Orgasm Jinx!

Heard:
When:2008-04-20

Where:In Oakland, on Forbes, near an ATM not far from the old Beehive (now T-Mobile)

Who:2 youngish guys talking

What:"...and my wife and I had an orgasm at the SAME TIME. So I said JINX!"

I don't think I'll ever overhear anything remotely as funny as that again. I have worked hard to be able to keep a straight face no matter what I may be hit with... I made it barely 6 steps further than these two and broke in an ear to ear smile and chuckle. I tried, but I could not hold it in.

Nonetheless, I salute this man for this act of brilliance. I only hope that he is married to someone who can fully appreciate humor of that magnitude.

Intelligent Design Hooey

I respect religions, I really do. I respect just about all of them, except the ones that get cultish or behave like pre-schoolers without manners.

The list that gets no respect:
Scientology.
This is a fine example of a business convention "get in touch with _you_" weekend that got out of control and developed into a religion. It is sad, and feeds on the stupid who want to be smart, but are not. Sorry Tom, I can't imagine how anyone could be this gullible.

Heaven's Gate.
Actually, though nutty, not really evil, just ill informed. Spooky in its "this could be your D&D addicted friend" nature.

Intelligent Design
Christianity, when it interferes with science, is a dangerous thing. This is the real evil, no doubtie about it. I keep stumbling across speudo-science fecal matter masquerading as "proof of something" and I'm getting fed up. I know science. I've done science. This my friends, is not science.

These people are bent on filling the world with misinformation. Lemme tell you a little story...

I had a friend, a female friend to be exact. She was a happy Christian and that was fine. I, a very friendly athiest, got along well with her for a time. Things were grand. Then one day, we got to chatting about the history of the world.

She said that the world was just over 2000 years old. I probably gave her an "um, no.... more like several billion years". She contested, and asked how I knew that (in a pointed way). I answered, "well, if you go by just carbon dating the fossils we find of hominids are older than 20,000 years." She then said "but carbon dating is inaccurate. A bunch of Christian researchers [ed note, oxymoron] took the bones of a recently deceased seal to see how old it was according to a lab analysis and they said it was several hundred years old. So if a one day old seal bone checks out to be several hundred years old then the age of that human-like fossil they found was only over several hundred years. I protested, and explained that carbon dating is not designed for accuracies like that, and that it's really only useful for dating about 1000 years to 50,000 years. But she would have none of it. There was no point to arguing, because neither of us could change the others' mind.

I have to go, I may add to this.

I need another me

You heard me. I need another me. I was up until 12:30 this morning working on curriculum for my 2nd period class before I realized that drooling on the keyboard wasn't getting anoyone any closer to a proper education so I packed it in.
I woke up at 6:00, showered and got right back to work. Got to school, worked on stuff until 2nd period, taught, observed 3rd period, then prepped for 5th and 6th periods nonstop. Finished preparation at the late bell for 5th period. Imagine my surprise when only 3 out of 16 students showed up. Bah.
Well, one of the three had an early dismissal, which left 2 students, Kionna and Shianne. And we had an impromptu lesson on human genetics, inheritance, and the like. It was splendiferous. Really. It was fun to connect and answer real questions that required me to pull on knowledge I'd not used in some time and actually had a delightful time thinking hard about stuff.

Well a happy holiday to all. I say holiday only because of my own convictions, my wife and family will wish all a Merry Christmas.

Here's a copy of our holiday card sent to quite a number of people, but many deserving folks may not receive one. Were your naughty? While that may be the case it's not really my business. Suffice it to say, all can gaze upon the only semi-adulterated composite image to right and rejoice in the splendor of ... that stuff ... that should be ... um, rejoiced in.

We bailed on the construction status yestyerday, and after a furious bout of vacuuming and reorganizing, all traces of hammers, drills, and other implements of constructive doom have been wiped clean. We've hung up the tool belt until the new year and will be resuming construction, on a less invasive scale, sometime the day after Christmas.

Happy Holidays. =)

Supplemental Blog...

Been busy but keep thinking that I really should post something. Have wanted to a couple of times but continually forget my username. Bugger.

Anyhoo, news of late includes the demolition of the downstairs of the house and it's current rebuilding.

Cubic Snowman
On a drive through Lawrenceville the other day I passed by a beautifully constructed cubic snowman. Kudos to the sculptor.

George Lucas is on Crack.

I waited. I waited -and- waited. I didn't have time to catch Star Wars Episode III in the theatre and I waited for it to come to DVD.

It's at times like this that I wonder: What did Star Wars ever do to Gerge Lucas? Was he secretly jealous of Han Solo for picking up Leia? Jabba mebbe just too oozy and icky? What happened that made Lucas forget so -thoroughly- about what made Star Wars awesome?

He missed it. Completely missed the mark. Friends, telling me "oh, he hit this one on the mark", clearly out of their minds. A CG R2-D2? Why? Because you can? Let's make the Droid Army's voices completely non-threatening, no wait; let's make them totally comedic! Because years of development wouldn't have led to battle-hardedned droids anyway: droid evolution's ultimate goal will be achieved when they all behave like Curly or Moe? -sigh-

Whose idea was the flirky-sounding bird-running creature Obi-Wan rode on in the General Grevious chase?

My take is as follows:
Good-
Many things were well-tied into episodes IV - VI. Obi Wan's mysterious non-death "more powerful that you can imagine" thing with Darth Vader in IV.
Obi-Wan. I mean, he was perfectly played in my opinion. Spot on.
I never realized before that the ultimate protagonist in the series, was R2-D2. Really. I mean, padme'd be dead without him. End of story. Of course, Anakin might then have stuck to his Jedi Teahings... but who cares?

Bad-
R2 as CG with totally unbelievable physics.
R2's mysteriously disappearing thrusters (would've helped in Degoba)
C3PO... hey, he's GOLD now, who knew?
Whiny F*ck&ng Anakin goober fluff-boy pansy. What a mis-casting.
Padme... it's possible she would have been better opposite a better Anakin, but we'll never know.
Wiping the droid's memory solves why 3PO doesn't recognize Luke's Uncle when the sand-salesmen come, but kind of leaves it open to why Luke's Uncle doesn't recognize C3PO. Okay, he is a different color... but still.
Anakin kills kids. REALLY could have done without this in THIS movie. I never wanted STAR WARS to be this dark. We know ANakin is a bad guy, and kills JEDIs. The implication was more than I liked (Anakin turns on light sabre, Padwan boy starts)... but to show the kids... too much.
Far too many "wide angle, sweeping CG environment" shots for my liking. I know real sets can be expensive to build, but sometimes it's just not possible to "get into" a CG environment.
Something about the CG droids as comic relief really bothered me. Even though it's not as 'flashy' and 'current', I would have liked at least SOME of the droid shots to be models. sigh.
Ultimately, I'm annoyed because I was able, with very few 'skipped' scenes or places where I had to stand in front of the TV, to allow my 5-year old to watch episodes I and II. I will not allow him to watch episode III. It is too dark, evil, and graphic. If I can figure out a way to cut out some scenes using Adobe Premiere, maybe. But as it is no way.

So there you have it. EPISODE III tied up loose ends beautifully, but ultimately sucked.

It went sisssssssssssss...

Bummer. Got my cool weather gear on for the morning commute, loaded pack on bike, and -gribbit-, my rear tire was flat. Remove wheel (Deore Quick releases, yay), start working tire off. Fight with tire. Pull fingernails mildly (i should cut those). Swear under breath. Get son warm Grape Nuts. Work on wheel some more. Use screwdriver like they say you shouldn't to pry wire bead from rim... put honey on son's Grape Nuts. Fight with tire some more. Finally remove tire and tube. Get new tube, put in tire, put on rim in about 10 seconds.

Ponder briefly why it was so horribly easy to get it back on, as opposed to remove it (with that faraway, visionary look).

Inflate tire, load up bike, and go. =

Turns out, I should mention, that the cause of the flat was a pieve of -bone- from some unfortunate animal. Glass, sure. Steel, absolutely. But bone?

Guess our ancestors knew what to make simple tools from after all.