theory of the expanding universe, your devout mother inappropriately posits that you need to accept that kind of belief based on faith.
Let's just say.
Well clearly in this case faith would be defined as something related specifically to belief itself. But it can't possibly be the same as belief, can it? I doubt that every little thing you accept to be true or probable would be considered by a religious individual to be an "act of faith". Although when you get in a prolonged conversation with just the right kind of rationally desperate mind, you'll find yourself confronted with the assertion that you believe the earth is round in the exact same way that they believe an invisible person sends hurricanes to collectively punish residents for housing those who wear feather boas and use nipple clamps.
So let us distinguish just what we mean when we say we believe things to be true. Yes, we are all the same in that belief means any one thing any one of us acknowledges as part of their personal worldview, something we really think of as part of reality. No, we do not believe in science and sandwiches in the same way as others believe in gods and ghost phalli, precisely because of the reasons we believe them. I'd wager that most of us believe most of the things we do for reasons in of themselves. Explanations, elaborations, facts, tidbits, data, hints, clues, signals, signs, patterns, consistencies, conclusions, necessities, and logic. This isn't just cold scientific shit either. I believe my girlfriend exists and cares for me since I can see and hear and feel her, and all my past experiences and all of the consistencies and logical conclusions in life would lead me to believe she's a person who cares for me. And she can use the same facts about me to realize that I'm a person who cares for her too. If I began to discount my senses (not question or doubt them, I do those all the time and I still get quite good results, thank you) then as far as I know I could be spinning ass-over-teakettle in a vat of tar, with no girlfriend and no sense of direction or reason.
Do people believe in the supernatural for reasons too? Well... yes... kinda... a lot of the time, I would hope. Although the reasons for religious and spiritual belief tend to be murky and vague at best and often using mixed data, if not precisely contrary to all available data. The belief in a creator God could be attributed to the rational conclusion that everything requires a beginning and an end, but this leads to the logical problem of where God came from and when he intends to end his existence. Where exactly do you leave a divine suicide note? Ah, but this problem was solved long ago, since we all know that God is beyond our rational laws of logic and so he can have no beginning or end. Then how can we conclude that anything else must have a beginning or an end? Why then does the universe need a beginning, and even if it had a beginning couldn't it also forgo the logic of requiring a creator?
How? Why? Because God says so, that's how and why. And who says God says so? Lots of people say God says so, including God, purportedly. And we all know how reliable the clergy and religiously orthodox are.
I'm not a big fan of the "just because" explanations, myself. I much prefer an individual to say "I don't know". I do it all the time. Does it mean I'm wrong, that I give up my beliefs? No, it means I'm not asserting anything for anyone else to believe and therefore am not the one who has to account for himself, so shut the fuck up, would you kindly.
So clearly faith is not synonymous with all belief. What is it then? Some beliefs? What is it about the belief in an expanding universe (a scientific fact) and the belief in a Jewish demigod (a not-so-scientific fact) that could lump both of them in the same category as beliefs taken on faith? Perhaps our purely hypothetical mother was implying that we don't personally know very much about either of these belief systems and therefore assume them both to be true for convenience's sake.
Before we get into just how belittling it is for religious people to be told their heartfelt beliefs about God are just an assumption, let's compare religious and secular assumptions, shall we? Of course we will, because it's my blog and my rules.
A layman can have a reasonable amount of confidence in scientific theories because science is a very rigorous process of eliminating erroneous notions in light of new data. Bullshit ideas are not highly publicized in scientific journals, and when they are they're quite open to review and revision. The same process of observation, controlled interpretation, experimentation, and calculation that tells you the universe is most likely expanding at an accelerating rate is the same one that's given you little things like medicine, atomic energy, modern engineering, information technology, fuel-efficient cars (well maybe not in America...), and ice cream. (Ice cream! Yay!)Science has an impressive track record and can only be improved with better science. You can't very well go about disproving scientific notions with half-baked ideas, random-ass guesswork, or "revealed knowledge". I have not yet seen a hypothesis being supported by the scientific method, then be disproved by some paranormal sort of gnosis. You'd think that someone could tap into the source of that knowledge and set everything straight, but apparently the money isn't good enough to convince "real" psychics and prophets to see daylight.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is assumed because of the overall weakness of the believer's original worldview. Do you honestly think it's a sign of strength for theism if it's just a convenient assumption? I'm sure that most religious believers would rather be certain that they have reasons for thinking there is a God. You know, like any other sane person. But if you just assume there is a God and then base your worldview on that, you've made your entire worldview completely fucking arbitrary. There's nothing to argue about or test with religious belief if that belief is already formed from an arbitrary baseless assumption. In science you can get things wrong, you can be disproved, unless you decide to forgo logic in favor of "faith". Isn't it beginning to sound like a vapid, insulting word already? Faith. "I don't need reasons, I have faith." Nobody wants to admit that they're stupid, but that statement comes close.
Maybe I'm being too harsh here and there's some other meaning to faith other than belief itself or assumed belief. Something more personal and heartfelt, like trust. Could that be what it means to have faith in something, to have trust in it? Possibly, sounds like a good match doesn't it? Aren't we faithful to our loved ones, and have faith in each other? We often mean it in the same way that we mean trust, personal trust. Which makes more sense, I suppose. After all, the devout are more likely to identify with a religion where you feel like you can trust whoever is on the other side of reality. Okay, so there's quite a bit that's still assumed in this relationship, like that the people on the other side (not to mention the other side itself) actually exist. But still, at least we have a definition that unites religious and secular worldviews, right?
There's only one problem. It doesn't work beyond that personal level of trust. Remember that in this case we're talking about the theory of the expanding universe, and by that connection the scientific method itself. Science has no personal identity, not even the scientists. What, is it implied that we have personal trust in the scientists collectively? I guess, but science isn't about authority, it's about facts and logic. If an idea has no reflection or base in reality, all of the scientific authority in the world couldn't make any more sense out of it. That's why science is so open to revision, so that nobody gets to declare a monopoly on truth, and bad ideas can be exposed and deconstructed and taunted, sometimes with pointed fingers and laughter. Creationists are still new to this sort of thing, so they think they're under selective treatment. But they're not, they're selectively intruding on science with no idea how it works, and accordingly they're surprised when they're ridiculed and their ideas are discounted as nonsensical nonsense.
Besides, there's one definition of faith that our not-at-all-real-life mother has neglected to consider, and this one's going to be a dandy when trying to apply it to "faith" in the expanding universe. When I was in high school, I was told by my Christian Ethics teacher that faith was a personal relationship that one had with God. Specifically this is referring to love. Thus it was explained to me the difference between knowing about somebody, and knowing somebody, biblically (Eww). Look, the universe and I have been through a lot together, we're virtually inseparable (what with me being made of matter and all), and it will continue to mean literally everything to me, but... I'm just not up for that kind of commitment on a cosmic level. And... there's someone else, a human girl I've been seeing for a few months. She means so much to me, and it may not seem fair, but I'm just not really into infinitely vast stretches of time and space. I'm really more interested in cute peeps, at a personal level at least. So this isn't goodbye to the universe, but I think that it would be best if the universe and I were just good friends.
And thanks, Bible, for making even the word "know" an inneundo.
"I knew it... three times."
The problem I always had with this definition of faith is that it's not exactly healthy to love someone you don't even know. Marriage arrangements on internet chat rooms are not encouraged, so why should anyone be expected to give unconditional love to some hyped-up ancient celebrity, a battered, bearded, tripped-out zombie man with an intellect from before the Dark Ages who no sane person has ever even met before? Unless you count rituals where celibate men in robes say some magic words over breakfast cereal and claim it's become the flesh of said zombie celebrity. Damn, this is some weird kind of kink. I'm not sure how eating one's flesh is an expression of love, but it's pretty sick, divine or not. You'd think that if a god wanted his "substance" - and I don't even want to know what the hell that is - to be put into a human being he would just will it, and not have to bother with this disturbing imagery. But then, that would make too much sense, and we've got a lot of irrational bullshit to accommodate. And the first time I heard this illogical definition of faith as love, I told my teacher "But I can only know a person if I at least know that they exist."
I never got a good reply to that. If I was manic enough, I'm sure I could think of something.
There's only one other definition of faith I can think of, and it's the one thing a religious mind would be holding onto at this point: hope. Faith defined as hope for something you cannot see. And it's at this point that the self-degrading of faith as a concept gets to truly pitiful levels. It's essentially admitting that there's no reason to believe in anything you claim to have faith in, so one can only hope that maybe everything will turn out alright in the end. This is stupid because if you have no rough guesses of the chances or the odds in your head, then you have no hope, it's all just completely random. If you have some idea of what your chances are, then you have that much hope to go on. None of this of course has anything to do with whether things will turn out the way you want them. This isn't Oprah, people. Hoping things will become so will not under any circumstances make it more likely to become a reality. You have to act if you want things to happen, and if everything in your mind tells you it's impossible, then you're just being stupid. I've heard of people acting with good reason while everyone else thinks they're crazy, but believing something you don't think you have good reason for? That's wishful thinking in a nutshell, and there is no genie in that nutshell. You get zero wishes. Divide those wishes by the chances that you're right and you get FUCK.
If a person is left without real chances of success, if they have nowhere to go, and things aren't likely to work out, then that's just sad. Can we accept that? Terminally ill patients, people under oppression, and people with very serious life-altering ailments are under unfortunate, often terrible circumstances, and that sucks. It's awful that bad things happen to good people, so can we just acknowledge that little fact? It's probably one of the more important things you'll ever learn, so don't pray for people, don't hope that Jesus will descend from the clouds and make everything picture perfect, DO SOMETHING. The only morally reasonable options are a) do something to give people hope b) if you have no hope, either try to fight all the way anyway or come to terms with it or c) cope. Being in a circumstance where you have no hope and can't do anything about it and can't even come to terms with it is probably the saddest thing conceivable, and you can only do what you can to get by until your suffering can be alleviated. But that is not how people who can act for the better ought to be thinking. Don't try to cope with the fact that there's no justice, no peace, no loving God in sight. Accept reality for what it is and work for the better.
So no, clearly-not-my-actual-mother, I don't have faith in the expanding universe, or anything else for that matter. I don't assume, trust, or hope that it is so. I'm what I call "reasonably certain with some degree of falsifiability". I'm also reasonably certain that regardless of the baseless, broad, insulting, stupid, offensive, demented, illogical, arrogant, authoritarian, high-minded, pseudo-philosophical, self-proclaimed to be "humble" bullshit claims that you have, that you're also reasonably certain about most things in life too.
I therefore have no use for the word faith, except to define that meaningless quality in certain religious contexts in which so many are still so intellectually preoccupied and so overly emotionally-invested. Belief, assumption, trust, love, and hope are all fine concepts all on their own. Faith has nothing to do with any of them.
Fuck faith.
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
John Carpenter's "The Thing" makes a lot more sense now...
I'll never question why they had flamethrowers at an Antarctic research station anymore. I know why we'd need one here.
I just got home from the shore, and there wasn't a lot of food in the upstairs fridge, so I went to get some chicken wings out of the basement freezer. This proved to be a problem. The freezer door was frozen shut. I had to keep jerking at the handle until the door popped open, spilling ice everywhere, and I don't mean ice cubes. I mean the freezer was lined with a sheet of dripped ice. Somehow a lot of water had gotten into the freezer interior and covered everything inside. The bags of frozen vegetables had globs of ice clinging to them, and the boxes of wings and potato skins had been encased in ice. Thankfully the wings were at the bottom and didn't get a lot of the ice on the box itself, but that meant having to chisel my way through the rest of the boxes on top. And I did not want to cut myself on a sheet of ice.
That explains the flamethrowers. This is what I have to deal with here, indoors, in New Jersey, during the summer. Imagine what they'd have to deal with at the bottom of the fucking planet.
Well the wings and potato skins are in a better freezer now, so they should be good for later. I have to keep this scenario in mind when I'm getting a mini-fridge for my dorm room. Last year our fridge was really more of a freezer, and we could never get the dial at the right temperature. That meant any ice cream that was put in there would either turn into what looked like freezer-burned pineapples (it was actually cookie dough), or it would melt instantly and seep through the container. And ice cream soup is not as good as some would claim it is. So I'll be sure to get something more suitable for lots of Stewart's root beer and, on occasion, ice cream.
Or I could get a flamethrower.
"Dammit, Childs, torch it!"
I just got home from the shore, and there wasn't a lot of food in the upstairs fridge, so I went to get some chicken wings out of the basement freezer. This proved to be a problem. The freezer door was frozen shut. I had to keep jerking at the handle until the door popped open, spilling ice everywhere, and I don't mean ice cubes. I mean the freezer was lined with a sheet of dripped ice. Somehow a lot of water had gotten into the freezer interior and covered everything inside. The bags of frozen vegetables had globs of ice clinging to them, and the boxes of wings and potato skins had been encased in ice. Thankfully the wings were at the bottom and didn't get a lot of the ice on the box itself, but that meant having to chisel my way through the rest of the boxes on top. And I did not want to cut myself on a sheet of ice.
That explains the flamethrowers. This is what I have to deal with here, indoors, in New Jersey, during the summer. Imagine what they'd have to deal with at the bottom of the fucking planet.
Well the wings and potato skins are in a better freezer now, so they should be good for later. I have to keep this scenario in mind when I'm getting a mini-fridge for my dorm room. Last year our fridge was really more of a freezer, and we could never get the dial at the right temperature. That meant any ice cream that was put in there would either turn into what looked like freezer-burned pineapples (it was actually cookie dough), or it would melt instantly and seep through the container. And ice cream soup is not as good as some would claim it is. So I'll be sure to get something more suitable for lots of Stewart's root beer and, on occasion, ice cream.
Or I could get a flamethrower.
"Dammit, Childs, torch it!"
Friday, August 21, 2009
Random thoughts.
I can't think of much else to write about since I'm still stuck at home. Stupid feral cats. Even personal matters are kind of dim in my mind, so I'll have to think it over. The next Bible review is a weekend away, I still haven't gotten an email from the college about getting a job there, and nothing else has really stirred my brains. There is one dvd I'm thinking of reviewing, but maybe I should keep it for a special occasion for friends in person. And I still haven't gone to the psychic's place for the novelty of seeing that kind of idiocy firsthand. So until something more interesting happens, here are some random thoughts of mine:
Why are ghosts always depicted as having clothes? I thought only people or living things were supposed to have souls. So shouldn't all ghosts be naked? It might be an indication that visions of ghosts depend entirely on what people expect to see. Or maybe only puritans care to come back to the land of the living.
How come no psychic has used their abilities to win the lottery? The "abuse of power" argument doesn't work since it's clear psychics have no problem with being greedy, and even if they weren't there are a lot of charities that could use that money. And why the hell would they keep any kind of special knowledge to themselves? Any kind of understanding of the paranormal could make for leaps and bounds in advancing the cause for humanity.
Are taxes good or bad? I've seen two separate articles published by the New York Post, both about Hillary Clinton. One says that she and Obama are going to destroy small businesses by raising the upper-class tax (to a more reasonable level, because it's seriously putting the rest of us - 90% of the population - at a seriously unfair disadvantage). Disregarding the fact that small businesses are not paid for out of one's pocket (and if they are then said person is not financially impaired in the first place), there was another article soon thereafter which claimed that Clinton had betrayed New York State by slashing the taxes for foreign dignitaries. But then by free market logic wouldn't that increase the amount of business taking place and make up for the tax cuts with a little extra? Not that I know anything about economics or that I'm not lazy enough to look any of this up, but I'd like some consistency in newspapers. Even in idiotic tabloids like the New York Post.
Seriously, what are symbolic days or years? I don't think anyone can adequately explain that.
How are zombies supposed to move around with no metabolism? They're obviously using some energy lumbering around feeding on the living, so they must be burning calories. But if they have a metabolism, how are they considered undead? That would put them in the same category as "the infected", people whose minds and bodies are deteriorating. Not even Max Brooks explained that one.
Why do bodies in Fallout 3 fly through the air in a ludicrous fashion? Oh wait, awesomeness factor. Nevermind.
Would it be considered offensive to point out in a conversation concerning western medicine versus traditional that traditional remedies just don't work on any level comparable to modern medicine? I only ask because several of my friends are Chinese nationals. I don't know how much of it is an issue of nationalism. It's somewhat like telling an American that prayer just doesn't work. I don't intend to be rude about it or anything, but if anything like that or astrology ever come up then I'm not really sure how to say something like that to an otherwise friendly and reasonable person. I do know it was more awkward when a girl I was interested in believed in astrology. That should have killed my interest then and there, but then again I am an idiot.
Yu-Gi-Oh. Just the show itself. Really, wtf. Card games? That's going to decide the fate of the world? A children's card game? And the "heart of the cards" can suck it. It's really sad that I know any of this in the first place.
Why does my family insist on quoting George Carlin only when particular bits reinforce their beliefs? Really, dad? Carlin? The same guy who was legendary for his awesome "Religion is bullshit" routine? Alright, if you want to go down that road. Let's take a look at some more Lewis Black while we're at it.
Does anyone else own a lightsaber? Ahhh I miss those duels. Even though the guys turned out to be jerks anyway. That's right. I'm too geeky for lightsaber duels and D&D roleplaying.
Why do we feel better leaving things up to chance only for certain things? Particularly for things revolving around birth. We won't fiddle around with DNA even if it means a better chance at avoiding genetic illnesses, and we won't give kids a fair chance when it comes to the environment they're raised in. No, we'd rather have our offspring done "all natural", which basically means setting the genetic mixer on high and letting God sort it out. Then we leave the kid to whatever destiny the parents have decided for them, about gender, about religion, about tradition, about freedom to change their mind about everything. I guess sooner or later we have to yield to a person's judgement, and just hope that person is especially caring for the next generation. Hasn't turned out too well so far, in my opinion.
Where do you get those hats, seriously? You know what I'm talking about. Those... hats! I know I'm not one for headgear, but damn there are some snappy hats out there. Where does one acquire those hats?
I'm all out of ideas, so I'm going to let this one go out as is. Hopefully next time I'll have something more interesting to talk about. Maybe it's time I finally payed "Madame Fatima" a visit.
"The deck! It senses my doubt!"
Why are ghosts always depicted as having clothes? I thought only people or living things were supposed to have souls. So shouldn't all ghosts be naked? It might be an indication that visions of ghosts depend entirely on what people expect to see. Or maybe only puritans care to come back to the land of the living.
How come no psychic has used their abilities to win the lottery? The "abuse of power" argument doesn't work since it's clear psychics have no problem with being greedy, and even if they weren't there are a lot of charities that could use that money. And why the hell would they keep any kind of special knowledge to themselves? Any kind of understanding of the paranormal could make for leaps and bounds in advancing the cause for humanity.
Are taxes good or bad? I've seen two separate articles published by the New York Post, both about Hillary Clinton. One says that she and Obama are going to destroy small businesses by raising the upper-class tax (to a more reasonable level, because it's seriously putting the rest of us - 90% of the population - at a seriously unfair disadvantage). Disregarding the fact that small businesses are not paid for out of one's pocket (and if they are then said person is not financially impaired in the first place), there was another article soon thereafter which claimed that Clinton had betrayed New York State by slashing the taxes for foreign dignitaries. But then by free market logic wouldn't that increase the amount of business taking place and make up for the tax cuts with a little extra? Not that I know anything about economics or that I'm not lazy enough to look any of this up, but I'd like some consistency in newspapers. Even in idiotic tabloids like the New York Post.
Seriously, what are symbolic days or years? I don't think anyone can adequately explain that.
How are zombies supposed to move around with no metabolism? They're obviously using some energy lumbering around feeding on the living, so they must be burning calories. But if they have a metabolism, how are they considered undead? That would put them in the same category as "the infected", people whose minds and bodies are deteriorating. Not even Max Brooks explained that one.
Why do bodies in Fallout 3 fly through the air in a ludicrous fashion? Oh wait, awesomeness factor. Nevermind.
Would it be considered offensive to point out in a conversation concerning western medicine versus traditional that traditional remedies just don't work on any level comparable to modern medicine? I only ask because several of my friends are Chinese nationals. I don't know how much of it is an issue of nationalism. It's somewhat like telling an American that prayer just doesn't work. I don't intend to be rude about it or anything, but if anything like that or astrology ever come up then I'm not really sure how to say something like that to an otherwise friendly and reasonable person. I do know it was more awkward when a girl I was interested in believed in astrology. That should have killed my interest then and there, but then again I am an idiot.
Yu-Gi-Oh. Just the show itself. Really, wtf. Card games? That's going to decide the fate of the world? A children's card game? And the "heart of the cards" can suck it. It's really sad that I know any of this in the first place.
Why does my family insist on quoting George Carlin only when particular bits reinforce their beliefs? Really, dad? Carlin? The same guy who was legendary for his awesome "Religion is bullshit" routine? Alright, if you want to go down that road. Let's take a look at some more Lewis Black while we're at it.
Does anyone else own a lightsaber? Ahhh I miss those duels. Even though the guys turned out to be jerks anyway. That's right. I'm too geeky for lightsaber duels and D&D roleplaying.
Why do we feel better leaving things up to chance only for certain things? Particularly for things revolving around birth. We won't fiddle around with DNA even if it means a better chance at avoiding genetic illnesses, and we won't give kids a fair chance when it comes to the environment they're raised in. No, we'd rather have our offspring done "all natural", which basically means setting the genetic mixer on high and letting God sort it out. Then we leave the kid to whatever destiny the parents have decided for them, about gender, about religion, about tradition, about freedom to change their mind about everything. I guess sooner or later we have to yield to a person's judgement, and just hope that person is especially caring for the next generation. Hasn't turned out too well so far, in my opinion.
Where do you get those hats, seriously? You know what I'm talking about. Those... hats! I know I'm not one for headgear, but damn there are some snappy hats out there. Where does one acquire those hats?
I'm all out of ideas, so I'm going to let this one go out as is. Hopefully next time I'll have something more interesting to talk about. Maybe it's time I finally payed "Madame Fatima" a visit.
"The deck! It senses my doubt!"
Monday, June 1, 2009
2012 will be a grave, grave year...
It will be the year that I have to graduate and leave college. Maybe.
What? No. No, not me, I don't buy into that 2012 bullshit one bit. I've already lived through one apocalypse, and it made for a terrible New Year's.
Really, what is it about the year 2012 that is so damn significant? Because the Mayan Calendar ends on that year? A cycle of keeping track of time on an ancient calendar will end, so what? Did they accurately determine the age of the earth and the universe itself? What credibility did they have for determining the destiny of existence? The calendar goes by cycles of 5125 years; what happened 5122 years ago that was so earth-shattering? Why should I believe the ancient Mayans knew anything we couldn't find out for ourselves with our more advanced understanding of the cosmos? And no, there's nothing astronomically sigificant about this year. There's no "galactic alignment", and a rearranging of how we view arbitrary constellations will not have any effect on any aspect of your everyday life, much less the fate of civilization.
Oh, and astrologers, you'd be interested to know that our view of the original 12 zodiac signs changes monthly alignment* every 2000 years, so all of your horoscopes are already one sign off. Not that it has any impact on the validity of astrology, because there isn't any.
And this New Age idiocy about a paradigm shift in spirituality? Does anyone really believe that on the 21st of December, 2012, everyone's suddenly going to have a change of heart and live together in peace without explanation? Get real, please. It's hard enough trying to figure out feasible solutions to the world's problems without this nonsense muddying things up.
More importantly, there will be a really bad movie coming out in November of 2009 about this supposed doomsday scenario. Look cool? No? Good. Yes? Keep in mind this is the same idiot (I'm not even going to dignify him by mentioning his name) who made Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla (the american remake), The Day After Tomorrow, and to top off this shit sundae, 10,000 BC, a movie taking place during the agricultural revolution about cavemen who must do battle with woolly mammoths and horsemen who are capable of building pyramids. Yeah... Why exactly should we think this guy has any say in the significance of specific dates if he can't even get it straight with regards to events in the past. How do you screw that up? "Before the coming of the End Times in 2021, just remember how close humanity came to an abrupt end when the dinosaurs came back in the 19th century, and... Wha- Oh shit."
All of these movies are made to be big and gaudy with trailers designed to pull you in by not letting on the actual plot of the film. 2012's trailer is fairly indicative of this pattern. Fortunately there's never much of a plot to any of these godawful things, so you've got it all figured out from the beginning whether you know it or not. What do you see in the trailer? It's the end of the world, and the incompetent governments of the world can do nothing to save us. No, more than that. They will not try to do anything to save us. That's what the captions say. They've blatantly played the anti-government card to try and hook in as many americans and rebels-without-a-clue as possible. As much as I criticize the United States government for being an overall incompetent political body, I'm not that stupid. I'm not going to be psyched for a movie just because you tell me the government can't be trusted. I know that already, tell me something I don't know. You know, something interesting.
Oh, but they do tell us something. They tell us to "find out the truth". Upyours. Tell me the truth! It's your movie, you do your research! What is it with truth-finding in american pop culture that usually means buying into hyped-up bullshit? The truth is not out there, it's not waiting to be uncovered, it's not hidden, it's not coded, it's not secret. The truth is right in front of you. You may point out that there's too much bullshit to figure out what's real. But that's my point. Watch anything on television, and you'll realize the truth: it's all bullshit. That's the truth. What? You were expecting a thriller to start up when you found it? If you're so damn curious about a specific claim, look up a credible academic or professional source.
But then if everyone thought critically, we wouldn't have hack film-makers informing us that 9/11 was an inside job.
But what's most alarming about this film is not the subject matter or premise or even the sheer idiocy that is bound to flow forth once it's released. It's that this film is most probably going to make a massive profit, despite all forewarning that it's going to be really, really bad. Think I'm too presumptuous? Look at all those movies listed above. Actually, look at the one. The Day After Tomorrow. Can you think of anything that could make 2012 any different? The premise is the same, the effects look (from the trailer) the same, the plot of these movies never deviates in complexity or coherence, and the standard of acting is far from impressive. (Matthew Broderick? Are you FUCKING joking?) And we keep telling ourselves the same thing every time the same guy makes another movie. So why do we keep going to see them?? These films have collectively raked in almost a billion dollars. That's no small amount for a series of terrible disaster movies. Why do we keep giving these guys the benefit of the doubt? I can judge a book by it's cover if the cover treats me like a 12-year-old. This is not impressive material for a high-budget film-maker.
DON'T SEE 2012. DON'T SEE ANY OF THIS GUY'S MOVIES EVER AGAIN. You're doing yourself a favor.
By the way, the music stolen blatantly from the Shining trailer was a nice touch of incompetency.
*I don't know why all the videos of Bill Nye pwning astrology have the ratings and comments disabled. Are people that persistent in their faith in astrology that they make rational discussion impossible? Christ, it's all made up, guys, kids' stuff.
What? No. No, not me, I don't buy into that 2012 bullshit one bit. I've already lived through one apocalypse, and it made for a terrible New Year's.
Really, what is it about the year 2012 that is so damn significant? Because the Mayan Calendar ends on that year? A cycle of keeping track of time on an ancient calendar will end, so what? Did they accurately determine the age of the earth and the universe itself? What credibility did they have for determining the destiny of existence? The calendar goes by cycles of 5125 years; what happened 5122 years ago that was so earth-shattering? Why should I believe the ancient Mayans knew anything we couldn't find out for ourselves with our more advanced understanding of the cosmos? And no, there's nothing astronomically sigificant about this year. There's no "galactic alignment", and a rearranging of how we view arbitrary constellations will not have any effect on any aspect of your everyday life, much less the fate of civilization.
Oh, and astrologers, you'd be interested to know that our view of the original 12 zodiac signs changes monthly alignment* every 2000 years, so all of your horoscopes are already one sign off. Not that it has any impact on the validity of astrology, because there isn't any.
And this New Age idiocy about a paradigm shift in spirituality? Does anyone really believe that on the 21st of December, 2012, everyone's suddenly going to have a change of heart and live together in peace without explanation? Get real, please. It's hard enough trying to figure out feasible solutions to the world's problems without this nonsense muddying things up.
More importantly, there will be a really bad movie coming out in November of 2009 about this supposed doomsday scenario. Look cool? No? Good. Yes? Keep in mind this is the same idiot (I'm not even going to dignify him by mentioning his name) who made Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla (the american remake), The Day After Tomorrow, and to top off this shit sundae, 10,000 BC, a movie taking place during the agricultural revolution about cavemen who must do battle with woolly mammoths and horsemen who are capable of building pyramids. Yeah... Why exactly should we think this guy has any say in the significance of specific dates if he can't even get it straight with regards to events in the past. How do you screw that up? "Before the coming of the End Times in 2021, just remember how close humanity came to an abrupt end when the dinosaurs came back in the 19th century, and... Wha- Oh shit."
All of these movies are made to be big and gaudy with trailers designed to pull you in by not letting on the actual plot of the film. 2012's trailer is fairly indicative of this pattern. Fortunately there's never much of a plot to any of these godawful things, so you've got it all figured out from the beginning whether you know it or not. What do you see in the trailer? It's the end of the world, and the incompetent governments of the world can do nothing to save us. No, more than that. They will not try to do anything to save us. That's what the captions say. They've blatantly played the anti-government card to try and hook in as many americans and rebels-without-a-clue as possible. As much as I criticize the United States government for being an overall incompetent political body, I'm not that stupid. I'm not going to be psyched for a movie just because you tell me the government can't be trusted. I know that already, tell me something I don't know. You know, something interesting.
Oh, but they do tell us something. They tell us to "find out the truth". Upyours. Tell me the truth! It's your movie, you do your research! What is it with truth-finding in american pop culture that usually means buying into hyped-up bullshit? The truth is not out there, it's not waiting to be uncovered, it's not hidden, it's not coded, it's not secret. The truth is right in front of you. You may point out that there's too much bullshit to figure out what's real. But that's my point. Watch anything on television, and you'll realize the truth: it's all bullshit. That's the truth. What? You were expecting a thriller to start up when you found it? If you're so damn curious about a specific claim, look up a credible academic or professional source.
But then if everyone thought critically, we wouldn't have hack film-makers informing us that 9/11 was an inside job.
But what's most alarming about this film is not the subject matter or premise or even the sheer idiocy that is bound to flow forth once it's released. It's that this film is most probably going to make a massive profit, despite all forewarning that it's going to be really, really bad. Think I'm too presumptuous? Look at all those movies listed above. Actually, look at the one. The Day After Tomorrow. Can you think of anything that could make 2012 any different? The premise is the same, the effects look (from the trailer) the same, the plot of these movies never deviates in complexity or coherence, and the standard of acting is far from impressive. (Matthew Broderick? Are you FUCKING joking?) And we keep telling ourselves the same thing every time the same guy makes another movie. So why do we keep going to see them?? These films have collectively raked in almost a billion dollars. That's no small amount for a series of terrible disaster movies. Why do we keep giving these guys the benefit of the doubt? I can judge a book by it's cover if the cover treats me like a 12-year-old. This is not impressive material for a high-budget film-maker.
DON'T SEE 2012. DON'T SEE ANY OF THIS GUY'S MOVIES EVER AGAIN. You're doing yourself a favor.
By the way, the music stolen blatantly from the Shining trailer was a nice touch of incompetency.
*I don't know why all the videos of Bill Nye pwning astrology have the ratings and comments disabled. Are people that persistent in their faith in astrology that they make rational discussion impossible? Christ, it's all made up, guys, kids' stuff.
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