Stowaway

For the past few days, a stray kitten has been wandering around the neighborhood. Despite my objections, KJ's fed it a few times, so of course it's been hanging out at our place a lot. No, we're not keeping this one; we're well above our limit already. So if anybody wants a cute little black kitten, we can probably catch it for you.

This morning was interesting. I usually leave for work at 10:30 AM. We knew they were repaving our road this week, but we didn't know which parts would be which day. But Murphy's Law has never been very subtle in my life, so I was hardly surprised when I saw the paving truck pass my driveway at 10:28. I drove to the end of my driveway anyway, rolled down my window, and asked the workers how long it would be. They said it would be safe in about five minutes. No problem, I'm usually 10 minutes early to work anyway.

While I sat there, KJ came outside to talk to me (well, to make fun of me), and we heard a meowing. KJ thought it sounded like the meowing was coming from the truck. We searched the truck all over, as well as the surrounding bushes, and we finally found it in the spare tire underneath the truck. I couldn't get my hand in there, and I didn't really have the time to detach the tire from the truck. We tried to coax it out with tuna, but that didn't work, so we had to spray it with a water pistol. That worked. Within seconds, there was a little black blur darting across our lawn.

By that time the paving had dried enough for me to cross, and I still got to work a couple of minutes early. I hate to think what would have happened if the pavers hadn't stopped me, though. She might have stayed in the tire the whole way, crawling out later to find herself in a brand new neighborhood. But I think it's more likely she would have gotten scared and jumped out on the way. So the pavers might have saved her life. Hopefully she won't get run over by the paving truck later today.

Moderation In All Things

I am a very middle-of-the-road person. There are very few subjects that I really care passionately about, which is why it seems like I rant about the same things over and over on this blog. I generally distrust people who have strong opinions about anything, because in my experience, the people who are fanatic about something are the ones who haven't thought it through from both sides. So if there's one type of people I truly despise, it's "all-or-nothing" people. Which I have decided to call "AONs." The people who either love something or hate it, with no room for neutrality.

* AONs are the ones who review movies (video games, books, etc) online, and rate everything "Perfect" or "Sucks". Look, IMDB has 10 stars for a reason, people. Not everything can be 1 star or 10 stars. What's worse is when they actually type out their reasons, and between their bad spelling and broken sentences, you can barely make out, "It was a pretty good movie, but the hero wore a shirt I didn't like, so the movie sucked." Heck, poke around Amazon enough, and you'll come across the occasional bad review for seller-related reasons. ("I didn't like this book because I paid for 2-day shipping and it took two weeks to get it.")

So I never believe any perfect review, whether it's perfectly good or perfectly bad. Either direction has me immediately thinking "internet fanboy", and searching for more professional reviews. For example, one friend of mine called "The Day After Tomorrow" a bomb because he doesn't believe in global warming. Now, there are a lot of reasons that it was a bad movie (and a lot of reasons I thought it was fun anyway), and I wouldn't have minded if he'd blasted the movie for it's script, acting, and yes, even the general plot. But the science in the movie (and most movies) is "movie science" that is only relevant in that movie's universe. Hating it for your own personal beliefs is like saying, "I hated Star Wars because I don't believe in lightsabers." My brother hated "Face-Off" because he couldn't swallow the idea of people switching faces. Okay, but you knew that going in. If you didn't want to suspend you disbelief that far, then you should have gone to a different movie. But at least it wasn't the only reason he disliked the movie, and he didn't call it a total bomb based on that one issue.

* AONs are the ones who keep fad diets alive. The ones who say, "I read lettuce is good for you, so I'm going to eat nothing but lettuce for two months." Or "I know salt is bad, so I'm going to completely eliminate salt from my diet" (forgetting that a small amount of salt is required for survival). I'm not a nutritionist - or even in shape - but I firmly believe that a healthy diet is one that doesn't go to extremes. Well, unless you consider "absolutely no cyanide" an extreme.

* AONs are also the ones who say things like, "America: Love it or leave it." I think I've already established how much I hate that attitude, but for those reading my blog for the first time: America was founded on the concept of "power to the people." It was founded by people who were sick of living under the rule of monarchs, where the opinion of the average citizen meant nothing. Now, there are some countries where citizens have less power, and "if you don't like it, leave" is a perfectly valid attitude there (assuming it's a country you can leave). But in America, the rule is supposed to be, "If you don't like a law, work to change it." It's these overly-patriotic morons who should be forced to leave, as they obviously don't really love America if they know so little about her.

These dirtbags also like to say, "If you're not for us, you're against us." Well, I guess if you're so stupidly intolerant that you can't allow someone to have a neutral opinion about something, then I really am against you. But that doesn't mean I'm going to join your opponent's camp either. Can't you just leave some of us alone?

Similar to this is, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Seriously? Let's look at that.

Okay, problem: Ants keep getting into your house.

Parts of the problem: You're leaving bread crumbs on your counter. There's a gap under your screen door. The unusual amount of rain has caused ants to seek higher ground.

Parts of the solution: Ant poison/baits. Cleaning the house, and keeping it clean. Sealing all entry points. Adopting a pet anteater.

Things that are neither part of the solution, nor part of the problem: Ear muffs. Wildabeast. France. Boxer shorts. The Star Wars Trilogy. William Henry Harrison. Cufflinks. The GEICO Gecko. Mad Magazine. Marilu Henner. Christmas Tree Ornaments. 12-sided dice. Airplanes. That rainbow-wigged "John 3:16" guy. Earlobes. Doonesbury. Communists. C3P0. Bluetooth headsets. Winged monkeys. Rick Astley. Uri Geller. The Korean War. That episode of Friends where they switch apartments. Cowboy Bebop. MySpace. Barney Rubble. Barney Fife. Barney the purple dinosaur. The Monkees. Henna tattoos. Street Fighter II. Frankenstein. The Brady Bunch. Wi-Fi. Tennis. Velociraptors. Bruce Campbell. Captain America. Nude bungee jumping. The Atari 2600. Daleks. Analog watches. Danny Elfman. Velcro shoes. Drow. Plush animals. Gay marriage. White water rafting. A partridge in a pear tree.

Clearly, there are some things/people that are not part of the solution or the problem. If you're having so much trouble identifying neutral things, then perhaps you're part of the problem.

* AONs are also the ones who are hopelessly devoted to their boyfriends/girlfriends right up until the day they completely hate them. What is the deal with that? You know two people for years, maybe even before they got together. You know damn well they're both great people. But when they break up, they each become villains in the other's eyes. And of course, you're stuck taking sides, because obviously to sympathize with one brings ire from the other.

I don't play that game. Unless I already strongly disliked one of them, I simply won't take sides.

Don't you have a setting between love and hate? Can't you just realize that you're both still good people, who just happen to be incompatible mates? Why make things worse for both of you by demonizing the other? Why? Well, because as a human being, it's in your egotistical nature to think, "I'm perfect, so if someone can't get along with me, they must be evil." I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You can both be perfect and still be wrong for each other. Quit it, you're making your friends uncomfortable. Try to remember what you first liked about them, and use that as a basis for a friendship. That doesn't mean you still have to go out for pizza together, but it would be nice if you could at least find a way to be in the same room together without fighting.

I'm not saying there aren't evil people out there. Duh. If it turns out one of the breaker-uppers had been beating the other, then of course I would be first in line to take the victim's side. But in most cases I let these things work themselves out. I'm not going to risk fueling a friend's hatred, agreeing with all their insults, only to have an awkward backfire scenario when they inexplicably get back together. I'll be glad to play sympathetic ear for either side, but I refuse to get in the middle. And if you play the "It's them or me" card, I'm choosing them. Because a real friend wouldn't ask me to choose, and therefore you've chosen for me.

Granted, I'm not as angry about the break-up thing as I am about other AON people. I realize that people are emotional creatures, and therefore I can forgive some stupidity during stressful times. But I still refuse to take sides.

* People call me indecisive, and I'm still debating on whether they're right. I'm pretty sure I'm leaning towards maybe. In a way I'm an AON myself, but instead of choosing side A or B, I take my neutrality to the silliest of extremes. Despite my earlier implication, there's really nothing wrong with having a solid opinion. A solid opinion is still a comfortable distance away from a fanatical dogma, and as long you recognize others' rights to their opinions, you're probably doing well.

The bottom line is, don't be afraid of neutrality. Instead of defining yourself by how close you are to the left or the right, try considering how far you are from the middle. There is nothing in this world so perfect that it has to be the only thing. You don't always have to choose between leader or follower, and not everyone can be classified as hunter or prey. While it's fun to root for your favorite football team, it's not traitorous to cheer when the other team makes a fantastic play. Some movies are "fairly decent", and some are "merely okay." There is no one food nutritionally complete enough to fulfill your entire diet. There are two sides to every story, and there can be good people on both sides of a war. It's not wrong to be secure in your beliefs, but you must re-examine them now and then or else you're believing it because that's what you've always believed, and that's never a good reason to believe something, believe me.

I think.

Moving In

Note, I'm transferring a lot of my old blog entries from MySpace. If you go to this blog through the main page, you should see my posts in chronological order. But if you are using Google Reader or other such site/program, then my posts might show up in the order I transfered them, which won't make a bit of sense. But from this point on, my posts should show up in a sane order again.

The Cat Burglar

Warning: Cutesy-Wutesy Kitty Story

KJ has been making pendants out of clay. When working with clay, she wooden tools. When she's not using them, she keeps them in a plastic bag, held together by a rubber band:

She keeps this downstairs, on the living room table. For the past few days, Sybil has been picking up the bag and carrying it around the room. I don't know, it must be a cat thing. We just keep taking it away from her, and putting it back on the table. So this morning, our precious Sybil brings KJ this as a present:

The plastic bag, still held together with the rubber band, minus the tools. She brought it to KJ as a gift, the same way a cat might bring its owner a dead mouse. But where were the tools? We looked all over the house, under every piece of furniture. We were dumbfounded. It seemed like there should have at least been a trail. I can picture her playing with them around the house, and losing them under furniture, as she often does with Q-Tips and milk rings. But there's nine tools in that set, we should have at least been able to find one of them.

In the end, it was Sybil who showed KJ where they were. Upstairs, in the bedroom, under some shoes. And neatly organized, for a cat.  Sybil was a bit protective of them, and didn't want to give them up. She kept complaining about us taking away her toy, and she keeps trying to get at them again.

Tell Me All Your Thoughts On Blog

I haven't been blogging much lately. Truth is, I'm not much of a blogger. I had a lot I wanted to get off my chest early on, and I said it. But now that it's said, I have a harder time coming up with things to write about. Sometimes I'll vent when I'm angry, but I just haven't been angry much lately. And when I have, it's still all things I've written before, so why bother. There's also a zillion other little reasons I haven't written, mostly involving other interests and a general lack of time.

A micro-update on my life: We're out of money, in massive debt, and there will be no Christmas this year. We're quite depressed about the money issues. I've been trying to empty out the attic, to sell some stuff on E-Bay, but there's just not a whole lot we want to part with. No sense selling something that you know you're going to buy again when you have money again. Especially when it's a hard-to-find collector's item.

So, anybody been to the Creationist Museum yet? Here's some pics from one visitor. I really want to visit it sometime, for the same reasons this guy did - just so I can laugh at it. Did you know that all dinosaurs were vegetarians? Yep, even the raptors. See, according to Creationism, all the animals in the Garden of Eden were vegetarians. They had to be, as meat-eating requires killing, and death hadn't been invented yet. When Eve ate the forbidden fruit, part of the punishment was that the Dinosaurs all dropped dead (how this was a punishment, I don't quite get). I'd be interested in knowing how many people consider themselves Creationists, then visit the museum, see what Creationism really means, and change their minds.

I try to be respectful of other people's religions and philosophies. I really do. And I try not to write too many anti-religion blogs, because I don't like reading other people's pro-religion blogs. If I'm going to object to fundies spreading their word everywhere, then it would be hypocritical of me to impose my non-relgion on other people.

But total Christian Fundamentalist Creationism (believing that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, etc) is just so baffling to me. The concept of a "god" is at least scientifically explainable. We're more powerful than other creatures on this planet. Our technology would look like magic to primitive people. So it stands to reason that there could be other people in the universe, technically advanced enough to appear godlike to us. Anyone who's played SimCity knows how much fun it is to build a civilization, and scientists now know how to grow a human from scratch. So I see no compelling reason to dismiss the idea of a Supreme Being.

Every thinking Christian knows, there is nothing anti-religious about belieiving in evolution. Science and religion CAN go hand-in-hand, if you don't take every Biblical word literally. And why should you? It's been translated and retranslated and mistranslated so many times over so many years. Much of the book is written like poetry. Even if every word was directly dictated by God personally (and no one believes that), He would still have been writing it for a more primitive culture, who couldn't understand a lot of the concepts we do today.

How explain to primitive people the concept of microscopic bacteria? It's easier to just say, "Don't eat unclean foods." How do you explain to ancient people the connection between unsafe sex and STDs? It's easier to say, "Save sex for marriage." A lot of what we decided was "moral" was actually just practical ways to keep society (at the time) from falling into chaos.

If the Bible had been written this century, it wouldn't have said, "Don't eat pork", it would have said, "Make sure you cook pork for at least this amount of time, make sure you keep it refrigerated, make sure you don't leave it on the counter, etc." The modern Bible also wouldn't tell us, "Save sex for marriage"; instead it would tell us ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy and disease.

Some religious zealots think that AIDS was invented by God to punish gays and other "sexual deviants". I think they're getting their cause and effect mixed up. Disease was already here, probably a side effect that God just couldn't iron out. Unable to stop the disease itself, God tries various methods of keeping people from spreading it. Reliable condoms hadn't been invented yet, so He had to make rules for human sexual behavior.

Of course, this would mean that God wasn't truly omnipotent. Does it really matter? Personally, I would much rather worship a Creator who had put a lot of work into the universe. Yeah, sure, be thankful that God granted you life, but does that really mean anything when he did it just by snapping His fingers? That cost Him nothing. There's nothing wrong with calling him omnipotent, because His power is so great that we mortals could never conceive of its limits. But that doesn't have to mean He can do absolutely anything. There's even parts of the Bible where God seems to be unable to stop certain events, or is surprised at something that happens (can someone all-knowing ever be surprised?) Worshippers rationalize this by saying, "God works in mysterious ways." I rationalize it by saying, "If there is a Supreme Being, he's not technically omnipotent."

I have been accused of thinking I'm the only one who has life figured out. I promise you, the only thing I know for certain is that I don't know a damn thing. I don't know if there's a god and I don't know if there's an afterlife. So please don't accuse me of looking down on religious people. I really don't. Everyone is entitled to their own philosphy of life. There are a lot of things in the universe that are simply unknown, and probably always will be. People don't like unanswered questions, so they fill those gaps with whatever they can find. The only time I really dislike religion, is when people use the name of their god to justify what I consider to be immoral behavior. And that's what trips people up - what I consider immoral obviously isn't going to be universal law. But I keep my beliefs fairly generic, and follow the ol' medical rule, "First, Do no harm." If you believe that people who are different should have different legal rights, then you are immoral. If you want to take away my rights, simply because you don't believe in my philosophy, religion, race, or sexual orientation, then you are doing harm.

For the most part, I am perceived as a bleeding heart liberal. This is because I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

By "Life", I mean all human life, and some animal life as well. I get sick of hearing people complain about welfare, by saying crap like, "Why should my tax dollars pay for his liquor" and so on. Yes, some people abuse it, but I challenge you to find any system of anything that people can't abuse. A few flaws doesn't mean a system is bust. A system is defined by the people it helps, and welfare keeps some people from starving to death. If we allow our harsh capitalism to starve people who weren't strong enough to keep up, then we're not really guaranteeing life. I'm not saying give everything away free; in fact, if I were Queen of America, I'd probably do away with a lot of the government aid we already have, even ones I've benefitted from in the past. But for people to overcome the hardships in their life, the first thing they have to do is live.

"Liberty" and "Pursuit of Happiness" may as well be the same thing, in my opinion. Everyone should have the right to do anything they want, provided they aren't harming anyone else. I think most people can agree to that, or at least they think they do... until an issue like gay marriage comes up.

In reference to religion, a while back someone asked me, "What if you're wrong?" I assume the full question to that would be, "What if you're wrong, and there really is a God, and every word of the Bible is true and literal, and the fundies are right, and homosexuals are evil, etc etc etc?" Well, what if?

Once upon a time, I justified my Christian beliefs by figuring that I wasn't losing anything by believing in God, so I might as well do so. If it turned out I was wrong, so what? If there was no God, there'd be just as little an afterlife whether I believed or not. I'm out nothing either way, so might as well believe, rather than risk eternal Hell. Of course, I wasn't the first to come up with this philosophy. I later learned that it's called Pascal's Wager, and there's more info about it here. But to sum up, it looks like this:




Just looking at it, it seems to make a lot of sense. If nothing else, 1B (Hell) is just too great a risk for anyone NOT to become a believer, so if you have nothing to lose, why not believe in God?

But it makes a few illogical assumptions:

1. It assumes that there are no negative repercussions from believing in God. The whole basis of "what have you got to lose" conveniently forgets that a lot of people do live rougher lives because of their religious beliefs. There's closeted homosexuals who never find a fulfilling relationship because they think their sexual orientation is a sin. There's starving people in third-world countries who continue to have children they can't feed, all because Catholic missionaries told them that birth control was evil. There are countries at war because each believes in a different God, which often turns out to be the same God wearing a different hat. There are people missing out on some of the world's greatest literature, because their pastors told them those books were evil. There are people denying their children much-needed medical care, because they believe God is going to heal them. There are people destroying the environment, justifying it with the belief that the events of the Book of Revelation are near.

2. It assumes that one can simply say, "I believe in God" and it'll happen. Can you really force yourself to believe something, all the way to your core? And will that really fool the Supreme Being? There are a lot of things in life that I want to believe, and I would very much like to believe that all the pain in this lifetime will be rewarded in the next one. I'd also very much like to believe that I'll win the lottery. But if wanting something really bad magically made it happen, my life would be a lot different. I'll admit to being a bit nuts, but I'm not nearly crazy enough to believe in a magical man in the clouds. At least not without some sort of proof.

3. "Believing In God" is not so black-and-White. Which God? Which religion? Which denomination? There's a zillion religions out there, and each one has many denominations, sects, and other subsets. Is there any evidence that your religion is the correct one, or do you just go with the ones your parents taught you? Of course there can't be proof, because religions are built on blind faith. But when two rival religions tell you, "You have to believe and have faith without proof", how do you decide which is right? What happens if you pick the wrong one? Some people claim they felt a calling to the right religion, but I'm better at noticing and interpreting my mental rationalizations than some people. Some people experience a euphoria when they first go to church, brought on by the air of excitement in the room, and the attention they get from the other churchgoers, and they interpret that exhillaration as the moment that they were saved by God.

So, to answer the question, "What if you're wrong?", I'd have to say that I can't be wrong. I'm not saying there is no God, I'm just saying that I don't have any compelling reason to choose a religion. I haven't made any claim that I know what happens after you die. I can't be wrong because I haven't actually said anything to be wrong about. All I've said is, "I don't know." And while I may go on from time to time about GLBT rights, I make no guarantees about any potential gods agreeing with me. Of course, I could counter with a thousand counter-questions, most centering around, "What if you picked the wrong God?", but I've tried that before and I rarely get a straight answer.

Oh, I just remembered another reason I don't blog much: I never know how to end them.

I'm In Ur House, Upsetting Ur Kitties

We got a new kitten! KJ has been wanting one for a while, but we where waiting until we found the perfect one. Basically, she wanted one that "called to her". So today (technically yesterday now), while we were killing time before seeing a movie, we popped into PetSmart and discovered our kitten. Say hello to Sybil:

Sybil is an 8-week old female tortoiseshell. Like many kittens, she has two modes: Play and sleep.

Banchi and Honi are NOT happy about the new addition. They both ran upstairs, and have holed up in separate hiding spots. They hiss whenever we go near them, or when they see each other.

But they will get over it. Sooner or later they'll realize that the new kitten is not going away, and they'll have to accept her (or at least learn to avoid/ignore her). Until then, we're keeping their claws trimmed, and keeping an eye on them to make sure they don't hurt her.

She's Got a Chicken to Ride...

This is how lunatics entertain themselves:

A "Mondegreen" is a misunderstood song lyric. The term was invented when a certain author misheard "upon the green" as "mondegreen". The example I hear of most is "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" instead of "kiss the sky". You can find mondegreen web sites all over the web, just Google "misheard song lyrics". There's a good database at www.kissthisguy.com.

While some are more well-known than others, none of them are universal. There's oodles of different ways people sing the lyrics to "Louie Louie". And just ask 10 different people what Springsteen says after "Blinded by the light..." I think my favorite Mondegreen is the one Phoebe mentions in an episode of Friends, the Elton John song that says, "Hold me closer Tony Danza..."

I have a slight hearing problem. Noises aren't too quiet; I hear volume just fine. But if there's any interfering noises, I have trouble picking out the sounds I want to hear. So I have a big problem with song lyrics, because the instruments are too distracting. As such, I can have a favorite song that I've heard for years, without ever having memorized the lyrics. So I got in the habit of making up my own.

You probably pity KJ about right now.

These days, most of my alternate lyrics aren't really "mondegreens", as I've pretty much gotten into the habit of singing the wrong words to every song on the radio, whether I understand the actual words or not. You can probably blame Weird Al. He's always been one of my favorite performers, and ever since I first heard of him in the 80s, I've been coming up with my own alternate lyrics for popular songs. The main difference being, I suck at it. In college, my buddy Alan and I came up with lots of odd lyrics, and we completely rewrote "Here's a Quarter" with our version titled, "Ned McWhorter Just Fell Down The Stairs". ("Call someone who glistens... and might live on Spam... or one of them chocolate eclairs...")

A couple of years later I started singing this version of the song "I Swear": "I swear... Like a sailor with tacks in his boot... I swear... Like a soldier who just shot his foot... Whenever there's trouble, whenever there's pain, Whenever I just washed the car and it rains, I swear..."

But most of the time it's not nearly that complex or thought out. There's a lot of commonly used words in songs that I just automatically substitute with other words, often without even thinking about it. For example, I often replace "love" with "slug". This works well both as a noun ("You Can't Hurry Slugs") and a verb ("Slug The One You're With"). However, if the context has someone "falling in" love, then I replace love with "lava" ("Don't Fall In Lava").

I also replace "peace" with "peas", for example: "Carry on my wayward son... There'll be peas when you have corn." One of the sillier things I do is replace "way" with "curds" (curds and whey, get it?), as in, "Oooooh, baby I love your curds..." On the rare occasion I hear the song "I Fall To Pieces, I sing the words, ""I swallow Reese's..." Lets see... instead of "Heaven Is A Place On Earth", I sing, "Heaven Is A Place With Smurfs."

One December at work, the radio station would alternate between Christmas songs and classic rock. It was kind of surreal, one minute you'd be listening to "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer", the next minute they'd be playing the Stones' "Paint It Black". Which led me to start singing, "I see a reindeer and I want it painted black..." Now that you've read that, I dare you to try to hear the song again without thinking that.

Sometimes I'll come up with something subconsiously, and sing it without even knowing I'm singing it, regardless of who's around. Luckily only KJ was in the car when I belted out this highly perverse alternate verse for "I Will Follow Him" (Warning, not for young eyes): "I love him, I love him, I love him, and when he comes I'll swallow, I'll swallow, I'll swallow..." I've probably ruined that song for you for life.

Anybody else got any favorites they want to post here?