Don't think I've posted about this before, but I have on my twitter. My neighbors like to scream at each other at random times of night. Well...that's a false statement. The wife likes to scream at her husband at random times of night. This is one of those nights, particularly special because it was at midnight, 1 am, and 3am. At this point, I went downstairs to confer with the front desk guys about what to do. They suggested that I call the police next time, since the last time they sent someone up tonight to try and get her to shut up she started yelling at him. So I'm awake, kind of coherent, and writing this (thank god for spell check tonight). I will endeavor to update this as much as I can when they do so I have a record of when this shit happens.
For the record, these people are married...newly married. I don't exactly know when it happened, but every time I hear "Hannah" talk about it, she says "we just got married." Great. One happy fucking couple. These occurrences of screaming are starting to become more frequent, mostly because she thinks her husband is cheating on her. He is about 6'6" and kind of overweight. He's what my grade school friends would call a "butterball." If he is managing to cheat on his wife, I'd wonder about who it could possibly be with. The wife, on the other hand, is about 5'7" and has a set of lungs on her that would probably make most opera singers blush. When she is yelling, it's mostly in English, with some Chinese. When she's screaming, then it becomes 1/3 English, 1/3 Chinese, and 1/3 noises that sound like she's turning into a werewolf.
Tonight, I only managed to get part of what was going on because she went straight from 0 to screaming. Audible, repeated statements were "get the fuck out of my house," "give me that fucking phone," "what the fuck did you say to her," Chinese, and werewolf birth-noises/harpy cries. At one point, she was crying so loud you could hear it out her front door and down on the other side of the hall. That's a good 50 feet. That isn't like any crying I've heard. When the security guy came up, she started screaming at him about not being allowed to cry in her own apartment and that someone had "fucking died." If someone died, you grieve, your sad, but I don't think anyone jumps into directing hate at people they don't know. If those arguments were about someone in her family dying, I'm the queen of motherfucking England.
So I sit here at 4 am, can't sleep, can't grammar too well, but I'm keeping a record for when I will inevitably have to call the cops. This way, I can make sure I remember it all.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The most influential person in your life
I saw a reddit post today about what single person changed your life. Most people's answers are for the better. Mine's different.
Hindsight is a bitch. One day, you may find yourself wondering how you got to a certain point in your life. You wonder where things went wrong, and if your mind is willing, it wanders back to the moments in time where your life started down some path. My mind does a wonderful thing when it gets there, and it likes to explore all the options I didn't take, even the ones I didn't know I had. And then it stretches itself across the chaos of time and images what could have been. Basically, my mind is an asshole.
A good amount of time, I think back to the summer before college when I started dating a girl. My mind thought: "Well, why not? We'll see where this goes." Like I said, he's an asshole. I had no idea that words could be so powerful until a couple years later. By then, the words had become "I should stay with her, she still loves me." They became "I owe this to her." They became "We can make this work."
I entered into a relationship with the idea that I would see where it took me. Eventually I fell in love with the girl, thinking that she was all I needed. There was a distance between us (three hours by train, but we made it work for a time). Time passes, and hindsight kicks in like the bitch it is. I realize that we aren't the same people. That's ok, people grow together. However, I realize that I've grown apart, and she has grown into something that wasn't the girl I fell in love with. But she still loved me. The words I told myself convinced me that we should try to make it work for a time. And I did try. And I failed, because it seemed like I was the only one. I would ask for things to change, and the would. For a time. A couple weeks things would revert back to the way they were.
So I did reprehensible things. I lied, I cheated, I told her the distance was the reason. I told the truth: she was too dependent on me, she was suffocating my life from hundreds of miles away, and that I want to try anymore. And I hurt someone very deeply.
Why did I act so shitty? It was a good idea at the time. That good idea was me trying to keep me happy. Fortunately, that decision was a good one. But the consequences and reasons were shitty.
Why am I telling you this? It wasn't the girl that was the person who changed my life. I was. Every single time my life has gone down the shitter, it was because of myself. Every time, I picked myself back up. There was no one else. Most of the people I know are too centered on their own lives to even stop to worry about mine. I think the most profound lessons aren't the ones other people teach you. They are the ones you teach yourself. You can have inspirations in people, and they can help a great deal. Don't diminish your own contributions to your own life. Own up to your successes as well as your failures. The whole picture is so much prettier.
Hindsight is a bitch. One day, you may find yourself wondering how you got to a certain point in your life. You wonder where things went wrong, and if your mind is willing, it wanders back to the moments in time where your life started down some path. My mind does a wonderful thing when it gets there, and it likes to explore all the options I didn't take, even the ones I didn't know I had. And then it stretches itself across the chaos of time and images what could have been. Basically, my mind is an asshole.
A good amount of time, I think back to the summer before college when I started dating a girl. My mind thought: "Well, why not? We'll see where this goes." Like I said, he's an asshole. I had no idea that words could be so powerful until a couple years later. By then, the words had become "I should stay with her, she still loves me." They became "I owe this to her." They became "We can make this work."
I entered into a relationship with the idea that I would see where it took me. Eventually I fell in love with the girl, thinking that she was all I needed. There was a distance between us (three hours by train, but we made it work for a time). Time passes, and hindsight kicks in like the bitch it is. I realize that we aren't the same people. That's ok, people grow together. However, I realize that I've grown apart, and she has grown into something that wasn't the girl I fell in love with. But she still loved me. The words I told myself convinced me that we should try to make it work for a time. And I did try. And I failed, because it seemed like I was the only one. I would ask for things to change, and the would. For a time. A couple weeks things would revert back to the way they were.
So I did reprehensible things. I lied, I cheated, I told her the distance was the reason. I told the truth: she was too dependent on me, she was suffocating my life from hundreds of miles away, and that I want to try anymore. And I hurt someone very deeply.
Why did I act so shitty? It was a good idea at the time. That good idea was me trying to keep me happy. Fortunately, that decision was a good one. But the consequences and reasons were shitty.
Why am I telling you this? It wasn't the girl that was the person who changed my life. I was. Every single time my life has gone down the shitter, it was because of myself. Every time, I picked myself back up. There was no one else. Most of the people I know are too centered on their own lives to even stop to worry about mine. I think the most profound lessons aren't the ones other people teach you. They are the ones you teach yourself. You can have inspirations in people, and they can help a great deal. Don't diminish your own contributions to your own life. Own up to your successes as well as your failures. The whole picture is so much prettier.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Dear Steve,
Hi, my name is Andrew. I never knew you. In fact, I never actually owned one of your products. In fact, I hated them. I relished the fact that I could hate them. I hated the fact that you turned something so mediocre into the most trendy thing on this planet. I hated the fact that your products created a group of elitist assholes who followed you like a cult. I laughed very hard when you told people they were holding the iPhone 4 wrong, mostly at your expense.
These aren't things I would have admitted to you...far from it. If we had met, and discussed your company's policies, I would have said I disagreed with them. I would have given you my very well thought out reasons why. I'm sure you would have corrected me on a few points. You did, after all, help pave the way for new technologies, as everyone has admitted. You brought to the mainstream something that we nerds were hoarding all to ourselves. What you tried to do was right. Some of your execution was a little poor. I like to believe that your heart was in the right place.
All this though...this isn't really my point. The point I want to make is about the iMac and OSX. The original OSX. You see, Steve, you're the reason I'm a computer programmer. And because of that, I've never been truly able to hate you.
When I was in high school my freshman year, my school had purchased a whole new computer lab full of iMacs. These were the first version that still looked like old eMacs, only in all white. Most people don't realize this, but these machines were the first to pave the way for an entire decade of design for apple products. They didn't quite have the touch screen buttons on the monitor. That was a couple years away. But they had OSX. And OSX was built like unix. It had a unix style command line. And this, in my first computer science class, was how I was introduced to programming.
I would love to say that I was introduced to it through linux, as some of my colleagues can claim. I wasn't. I originally took that class because I liked video games. I was very surprised to learn how hard programming was. It took a level of abstract though. However, the one thing that I understood very quickly was the idea of compiling on a command line. OSX did NOT make it easy. In fact, it was just as hard as linux. I had trouble with the basics of programming then. But I never had trouble with my efforts trying to make it work. That was the first time I had to admit that Apple did something better than Microsoft.
Over the years, it has been a struggle for me to do determine which operating system is the best. It took me a while to realize the correct answer: there isn't one (and it sure as hell isn't Solaris). The real answer is that there isn't a best. Each one is catered to something different. And you catered yours to something special, and you did it well.
I like to tell a story about how I got into computers. I fixed my parents computer when I wasn't supposed to, and my mom grounded me for it. It's true. And that is what first got me into computers. However, because of your company, Steve, I became interested in programming. And that shaped the rest of my life. I'm a software developer now. I work for a very successful investment bank that hired me for my programming abilities. I leverage them every day (though I will never leverage it for your stuff. I would have loved to ask you what the hell your developers were thinking when they though objective C was a good idea for the iPhone). And I owe a small bit of that to you.
I'm sure in a few days I'll go back to hating your company for it's pioneering in the terribleness of DRM, privacy violations, and the like. But I still have to recognize the part you have played in my life, even though I abhorred touching anything your company produced.
So thank you, Steve Jobs. I wouldn't be here today without you, in as much as you have helped. I would like to think you passed on satisfied with your work on this Earth. I just hope the rest of us can say that we did even a sliver as much. God speed.
These aren't things I would have admitted to you...far from it. If we had met, and discussed your company's policies, I would have said I disagreed with them. I would have given you my very well thought out reasons why. I'm sure you would have corrected me on a few points. You did, after all, help pave the way for new technologies, as everyone has admitted. You brought to the mainstream something that we nerds were hoarding all to ourselves. What you tried to do was right. Some of your execution was a little poor. I like to believe that your heart was in the right place.
All this though...this isn't really my point. The point I want to make is about the iMac and OSX. The original OSX. You see, Steve, you're the reason I'm a computer programmer. And because of that, I've never been truly able to hate you.
When I was in high school my freshman year, my school had purchased a whole new computer lab full of iMacs. These were the first version that still looked like old eMacs, only in all white. Most people don't realize this, but these machines were the first to pave the way for an entire decade of design for apple products. They didn't quite have the touch screen buttons on the monitor. That was a couple years away. But they had OSX. And OSX was built like unix. It had a unix style command line. And this, in my first computer science class, was how I was introduced to programming.
I would love to say that I was introduced to it through linux, as some of my colleagues can claim. I wasn't. I originally took that class because I liked video games. I was very surprised to learn how hard programming was. It took a level of abstract though. However, the one thing that I understood very quickly was the idea of compiling on a command line. OSX did NOT make it easy. In fact, it was just as hard as linux. I had trouble with the basics of programming then. But I never had trouble with my efforts trying to make it work. That was the first time I had to admit that Apple did something better than Microsoft.
Over the years, it has been a struggle for me to do determine which operating system is the best. It took me a while to realize the correct answer: there isn't one (and it sure as hell isn't Solaris). The real answer is that there isn't a best. Each one is catered to something different. And you catered yours to something special, and you did it well.
I like to tell a story about how I got into computers. I fixed my parents computer when I wasn't supposed to, and my mom grounded me for it. It's true. And that is what first got me into computers. However, because of your company, Steve, I became interested in programming. And that shaped the rest of my life. I'm a software developer now. I work for a very successful investment bank that hired me for my programming abilities. I leverage them every day (though I will never leverage it for your stuff. I would have loved to ask you what the hell your developers were thinking when they though objective C was a good idea for the iPhone). And I owe a small bit of that to you.
I'm sure in a few days I'll go back to hating your company for it's pioneering in the terribleness of DRM, privacy violations, and the like. But I still have to recognize the part you have played in my life, even though I abhorred touching anything your company produced.
So thank you, Steve Jobs. I wouldn't be here today without you, in as much as you have helped. I would like to think you passed on satisfied with your work on this Earth. I just hope the rest of us can say that we did even a sliver as much. God speed.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Well then
Apparently, my company blocks gmail, but not my google sign in to my blog. That's odd. I promise a post tonight.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
FML
I've been trying to save up money for a while to buy an engagement ring. My girlfriend and I already have talked about it, we both want it, are looking for ward to it, and can't wait for it to happen. I say trying because each time I get close, something catastrophic happens where I need to spend all the money I save. Last time it went to two months rent. This time, it's going into my car.
My car is old, but has been trustworthy (until this summer). It's a 5 year old Mazda 3 hatchback. It has a manual transmission, and has been my trusty sidekick for many an adventure for the last two years. Before that, it had the arduous job of ferrying my father between Vegas and Tucson. I love this car, and watching her die has been a great pain of mine for the last few months. A couple months ago, I hit a catastrophic pothole. This had the job of shattering my front wheel (which instantly flats a tire) and severing my brake fluid line. I was going 60 downhill. If I had something other than a manual car, my girlfriend and I probably would have died. That was $3000 worth of repairs, because the dealer found my front struts and most of my rear suspension resembling dust.
It is time for a new car. I love the ol' gal, but her time has passed. I was thinking of replacing the car in October. Girlfriend tells me Friday (before the long drive...how lovely) that the clutch is doing something...odd. What it is doing is slipping out of gear. Great. This means the clutch is dying, but my father and I thought I had some time. I get up to Girlfriend's family lakehouse. We relax. Car goes nowhere, but I start thinking about bad things that can happen. We borrow her grandparent's spare care and plan on driving them both back down to New Jersey so GF can have a car while we look for a new one to buy this week. This is a good plan.
We started our trek south today amidst the rain. I didn't think anything of it, but I stayed the speed limit in the right lane, which is actually a challenge. I never realized how easy it is to pass everyone going 10 over. Those guys chilling out trying to obey the law actually have their work cut out for them. Traffic merging on, semi's, people going 50....it requires a lot of attention. But I did my best. It looked pretty up, and I was feeling ok about getting home.
The clutch died in Albany. That is three hours (minimum) from New Jersey. Fuck.
I ended up dropping the car off at a dealer thanks to a very friendly tow truck driver and AAA. It was after hours, so I will have to call them tomorrow to figure out what's going to happen. I have the most insanely busy week ahead of me already, and now I have to pile this crap on there. Dad and I think the clutch will cost about a grand. Not too terrible, but I would rather buy a new car. She has served her purpose, but I think her time with me is passed. After all, she seems intent on trying to kill me (or save me). The clutch died right as I was about to enter a busy intersection off an interstate.
Let's go back to the first part of this. I received a pretty big signing bonus with the new job. Almost half was taken away due to taxes. I think "that's ok, I can still buy furniture and then the ring. Then I can save up for a new car." I bought furniture last weekend. Now I'm going to have to buy a car and the ring has to be put off again. I cannot begin to describe how sad and frustrating and enraging this is. I feel like I've been treating the car and the girlfriend equally shitty right now. It just seems that I can't have what I want, and it's frustrating as hell.
I've always told the girlfriend when things got stressed that everything would be ok. Usually, I'm right, and I believe what I say. I stopped believing that today. So, for once, I get the right to say "Fuck My Life."
My car is old, but has been trustworthy (until this summer). It's a 5 year old Mazda 3 hatchback. It has a manual transmission, and has been my trusty sidekick for many an adventure for the last two years. Before that, it had the arduous job of ferrying my father between Vegas and Tucson. I love this car, and watching her die has been a great pain of mine for the last few months. A couple months ago, I hit a catastrophic pothole. This had the job of shattering my front wheel (which instantly flats a tire) and severing my brake fluid line. I was going 60 downhill. If I had something other than a manual car, my girlfriend and I probably would have died. That was $3000 worth of repairs, because the dealer found my front struts and most of my rear suspension resembling dust.
It is time for a new car. I love the ol' gal, but her time has passed. I was thinking of replacing the car in October. Girlfriend tells me Friday (before the long drive...how lovely) that the clutch is doing something...odd. What it is doing is slipping out of gear. Great. This means the clutch is dying, but my father and I thought I had some time. I get up to Girlfriend's family lakehouse. We relax. Car goes nowhere, but I start thinking about bad things that can happen. We borrow her grandparent's spare care and plan on driving them both back down to New Jersey so GF can have a car while we look for a new one to buy this week. This is a good plan.
We started our trek south today amidst the rain. I didn't think anything of it, but I stayed the speed limit in the right lane, which is actually a challenge. I never realized how easy it is to pass everyone going 10 over. Those guys chilling out trying to obey the law actually have their work cut out for them. Traffic merging on, semi's, people going 50....it requires a lot of attention. But I did my best. It looked pretty up, and I was feeling ok about getting home.
The clutch died in Albany. That is three hours (minimum) from New Jersey. Fuck.
I ended up dropping the car off at a dealer thanks to a very friendly tow truck driver and AAA. It was after hours, so I will have to call them tomorrow to figure out what's going to happen. I have the most insanely busy week ahead of me already, and now I have to pile this crap on there. Dad and I think the clutch will cost about a grand. Not too terrible, but I would rather buy a new car. She has served her purpose, but I think her time with me is passed. After all, she seems intent on trying to kill me (or save me). The clutch died right as I was about to enter a busy intersection off an interstate.
Let's go back to the first part of this. I received a pretty big signing bonus with the new job. Almost half was taken away due to taxes. I think "that's ok, I can still buy furniture and then the ring. Then I can save up for a new car." I bought furniture last weekend. Now I'm going to have to buy a car and the ring has to be put off again. I cannot begin to describe how sad and frustrating and enraging this is. I feel like I've been treating the car and the girlfriend equally shitty right now. It just seems that I can't have what I want, and it's frustrating as hell.
I've always told the girlfriend when things got stressed that everything would be ok. Usually, I'm right, and I believe what I say. I stopped believing that today. So, for once, I get the right to say "Fuck My Life."
Monday, August 15, 2011
Long Break
I do stupid things, and I will often be the first to admit it. Especially after a night of drinking. However, it is pretty rare that I enter into an activity with full knowledge of the vastness of my stupidity. This summer, I performed just such an activity: I started teaching. Why? I needed to pay rent, and my full time job hadn't started yet. This decision resulted in a few distinct outcomes:
- No free time whatsoever (so no updates)
- The money with which to pay rent
- Pure frustration
I thought I had been frustrated before. This was before I asked a simple question to a class and received nothing but the blank stares of empty faces and emptier minds. This was before I had to explain the difference between equality comparison and assignment in programming. This was before I became known, for a brief period, as "Professor Bujerkee."
The STEP program is a very progressive program where my alma mater takes students from inner-city areas all around New Jersey and brings them to campus for 6 weeks. During this time, they take "college level classes." If they pass, they get to enroll as a student and admission is guaranteed. However, if they fail, they're out. This basically gives them one chance to pull themselves up by their boot-straps and get the fuck out of the terrible areas they come from. These kids are not used to college, mentally challenging and frustrating work, or being in an environment populated by a bunch of weird white nerds. They have more issues than missing coursework.
My job: teach these kids computer science. Basic, not even three weeks into the actual class computer science. This was a challenge for them. However, this is not to say that they are stupid. This is just a concept that was completely alien to them. Thinking in the logic that is required from most computer science courses is foreign to most people. It is not math. It was I affectionately call "Incredible Bullshit Math" (aka IBM). The easiest comparison I can think of is this: In Calculus, you can perform many operations at once. In basic programming, you can do only one at a time. These small individual operations are what make programming. Lots of them.
Trying to get students to wrap their heads around this was hard. Me figuring out how to teach ( I didn't really get it down until the fourth week) was much like watching a dog trying to get out of a large blanket. I floundered around for a bit, made progress, lost a whole shitton of progress, the somehow miraculously managed to get out without any reason or knowledge of how I did it. However, it was exhausting.
Things I have learned from 6 weeks as a teacher:
- Teaching is hard
- Students are dicks
- Some students are a lot of fun
- Students are still dicks
- The concept of a loop is like quantum physics
- Showing the class two ways to do the same thing will confuse them all
- Dry erase markers are stupidly expensive
- Intelligence does not necessarily mean good grades
- Girls have cooties. No one wanted to sit by them. I have no idea why this happened.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Every So Often aka the World is Shit
People ask me why I have such a jaded view of the world. I pay attention. This world isn't pretty. To put it succinctly, this world is more fucked up than a Salvador Dali painting viewed while tripping on acid. Most people, and I'm not limiting this to Americans, it's most of the non-third world, are happy to live in their nice, quiet bubbles and live ignorant of what goes on every day around the world. Pakistan is always one of my favorite countries to harp on. America's ally that is just fucked in every way imaginable.
Video was released yesterday of a man being shot twice by Pakistani Rangers, then left to bleed out on the ground. He begged for his life, begged for help, and they just stood and watched him die. He had done nothing, but was accused of trying to rob someone. Clearly enough to be executed, right?
The BBC article reviewing the whole situation is here.
The video I will link below, but I must warn anyone who views this: it is NOT for the faint of heart. Watching a man die is a very disturbing thing. I hope youtube leaves it up.
Video here.
When I got to college, I decided that I would start educating myself about the world outside my country. I did. I opened my eyes to a world of information and news that is mostly buried behind celebrity hype, gas prices, and other kinds of drivel. However, once you take your head out of the hole, it's hard to get it back in. I stuck my head back in the hole about a year ago when I started taking this stuff way too seriously. Every so often, a day comes like today when I find something like this. I try as hard as I can to get my head back in the hole. This is too hard for me though. I think that man's cries of pain will haunt me for a long time.
I wish I knew what to do to help. Maybe I'll keep my head above the ground long enough to find out or create a new way to help.
Video was released yesterday of a man being shot twice by Pakistani Rangers, then left to bleed out on the ground. He begged for his life, begged for help, and they just stood and watched him die. He had done nothing, but was accused of trying to rob someone. Clearly enough to be executed, right?
The BBC article reviewing the whole situation is here.
The video I will link below, but I must warn anyone who views this: it is NOT for the faint of heart. Watching a man die is a very disturbing thing. I hope youtube leaves it up.
Video here.
When I got to college, I decided that I would start educating myself about the world outside my country. I did. I opened my eyes to a world of information and news that is mostly buried behind celebrity hype, gas prices, and other kinds of drivel. However, once you take your head out of the hole, it's hard to get it back in. I stuck my head back in the hole about a year ago when I started taking this stuff way too seriously. Every so often, a day comes like today when I find something like this. I try as hard as I can to get my head back in the hole. This is too hard for me though. I think that man's cries of pain will haunt me for a long time.
I wish I knew what to do to help. Maybe I'll keep my head above the ground long enough to find out or create a new way to help.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Breaking Dawn Trailer
The trailer for Breaking Dawn (part 1, that is. I know, we have to endure fangirls for TWO MORE of these fucking Twilight movies) is out. I'm not going to post it here. I shall have that filth smear my blog's content. Instead, I will post a link to a post on my forum. The text on this post was taken DIRECTLY from the book. I dare anyone to try reading it aloud.
http://www.forumopolis.com/showpost.php?p=3765798&postcount=30
http://www.forumopolis.com/showpost.php?p=3765798&postcount=30
Saturday, May 21, 2011
My Problems With the Rapture
As I'm sure many of you are aware, a cultish section of Christians believed that the rapture was actually going to happen today. If you aren't aware, go google it. I'll wait.
Ready? Ok, so to sum up: they believed that Jesus was going to come along the world, starting in Asia at 6:00 pm, lifting up the faithful and righteous to heaven as he went, traveling with the timezones. Massive earthquakes would follow in his wake. It would be a shaky death-filled bonanza, where the righteous would be accepted into the bosom of the lord (I bet God has a great rack) and the faithful would endure 153 days of Hell on earth, right before God flicked the lights out on the world. Of course, none of this has happened today. I shall shed my terse, hilarious opinions on this with much glee. Here we go!
1. Jesus is the vacuum Santa Claus to the faithful.
Think about it. Jesus is traveling the world in one day, flying across the sky. No speeches, no trumpeting angels, no seven headed beast rising out of the sea. Instead, he just sucks up the goodie goodie Christians up to heaven. Woosh. Nice to know Jesus sucks, I wonder if he swallows?
2. The start taking place at the pacific rim is kind of obvious.
That just seems opportunistic and stupid. I mean, how many mini earthquakes happen all around the ring of fire each year? Many. According to this site, 21533 occurred in 2010. 173 of those were of magnitude 6.0 or greater, which are considered to be more dangerous. Lots of the big ones occur in the pacific rim, also known as the ring of fire, famous for its tectonic shifts. Very rarely do huge ones occur in places like Haiti. So starting it in the ring of fire? I think they were trying to get lucky.
Of course, as I write this, Iceland's biggest volcano has just erupted, causing 50 small quakes. Of course, the volcano is named Grimsvotn, which would make me believe Ragnarok is coming rather than the rapture. Also, it is Iceland's most active volcano. Whatever, moving on.
3. The Rapture would take place exactly 7000 years to the day after the flood
Get real. Numerologists have tried for literally thousands of years to find patterns in the Bible predicting whatever, but have come up very, very wrong.
4. Camping has been silent about the lack of rapture
He also made $80 million in donations from his fanatical followers. He is nowhere to be found. Coincidence? I think not.
5. Matthew 24:36
"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father "
Even the Bible says that man cannot predict the end of the world. As such, no Christian should be egotistical enough to predict the end of the world if they take the word of the Bible as law.
6. Ragnarok will be cooler
The Fimbulvetr (Mighty winter) shall be upon the nine worlds, and Midgard and Asgard will be plunged into chaos and war. Loki will break free his chains and set loose his brood against the world. The great wolves that are his children will devour the sun and the moon, plunging the world into darkness. The gods shall do battle, and most will die. The great sea will plunge into the earth, and Jormungandr, the great serpent that encircles the world, will plunge forth with it, raining his venom and destruction across the land. The great sea shall swallow the world, and that will be the end.
Until, of course, the seas retreat and the surviving humans (two of them) and the gods repopulate the earth.
I like that version better.
Ready? Ok, so to sum up: they believed that Jesus was going to come along the world, starting in Asia at 6:00 pm, lifting up the faithful and righteous to heaven as he went, traveling with the timezones. Massive earthquakes would follow in his wake. It would be a shaky death-filled bonanza, where the righteous would be accepted into the bosom of the lord (I bet God has a great rack) and the faithful would endure 153 days of Hell on earth, right before God flicked the lights out on the world. Of course, none of this has happened today. I shall shed my terse, hilarious opinions on this with much glee. Here we go!
1. Jesus is the vacuum Santa Claus to the faithful.
Think about it. Jesus is traveling the world in one day, flying across the sky. No speeches, no trumpeting angels, no seven headed beast rising out of the sea. Instead, he just sucks up the goodie goodie Christians up to heaven. Woosh. Nice to know Jesus sucks, I wonder if he swallows?
2. The start taking place at the pacific rim is kind of obvious.
That just seems opportunistic and stupid. I mean, how many mini earthquakes happen all around the ring of fire each year? Many. According to this site, 21533 occurred in 2010. 173 of those were of magnitude 6.0 or greater, which are considered to be more dangerous. Lots of the big ones occur in the pacific rim, also known as the ring of fire, famous for its tectonic shifts. Very rarely do huge ones occur in places like Haiti. So starting it in the ring of fire? I think they were trying to get lucky.
Of course, as I write this, Iceland's biggest volcano has just erupted, causing 50 small quakes. Of course, the volcano is named Grimsvotn, which would make me believe Ragnarok is coming rather than the rapture. Also, it is Iceland's most active volcano. Whatever, moving on.
3. The Rapture would take place exactly 7000 years to the day after the flood
Get real. Numerologists have tried for literally thousands of years to find patterns in the Bible predicting whatever, but have come up very, very wrong.
4. Camping has been silent about the lack of rapture
He also made $80 million in donations from his fanatical followers. He is nowhere to be found. Coincidence? I think not.
5. Matthew 24:36
"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father "
Even the Bible says that man cannot predict the end of the world. As such, no Christian should be egotistical enough to predict the end of the world if they take the word of the Bible as law.
6. Ragnarok will be cooler
The Fimbulvetr (Mighty winter) shall be upon the nine worlds, and Midgard and Asgard will be plunged into chaos and war. Loki will break free his chains and set loose his brood against the world. The great wolves that are his children will devour the sun and the moon, plunging the world into darkness. The gods shall do battle, and most will die. The great sea will plunge into the earth, and Jormungandr, the great serpent that encircles the world, will plunge forth with it, raining his venom and destruction across the land. The great sea shall swallow the world, and that will be the end.
Until, of course, the seas retreat and the surviving humans (two of them) and the gods repopulate the earth.
I like that version better.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
DC Ride - Tuesday
Yeah, I know. I haven't been posting. Whatever. End of the semester. I know you guys like to read this, and you do complain when I'm not being funny. You get to laugh. I'm the one who has to fucking work here.
IN ANY EVENT
Tuesday on the DC Ride really begins with how they wake us up. They cart around a stage and some sound equipment to each camp. Most of the time, it just plays really depressing country western songs. I know, all country western is depressing. This is the worst of the worst in that regard. It's enough to make sane men want to kill themselves. I still have no idea why they do this.
The sound equipment comes in handy in the mornings. They wake us up on Tuesday by playing the sound of a steam engine (complete with whistles) that really does sound like it's coming right through camp. Then they play reveille. An announcer comes on and tells us to "drop our cocks and grab our socks," then lists the schedule for the next couple of hours: eat breakfast, break down camp, then saddle up. We leave at 7:00 AM. They wake us up at 5:00 AM for this. Time to get cracking. The first task for the Greenies in the morning is to go and get coffee. Of course, our batboy forgot the fucking coffee pots, so we had to borrow one from another camp. Strike one for Tommy. The Greenies got coffee, didn't get a fire going, and the coffee got cold. Which makes for a bunch of upset old guys. One of them, Mike, likes to yell about things going wrong. Which he did...very colorfully. Some guy yelling at the top of his lungs about how the coffee situation is "motherfucking unacceptable" gets old after about 5 minutes.
One everyone is up and fed, it's time to pack a lunch. They have sandwiches prepped and ready for you, along with apples, oranges, chips and other stuff for snacks. You take all you can fit in your saddlebags, really. It's going to be a long, long day. Lunch is at 11:30. That's four and a half hours of riding to get your ass hurting. Tuesdays are usually eventful days. A lot of stuff that can go wrong does. Fortunately, not so many bad things happened to me. There were enough though to make it interesting. Once we get all saddled up, it's a lot of hurry up and wait. Our camp usually likes to leave last, that way we don't have a whole bunch of pushy bastards trying to get us to speed up. Finding the trail isn't hard, and we actually fell behind during the day. More on that later. While we were waiting, I learned something crucial about my horse: he does not like waiting. At all. He likes to toss his head and try and follow every single person trying to leave. This means I am in a constant battle with this animal just to keep him in place. He also likes to headbutt other horses' asses if they aren't going fast enough. I swear, this horse must be from New Jersey.
Usually Tuesdays are A LOT of climbing. There are two ways to get to Cooper's Canyon: along the river, or over the mountains. Usually, they choose a combination of these for the trail. This year, we were pretty fortunate, as they chose mostly river routes for the day. This is much easier on the horses and the riders. However, riding along the river raises problems. One of the main problems comes in the form of rolling horses. Horses get hot. They're doing most of the work here. Taking a dip in the water usually feels good. However, they like to do this whether you're on them or not. An 800 pound animal rolling on you is usually a bad thing. Fortunately, there are easy ways to figure out if a horse is going to roll in the water.
1. He stops (this doesn't help if you're stopping to let him drink).
2. He starts to paw the water with one of his hooves.
3. He starts to go down.
My first year, my horse almost rolled on me. I managed to jump off, getting from the horse in the middle of the pond to the bank in one shot (it was about 6 feet...not bad for a white guy). As such, I pay an inordinate amount of attention now. My current horse (mr. bad attitude), tried to roll me a few times. Three times in the river, once in the sand. I still have no idea why he thought the sand would be a good idea. The easy way to prevent a horse from going down is to kick them with all your might and yank up on the reins with all your might at the same time. Usually they get the memo. However, this resulted in a hilarious twist in one part of the river: my right rein snapped off. He was trying to toss his head and I was trying to pull him out of the river at the same time. Of course, the rein snaps, he spooks, and I go careening off the trail into some trees. Once I realized what happened, I pulled back on the one rein to try and stop him. This just spun him around in circles for a minute or so until he realized what I was trying to do. We ended up securing the rein back on with zip ties (a gentlemen was kind enough to stop and help us. Go team). This resulted in my brother, dad and I being at the back of the bus. We were dead last in the trail with some wranglers and the medical crew. They're good guys though. It fell on me to find the trail. My dad thought it would be a good idea...sort of a baptism by fire. I found our way back, just as our fellow campers were taking a piss stop.
DC Piss Stop Etiquette 101: At least two people stop with you, and if it isn't safe, the people riding behind you stop and wait. This is because one guy in our camp decided to stop by himself one year. People just kept riding buy, and no one was there to hold his horse. His horse tried to play catch-up....right as he was getting back on. Three cracked ribs and a helicopter ride later, we don't let people do that anymore.
We continue riding once we catch up. Bad Greenie (we have also started calling him "Cowboy Dick") wasn't paying attention to his horse in the river. Guess what happens? Yup-horse rolls on him. No injury, but it sure was a wake up call. This was literally the horse's last shot to do this. We exited the river 50 feet after that spot. Time to climb. We spend another two hours or so climbing to the spot where we're going to have lunch. This spot was conveniently lacking in trees to tie our horses to in the back, but we made due. I also cut up the apple I got for lunch to give to my horse. He was ecstatic. This was when we finally started to come to our "understanding" that I wasn't torturing him. Topito was pretty cool the rest of the day, if not still impatient.
Once lunch is over, we climb a bit more, then it's all downhill into Cooper's Canyon. This. Takes. For. Ever. At this point, if weren't riding the days before Monday, your ass, knees, and hips hurt like nothing else on this Earth. The pain isn't really anything possible to describe. The hour we get for lunch is good to stretch, but you still have another 4 hours to go. Fun stuff.
Right before Coopers, there is a beer stop. I forgot to write about this on Monday. There are certain points where troughs are set up for the horses so they can get water. Conveniently, they also drive out some beer, water, and gatorade for the riders there too. A lot of people grab beer. Most days, my dad and I grab gatorade. However, Tuesday's beer stop was literally a half hour from camp, so we got beer. I found out another thing that spooks my horse: cracking a beer can.
Once you're in camp, you get to do the best thing in the world: get off the horse. It feels so good. Our camp sits in the shade of the biggest cottonwood tree I have ever seen. We eat, and do lots and lots and lots of drinking. Wednesday is the day in camp, so we can do whatever the hell we want. They also don't wake us up, so we can stay up as long as we want. Unfortunately, the wind really kicked up, making everything freezing (about 34 degrees). So we went to bed early.
Next up: pranks, guns, horse races, duck races, and more drinking.
IN ANY EVENT
Tuesday on the DC Ride really begins with how they wake us up. They cart around a stage and some sound equipment to each camp. Most of the time, it just plays really depressing country western songs. I know, all country western is depressing. This is the worst of the worst in that regard. It's enough to make sane men want to kill themselves. I still have no idea why they do this.
The sound equipment comes in handy in the mornings. They wake us up on Tuesday by playing the sound of a steam engine (complete with whistles) that really does sound like it's coming right through camp. Then they play reveille. An announcer comes on and tells us to "drop our cocks and grab our socks," then lists the schedule for the next couple of hours: eat breakfast, break down camp, then saddle up. We leave at 7:00 AM. They wake us up at 5:00 AM for this. Time to get cracking. The first task for the Greenies in the morning is to go and get coffee. Of course, our batboy forgot the fucking coffee pots, so we had to borrow one from another camp. Strike one for Tommy. The Greenies got coffee, didn't get a fire going, and the coffee got cold. Which makes for a bunch of upset old guys. One of them, Mike, likes to yell about things going wrong. Which he did...very colorfully. Some guy yelling at the top of his lungs about how the coffee situation is "motherfucking unacceptable" gets old after about 5 minutes.
One everyone is up and fed, it's time to pack a lunch. They have sandwiches prepped and ready for you, along with apples, oranges, chips and other stuff for snacks. You take all you can fit in your saddlebags, really. It's going to be a long, long day. Lunch is at 11:30. That's four and a half hours of riding to get your ass hurting. Tuesdays are usually eventful days. A lot of stuff that can go wrong does. Fortunately, not so many bad things happened to me. There were enough though to make it interesting. Once we get all saddled up, it's a lot of hurry up and wait. Our camp usually likes to leave last, that way we don't have a whole bunch of pushy bastards trying to get us to speed up. Finding the trail isn't hard, and we actually fell behind during the day. More on that later. While we were waiting, I learned something crucial about my horse: he does not like waiting. At all. He likes to toss his head and try and follow every single person trying to leave. This means I am in a constant battle with this animal just to keep him in place. He also likes to headbutt other horses' asses if they aren't going fast enough. I swear, this horse must be from New Jersey.
Usually Tuesdays are A LOT of climbing. There are two ways to get to Cooper's Canyon: along the river, or over the mountains. Usually, they choose a combination of these for the trail. This year, we were pretty fortunate, as they chose mostly river routes for the day. This is much easier on the horses and the riders. However, riding along the river raises problems. One of the main problems comes in the form of rolling horses. Horses get hot. They're doing most of the work here. Taking a dip in the water usually feels good. However, they like to do this whether you're on them or not. An 800 pound animal rolling on you is usually a bad thing. Fortunately, there are easy ways to figure out if a horse is going to roll in the water.
1. He stops (this doesn't help if you're stopping to let him drink).
2. He starts to paw the water with one of his hooves.
3. He starts to go down.
My first year, my horse almost rolled on me. I managed to jump off, getting from the horse in the middle of the pond to the bank in one shot (it was about 6 feet...not bad for a white guy). As such, I pay an inordinate amount of attention now. My current horse (mr. bad attitude), tried to roll me a few times. Three times in the river, once in the sand. I still have no idea why he thought the sand would be a good idea. The easy way to prevent a horse from going down is to kick them with all your might and yank up on the reins with all your might at the same time. Usually they get the memo. However, this resulted in a hilarious twist in one part of the river: my right rein snapped off. He was trying to toss his head and I was trying to pull him out of the river at the same time. Of course, the rein snaps, he spooks, and I go careening off the trail into some trees. Once I realized what happened, I pulled back on the one rein to try and stop him. This just spun him around in circles for a minute or so until he realized what I was trying to do. We ended up securing the rein back on with zip ties (a gentlemen was kind enough to stop and help us. Go team). This resulted in my brother, dad and I being at the back of the bus. We were dead last in the trail with some wranglers and the medical crew. They're good guys though. It fell on me to find the trail. My dad thought it would be a good idea...sort of a baptism by fire. I found our way back, just as our fellow campers were taking a piss stop.
DC Piss Stop Etiquette 101: At least two people stop with you, and if it isn't safe, the people riding behind you stop and wait. This is because one guy in our camp decided to stop by himself one year. People just kept riding buy, and no one was there to hold his horse. His horse tried to play catch-up....right as he was getting back on. Three cracked ribs and a helicopter ride later, we don't let people do that anymore.
We continue riding once we catch up. Bad Greenie (we have also started calling him "Cowboy Dick") wasn't paying attention to his horse in the river. Guess what happens? Yup-horse rolls on him. No injury, but it sure was a wake up call. This was literally the horse's last shot to do this. We exited the river 50 feet after that spot. Time to climb. We spend another two hours or so climbing to the spot where we're going to have lunch. This spot was conveniently lacking in trees to tie our horses to in the back, but we made due. I also cut up the apple I got for lunch to give to my horse. He was ecstatic. This was when we finally started to come to our "understanding" that I wasn't torturing him. Topito was pretty cool the rest of the day, if not still impatient.
Once lunch is over, we climb a bit more, then it's all downhill into Cooper's Canyon. This. Takes. For. Ever. At this point, if weren't riding the days before Monday, your ass, knees, and hips hurt like nothing else on this Earth. The pain isn't really anything possible to describe. The hour we get for lunch is good to stretch, but you still have another 4 hours to go. Fun stuff.
Right before Coopers, there is a beer stop. I forgot to write about this on Monday. There are certain points where troughs are set up for the horses so they can get water. Conveniently, they also drive out some beer, water, and gatorade for the riders there too. A lot of people grab beer. Most days, my dad and I grab gatorade. However, Tuesday's beer stop was literally a half hour from camp, so we got beer. I found out another thing that spooks my horse: cracking a beer can.
Once you're in camp, you get to do the best thing in the world: get off the horse. It feels so good. Our camp sits in the shade of the biggest cottonwood tree I have ever seen. We eat, and do lots and lots and lots of drinking. Wednesday is the day in camp, so we can do whatever the hell we want. They also don't wake us up, so we can stay up as long as we want. Unfortunately, the wind really kicked up, making everything freezing (about 34 degrees). So we went to bed early.
Next up: pranks, guns, horse races, duck races, and more drinking.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
DC Ride - Monday
The DC Ride begins Monday morning at 7 am when the Greenies come wake everyone up with margaritas and mariachi music. They come around with two buckets: one of ice and one of margarita mix and tequila, and give you breakfast margaritas. This is where the drinking begins.
Take time to think about that and let it sink in.
Back in the day (this is like 6-7 years ago and before), the people in charge of the ranch camp used to hire an actual mariachi band to come play during this time and during the El Presidente Party. It was really cool, because the Mariachis would would start playing around 6 am, and wander around the whole area of the ranch where the guest rooms are. It's a really cool thing to wake up to, if you get the chance. Otherwise, you get woken up to them at your door while you're in PJ's with people handing you booze, playing and singing as loud as they can. It is my personal goal to bring them back in the coming years, even if I have to pay for them myself. I miss them.
You wander down to the dining room and patio for breakfast after this. There are more margaritas for you there (should you desire...I recommend not). You eat breakfast, then get your gear ready to be loaded in the U-Haul (another Greenie job. You should be getting the trend by now that they are in charge of most of the bitch work). After that, you take your saddle bags down to the corral, along with you in all your riding gear, and get ready to mount up. Now, if you have a girl or some other friend of sorts to ride your horse into town, they mount up instead of you. Me being friendless and lacking in a girlfriend in proximity (she had some fucking "FE Exam." Load of horseshit, in my opinion), I had to ride for an hour and a half into town. This is time to get adjusted to the idea of what you're about to do, let the last minute fears sink in, and think about all the things you forgot to do before you left wash over you in a tsunami of panic. Also, it's a chance to ride by some houses on the outskirts of town that have very loud, barking dogs that scare horses and send them careening into the brush. These things happen. Especially with girls on them who are expecting an easy ride. I was already on my toes at this point, so I didn't go anywhere. All the other horses around me did though. Not a fun way to start the riding day.
In short order, we get into town. We dismount for a bit, eat lunch, which consist of prepared, bagged sandwiches for us, and hurry up and wait. Then, we mount back up and ride across the railroad tracks. Horses do one of two things in the presence of tracks: nothing or panic. Thankfully, the camp was devoid of the panic option this trip. Last time I was on the ride, some joke thought it would be fun to trip the sensors and make the crossing think a train was coming. Loud noises and falling railroad guards are NOT FUN around animals that do not know what the fuck they are. Once we ride past that, we get to the library. More time to hurry up and wait. We must wait for "high noon" for the ceremonies to start. People make boring as speeches. Horses get restless. Riders get restless. My brother goes to hold a flag (I was expecting disaster at this point). The national anthem is sung. In a moment of sheer stupidity, I decided to take off my hat. My horse decided it was then a good time to leave NOW right the way we came. I put a stop to that, but not before I had ridden about 100 feet and had to ride back. Last time I ever took off my hat. Sam noticed. I would not get to live this down later.
Let me expound a bit on horses and riding them. Riding a horse is not like driving a car. True, they have the same functionality as a car: acceleration (kicking them), brakes (pulling back on the reins), and full power steering. However, a horse is an animal, which means it has personality. They have things they like and dislike (also other horses they like and dislike), and they do take care of their riders so long as their riders take care of them. My horse (Topito is his name) and I didn't hit it off to a great start. It took a couple days before he realized I was trying to take care of him to. After that, we came to an understanding. Once you learn the personality of the horse you are riding, you can have an amazing time bonding with the animal on the trail. However, if any horse wants you off, there is not a power in this universe that can keep you on. Imagine if you will being in a very packed crowd, people brushing up against you on all side. This is very uncomfortable. Horses like it just about as much as people do. They have a more direct way of dealing with it, in the form of kicking and biting. That is what makes this next part pretty insane.
We leave all at once. We cross the Wickenburg bridge in a huge group (about 10 horses wide), and then we must narrow down in a few minutes to ONE HORSE AT A TIME to cross a cattle guard (I would suggest googling this). This is not a good idea. This is where people get kicked or thrown. Luckily, neither happened. The Flag Bearers get to lead everyone out, and my brother did a fantastic job. We met up with him afterwards, and unfortunately got stuck in front of a group of Californios. Pushy bastards. Later, we would end up falling behind by about 50 yards. We could still see hats, which meant we could find the trail. These guys were having none of that, and kept telling my brother to spur his horse and catch up. They earned a nice, Andrew style glare. I didn't even need to tell them to shut the fuck up.
We ride out pretty much in single file for most of the ride. The trail is denoted by markers, which take the form of pink ribbons tied around trees to let you know which way to go if there is a fork in the trail. The weather was beautiful, and it had just rained, so there was absolutely no dust. You couldn't ask for ideal conditions. The trail for the day passed mostly uneventfully, save one minor hiccup. Once we got farther into the desert, we came across a point in the trail where there was an obstacle in the form of a four-foot high rock. The horse had to climb this rock. The procession went Greenie - my dad - my brother - me. The Greenies' horse had a little trouble and stumbled on the way up. My dad's horse, Gonzo, isn't exactly sure footed. He took his time and got up without issue. My brother's horse went up without issue. My horse decided this would be a good place to practice his high jump career and decided to take it in one leap. I don't weigh much, so I came off the saddle a good six inches and slammed my nuts down right into the saddle horn. Ouch.
Monday's ride lasts about 4 and a half hours. The ride was into Sayer's Station. Sayer's station is the ruins of an old post office stop and general store that used to feed the surrounding countryside. It was abandoned long ago, and now servers as our first campsite. The Los Cab camp is on a slight hill, which means putting up your cots gets interesting in the geometry. All heads point uphill. Getting off the trail, the wranglers take our horses to feed and water them, then we go get settled. Once settled, we do more Greenie events (such as have their sponsors embarrass the shit out of them with funny stories), and they do the next Greenie task of getting us all drinks. Once dinner rolls around, we all go eat steak, salad, and potatoes (the ride hires a catering service that moves with us and sets this all up), and retire to the campfire for more drinking and merriment.
If you've never heard me talk about nightfall in Arizona, you will need to know this: as soon as the sun is gone, so is the warmth. There is a good 20-30 degree different between night and day. This week was no exception. Soon, it is very cold, which means people are either huddled up in their bunks or huddled up around the fire. I chose the fire for a while. This gave Sam ample opportunity to admonish me for not taking my hat off for the national anthem. Joy. Monday night is usually a pretty early night, as we have the longest day on Tuesday: 9 hours in the saddle. This is the day when you DON'T want to be hurting. I did my hurting on Monday.
Next update:
High climbs, rivers, rolling horses, and a long ass day. Plenty of fun stuff.
Take time to think about that and let it sink in.
Back in the day (this is like 6-7 years ago and before), the people in charge of the ranch camp used to hire an actual mariachi band to come play during this time and during the El Presidente Party. It was really cool, because the Mariachis would would start playing around 6 am, and wander around the whole area of the ranch where the guest rooms are. It's a really cool thing to wake up to, if you get the chance. Otherwise, you get woken up to them at your door while you're in PJ's with people handing you booze, playing and singing as loud as they can. It is my personal goal to bring them back in the coming years, even if I have to pay for them myself. I miss them.
You wander down to the dining room and patio for breakfast after this. There are more margaritas for you there (should you desire...I recommend not). You eat breakfast, then get your gear ready to be loaded in the U-Haul (another Greenie job. You should be getting the trend by now that they are in charge of most of the bitch work). After that, you take your saddle bags down to the corral, along with you in all your riding gear, and get ready to mount up. Now, if you have a girl or some other friend of sorts to ride your horse into town, they mount up instead of you. Me being friendless and lacking in a girlfriend in proximity (she had some fucking "FE Exam." Load of horseshit, in my opinion), I had to ride for an hour and a half into town. This is time to get adjusted to the idea of what you're about to do, let the last minute fears sink in, and think about all the things you forgot to do before you left wash over you in a tsunami of panic. Also, it's a chance to ride by some houses on the outskirts of town that have very loud, barking dogs that scare horses and send them careening into the brush. These things happen. Especially with girls on them who are expecting an easy ride. I was already on my toes at this point, so I didn't go anywhere. All the other horses around me did though. Not a fun way to start the riding day.
In short order, we get into town. We dismount for a bit, eat lunch, which consist of prepared, bagged sandwiches for us, and hurry up and wait. Then, we mount back up and ride across the railroad tracks. Horses do one of two things in the presence of tracks: nothing or panic. Thankfully, the camp was devoid of the panic option this trip. Last time I was on the ride, some joke thought it would be fun to trip the sensors and make the crossing think a train was coming. Loud noises and falling railroad guards are NOT FUN around animals that do not know what the fuck they are. Once we ride past that, we get to the library. More time to hurry up and wait. We must wait for "high noon" for the ceremonies to start. People make boring as speeches. Horses get restless. Riders get restless. My brother goes to hold a flag (I was expecting disaster at this point). The national anthem is sung. In a moment of sheer stupidity, I decided to take off my hat. My horse decided it was then a good time to leave NOW right the way we came. I put a stop to that, but not before I had ridden about 100 feet and had to ride back. Last time I ever took off my hat. Sam noticed. I would not get to live this down later.
Let me expound a bit on horses and riding them. Riding a horse is not like driving a car. True, they have the same functionality as a car: acceleration (kicking them), brakes (pulling back on the reins), and full power steering. However, a horse is an animal, which means it has personality. They have things they like and dislike (also other horses they like and dislike), and they do take care of their riders so long as their riders take care of them. My horse (Topito is his name) and I didn't hit it off to a great start. It took a couple days before he realized I was trying to take care of him to. After that, we came to an understanding. Once you learn the personality of the horse you are riding, you can have an amazing time bonding with the animal on the trail. However, if any horse wants you off, there is not a power in this universe that can keep you on. Imagine if you will being in a very packed crowd, people brushing up against you on all side. This is very uncomfortable. Horses like it just about as much as people do. They have a more direct way of dealing with it, in the form of kicking and biting. That is what makes this next part pretty insane.
We leave all at once. We cross the Wickenburg bridge in a huge group (about 10 horses wide), and then we must narrow down in a few minutes to ONE HORSE AT A TIME to cross a cattle guard (I would suggest googling this). This is not a good idea. This is where people get kicked or thrown. Luckily, neither happened. The Flag Bearers get to lead everyone out, and my brother did a fantastic job. We met up with him afterwards, and unfortunately got stuck in front of a group of Californios. Pushy bastards. Later, we would end up falling behind by about 50 yards. We could still see hats, which meant we could find the trail. These guys were having none of that, and kept telling my brother to spur his horse and catch up. They earned a nice, Andrew style glare. I didn't even need to tell them to shut the fuck up.
We ride out pretty much in single file for most of the ride. The trail is denoted by markers, which take the form of pink ribbons tied around trees to let you know which way to go if there is a fork in the trail. The weather was beautiful, and it had just rained, so there was absolutely no dust. You couldn't ask for ideal conditions. The trail for the day passed mostly uneventfully, save one minor hiccup. Once we got farther into the desert, we came across a point in the trail where there was an obstacle in the form of a four-foot high rock. The horse had to climb this rock. The procession went Greenie - my dad - my brother - me. The Greenies' horse had a little trouble and stumbled on the way up. My dad's horse, Gonzo, isn't exactly sure footed. He took his time and got up without issue. My brother's horse went up without issue. My horse decided this would be a good place to practice his high jump career and decided to take it in one leap. I don't weigh much, so I came off the saddle a good six inches and slammed my nuts down right into the saddle horn. Ouch.
Monday's ride lasts about 4 and a half hours. The ride was into Sayer's Station. Sayer's station is the ruins of an old post office stop and general store that used to feed the surrounding countryside. It was abandoned long ago, and now servers as our first campsite. The Los Cab camp is on a slight hill, which means putting up your cots gets interesting in the geometry. All heads point uphill. Getting off the trail, the wranglers take our horses to feed and water them, then we go get settled. Once settled, we do more Greenie events (such as have their sponsors embarrass the shit out of them with funny stories), and they do the next Greenie task of getting us all drinks. Once dinner rolls around, we all go eat steak, salad, and potatoes (the ride hires a catering service that moves with us and sets this all up), and retire to the campfire for more drinking and merriment.
If you've never heard me talk about nightfall in Arizona, you will need to know this: as soon as the sun is gone, so is the warmth. There is a good 20-30 degree different between night and day. This week was no exception. Soon, it is very cold, which means people are either huddled up in their bunks or huddled up around the fire. I chose the fire for a while. This gave Sam ample opportunity to admonish me for not taking my hat off for the national anthem. Joy. Monday night is usually a pretty early night, as we have the longest day on Tuesday: 9 hours in the saddle. This is the day when you DON'T want to be hurting. I did my hurting on Monday.
Next update:
High climbs, rivers, rolling horses, and a long ass day. Plenty of fun stuff.
Monday, April 25, 2011
The DC Ride
Let’s start off with the what: The Desert Caballeros Ride is 100 miles on horseback spread over 5 days in the middle of the mountains in Arizona. This ride is all men. No girls allowed. Me and 160 other guys sat our asses on horses and rode around. For five days (well, technically four. We’ll get to that). A lot of you easterners may sit there and think nothing else but “WTF.” However, it’s a lot of fun. Specifically, a lot of DRUNKEN fun. This ride leaves from Wickenburg, the town where my family’s guest ranch sits. My grandfather, Dallas Gant, started this ride along with a few other guys 65 years ago, shortly after he started his guest ranch. Since then, it has become a tradition both for the town of Wickenburg and my family. My Uncle Rusty went on 44 rides. My dad has been on 14, my brother 5. This was my second. One stipulation for the ride is that you have to be 21 years old (because of the booze part). The ride always goes out on a Monday and arrives back in town on a Friday. I leave the Friday before so I can spent a couple days riding beforehand (more on that later too).
As I write this, more details about the ride will emerge. For this update, I’ll focus on the two days before, preparations, gear, and some of the odds and ends associated with this whole escapade.
My first year on the ride, my dad signed himself, my brother and me up for riding the two days before the ride went out. They aren’t long rides, just around an hour or an hour and a half. I was extremely perplexed. I asked him why on earth you would want to do MORE riding than we already had to. His response was one of the funniest things I had ever heard: “To get your ass in shape.” The rationalization is that if you ride the two days before, your ass and knees hurt on Monday instead of on Tuesday. This is pretty crucial, as Tuesday is the really long day in the string of riding with anywhere from 7 to 9 hours in the saddle.
So, Saturday morning, my brother and I get up, eat breakfast, head to the corral, and get ready to mount up. We were riding with a group of other guys from our camp, including Eddie and Sam. You’re going to read their names a lot over the string of updates. They are the practical jokers of the camp, and are responsible for most of the pranks that get played on the new guys. My first year, they ducked taped me in bed, ducked taped a blow-up doll to me in bed, and had me arrested by the deputies that come along the ride with us. For that morning’s ride, they had put a pair of little girl’s panties around my saddle horn. Recognizing the use for this, I kept them for later (revenge is always funny). We ride around, and I realize that I got put on a horse that spooks. I would eventually learn over the next hour that I cannot do the following things around this horse:
1. Take off my hat
2. Have anything brush against my hat
3. Make sudden noises
4. Put on my saddle bags fast
5. Have something strange enter his peripheral vision
My brother was put on a horse that kicks. I guess the wranglers didn’t want to make it easy on either of us this year. I get my horse calmed down after a string of spooking right when we left the corral, and I realized that it was going to be a long week of constant vigil to make sure I didn’t go careening off into the sunset on top of a horse that ran away from my hat like it had just see C’thulhu.
The next part of Saturday and Sunday that the sentiment of “getting your ass in shape” for the ride applies to the drinking. A LOT of drinking happens on the ride and before, and getting your tolerance up for liquor is a must. If you don’t do this, you’re liable to have bad things happen to you , such as dehydration or being duct taped in bed. There are two main parties before the ride goes out: the Camp Party and the El Presidente Party.
Let me elaborate on the camps a bit. The ride is divided up into various camps of guys, which are just groups of us. Some of us have batboys (people who drive the u-haul truck with most of our gear to each campsite...we’re not barbarians), some don’t, but there are differences between the camps. I’ll list them and some of their traits now:
Los Cab:
Our camp. We are named for the Rancho de Los Caballeros (my family’s ranch). We have one batboy, Tommy. Tommy could sleep through a nuclear apocalypse standing up. He snores like a freight train (quite literally), and can be pretty useless at times. There are about 40 of us, and most of us are good natured. We do have our assholes though.
Californios:
These guys mostly hail from California, and they’re all a bunch of pushy bastards. These guys, along with the Honkers, need to be RIGHT UP FRONT in the line of riders, and if you’re not going fast enough, they pass you (which can be really dangerous), or they start being pricks and tell you to spur your horse or make snide comments about how slow the ride is this year.
Honkers:
Named because they have duck calls, and like to use them. Don’t ask why. Also pushy bastards. These guys are famous for their coffin. They have a real coffin, painted red, that has an inside lined with porn. They keep their booze in it (you really can’t make this shit up).
Remuda Ranch:
Another guest ranch. These guys have a fleet of five batboys who wait on them hand and foot. They don’t even have to set up their own bunks. Because our guest ranch is a four-star resort, these guys like to claim that we’re the rich guys. Like hell. Batboys are expensive, and they pay lots for them. My brother put his response to them quite succinctly: “It’s not our fault we have a FUNCTIONING guest ranch.” (he doesn’t realize he’s not helping)
Poor Boys and the Cheapskates:
I lump these guys together because they used to be one camp. Back in the day, there was a big camp argument with these guys about whether or not to get a batboy. It was pretty much split down the middle evenly. The argument was so heated, and the sides so unwilling to compromise, they agreed to split the camp in two. The Poor Boys were so named because they shilled out the money for a batboy. The Cheapskates are so named because they were too cheap to get one.
So there’s your little bit of DC history regarding camps. Saturday night, one person in camp hosts the Camp Party, where we all gather, eat, drink cocktails, and get introduced to the Greenies. The Greenies are so named because it’s they’re first year on the ride, and this is noted by a strip of green tape on their badge. This is not supposed to come off until the ride ends on Friday. We had two Greenies this year, and one of them took off his stripe before the Camp Party. This pretty much means he was marked for every prank ever. This was noted by Eddie and Sam, and they were pissed. Retribution for these kinds of things is terrifying, righteous, and merciless. I am so glad the shit they did to me was tame in comparison. You’ll have to wait for the Tuesday update for that though.
Before we get to Sunday, my brother and I found out something hilarious and scary at the same time: my brother had been chosen (without anyone informing him) that he would be carrying the American Flag out of town. Horses don’t usually like flags. Nathan’s kicked. This was going to need training. We all enjoy the rest of the cocktail hour, head back to the ranch for dinner, eat, go to the ranch’s bar, and drink until we pass out. Before passing out in our room, my brother and I got into a yelling fight about computer security (because apparently we’re all pompous pricks for telling people that what they do is wrong and able to be compromised. I was having NONE of that shit).
Sunday, we ride to a breakfast cookout, ride back, and Nathan and his horse get some flag training. The rest of the day is pretty much dedicated to gear prep. Things we need include: bedroll with sleeping bag, chaps, saddlebags, bag packed with clothes and other things we need in camp, shotgun, cots (I don’t have one, my brother and dad do), hats, gloves, bandannas, tarp (we call it the wall-to-wall), nice water bottles, boots and spurs. You also pack lots of button up (western style) long sleeve shirts. Thorns are nasty.
Then comes the El Presidente Party, where we get all doled up in our western finest, and go eat and drink more. There is also a silent auction that benefits the ride, where a whole bunch of stuff is sold. It can range from western jewelry and art to saddle blankets and new spurs. It’s all fun stuff. Once we have dinner, drink at the bar more, we then retire and get ready for Monday.
Monday morning, all hell breaks loose. Organized hell, anyway.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Strolls Down Memory Lane
I have a very good memory. That is not to say that it is photographic. Far from it. I just have a very strong ability to recall things in my past. This is especially strong for movie quotes, videogames, things I have read, and music. It is even more potent for conversations.
This ability comes in handy quite often. However, there are certain times where this ability really is not all that it is cracked up to be. When my brain takes me back to certain conversations, I tend to feel the emotions of the situation over again. It’s probably not as strong as it was at the time, but damn if it doesn’t feel shitty. I wish I could forget a lot of these memories. The bad ones stick with me the worst. Some of the good ones stick with me too. There get to be some weird ones splashed in there too.
I remember leaning on a car in my high school parking lot, talking to my ex (before we were dating, this is while we still did the fuck buddies thing). She was confessing to me that she had sex with another guy, and wanted to keep doing it, but also wanted to keep what we had. I told her that I wasn’t mad, and that I had no reason to be. She had fulfilled my one request for the whole situation: be honest. I asked that of her when we had started. In truth, I wasn’t mad. The part of it that makes me think is that I really wasn’t upset or angry at all. I drove home afterwards wondering the whole time why I didn’t really care.
I dated her for a long time during my first years of college. It’s funny when I look back and think about trying to build a loving relationship and a foundation of trust on a situation that started off so incredibly screwy.
I remember getting drunk with a coworker two years ago. He was convincing me to transfer to a different section of the IT department at my college. I was relaying all the things that I was unhappy with, with some embellishments. I was pretty drunk. When I was done, he explained to me how things had become worse since he had started working at IT, but his apathy had kept him from quitting. He relayed exactly how things would go if I stayed. I watched another of my coworkers lose his drive and cease caring about the job. I didn’t. I went to another job where my work was more valued. The coworker I was having the discussion with spent two hours convincing me that I needed to transfer or I would burn out. So I did.
Today, I was present for another conversation. One of the managers was lamenting how the management should have done more to keep another person from doing exactly what I did: transfer to the networking section. I laughed today when he was done, and told him that I’m glad nothing changes around the department. It’s good to see that students recognize a horrible thing when they see it, even if there are so few of us.
Those two hours of listening still haunt me. I cannot describe how refreshing it was to have that much of a breath of fresh air. I had a way out. All I had to do was take it. So I did.
Coming up with a specific bad memory is really hard. Choosing between all the good examples isn’t exactly fun. I think I have a good one though.
My girlfriend and I were getting ready to go to bed. She was in bed, I had just finished brushing my teeth. Normal night. My phone starts to ring. The number belongs to a friend of mine. He used to be my best friend. I couldn’t believe it. I smiled as I answered the phone. He hadn’t called me in months. I really didn’t know what to say. I let him talk. His phone got passed around between him and his girlfriend, relating her new job. How it was good to have a job and look for apartments. Then, it came down to the real business. He got back on to inform me that she was having computer problems, and this was the real reason he called me. Not to share good news, not to bullshit, he calls me late at night because his girlfriend has a computer problem that he cannot solve.
A few of my fellow computer science buddies and I have a certain philosophy when dealing with friends. We have our friends, and then we have the people who have been knocked down to the level of people who only call us for computer problems.
I strangely don’t remember the problem. I very vividly remember telling them the computer needed to go back to the IT department to get a piece of hardware replaced. I remember most vividly the conversation afterwards with my girlfriend, where she finally understood why I looked so upset. I’ve never had to put someone who was my best friend on the list of people who only call when they have a computer problem. I wish I had words to describe the feeling. I really don’t think I could ever put words to that in a million years. Emptiness, despair, and sorrow just don’t seem to do it justice.
I didn’t drink that night, thank god. I didn’t really sleep though. Lying awake with that emotion is horrible, and I hope that I never have to do it again. I wish I had just hung up the phone or not answered it entirely. Then I could have stayed a little more ignorant of the problem for a while.
The bad memories fill my thoughts a lot, along with the “what ifs” that go with them. What if I had said something different? What if I hadn’t gone with that person? What if I had decided to believe one person over another? Honestly, I’ll never know, and it is probably useless to spend my time wondering.
But I remember them all so readily. So I wonder. I try not to let it drive me insane. Fortunately, holding my girlfriend when I go to bed takes care of most of that. It’s the little stuff. This turned out a lot more depressing than I wanted it to, but I’m going to post it anyway. I apologize if this entry was too "live journal-y." Hopefully the next one will be less personal and more funny. Just the way the ball bounced tonight.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Challenges
One of my biggest challenges I face in writing is motivation. It's not that I don't want to write...I do. I have a hard time writing about anything that I don't care about. If the subject doesn't grip me enough, it's like taking a really hard math test. I can't possible get through the whole thing unless I'm being graded. I have found the same deal applies when I care about a subject too much. For example, last night I had a long post all written up about my crazy-ass nightmares and how they stick with me (I really should figure out how to finish that), but I deleted it and didn't post it. The whole post seemed to personal to me, and a sour taste was left in my mouth after I was done. So much for a freaking catharsis in that one.
One of the easiest times for me to write is when I can't sleep. You would be surprised how often I have bouts of insomnia. Usually, I put up with it for a week or so until I go mad and work myself at the gym super hard. Recently, when the gym is out of my reach (and it's 2:00 am), I have found that writing something often helps calm me down and get me to sleep. Maybe it's just beneficial for me since it slows my brain down enough that I can sleep. Either way, it's been helping. I haven't really been posting those much, so I'll try and be better about that.
Either way, readers are going to see a myriad of things here. Most of it will be my ranting, humorous takes on things that I actually care about. Then there will be the personal stuff, probably things that I write very late at night. The others will be my various experiments in writing, and they will be pretty rare. Practice makes perfect, really. I hope that I can start updating this once a week, then more as time progresses and I get back into the habit of writing things for an audience. Right now, it's just really for my friends and those who find this (hello forum, I do love you all so). Feel free to leave comments. I love and hate feedback at the same time.
I promise I'll try and post the piece about my nightmares. I did have a lot of fun starting it. Remembering that stuff gets a little weird though.
One of the easiest times for me to write is when I can't sleep. You would be surprised how often I have bouts of insomnia. Usually, I put up with it for a week or so until I go mad and work myself at the gym super hard. Recently, when the gym is out of my reach (and it's 2:00 am), I have found that writing something often helps calm me down and get me to sleep. Maybe it's just beneficial for me since it slows my brain down enough that I can sleep. Either way, it's been helping. I haven't really been posting those much, so I'll try and be better about that.
Either way, readers are going to see a myriad of things here. Most of it will be my ranting, humorous takes on things that I actually care about. Then there will be the personal stuff, probably things that I write very late at night. The others will be my various experiments in writing, and they will be pretty rare. Practice makes perfect, really. I hope that I can start updating this once a week, then more as time progresses and I get back into the habit of writing things for an audience. Right now, it's just really for my friends and those who find this (hello forum, I do love you all so). Feel free to leave comments. I love and hate feedback at the same time.
I promise I'll try and post the piece about my nightmares. I did have a lot of fun starting it. Remembering that stuff gets a little weird though.
Monday, April 18, 2011
On flying
This is kind of backdated, from my plane flight last week:
The process of air travel used to leave me nothing more than cramped legs and boredom. However, as I’ve my age has progressed, I find myself more and more annoyed with people on airplanes than ever before. This flight that I am on (writing this on my laptop at present, posting it later) has given me a rather unique example of why flying is annoying to me now.
I arrived at the airport about an hour and twenty minutes before my flight. This would give me ample time to get through security and buy my book for the flight. I usually spend my entire flight reading, which I have been unable to do much of this flight…more on that later. I arrived in the security lines behind a family: father, mother, two daughters. They had more bags between them to carry on in flight than I have ever seen at an airport. I was sitting there pondering what on earth they could be carrying when another man travelling alone arrived at the area to start disrobing and taking out laptops just before me. It took this family no less than ten minutes to get through the security checkpoint after they exited the queue. Bag after bag after bag went on the conveyor. The mother was bringing up the rear, and to make light of the situation, the man in front of me said to her “I see you guys like to travel light.” In my mind, my first thought was “you shall regret this immensely.” She laughed, and the first words out of her mouth were “Some bags are just food, others are medication…well, if the airlines went peanut-free, we wouldn’t HAVE to carry all this.” Then she starts bitching incessantly about peanuts on airlines and how much she has to clean the seats and all the surfaces to make sure her one daughter doesn’t die. Wat.
Whatever. I’m through security. I don’t care. I still have an hour to spare. I buy my book: The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card. It’s been a good read so far, and I would be enjoying it more if not for the SECOND family I encountered. Right before I got on the plane, I encountered a family of six: loud, obnoxious spoiled bratty kid, younger kid, baby, mother, loud boisterous father, and a louder, stubborn, asshole grandfather. They were up about 10 people in front of me on the jetway. As I was listening to them, my only thought was “I hope to God I am not sitting anywhere near these people.” As I get on the plane, and they continue towards the back, the probability quickly approached 1. I also passed the other family, where the mom was busy cleaning every surface she could with wet wipes, and the girl was complaining about how wet everything is. I laughed a little on the inside, than sat in the row right before this family. They took up both sides of the aisle on one row, and they have proceeded to shout across the aisle at each other all flight. The kid behind me (the oldest) has kicked my seat pretty much all flight, making sleep impossible. The noise has made reading now impossible, as the kid has been complaining about one thing or another for the last hour. My controls for the in-flight entertainment (woo direct tv) have now ceased functioning (I’m sure this kid is to blame somehow), and I am stuck watching Sherlock Holmes on loop.
Now that’s just me bitching about the people. The process of boarding a plane these days is kind of annoying, although Continental-United now do it a slightly more efficient way. First class boards first (because they need to feel important), special needs and infants second, then “elite access” members (Continental’s way of making the rest of us scrubs feel special), then they board the plane back to front. If they took the time to look at this (and if the rich people in first class weren’t so damned bitchy and entitled), there could be the easiest god damned improvement to make this more streamlined: just board back to front. That way, it wouldn’t take a half hour to get everyone on the plane.
Next problem: everyone carries all they can onto a plane now. You have to pay for bags. This I have no easy solution for. However, this has resulted in a ridiculous amount of carry-ons and a constant mad rush and free-for-all to get as much overhead space as you can.
Third problem: Continental now makes you pay for food. The only place I really fly to from Jersey is Phoenix, which is a five and a half hour non-stop flight. Food is kind of necessary here. Now this just smacks of opportunistic extortion.
All of this is greatly improved in first class…if you can afford it, and if there are seats available by the time you book your flight. Of course, I am not paying for this flight (the last one I will probably not pay for myself), so I don’t fly first class. I fly the cheap seats in the back of the god damn bus. However, seeing as how I have a nice job now, I will probably fork over the money for it. It’s worth it simply to get away from these…people. If you can call them that. I swear, if my kid bitches nearly this much, I will slap the shit out of him until he shuts up.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Vegetarians
On the forum I post on, someone posted a news article about a humongous lobster being spared the fate of being cooked because it was so big. I literally counted the seconds (ended up being 40, by the way) until there was a reply by the forum's militant vegetarian with a snarky and insulting remark to the person posting the thread. He then went a step further to make another thread in response. The title? "How do you justify eating animals that suffer during the slaughtering process." I'll quote the first post:
All of this is a round about way to getting to my point: I hate vegetarians. I can't stand them. They constantly need to tell you what a fucking terrible person you are for eating meat. "Don't you know what they do to those animals?" "You're basically saying you support animal cruelty and the suffering of innocent creatures." Give me a fucking break. I'm just eating a damned burger. You take the holier than though attitude and cram it up your ass. I resent the idea that I am a terrible person for eating food like a normal human being.
Humans are omnivores. Our bodies need the proteins from meat to survive and grow. Being a vegetarian doesn't make you better than anyone else. As far as I'm aware, it just makes you an asshole. I have never met a vegetarian who was a nice person. I cannot really begrudge someone their right to be a dick. I can be the same way. But good lord, how rude is it to effectively force come out swinging in any conversation saying "I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad, but how do you justify yourself being a terrible person? I really think people who support this are lower than me and I am so much more enlightened than you beasts." Go pick on someone else. You're effectively bullying us into feeling bad because you are an uptight prick.
After this, he goes on to say that he's going to try not to attack anybody and doesn't want anyone to engage in trolling. My response to the thread was that I really just don't care. This is true. I really don't care about any food that I eat if it suffered during it's life. What this cow was an asshole? Maybe he went around shoving other cows or calling them names. Call me a terrible person for any of this, but I eat meat. Meat is tasty. I don't care what had to happen to these animals for them to end up on my dinner plate.I am going to take a few things for granted in this thread. The following items are, as far as I know, factually indisputable. If I am incorrect about any particular details, I am confident in stating that these items are, at the very least, substantially true. I am prepared to provide support for any of these claims if there is widespread dispute, though I seriously doubt I will need to.
1) Virtually all people here are opposed to, at least, the unnecessary suffering of animals, and would not personally harm or support the harm of an animal unnecessarily. For instance, I assume virtually all people here are in support of animal cruelty laws.
2) All animals commonly eaten for food, including most seafood, are capable of significant feelings of pain and suffering. As far as I know, the scientific literature here is in total agreement. Even if there is disagreement about "how much" pain an animal feels, there is every reason to believe most animals we eat feel something comparable to our own pain and suffering. Certain food animals - pigs, for instance - are undoubtedly as mentally and emotionally sophisticated (if not more so) than common household pets.
3) Virtually all animals eaten for food, even when ideally slaughtered, suffer some significant amount of pain or suffering in their life. Even if we ignore or discount psychological suffering (lack of social structures, fear, stress, etc.), food animals suffer indisputable physical pains: tail docking, debeaking, cramped spaces, etc. Caught fish are either crushed to death, suffocate, or bleed out. There are many reasons to believe that most animals experience very little outside of pain and suffering.
4) As a result of imperfect slaughtering processes, many animals suffer needlessly - broken limbs, botched slaughtering, disease, stress death, etc. Seafood kills many animals completely unrelated to the targeted animals (the so-called "bycatch").
So, given these 4 items, how do you justify eating animals that assuredly suffered during their life?
All of this is a round about way to getting to my point: I hate vegetarians. I can't stand them. They constantly need to tell you what a fucking terrible person you are for eating meat. "Don't you know what they do to those animals?" "You're basically saying you support animal cruelty and the suffering of innocent creatures." Give me a fucking break. I'm just eating a damned burger. You take the holier than though attitude and cram it up your ass. I resent the idea that I am a terrible person for eating food like a normal human being.
Humans are omnivores. Our bodies need the proteins from meat to survive and grow. Being a vegetarian doesn't make you better than anyone else. As far as I'm aware, it just makes you an asshole. I have never met a vegetarian who was a nice person. I cannot really begrudge someone their right to be a dick. I can be the same way. But good lord, how rude is it to effectively force come out swinging in any conversation saying "I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad, but how do you justify yourself being a terrible person? I really think people who support this are lower than me and I am so much more enlightened than you beasts." Go pick on someone else. You're effectively bullying us into feeling bad because you are an uptight prick.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Just Another Day At The Office
So, my supervisor, Ted, decided to test the new hiring system here at Stevens. In the process, he decided to reject my application to see if it would send me an email saying I had been rejected. It didn't reject me, but it did have the wonderful side effect of firing me. I made him call HR and fix it, but damn if that isn't funny.
Just another day at the office.
Just another day at the office.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Lady Gaga - Born This Way
Let me start off by saying, no, this song is not like Lady Gaga's previous work. Artists change and evolve, and usually the first single is a SAFE choice for most artists. I would look for the other singles after the album comes out to be more earth-shattering. Example: compare "Just Dance" and "Love Game."
Despite sounding like the hybrid bastard child of Madonna, Disco, and today's usual pop themes, I actually like this song. It has a powerful message that will more than likely continue to resonate with today's youth: love yourself the way you are, anyone can do great things, etc. The song is about what you would expect soundwise as the first single from a pop artist's new album. It will do fantastic, and as Lady Gaga is prone to do, the singles that follow will make it seem like nothing.
HOWEVER
The music video is just...well...there needs to be a better word for strange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw
Apparently, youtube is having trouble searching for it now, so all you get is a link.
I doubt I have seen such a terrible division between the message of a song and it's music video. The beginning of it is creepy. There is something about Lady Gaga pulling temporal babies out of her vag that makes me stop and wonder about WHY the people involved with this thought it was a good idea. The beginning of the video goes into the creation of the new race with the race of man (sounds like someone has been reading too much Hellboy) and how Mother Monster (Lady Gaga) gives birth to good and evil and can't decide which is better. Evil, in this case, is represented by a pulling a gun out of the vag. The music video then goes into dancing mostly naked people, dancing evil people with skeleton make-up dressed in tuxedos, and all sorts of weirdness. Orgies, unicorns, automatons, you name it, this music video has it.
The only way I could possibly explain this is for Lady Gaga to give her super-cult-fans a weird story of genesis. I fear what kind of Juggalo-style monsters this thinking could give birth to. Either way, this music video is just fucking weird or a work of certified genius. A quick tour of trends on twitter gives me an equal number of posts that are "WTF" and "SO GOOD." One of which claimed that if I didn't get it I should just shut up. Why don't you try explaining it instead of typing in all caps with 14 exclamation marks?
Giving birth to a wealth of temporal babies over an infinite time span has got to fucking hurt. Just sayin'. If anyone "gets" this music video, as I clearly do not, please try to enlighten me. I would love to freaking know why people think this is good other than rabid fandom. I do look forward, however, to seeing how the guy who runs Vigilant Citizen rationalizes this as the next stage in illuminati taking over our media. If you've never been there, I suggest you take a gander. He does make some good points for noticing very strange consistencies among pop artists these days. If nothing else, it's good for a laugh (or a tinfoil hat, take your pick).
Despite sounding like the hybrid bastard child of Madonna, Disco, and today's usual pop themes, I actually like this song. It has a powerful message that will more than likely continue to resonate with today's youth: love yourself the way you are, anyone can do great things, etc. The song is about what you would expect soundwise as the first single from a pop artist's new album. It will do fantastic, and as Lady Gaga is prone to do, the singles that follow will make it seem like nothing.
HOWEVER
The music video is just...well...there needs to be a better word for strange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw
Apparently, youtube is having trouble searching for it now, so all you get is a link.
I doubt I have seen such a terrible division between the message of a song and it's music video. The beginning of it is creepy. There is something about Lady Gaga pulling temporal babies out of her vag that makes me stop and wonder about WHY the people involved with this thought it was a good idea. The beginning of the video goes into the creation of the new race with the race of man (sounds like someone has been reading too much Hellboy) and how Mother Monster (Lady Gaga) gives birth to good and evil and can't decide which is better. Evil, in this case, is represented by a pulling a gun out of the vag. The music video then goes into dancing mostly naked people, dancing evil people with skeleton make-up dressed in tuxedos, and all sorts of weirdness. Orgies, unicorns, automatons, you name it, this music video has it.
The only way I could possibly explain this is for Lady Gaga to give her super-cult-fans a weird story of genesis. I fear what kind of Juggalo-style monsters this thinking could give birth to. Either way, this music video is just fucking weird or a work of certified genius. A quick tour of trends on twitter gives me an equal number of posts that are "WTF" and "SO GOOD." One of which claimed that if I didn't get it I should just shut up. Why don't you try explaining it instead of typing in all caps with 14 exclamation marks?
Giving birth to a wealth of temporal babies over an infinite time span has got to fucking hurt. Just sayin'. If anyone "gets" this music video, as I clearly do not, please try to enlighten me. I would love to freaking know why people think this is good other than rabid fandom. I do look forward, however, to seeing how the guy who runs Vigilant Citizen rationalizes this as the next stage in illuminati taking over our media. If you've never been there, I suggest you take a gander. He does make some good points for noticing very strange consistencies among pop artists these days. If nothing else, it's good for a laugh (or a tinfoil hat, take your pick).
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Celestine Prophecy
How better to start this blog than to rant about something inconsequential? Still I will take time out of my day to focus on it and why it deserves my hatred.
Small intro:
Over Christmas break, my mother gave this book to me as a present along with a letter. Why? The letter said that we needed to improve our "communication" and work on these "communication issues." I assumed at the time that the book was supposed to be telling me everything that I am doing wrong and why I should be nicer to her and how I'm a terrible person and blah blah blah blah. I didn't know exactly how correct I was, nor did I know this book would deserve such a tear down. Let us begin!
The Celestine Prophecy is a book of self-help fiction. Analyzing those last three words is kind of interesting. A self-help book is one thing. A work of fiction is something completely different. Yet, this book tries to be both. What the author intended was to take his weird new-age form of spirituality and deliver to it his audience in the form of an adventure novel! Oh boy! I went into reading this thinking it would be like if the Dalai Lama decided to write The Da Vinci Code. That would probably be awesome. The Celestine Prophecy is not.
The only book that I have read previous to this that pisses me off to no end is The Catcher in the Rye (say what you want about it, I have a problem with a book that makes a hero out of a pathological liar). Let me begin with summarizing the plot of the book. The story begins with the narrator, John Woodson, coming into contact again with an old friend with something to tell him about a "mysterious manuscript" found in Peru. We eventually get to hear that our narrator is going through a midlife crisis of sorts and is looking for guidance (by the way, this character is so Mary-Sue it's not even funny to talk about), though he doesn't know it yet. After hearing about the insights into life this manuscript touts, stuff about energy and the universe and how humanity is entering its next stage of evolution (a spiritual one), he decides that a trip to Peru to investigate this manuscript is in order! When I think "man in mid-life crisis," I think motorcycles, affairs, muscle cars, coaching a little league baseball team...the classic stuff. Trip to Peru to investigate an ancient Mayan manuscript as a way of finding yourself isn't on this list, I suppose because it would be fucking lunacy. Especially since the military in the country is trying to suppress it at the wish of a Catholic Cardinal. The narrator then gets thrown down a path of coincidence, spirituality, and finding himself and the "true nature of the universe," all the while avoiding death and the military. The military and the Church are cliche villains in novels, to say the least. While reading this, I wondered if James Redfield (our author) gave any actual creative thought to this whole nonsense.
That's the summary of the plot. No, really. The book itself is either 157 pages long or a little over 240, depending on which version you get. Same book though. What the book is trying to convey is the "insights into life," specifically 9 of them. I'll reprint the insights for you here that I got from this place:
THE FIRST INSIGHT . . . A CRITICAL MASS
A new spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of individuals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a journey in which we are led forward by mysterious coincidences.
THE SECOND INSIGHT . . . THE LONGER NOW
This awakening represents the creation of a new, more complete worldview, which replaces a five-hundred-year-old preoccupation with secular survival and comfort. While this technological preoccupation was an important step, our awakening to life's coincidences is opening us up to the real purpose of human life on this planet, and the real nature of our universe.
THE THIRD INSIGHT . . . A MATTER OF ENERGY
We now experience that we live not in a material universe, but in a universe of dynamic energy. Everything extant is a field of sacred energy that we can sense and intuit. Moreover, we humans can project our energy by focusing our attention in the desired direction...where attention goes, energy flows...influencing other energy systems and increasing the pace of coincidences in our lives.
THE FOURTH INSIGHT . . . THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER
Too often humans cut themselves off from the greater source of this energy and so feel weak and insecure. To gain energy we tend to manipulate or force others to give us attention and thus energy. When we successfully dominate others in this way, we feel more powerful, but they are left weakened and often fight back. Competition for scarce, human energy is the cause of all conflict between people.
THE FIFTH INSIGHT . . . THE MESSAGE OF THE MYSTICS
Insecurity and violence ends when we experience an inner connection with divine energy within, a connection described by mystics of all traditions. A sense of lightness--buoyancy--along with the constant sensation of love are measures of this connection. If these measures are present, the connection is real. If not, it is only pretended.
THE SIXTH INSIGHT . . . CLEARING THE PAST
The more we stay connected, the more we are acutely aware of those times when we lose connection, usually when we are under stress. In these times, we can see our own particular way of stealing energy from others. Once our manipulations are brought to personal awareness, our connection becomes more constant and we can discover our own growth path in life, and our spiritual mission--the personal way we can contribute to the world.
THE SEVENTH INSIGHT . . . ENGAGING THE FLOW
Knowing our personal mission further enhances the flow of mysterious coincidences as we are guided toward our destinies. First we have a question; then dreams, daydreams, and intuitions lead us towards the answers, which usually are synchronistically provided by the wisdom of another human being.
THE EIGHTH INSIGHT . . . THE INTERPERSONAL ETHIC
We can increase the frequency of guiding coincidences by uplifting every person that comes into our lives. Care must be taken not to lose our inner connection in romantic relationships. Uplifting others is especially effective in groups where each member can feel energy of all the others. With children it is extremely important for their early security and growth. By seeing the beauty in every face, we lift others into their wisest self, and increase the chances of hearing a synchronistic message.
THE NINTH INSIGHT . . .THE EMERGING CULTURE
As we all evolve toward the best completion of our spiritual missions, the technological means of survival will be fully automated as humans focus instead on synchronistic growth. Such growth will move humans into higher energy states, ultimately transforming our bodies into spiritual form and uniting this dimension of existence with the after-life dimension, ending the cycle of birth and death.
If you're still with us, good for you! That crap is a lot to read, especially for we Americans with our short attention spans. It's better, however, than reading the 240 pages of tripe you would have to wade through if you read the book. This philosophy (if you can call it that) is a weird mash-up of Romanticism (I'm talking late 1800's here for those of us who are not inclined to read literature), Predestination, Taoism, and our good old friends: the granola eatin' hippies (insert Kent State joke here). I'll go with the specific parts that I'm thinking of all these philosophies (in order):
"Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, to a point that has led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism[citation needed].
Romanticism focuses on Nature; a place free from society's judgement and restrictions. Romanticism blossomed after the age of Rationalism, a time that focused on handwork and scientific reasoning." (from Wikipedia)
Predestination is kind of easy.
Taoism is really big, but think of this as trying to achieve spiritual serenity for my purposes.
Hippies: BUT THINK OF THE PLANET.
A lot of this goes straight AGAINST science and reason. This is kind of loony, to say the least. There is a reason romanticism died out: science and technology are fucking awesome. I mean, really. I can access any information in the world that I want from my PHONE. Anyways...
My biggest problem with this whole philosophy is obviously that there is some spiritual energy that connects every human being that controls the universe. Now, if this were the Force, that would be awesome. But no, we're just supposed to achieve harmony with our evolution and the universe instead of shooting lightning from our hands.
My second problem is really with the ninth insight and how it is communicated in the book. Here's an example:
"Can you visualize human encounters that have this much meaning and significance? Think how it would be for two people meeting for the first time. Each will first observe the other’s energy field, exposing any manipulations. Once clear, they will consciously share life stories until, elatedly, messages are discovered. Afterward, each will go forward again on their individual journey, but they will be significantly altered. They will vibrate at a new level and will thereafter touch others in a way not possible before their meeting." (pg. 143 in the version I'm looking at now)
I shall analyze this from a mathematical perspective (and why it's bullshit). The internet tells me that the average person sees 900 people in a single weekday. That's a lot. If you take a place like New York City, I'm sure you're going to know about 10 of these people. But say you're in an unfamiliar place and know no one there. That means you would have to chat with 900 people in one day, and tell them your whole life story and determine what message they are trying to communicate to you (or rather, the universe is trying to communicate through them). There are 86,400 seconds in a single day. That gives us exactly 96 seconds to speak to a single person and move on to the next one. This would be the whole day, so you would have no sleep. If you can communicate your whole damn life story in 96 seconds, your life was as fucking boring as an episode of Mr. Ed. Further more, if we go into this a bit further, we can determine that the effects of you meeting these people becomes exponentially large as time goes on (one person meets 900 people, those people meet 900 more people, etc.). I could prove this, but I'm not that much of a nerd (right now, anyway). There is no way this could actually happen. However, the author does like to state that humans will voluntarily decrease the population of the earth. Still, even if it's 50 people, it is still unfeasible.
My last problem with this hippie bullshit is the way this book was written. It was written like someone entering their senior year of high school. It is overly simple, forces the issue, has no hints of subtlety, and is just poor writing overall. Another example from the text: "Less then ten feet away, a particular foliage plant caught my eye. I had often owned just this type as a house plant, a particular variegated form of philodendron. Dark green, its foliage branched out to about four feet in diameter. The shape of this plant seemed perfectly healthy and vibrant." (pg. 37)
How the FUCK am I suppose to take this book seriously if the author can't tell the different between then and than? I mean seriously. For this failure to occur, the author had to miss it and at least two editors. I don't have the words for how much this bothers me. I am a bit of a grammar nazi, but this is just stupid.
Another good example is a couple paragraphs above it, and why I consider it tripe:
"I was immediately awed by the shapes and forms around me. I seemed to be able to focus on each of the massive oaks in a total way, not merely on one part, but on the whole form at once. I was immediately struck by the unique shape and configuration of limbs each displayed. I looked from one to the other, turning all around. Doing this somehow increased the feeling of presence each oak exuded to me, as though I was seeing them for the first time, or at least fully appreciating them for the first time." (pg. 37)
No description, just simple, force-fed drivel. Ugh.
The only good thing I can say about this book is that it reacquainted me with one of my favorite quotes of all time, by Dorothy Parker:
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
I guess I just proved to my mother that I'm indeed a terrible person and that I need help (I actually haven't told her I got around to reading it yet, I'll update you all when that happens), but fuck me this book was stupid. The second to worst part of this whole deal is that there are people who believe this philosophy, word for word. It has a big following of idiots. The worst part is that this book spent 165 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.
I'll save the historical inaccuracies for other critics, but the idea of Mayans living in Peru? Laughable. The idea that they achieved the highest state of energy and literally vibrated themselves into another dimension? There is no word for how stupid that is. That is literally how the author explains why they disappeared. Never mind the evidence of how they destroyed the environments where they lived, had a 200 year drought, and a revolt of peasants. Clearly they were spiritual enough to just will themselves out of existence.
Small intro:
Over Christmas break, my mother gave this book to me as a present along with a letter. Why? The letter said that we needed to improve our "communication" and work on these "communication issues." I assumed at the time that the book was supposed to be telling me everything that I am doing wrong and why I should be nicer to her and how I'm a terrible person and blah blah blah blah. I didn't know exactly how correct I was, nor did I know this book would deserve such a tear down. Let us begin!
The Celestine Prophecy is a book of self-help fiction. Analyzing those last three words is kind of interesting. A self-help book is one thing. A work of fiction is something completely different. Yet, this book tries to be both. What the author intended was to take his weird new-age form of spirituality and deliver to it his audience in the form of an adventure novel! Oh boy! I went into reading this thinking it would be like if the Dalai Lama decided to write The Da Vinci Code. That would probably be awesome. The Celestine Prophecy is not.
The only book that I have read previous to this that pisses me off to no end is The Catcher in the Rye (say what you want about it, I have a problem with a book that makes a hero out of a pathological liar). Let me begin with summarizing the plot of the book. The story begins with the narrator, John Woodson, coming into contact again with an old friend with something to tell him about a "mysterious manuscript" found in Peru. We eventually get to hear that our narrator is going through a midlife crisis of sorts and is looking for guidance (by the way, this character is so Mary-Sue it's not even funny to talk about), though he doesn't know it yet. After hearing about the insights into life this manuscript touts, stuff about energy and the universe and how humanity is entering its next stage of evolution (a spiritual one), he decides that a trip to Peru to investigate this manuscript is in order! When I think "man in mid-life crisis," I think motorcycles, affairs, muscle cars, coaching a little league baseball team...the classic stuff. Trip to Peru to investigate an ancient Mayan manuscript as a way of finding yourself isn't on this list, I suppose because it would be fucking lunacy. Especially since the military in the country is trying to suppress it at the wish of a Catholic Cardinal. The narrator then gets thrown down a path of coincidence, spirituality, and finding himself and the "true nature of the universe," all the while avoiding death and the military. The military and the Church are cliche villains in novels, to say the least. While reading this, I wondered if James Redfield (our author) gave any actual creative thought to this whole nonsense.
That's the summary of the plot. No, really. The book itself is either 157 pages long or a little over 240, depending on which version you get. Same book though. What the book is trying to convey is the "insights into life," specifically 9 of them. I'll reprint the insights for you here that I got from this place:
THE FIRST INSIGHT . . . A CRITICAL MASS
A new spiritual awakening is occurring in human culture, an awakening brought about by a critical mass of individuals who experience their lives as a spiritual unfolding, a journey in which we are led forward by mysterious coincidences.
THE SECOND INSIGHT . . . THE LONGER NOW
This awakening represents the creation of a new, more complete worldview, which replaces a five-hundred-year-old preoccupation with secular survival and comfort. While this technological preoccupation was an important step, our awakening to life's coincidences is opening us up to the real purpose of human life on this planet, and the real nature of our universe.
THE THIRD INSIGHT . . . A MATTER OF ENERGY
We now experience that we live not in a material universe, but in a universe of dynamic energy. Everything extant is a field of sacred energy that we can sense and intuit. Moreover, we humans can project our energy by focusing our attention in the desired direction...where attention goes, energy flows...influencing other energy systems and increasing the pace of coincidences in our lives.
THE FOURTH INSIGHT . . . THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER
Too often humans cut themselves off from the greater source of this energy and so feel weak and insecure. To gain energy we tend to manipulate or force others to give us attention and thus energy. When we successfully dominate others in this way, we feel more powerful, but they are left weakened and often fight back. Competition for scarce, human energy is the cause of all conflict between people.
THE FIFTH INSIGHT . . . THE MESSAGE OF THE MYSTICS
Insecurity and violence ends when we experience an inner connection with divine energy within, a connection described by mystics of all traditions. A sense of lightness--buoyancy--along with the constant sensation of love are measures of this connection. If these measures are present, the connection is real. If not, it is only pretended.
THE SIXTH INSIGHT . . . CLEARING THE PAST
The more we stay connected, the more we are acutely aware of those times when we lose connection, usually when we are under stress. In these times, we can see our own particular way of stealing energy from others. Once our manipulations are brought to personal awareness, our connection becomes more constant and we can discover our own growth path in life, and our spiritual mission--the personal way we can contribute to the world.
THE SEVENTH INSIGHT . . . ENGAGING THE FLOW
Knowing our personal mission further enhances the flow of mysterious coincidences as we are guided toward our destinies. First we have a question; then dreams, daydreams, and intuitions lead us towards the answers, which usually are synchronistically provided by the wisdom of another human being.
THE EIGHTH INSIGHT . . . THE INTERPERSONAL ETHIC
We can increase the frequency of guiding coincidences by uplifting every person that comes into our lives. Care must be taken not to lose our inner connection in romantic relationships. Uplifting others is especially effective in groups where each member can feel energy of all the others. With children it is extremely important for their early security and growth. By seeing the beauty in every face, we lift others into their wisest self, and increase the chances of hearing a synchronistic message.
THE NINTH INSIGHT . . .THE EMERGING CULTURE
As we all evolve toward the best completion of our spiritual missions, the technological means of survival will be fully automated as humans focus instead on synchronistic growth. Such growth will move humans into higher energy states, ultimately transforming our bodies into spiritual form and uniting this dimension of existence with the after-life dimension, ending the cycle of birth and death.
If you're still with us, good for you! That crap is a lot to read, especially for we Americans with our short attention spans. It's better, however, than reading the 240 pages of tripe you would have to wade through if you read the book. This philosophy (if you can call it that) is a weird mash-up of Romanticism (I'm talking late 1800's here for those of us who are not inclined to read literature), Predestination, Taoism, and our good old friends: the granola eatin' hippies (insert Kent State joke here). I'll go with the specific parts that I'm thinking of all these philosophies (in order):
"Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, to a point that has led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism[citation needed].
Romanticism focuses on Nature; a place free from society's judgement and restrictions. Romanticism blossomed after the age of Rationalism, a time that focused on handwork and scientific reasoning." (from Wikipedia)
Predestination is kind of easy.
Taoism is really big, but think of this as trying to achieve spiritual serenity for my purposes.
Hippies: BUT THINK OF THE PLANET.
A lot of this goes straight AGAINST science and reason. This is kind of loony, to say the least. There is a reason romanticism died out: science and technology are fucking awesome. I mean, really. I can access any information in the world that I want from my PHONE. Anyways...
My biggest problem with this whole philosophy is obviously that there is some spiritual energy that connects every human being that controls the universe. Now, if this were the Force, that would be awesome. But no, we're just supposed to achieve harmony with our evolution and the universe instead of shooting lightning from our hands.
My second problem is really with the ninth insight and how it is communicated in the book. Here's an example:
"Can you visualize human encounters that have this much meaning and significance? Think how it would be for two people meeting for the first time. Each will first observe the other’s energy field, exposing any manipulations. Once clear, they will consciously share life stories until, elatedly, messages are discovered. Afterward, each will go forward again on their individual journey, but they will be significantly altered. They will vibrate at a new level and will thereafter touch others in a way not possible before their meeting." (pg. 143 in the version I'm looking at now)
I shall analyze this from a mathematical perspective (and why it's bullshit). The internet tells me that the average person sees 900 people in a single weekday. That's a lot. If you take a place like New York City, I'm sure you're going to know about 10 of these people. But say you're in an unfamiliar place and know no one there. That means you would have to chat with 900 people in one day, and tell them your whole life story and determine what message they are trying to communicate to you (or rather, the universe is trying to communicate through them). There are 86,400 seconds in a single day. That gives us exactly 96 seconds to speak to a single person and move on to the next one. This would be the whole day, so you would have no sleep. If you can communicate your whole damn life story in 96 seconds, your life was as fucking boring as an episode of Mr. Ed. Further more, if we go into this a bit further, we can determine that the effects of you meeting these people becomes exponentially large as time goes on (one person meets 900 people, those people meet 900 more people, etc.). I could prove this, but I'm not that much of a nerd (right now, anyway). There is no way this could actually happen. However, the author does like to state that humans will voluntarily decrease the population of the earth. Still, even if it's 50 people, it is still unfeasible.
My last problem with this hippie bullshit is the way this book was written. It was written like someone entering their senior year of high school. It is overly simple, forces the issue, has no hints of subtlety, and is just poor writing overall. Another example from the text: "Less then ten feet away, a particular foliage plant caught my eye. I had often owned just this type as a house plant, a particular variegated form of philodendron. Dark green, its foliage branched out to about four feet in diameter. The shape of this plant seemed perfectly healthy and vibrant." (pg. 37)
How the FUCK am I suppose to take this book seriously if the author can't tell the different between then and than? I mean seriously. For this failure to occur, the author had to miss it and at least two editors. I don't have the words for how much this bothers me. I am a bit of a grammar nazi, but this is just stupid.
Another good example is a couple paragraphs above it, and why I consider it tripe:
"I was immediately awed by the shapes and forms around me. I seemed to be able to focus on each of the massive oaks in a total way, not merely on one part, but on the whole form at once. I was immediately struck by the unique shape and configuration of limbs each displayed. I looked from one to the other, turning all around. Doing this somehow increased the feeling of presence each oak exuded to me, as though I was seeing them for the first time, or at least fully appreciating them for the first time." (pg. 37)
No description, just simple, force-fed drivel. Ugh.
The only good thing I can say about this book is that it reacquainted me with one of my favorite quotes of all time, by Dorothy Parker:
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
I guess I just proved to my mother that I'm indeed a terrible person and that I need help (I actually haven't told her I got around to reading it yet, I'll update you all when that happens), but fuck me this book was stupid. The second to worst part of this whole deal is that there are people who believe this philosophy, word for word. It has a big following of idiots. The worst part is that this book spent 165 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list.
I'll save the historical inaccuracies for other critics, but the idea of Mayans living in Peru? Laughable. The idea that they achieved the highest state of energy and literally vibrated themselves into another dimension? There is no word for how stupid that is. That is literally how the author explains why they disappeared. Never mind the evidence of how they destroyed the environments where they lived, had a 200 year drought, and a revolt of peasants. Clearly they were spiritual enough to just will themselves out of existence.
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