My wife and I are going to see Harry Potter at midnight tonight, just like we did for the last Harry Potter film. I have probably been to two dozen midnight movies in my life. I love doing this. Every time I do it, it gets more difficult. The next day I feel like I am on my deathbed.
I used to get up after a midnight movie in the morning and go see the movie again.
I think this may be our last one. With full-time jobs and baby on the way I just don't see how we will pull it off. I am desperately waiting for someone to tell me this is not the case.
I am not enjoying aging. I used to have the ability to eat two large pizzas, eat half a bucket of ice cream, and play video games until sunrise. If I eat half a pizza now, I have to run for a week to burn it off, and ice cream makes me naseous and gives me heartburn if I eat more than half a bowl. This is stupid. I am turning 28 in a few months, and I thought my body would stay springy until my mid-30s at least. Not so. I am already wishing I was 26 again. That was my metabolism's last hurrah. That was awesome. I know I don't eat great, but I definitely eat better than I used to. I am running a few miles every morning, too.
I blame this desk job. My body is getting acclimated to a sedentary state. Anything else feels unnatural. My eyes are going, too. I used to have 20-20. I could see a mountain from my backyard, and I live in Louisiana. Not really, but my vision was great. Now I can barely read my computer monitor, which I blame for wounding my vision.
I am glad we get perfected bodies when we die.
I am too tired and crotchety to proofread this.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Intelligence
About as busy as I've ever been, just moved again, having a baby in four months right after both of my siblings will be getting married, but I would feel terrible if I didn't pass this along.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Solidarity Fail
From TV Guide's website:
ABC has rejected a request by a Republican group to rebut President Obama's health care plans on an upcoming day of White House-themed news specials. In response, the network has stated that its coverage will nevertheless be balanced.
Um...he's the President. The majority of the country voted for him. If he wants to talk on TV, the network he speaks on isn't obligated to show his political enemies rebuttal to every word he says...because he is the President. Because Obama won the majority of voting Americans' votes, it can be assumed the majority of America doesn't really want to see the people they didn't vote for's rebuttal anyway...and if they do, they can get it elsewhere. How dumb does it make America look when the President is publicly on trial 24/7, an army of opposition following him around like lawyers everywhere he goes to contradict his every word.
ABC has rejected a request by a Republican group to rebut President Obama's health care plans on an upcoming day of White House-themed news specials. In response, the network has stated that its coverage will nevertheless be balanced.
Um...he's the President. The majority of the country voted for him. If he wants to talk on TV, the network he speaks on isn't obligated to show his political enemies rebuttal to every word he says...because he is the President. Because Obama won the majority of voting Americans' votes, it can be assumed the majority of America doesn't really want to see the people they didn't vote for's rebuttal anyway...and if they do, they can get it elsewhere. How dumb does it make America look when the President is publicly on trial 24/7, an army of opposition following him around like lawyers everywhere he goes to contradict his every word.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Batteries, Aziz!
Um, Mr. Prez,
I hate to be flippant, but have you noticed gas prices lately? They are quietly creeping back up to the levels they hit last summer--the media isn't really talking about it for some reason, and anytime a pundit or talking-head is asked about it, they scoff at the idea of gas hitting four dollars again. The fact of the matter is, gasoline prices have more than doubled in the last six months. Where is the limit?
Can you get on that?
I hate to be flippant, but have you noticed gas prices lately? They are quietly creeping back up to the levels they hit last summer--the media isn't really talking about it for some reason, and anytime a pundit or talking-head is asked about it, they scoff at the idea of gas hitting four dollars again. The fact of the matter is, gasoline prices have more than doubled in the last six months. Where is the limit?
Can you get on that?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
I've changed?
I posted this entry to this blog over four years ago:
Why do I do this?
To vent. My opinion. Anyone who knows me knows my opinion is the only opinion I care about, and am interested in, anyway. Basically, my opinion is a box of Honey Bunches of Oats, and anyone else's opinion is the trial offer for a spa that I glance at, then throw away. Meanwhile, I am pouring the Honey Bunches of Oats into a bowl, throwing some milk in there, and savoring every bite. The milk is my own self esteem, which my opinion floats high on. You think I'm kidding?
The sad thing is, at the time, I most definitely was not kidding. I'd like to think the reason I blog now is still to float my opinion out there--so that if my opinion has holes, it will sink, and I can build a better ship. In non-symbolic terms and also because I don't know what to do with the milk-metaphor, I think I blogged before to show everyone how smart I was, and I blog now so that everyone can help me become smarter. At least, I hope this is why.
Why do I do this?
To vent. My opinion. Anyone who knows me knows my opinion is the only opinion I care about, and am interested in, anyway. Basically, my opinion is a box of Honey Bunches of Oats, and anyone else's opinion is the trial offer for a spa that I glance at, then throw away. Meanwhile, I am pouring the Honey Bunches of Oats into a bowl, throwing some milk in there, and savoring every bite. The milk is my own self esteem, which my opinion floats high on. You think I'm kidding?
The sad thing is, at the time, I most definitely was not kidding. I'd like to think the reason I blog now is still to float my opinion out there--so that if my opinion has holes, it will sink, and I can build a better ship. In non-symbolic terms and also because I don't know what to do with the milk-metaphor, I think I blogged before to show everyone how smart I was, and I blog now so that everyone can help me become smarter. At least, I hope this is why.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Like the Plague
Courtesy of The New York Observer's Rex Reed, ""No matter how bad you think the worst movie ever made ever was, you have not seen Synecdoche, New York. It sinks to the ultimate bottom of the landfill, and the smell threatens to linger from here to infinity".
I agree. My wife does as well. I usually dislike the outrageously overrated cinematic output of Charlie Kaufman (except Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, not a favorite of mine (though a favorite of my wife), but a notable film). However, while watching Synecdoche, New York, I was reminded of everything about movies, art, and things in general I hate.
Namely: getting dropped into something in which it is assumed I already love, care for, and know the characters in the work(because the writer does and assumes I do, too) and forced to wade through sewer after sewer of wasted time with said characters only to have trite, simplistic lessons, the likes of which could better be conveyed by looking at a clock for 124 minutes, shoved down my throat to rising, patronizing, syrupydramatic strings.
A. No, I don't care about your characters, especially when they lack the simple quality of acting like non-loathable human beings. I also don't know them because you have spent more time wallowing in excremental philosophic meanderings then actually developing them.
B. If I am going to wade through filth, I want a shower and some pudding afterward.
C. That is 124 minutes of my life I am never going to get back. I could have read an US Weekly and gleaned more perception on the plight of the human condition.
Thank you and have a good night!
I agree. My wife does as well. I usually dislike the outrageously overrated cinematic output of Charlie Kaufman (except Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, not a favorite of mine (though a favorite of my wife), but a notable film). However, while watching Synecdoche, New York, I was reminded of everything about movies, art, and things in general I hate.
Namely: getting dropped into something in which it is assumed I already love, care for, and know the characters in the work(because the writer does and assumes I do, too) and forced to wade through sewer after sewer of wasted time with said characters only to have trite, simplistic lessons, the likes of which could better be conveyed by looking at a clock for 124 minutes, shoved down my throat to rising, patronizing, syrupydramatic strings.
A. No, I don't care about your characters, especially when they lack the simple quality of acting like non-loathable human beings. I also don't know them because you have spent more time wallowing in excremental philosophic meanderings then actually developing them.
B. If I am going to wade through filth, I want a shower and some pudding afterward.
C. That is 124 minutes of my life I am never going to get back. I could have read an US Weekly and gleaned more perception on the plight of the human condition.
Thank you and have a good night!
Thursday, June 04, 2009
No Backsies: A Rant
This will not be focused.
I don't have respect for people who change their entire belief systems in their mid to late twenties. Maybe I just don't understand. I guess I am mainly talking about de-conversion here, mainly from Christianity (I get the conversion to Christianity as explained later). I have several people close to me in mind as I write this. These people usually take the view that they were lied to, coaxed, or forced into being Christians.
Here is what I don't understand: maybe I am different, but at a certain young age I decided that if I was going to believe something, I was going to use every resource, read every book, and do everything in my power to make sure that I really believed it. At the age of ten, after my family sans-father switched churches, I took extreme displeasure in certain things I was hearing from the pulpit. Somehow miraculously having the power to read, I went through my Bible, found contradictions to things I was hearing, and showed them to my mother. At the time, she dismissed my worries (later in life peace was made between us over this). Instead of just going along with what she and people older than me were telling me, I did something absolutely insane. I formed my own opinion. I held that opinion. Not at the age of 27. At the age of 10.
Does everyone not do this?
I mean, I'm not saying at 10, I knew everything, I am saying that at 10 I had a definite moral compass, a definite sense of right and wrong, and a definite ability to form my OWN opinion on the things I was exposed to.
I guess in short, I am saying:
NO ONE CAN FORCE YOU TO BELIEVE ANYTHING!!!
I became a Christian when I was 5. I am 27 and still a Christian. I actually still have extremely similar opinions to those of my 10 year old self. I hope that I am 2.7 times more mature than I was then, but still, when something is presented to me, I analyze it and make my own decision. I've had to put on fronts at certain points in my life for the love of my family and a desire for peace with them, but always, always, I knew what I believed.
When I went to college, which I encourage almost everyone to do, my beliefs were not shattered, but colored more vividly. I think that's what college is supposed to do. The history I knew didn't change. The gaps and details were just filled in. My love of story writing didn't explode and get replaced. It was only enhanced by the increased skills I gained from the masters who mentored me. I loved being in college. Of course I felt free, but it was the freedom of transitioning into adulthood, not the freedom of beliefs because everyone is already free to believe what they want to believe because your mind is your own. It is your expression of that belief that is challenged.
I'm not really saying that people can't change their minds. I changed my mind on how to write the previous sentence five or six times. My point in all this rambling is simply that I think you believe what you believe because you want to believe it. No one can force you. When people ask why I am a Christian my answer is simple: I just am. I can't not be one. It's who I am. And my point is kind of hypocritical because I don't see any problem with anyone abandoning non-Christian beliefs for Christian ones because I think Christ is the truth. Since I am targeting ex-Christians in this, though, maybe it is not hypocritical.
When I think about an ex-Christian friend of mine rambling on about how he used to be an agressive conservative Christian a-hole who mocked people who disagreed with his beliefs, who is now an agressive liberal Atheist a-hole who mocks people who disagree with his beliefs, I think, THAT is hypocrisy. I also think it is idiotic that this person equates his conservativism with his Christianity, as if the fact that I have always been a liberal contradicts with the fact that I have always been a Christian.
Extraneously, I think of a fellow LSU student who was certainly not a friend. Freshmen year, this guy starred in some campus ministry fire-and-brimstone drama that questioned viewer's fate and faith in a patronizing fashion. Senior year I had an American Literature class with the guy. He mocked any writer with anything close to Christian beliefs, even going so far as to lambast Thomas Jefferson's Deist writings. I don't know what happened to this guy, but his true tendencies were best described by another student, who during an in-class argument involving Hawthorne was driven to the point of simply retorting to his diatribes, "Dude. You're an asshole." I love college.
When a certain wavering friend, always a voracious reader, always talking about his beliefs shifting, asks what I am reading, I think, dude, what were you reading for the last 27 years? How are you only coming across these ideas now?
Anyway, I know there is not the least semblance of order in what I just wrote, but I get wore out enduring people that take a whole third of their lifetime just to learn how to think for themselves, and who simply abandon their past beliefs because they were the beliefs "forced" upon them. If belief without choice is not really belief, and these people truly believe they were forced to believe, I don't think they were true believers in the first place. I think they were nothing.
I don't have respect for people who change their entire belief systems in their mid to late twenties. Maybe I just don't understand. I guess I am mainly talking about de-conversion here, mainly from Christianity (I get the conversion to Christianity as explained later). I have several people close to me in mind as I write this. These people usually take the view that they were lied to, coaxed, or forced into being Christians.
Here is what I don't understand: maybe I am different, but at a certain young age I decided that if I was going to believe something, I was going to use every resource, read every book, and do everything in my power to make sure that I really believed it. At the age of ten, after my family sans-father switched churches, I took extreme displeasure in certain things I was hearing from the pulpit. Somehow miraculously having the power to read, I went through my Bible, found contradictions to things I was hearing, and showed them to my mother. At the time, she dismissed my worries (later in life peace was made between us over this). Instead of just going along with what she and people older than me were telling me, I did something absolutely insane. I formed my own opinion. I held that opinion. Not at the age of 27. At the age of 10.
Does everyone not do this?
I mean, I'm not saying at 10, I knew everything, I am saying that at 10 I had a definite moral compass, a definite sense of right and wrong, and a definite ability to form my OWN opinion on the things I was exposed to.
I guess in short, I am saying:
NO ONE CAN FORCE YOU TO BELIEVE ANYTHING!!!
I became a Christian when I was 5. I am 27 and still a Christian. I actually still have extremely similar opinions to those of my 10 year old self. I hope that I am 2.7 times more mature than I was then, but still, when something is presented to me, I analyze it and make my own decision. I've had to put on fronts at certain points in my life for the love of my family and a desire for peace with them, but always, always, I knew what I believed.
When I went to college, which I encourage almost everyone to do, my beliefs were not shattered, but colored more vividly. I think that's what college is supposed to do. The history I knew didn't change. The gaps and details were just filled in. My love of story writing didn't explode and get replaced. It was only enhanced by the increased skills I gained from the masters who mentored me. I loved being in college. Of course I felt free, but it was the freedom of transitioning into adulthood, not the freedom of beliefs because everyone is already free to believe what they want to believe because your mind is your own. It is your expression of that belief that is challenged.
I'm not really saying that people can't change their minds. I changed my mind on how to write the previous sentence five or six times. My point in all this rambling is simply that I think you believe what you believe because you want to believe it. No one can force you. When people ask why I am a Christian my answer is simple: I just am. I can't not be one. It's who I am. And my point is kind of hypocritical because I don't see any problem with anyone abandoning non-Christian beliefs for Christian ones because I think Christ is the truth. Since I am targeting ex-Christians in this, though, maybe it is not hypocritical.
When I think about an ex-Christian friend of mine rambling on about how he used to be an agressive conservative Christian a-hole who mocked people who disagreed with his beliefs, who is now an agressive liberal Atheist a-hole who mocks people who disagree with his beliefs, I think, THAT is hypocrisy. I also think it is idiotic that this person equates his conservativism with his Christianity, as if the fact that I have always been a liberal contradicts with the fact that I have always been a Christian.
Extraneously, I think of a fellow LSU student who was certainly not a friend. Freshmen year, this guy starred in some campus ministry fire-and-brimstone drama that questioned viewer's fate and faith in a patronizing fashion. Senior year I had an American Literature class with the guy. He mocked any writer with anything close to Christian beliefs, even going so far as to lambast Thomas Jefferson's Deist writings. I don't know what happened to this guy, but his true tendencies were best described by another student, who during an in-class argument involving Hawthorne was driven to the point of simply retorting to his diatribes, "Dude. You're an asshole." I love college.
When a certain wavering friend, always a voracious reader, always talking about his beliefs shifting, asks what I am reading, I think, dude, what were you reading for the last 27 years? How are you only coming across these ideas now?
Anyway, I know there is not the least semblance of order in what I just wrote, but I get wore out enduring people that take a whole third of their lifetime just to learn how to think for themselves, and who simply abandon their past beliefs because they were the beliefs "forced" upon them. If belief without choice is not really belief, and these people truly believe they were forced to believe, I don't think they were true believers in the first place. I think they were nothing.
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