The Day I Got the Vapors

Last night I met number two on my list of the top five people I had to meet before I died. Right in the nick of time, I'd say, as Mr. number here two just turned eighty years old and has recently announced his plan to retire in 2009. I will say, however, despite his age and recent heart troubles, he is as sharp, funny, eloquent and inspiring as his numerous books and television appearances would betray.



If you're looking at this photograph and wondering who this very well-bearded man might be, you're missing out on the exemplary work of one of the most important and influential intellectual activists, and best magicians, in the world. May I recommend his books Flim-Flam!, and The Faith Healers. I also recommend plugging this site into your Google Reader to catch his weekly updates as a flickering candle of logic and reason in the swirling darkness of flummery and pseudo-science.

Thank you for all your wonderful work, Mr. Randi, and thank you for only briefly ridiculing my pink camera.

P.S. I should note my mild disappointment when Mr. Randi's phone rang during the lecture (barking dogs, of all things.... of course, maybe he's got the advance release of Dog Party) and I saw that he uses an iPhone. This must be a boon to pretentious Mac users the world over. On the plus side, it was a call from none other than Jose "Carlos" Alvarez himself.

Why I Love "The Best of Craigslist"

From the "Free" section of CL San Diego:

Carton Of Irregular Cat Hats

Date: 2008-02-07, 11:01AM PST


Hello. I have a big box of used cat and kitten hats that I have collected over the years for various occasions. As of recently my cat, Snowman, is no longer living and thus I am forced to get rid of these precious memories. I would not feel right asking money for them so I am offering the whole box for free. There are many styles from formal to cute and funny.

You think widdle Snowman put his little cat head in the oven? Maybe he closed the garage door and started the family car. Ketamine overdoes, perhaps.

Poor Snowman.

Also, what the fuck is a "formal" cat hat?

Against Stupidity

"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain." -Friedrich von Schiller

The stupidest person I ever met was a high school girl. One could easily say that all high-schoolers are stupid in their own way, but this girl was a unique specemin. Her name eludes me, but I remember she had brunette hair, stood about five feet tall and was wearing a purple pantsuit. The first and last time I met her was February of 1998.

I was judging a round of Oratory. In high school, I was active in Speech and Debate, and by my senior year, I had established enough points that I was allowed to judge in tournaments in which neither I nor any of my teammates were competing. For those of you that don’t know, Oratory is an event where one writes an eight-minute speech on virtually any topic and simply delivers said speech. As this young girl stepped in front of the class of spectators, opponents and judges, she wrote the title of her speech on the chalkboard. It was titled “Sugar.”

Her speech began with a short history of sugar. She spoke about the early origins of commercial sugar in the Western Hemisphere as being derived primarily from beets, but during the age of European colonization in warmer climes, the import of sugar made from cane flooded Europe, offering a much cheaper alternative, and the use of sugar as a sweetener in beverages and baked goods began to rise. She then skipped ahead to the modern era, telling us about the commercial use of even cheaper corn syrup as a sweetener in everything from manufactured beverages and candies, to breads and infant formulas.

At this point, I was forcing my eyes to keep from rolling. I was fully expecting her to launch into a diatribe about the abundant use of sugar in virtually every product on the shelves, and into the various conspiracy theories about manufactured sugars being directly responsible for every malady from obesity to Parkinson’s disease. Judging these things was grueling at best, so one must come prepared for the worst.

These speeches are supposed to have a point, you see, a thesis, if you will. 1. Sugar is everywhere. 2. Sugar is bad. 3. We need to get rid of sugar. Thank you, goodnight. What she did, however, was something entirely different.

She told us all a story about how nurses caring for the wounded behind the battlefields in France during World War II used hand-made sugar pills to treat the ailing soldiers when they ran out of morphine pills. Amazingly, the nurses reported, many of the men felt better. She then told a similar story about combat hospitals in Vietnam. Then she cited several studies performed by very reputable medical institutions across the world throughout the early part of the 20th century about patients that are told they’re being given a drug to cure their maladies, but are in fact given sugar pills,. Amazingly, in some case up to 90% of patients feel better. Thesis: The medical establishment has ignored the healing power of sugar. Thank you, goodnight.



I was stunned. I was flabbergasted. I was speechless. I was without speech. This girl had prepared an eight-minute speech on a subject, and had completely missed her own point. I scored her last in the round and wrote two words on her score sheet. I’ll give you a hint: the first one starts with a P.

This girl stands out in my memory as the stupidest person I’ve ever encountered, not because she simply missed the point, but because she had clearly been working on this speech for weeks, had likely run drafts by her coach and teammates, had done research to support her thesis, and still missed the point. If she had stumbled upon the phrase “placebo effect” in any of her readings, which we can only assume she did, she tossed it aside as immaterial to her point.

I’ve been thinking about this poor, misguided soul a good deal lately, and not just because I’ve been in a bad mood for three months, or because I hate pantsuits. While I still believe the vast majority of humans are intelligent, resourceful and responsible people, the evidence that the tide is turning in the opposite direction has begun to mount. I’m skeptical, and am not yet prepared to make a final decision, but I’m beginning to fear that people are getting stupider by the minute.

I walked into a dry cleaner the other day and hung up several shirts and pants on the rack attached to the counter. The woman picked up the receipt book and asked my name. I told her. I asked when the clothes would be ready to pick up. “Tuesday at five P.M.” she told me.

“Excuse me?” I asked, “The sign right there in your window says that if I drop off my clothes off by nine A.M., they’ll be done by three o’clock. It’s 8:30 A.M.”

“Yeah,” she replied, “We don’t really do that.”

“Then why is the sign in the window?”

She stared at me, blankly.

I stared back at her.

Her eyes wandered to the sign that was in the window, then back to me. An awkward minute passed, no sound, no motion. It seemed that time had stopped, the sound of the morning traffic outside seemed to mute and the world paused on its axis. It was true, I knew it was true, there was no way to deny it any longer: people are getting stupider.

And the woman at the hamburger stand I visited the day before, where I ordered mustard on said hamburger, and she couldn’t find the “mustard” button so she pressed the “mayonnaise” button instead. I watched her do it. Or the young man at the sushi bar, when asked what kind of sake was available, replied “The clear kind. Also, some that’s not clear.” I overheard a woman in the office tell a story about how her father was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and another woman asked “Did he survive?”

I simply can no longer ignore the big, stupid elephant in the room.

Take, for example, the story of a man in Houston. The restaurant where he was eating called police after he left without paying for his food. They informed the officers that he was seen entering a nearby vacant building. The police entered the large, empty building, and one officer, deciding to inject some levity into the situation, called out “Marco!” The man called out, “Polo!” and was soon located and arrested.

Let’s also consider Lane Jensen of Edmonton, Canada. In an effort to make the tattoo of a cowgirl on his calf more “sexy,” Jensen paid a plastic surgeon to insert tiny breast implants under his skin. They became infected, the sutures split and to quote the article, “a litre of lymphatic fluid drained from Jensen’s leg.”



There’s also the story of the Marion, Florida woman who is convinced that the holy lord, Christian god, the creator of heaven and Earth, the redeemer and the savior of all humanity, is speaking to her through the insides of a potato.



Finally, in a sweeping example of growing stupidity, I direct you to a report from the Centers for Disease Control in which they document the deaths of at least 82 youths in what they call “the choking game.” Apparently, in a desperate attempt to alter their minds, they strangle themselves (or have someone strangle them…..imagine your friend asking you to do that…) and enjoy the resulting “cool and dreamy feeling.” Just think, if those poor Namibian kids had heard about this, they wouldn’t have to huff poo-gas just to get through the day.

(To prevent any unnecessary comments, yes I am aware that the Jenkem story is mostly an urban legend, but it’s still funny as hell. I also like that some news outlet dubbed it “butt hash.”)

Even while I’m writing this, I’m still forced to answer this evidence by pointing out that for every person that doesn’t install saline bags in his calf, or speak to Jesus through vegetables, there are billions and billions that don’t. On the other hand, there’s the woman that sued a shopping center after being attacked by a goose, the man that bothered to make the world’s biggest fish stick, and I’m sure SOMEONE has actually bought one of these. I’d rather not discuss Miss South Corlina.

No, I don’t think most people are stupid. I will reserve that judgment until after I’ve met most people. Until then, I can only shake my head in disbelief when I read about a woman in Montana that paid a door-to-door salesman to give her a tattoo with a homemade gun, and was shocked when it got infected.

Is the tide actually turning? Can we expect a trend of de-evolution, like in Idiocracy, where humanity will find itself spraying sports drinks onto crops and watching hours and hours of men being kicked in the balls for entertainment? Run a search on you tube for "kicked in the balls," and tell me we're not in trouble.

Despite my crabby mood, I still think the best of humanity, I just fear for its future sometimes, like a concerned uncle that’s too lazy to do anything but tell the bartender that he “worried about Timmy.” I suppose I could just stop reading Reuters “Odd News.”

The Worst Parents in the World

Seriously, this is child abuse.

Happy Valen-Time's Y'all

You can make your own here.

The Evidence is Mounting...

Evidence is mounting that people are, in fact and across the board, getting stupider.

Woman reports Her Own Drunk Driving

A rural Fox Lake woman early Sunday was able to give a detailed description of a suspected drunken driver and the suspect 's vehicle to a Dodge County sheriff 's dispatcher.

That 's because the woman was calling from that vehicle -- a tan 2002 pickup truck -- and she was driving it, Dodge County Sheriff Todd Nehls said.

The woman 's boyfriend in the passenger seat suggested she call 911 to report her own drunken driving, so she did, Nehls said. The boyfriend was not driving, she said, because he was too drunk.

The call came in at 12:29 a.m. Sunday on the county 911 line as a hang-up call from a cell phone, Nehls said.

Dispatchers used a reverse 911 directory and called the phone, which was answered by a woman who identified herself as Patricia Dykstra, 51. She said her boyfriend made her call, because "somebody seems to think I can 't drive home straight. "

When the dispatcher asked her why, she said, "He seems to think I 'm too intoxicated to drive. "



During a relatively pleasant conversation with the dispatcher -- a recording of which Nehls released Monday -- Dykstra gave her name, location and vehicle description before saying she should probably hang up because "I don 't like being on the phone while driving. "

Asked by the dispatcher if she had too much to drink, she said "I don 't think so, ma 'am. "

She said she was almost home and gave the intersection. Throughout the 3 -minute call, however, the dispatcher did not suggest the woman pull over. Nehls said the dispatcher assumed the woman had already stopped, although her last advice to Dykstra was, "So Pat, drive carefully, OK? "

Deputies went to her home, where Dykstra met them on the porch, Nehls said. She had consumed a six-pack of beer, she said, and her boyfriend a 12-pack. She was ticketed for drunken driving, her first offense.

Wait For It...

This is what my grandmother would refer to as "bathroom humor."



I love bathroom humor.

Stowaway Kitten

My biggest concern is not with the kitten, though I do feel bad for the widdle thing, but who was working the fucking x-ray machine at the airport? Seriously? They didn't notice a very kitten-shaped skeleton in the bag?

I'm concerned that people are getting stupider, and at an exponential rate.

MIAMI (Reuters) - A kitten survived a plane trip halfway across the United States after accidentally ending up in a suitcase, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Seth Levy's suitcase, in which 10-month-old tabby Gracie Mae stowed away, was mistakenly picked up by the wrong person after a 2 1/2 hour plane trip from Fort Lauderdale in Florida to Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas.



But the man who took the suitcase called the kitten's Florida home and spoke to Levy's wife, Kelly, of Palm Beach Gardens, and agreed to hold the cat until her husband could pick it up, the Sun-Sentinel newspaper said.

"Hi, you're not going to believe this, but I am calling from Fort Worth, Texas. And I accidentally picked up your husband's luggage, and when I opened the luggage a cat jumped out," Levy recalled the man telling her on the phone.

UPDATE:

This is officially getting out of hand.

Loaded gun slips through airport security

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A passenger who went through an airport security checkpoint -- before remembering that he had a loaded gun -- is facing charges after going back to report his error, authorities said.
art.reagan.security.gi.jpg

Travelers go through security at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Gregory Scott Hinkle, 53, of Davis, West Virginia, went through a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport about 7:30 a.m. Sunday, an airport spokeswoman said.

After the traveler evidently recalled having the gun, he returned to the checkpoint and disclosed the weapon, authorities said.

The TSA contacted airport police, who charged the man with possessing or transporting a firearm into an air carrier terminal where prohibited, a misdemeanor, and released him. He is scheduled to appear April 2 in Arlington County, Virginia, General District Court.

Hinkle did not immediately return a phone call to his residence.

A TSA spokesman said the agency reviewed airport surveillance camera videos of the incident and removed the screener from security duties while an investigation is under way.

UPDATE

Since seeing is believing, this is frozen Pennsylvania, as seen (and clearly photographed) by me on the four hour drive from Pittsburgh (amidst significant blizzard conditions).



This is me...



...and this is what I'm doing right now.



boosh.

Daft Hands

I now the YouTube posts get a little boring, but this one's pretty cool. Plus, I'm frozen in Pennsylvania right now, and I don't have the energy to blog. I do, however, have the energy to drink Glenlivet 12 year and watch Cops. So there.

Turn Up Your Computer Speakers....

...and call an ambulance. Your face is about to get rocked off.

Face The Fax

I have a new job that requires me to be on the road all the time. Consequently, I spend a lot of time in a hotel room being bored. This means I spend a great deal of time online. The funny thing about the internet is that it’s so huge, and encompasses so much information, unless you know specifically what you're looking for, there’s almost no way to decide where to start.

After reading all my regular websites, news sites and blogs, I find myself staring at the Food Network watching Alton Brown (my own.. personal... Jesus) grilling what can only be described as the most delicious-looking pork chops ever prepared by man. The unfortunate part is I'm usually eating a Hot Pocket, though, thankfully, not tasting said Hot-Pocket because the “cheese” that squirted out of the rock-hard end of the "bread" has completely destroyed my mouth.

The amazing bit is that with all the information, entertainment, pornography, shopping, education, and pornography available online, it's remarkably easy to come to the point where you don't know where to go next.

So what’s on The Internet these days? Because I’m bored and I need something to do, but also because people seem to love pointless lists, here’s a list of things I’ve learned from The Internet in the past few months:

1. Ramen was invented by 1940 by the founder of Nissen Foods, Momofuku Ando.

2. There is a popular show in The Netherlands about a professed “baby whisperer” who claims he can psychically communicate with infants. The name of the show is “What Baby Wants Is Law,” or in Dutch, “Baby’s Wil Is Wet.”

3. The Xbox 360 has officially broken the $250 barrier.

4. Apparently you can buy a wig for your cat.



5. David Hasselhoff is the Anti-Christ.

6. Neil Diamond has revealed, on the occasion of her 50th birthday, that Caroline Kennedy was the inspiration for his 1969 hit "Sweet Caroline."

7. Being that Caroline Kennedy was born in 1957, Neil Diamond is a pederast because he likes to write sexy love songs about twelve-year-old girls.

8. All mammals have tongues.

9. Barry Goldwater has a tattoo. Seriously.

10. While the banana is a fruit, the plant on which it grows is an herb, not a tree.

11. The FDIC insures U.S. banks from insolvency, and the FDIC is insured by Chuck Norris.

That about sums up all the knowledge I've gathered after months of aimless surfing. I hope this has been both engaging and enlightening. Now if you'll excuse me, the lady with no teeth is here to change my sheets.

12. Also, unrelated to information available solely on The Internet, I've learned that if you smoke 450 cigarettes a day and consume nothing but white bread and Coca-Cola, all your teeth fall out.

Why I Think I May Have Been Sexually Abused as a Child

I was in Mike’s Movie Madness in Portland, OR, arguably the best video store on the planet earth, browsing through the new releases. I had the weekend to myself, as the fetching Mrs. Sonnier was out of town, and I had made big plans to do a whole lot of nothing. The ultimate goal was to catch up on some movie-watching, so callously neglected with all this “going to work” and “doing the dishes” and “let’s talk about your drinking problem” nonsense. It was going to be great, I was going to watch a bunch of movies, perhaps play the occasional video game, probably not put on pants all weekend, and would probably eat ice cream with a ladle.

Mike’s Movie Madness was definitely the place to start, but it did complicate the problem a little, since that oddly-shaped, ramshackle of a video store boasts over 50,000 VHS and DVDs. I decided to start in the new release room, and that’s where I saw it: Transformers: The Complete First Season. I almost jumped out of my skin. I had been belly-aching for months over the VHS set on eBay going over $100 each and every time, but was able to reassure myself that it would soon make it to DVD, at the very least before the movie was set to premiere, and I held in my hand proof of that fact. The box was shiny, and I could see the reflection of my “five-year-old on Christmas morning” grin in Optimus Prime’s faceplate. While waiting in line, I momentarily thought of just putting the DVD back on the shelf, heading to the nearest department store and just buying the box set, but I was impatient and it was getting dark outside, and I was getting the brew-shakes. I’ll just pick up the box set later, I thought to myself with deep satisfaction.

A stop off at The Belmont Station for a bottle of moderately priced Unibrou (Trois Pistoles, I think it was) and off to the crib for a serious nostalgia-thon. Soon enough, I was installed pleasantly on the sofa with a bubbling glass of Belgian beer, a plate stacked with cold pizza, slamming my finger hungrily on the play button of the DVD remote control….

“Transformers….robots in disguise…Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Deceptacons…Transformers…”

And it stunk. It was terrible. I couldn’t even make it through the first episode, though, oddly enough, I actually remembered how it ended. The reason I remembered was because between the years of 1984 and some much later year that I choose not to disclose here (let’s just say that the show was well into syndication) I watched Transformers, the original television series, every day.



The animation was terrible, the voice dubs were comically out of sync. The storylines were ludicrous, even for a show that’s about robots that turn into cars and trucks and fight each other for glowing cubes of energy. I was flabbergasted. How did I watch this show for years and never realize it was so crappy?

It was about this time that the little quasi-retarded man that lives in my brain brought to my attention several other conclusions I had recently reached and strung them together for me:

1. Thundercats sucked. The animation was hokey and the voice acting was ridiculous. It was also borderline racist. Also, Mum-Ra is possibly the dumbest villain ever conceived.

2. He-Man sucked. The animation was even worse than Thundercats, and there was no hot Cheetara to keep you from noticing. Teela does not count.

3. Rainbow Brite was a conspiracy by Hallmark to turn kids into homosexuals, like Captain Planet was an effort by Ted Turner to turn kids into limp-wristed eco-freaks. My little brother’s sexual persuasion and ferocity on all things environmental is a testament to the efficacy of these reprogramming initiatives and his weak constitution.

Unavoidable Conclusion: The 80s were absolutely rife with shitty, shitty cartoons that we kids happily lapped up with all the restraint of Andy Dick at a coke party. GoBots, The Centurions, Captain Power, M.A.S.K., Pole Position, David the Gnome, and the vast majority of the others were masticated, over-produced, pre-packaged garbage that had circled the globe and been recycled so many times, they barely even made any sense anymore.

So why did we love these shows so much? Because nothing else was on and it was better than staring at the wall while you made your brother begin the twenty minute process of getting the Nintendo to work, what with the pressing and the resetting and hitting and the swabbing with the Q-tip taped to the butter knife.

The sad realization that all the television programs I loved as a child were nothing more than pop-culture, toy-sales-driven crap was not what bothered me the most. What really caused me to swallow that lump of cold pizza in my throat was this heavy question: If everything I remember about being a kid is wrong, what have I subconsciously chosen NOT to remember?

This is why I think I may have been sexually abused a child. I don’t know by who, or when, or why, but it does go to explain a few things. My little brother, for example, perhaps not completely under the control of the legion of the bone-queens by the efforts of Rainbow Brite, Twink and the rest of the Color Kids, must have witnessed me being abused by some as-yet-unidentified member of the family or circle of friends and is now attempting to act out this grim scene of cruelty on other boys, usually dressed Hannah Montana.



Perhaps this recent spate of seeking out my once-favorite shows and learning them to be utter drivel is my own subconscious way of exposing my own self-deceit, and forcing myself to dredge and confront these awful truths about my abusive childhood in the hopes of exorcising these demons that have tormented lo these many years.

Then again, maybe I was just a stupid kid who didn’t know any better. I mean, I used to really like hot dogs. I also used to believe a man got a woman pregnant by peeing on her. You can thank my older brother for that one, though, I have to give him props for figuring out the penis was involved at such a young age.

TV shows, movies, cars, music, and just about any other tangible thing that can be quantified and categorized, almost always ends up like Burning Man: the last year you went was the last year it was cool. I have numerous friends and family members that constantly winge and bellyache bout the quality of TV and films and toasters and lawn equipment these days, invariably concluding that “things were a lot better back in the day.” I myself am guilty of this when I watch a few minutes of Code Lyoko, my six-year-old nephew’s favorite cartoon. Incidentally, if anyone can explain this stupid show to me, you’d be doing me a favor. Even Wikipedia’s entry is less than enlightening, but it does indicate the show is French in origin, so I’m not sure that one’s even supposed to get it.

In any case, what these naysayers fail to realize is that EVERY generation thinks they had it better, that their lives were simpler, that they really knew the score and that they had cornered the market on wholesome living, American style. The fact that it’s all bullshit. By every quantifiable variable, life, in virtually every capacity, gets better every day. The average cost of living decreases, while the quality of life increases. The average American lives significantly better and longer than out counterparts only 100 years ago. Our food is better, our hygiene is better, our education, medicine, and pretty much anything else you can think of, is better than it was even ten years ago.

Okay, so I wasn’t abused as a child, unless you count the endlessly mean and embarrassing things my older brother did to me, which I do. I was, however, among the first generation of children in America to grow up in an entirely mediated world, even in the backwoods of Louisiana. It was no coincidence that my favorite superheroes were toys and puzzles and video games before they ever graced my television screen. I was among the first American children to be subjected to, and totally buy into mass merchandising, tie-in promotions and subliminal advertising, and now I’m finally old enough to resent it.




On the other hand, though, Voltron was totally awesome.

Like A Gong!!

OTR - Giving You What You Want: Pornography

Fiction

He decided one day to write fiction. He sat at his typewriter and began to hit the keys in a determined manner, like those newsreels of reporters, sheets of white paper swirling around the room. He started writing, not with an idea in mind, but simply to put words on paper in the hopes that it would become something, perhaps anything. Something is always better than nothing, he thought, except in the case of testicular cancer, he then corrected himself.

He started writing about a man in a foreign land searching through the jungle for a fabled gem worth more than he could ever spend in his lifetime. Then he realized that was exactly like Romancing the Stone, which he saw on TBS about three weeks ago when he couldn't sleep. He pulled the paper from the typewriter, a loud ripping sound rending the silence of the room. He then started writing about a robot culture that hated humans, except for the man that invented them. Then he realized that it was exactly like that novel Software that he'd stolen from the waiting room of his dentist's office when he was sixteen. Another piece of paper was torn from the machine and balled in the nearby bin. He then started writing about a revolution of slaves on Mars and....shit, that's just like that fucking video game Red Faction that he'd beaten last Summer.

He was beginning to get frustrated, so instead of writing about exciting things, and serious things, and things that made a difference, he started writing about the real world, at least how he saw it. He wrote about how he'd like to call himself a writer to other people he meets, but he can't bring himself to because he's never made a penny writing and, after all, there must be some standard, otherwise he could just as well call himself an astronaut or a professional alcoholic. He wrote about how he likes to think of himself as a writer, but sometime he's afraid he’ll never really be one because he doesn't always have really great ideas that turn into wonderful works of art, or otherwise. Sometimes, he wrote, he has okay ideas, but he forgets them because he's too tired to get out of bed and write them down.

He wrote about how he's very afraid he might not be a writer because he sometimes goes weeks and weeks without writing so much as a grocery list. Coincidentally, it's always in those weird times that he doesn't read either, not really being able to tell if one is contributing to the other, or if they both seem to occupy the same space in his brain that has become temporarily atrophied. He wrote about how his biggest fear in the world is that he'll never be able to tell anyone that he's a writer, and know it to be true.

He started to write about his life, but figured no one really wanted to know about his life. The way he sees it, there are a lot of stories out there, interesting ones that are about people that travel the world, fight in wars, love forbidden loves, battle adversity and work for justice with cold determination. his story didn't have any of that stuff, except for that week he spent in Jamaica, but even that was pretty tame, except for the guy that tried to sell him pot, then acid, then mushrooms, then a jet ski. He thought that was pretty funny.

He wrote about how he'd love to know what people wanted to read, and write that for them. Then he got depressed, because if someone is coming up with ideas for you, then you're not really a writer, you're just th guy hitting th kys. Spaking of kys, the ky btwn th “w” and th “r” was stuck again. He hit with some oil. Good.

He wrot about th world in an abstract snse. Crap. It was still stuck. Stupid fucking typewriter. Sure, it looks cool and trendy and 40's chic, but this Remington is truly a piece of shit, he thought to himself as he oiled the key again, making sure to get as much oil as possible on his hands. Is this big, honking, clacky typewriter supposed to make you a real writer? That's bullshit. You've just spent too much time staring at that photo of Ernest Hemingway in his study in front of that huge Corona typewriter. The fact of the matter, he reminded himself, is that you've never fought in a war, you don't smoke, you don't even like rum, and you don't suffer from crippling depression (last you checked). Why make an effort to be like Hemingway?

He was stuck. He'd written himself into a corner. He realized he'd gone of on a tangent about Hemingway and wasn't sure where to go from here. Then he realized he didn't start anywhere in particular, so it really didn't matter where he ended up.

He wrote about riding about his first bicycle, a beautiful red Schwinn with one gear and a front fork that could turn completely around. Then he realized that was dumb. No one wanted to know about his bike, except for bike enthusiasts, and they probably didn’t read very much other that bicycle magazines.

He wrote for a shot period of time about a tree frog he found hiding in the window when he was a boy. The moment he saw it, he was taken by a feeling of devotional love and decided to keep the little guy in a box in his room. He named the frog Ralph. Ralph died soon after, and he remembered being sad, and a little guilty because he never fed the frog. He didn’t know what tiny little frogs ate, anyway. Come think of it, he thought, he still doesn’t know

He stepped up from the desk and stretched. Not bad, he told himself. It’s a start. He had a glass of metallic tap water and looked out his apartment window at the snow that was accumulating. He looked at the powdery snow outside, and the occasional person trudging though, bundled against the elements, and he felt cozy and warm, and even a little happy.

He sat back down at his desk and began typing again.

Anyone Can Herd Cattle...

Rock On!

Dr. Mike Gravel is running for President of the United States.

No, seriously, he is.

Word of the Day: Dribbly

The other morning, exiting my front door, car keys and brown bag in hand, I chanced upon a peculiar sight. A pack of dogs were tearing down the street of my quiet suburban neighborhood wrestling, biting, peeing and otherwise carousing noisily at a steady pace, headed directly for me. There had to have been at least seven of them, each larger than the last, being led by, what I presumed was a horse-sized Great Dane/ Dalmatian mix.

I was transfixed. Between the growls and yips and occasional stream of urine hitting the sidewalk, I could only stare. I was reminded of one of the bloopers at the end of “Talladega Nights” where Will Farrell and that other guy make a public service announcement about packs of wild dogs terrorizing major American cities. I pictured these usually harmless house pets on a wild rampage of death and destruction, and was wildly amused, which is quite a feat for me so early in the morning.

The ravenous ball of dog parts got closer and closer. I stood motionless. How does one react to a pack of dogs invading your front yard? Does one yell or throw rocks? I decided to wait and feel out the situation. If figured, if they were just having a good time, who was I to interrupt?



As the biggest of the dogs lifted his gargantuan leg to piss on my hibiscus bush, I was enamored by the shape of his airborne leg. What a peculiar shape, I thought, how uniquely specialized and complicated a limb is, with all its bones, ligaments, fluids, joints and various other whatnots (I’ve been accused of being needlessly introspective when fatigued and/or intoxicated, at eight o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday, it’s anyone’s guess which applies). One can almost conclude that this extraordinarily complex mechanism is so specialized, and so intricate, and so unique, that it would be outside the realm of pure chance that something so fantastic would have simply come into existence without the mindful eye of a Creator. Almost.

Then, as the Great Dane’s pee party ended, and he let the first few dribbles of runny poo onto my hibiscus’ leaves (I don’t even like hibiscus, but fuck, they’re mine and you can’t poo on them!) I shooed the pack of dogs away, instantly putting to an end their morning rampage and they all retreated to their respective houses.

On the drive to work, I remained fixed on the mechanism of the dog’s leg, and the human leg, and the arm, and horses’ legs (not to mention the curious nature of the hoof) and various other animals and their various modes of transportation. A thought struck me as I looked at the cars around me: Dumbing down the mechanism of evolution to a simple task of “construction” of species with available resources, (i.e., the best, most efficient organism available utilizing the least amount of raw materials and requiring minimal upkeep) the question is begged: If a robot limb, for example, articulated and complex, is so difficult and consuming to manufacture, why have no creatures, large or small, ever evolved wheels?

Consider this simple fact: wheels rule. The wheel is the kind of thing that gives James Burke a big British chubby. Not only are we talking about the fundamental building block of civilization (yes, James, even more than the plow) but just about the first innovation of man. Not only is it cheap, extraordinarily effective, adaptable to virtually any use (that involves “rolling”) but it’s so easy, you would think even the non-sentient but “all-knowing” and ultimately opportunistic forces of evolution would have figured it out first. Hell, if monkeys can figure out how to get ants out of a mound with a stick, the wheel seems only days away, right?

A lesser rational man would look to this question and say “See, evolution is not the answer to all man’s questions about the origin of life! Let me tell you about the Discovery Institute…” as he reached into his fanny-pack for a colorful brochure. We here at the OTR, however, are not so weak of constitution. You see, every learned person has to acknowledge that the theory of Darwinian evolution, his theory of natural selection (a.k.a. “survival of the fittest”) and modern evolution theory in general, possess great flaws.

That’s right, despite what Richard Dawkins says, evolution is a theory, sure a theory that is virtually agreed upon by every thinking and learned person on the planet and is the only far-reaching theory that meets and effectively explains the most of the fossil record we’ve been able to uncover up to this point, but still just a theory.



I feel significant joy when a Creationist makes the, oh-so-hilarious appeal to scientific reason in his attempt to debunk scientific reason for purely emotional and spiritual motivations. In that vein, a common (if underrepresented) criticism of evolution is related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and a concept known as entropy. Entropy (in a simplistic manner of speaking) is the manner in which chaos begets more chaos, change begets more change and so on and so on. Basically, entropy dictates that irreversible changes occur spontaneously in closed thermodynamic systems, which increase the likelihood that more spontaneous changes will occur. The basic conclusion one draws from this law is that order cannot come from chaos. It’s against the law.

The classic example is ice melting in tumbler of 18 year-old Highland, single-malt Scotch. The Scotch, you see, is room temperature, and the ice, we can presume, is at least 32 degrees Celsius. When the two are combined, chaos ensues. The chaos, in this case, is the temperature differential between the ice, the scotch and the room, and in this situation, the chaos that is causing both the ice to melt and the Scotch to cool, all in a chaotic effort to normalize the temperature with the surrounding air. This is, of course, an extremely dumbed-down version of the definition of entropy, but it’s the only way I ever managed to understand it, when it relates to Scotch.



Creationists state that the theory of evolution countermands the second law of thermodynamics in that it dictates that the ordered and varied existence of life on this planet evolved from the chaos and disorder of, well, whatever came before. This laudable appeal to reason and science is engaging, but ultimately worthless, dribbly shit, similar to what is currently gracing the leaves of my hibiscus plant.

"The use of thermodynamics in biology has a long history rich in confusion" — Harold J. Morowitz

My own confusion is paramount, but the nut of the issue is this: entropy can only increase in a closed system. The problem is, the Earth is not a closed system, like a stone or a glass of water or a microscopic organism, our planet is powered by the Sun.

The really sticky issue is that “entropy,” as it’s defined in thermodynamics (there are numerous other definitions relating to information technology, communications, etc.) can’t really be fully explained because, as John Von Nuemann put it, “No one really know what entropy is anyway.”

As much as this whole post seems like some bizarre exercise in futility (as opposed to all those eother, really important and life-changing posts that frequent this forum), I assure you it is not. The point is that occasionally, we humans get so focused on the moment at hand: what to make for dinner tonight, when am I going to find the time to visit Grandmother’s grave, did I remember to feed the gimp?, we often forget that there are a lot of big ideas out there. These ideas exist not to make us confused or feel stupid, they exist because someone just like you and me (well, mostly like me) found the time to think about them. Isaac Newton saw an apple fall to the Earth, and wondered why? Albert Einstein saw the Sun warming the Earth, and wondered, how? OJ Simpson learned of the murder of his ex-wife and her lover and wondered, whom? These were great men, but not great because they possessed some superpower (though OJ had a mean rushing season in ’68) they were great because they applied their gifts to their fullest extent.

The big ideas in the world are the product of Man, and the application of his skill, not gifts from god. When an NFL running back steps in front of the camera to thank god for helping him bring home that touchdown, he’s not prostrating himself in front of a higher power, he’s diminishing his own hard work and his own talent and intensive training. He’s admitting that he is not the master of himself, which in the end, is the only true power a human has.

So why have humans, pinnacles of achievement never evolved something akin to wheels? It’s a tricky, and somewhat stupid question, but after much thought, I’ve come up with a few ideas. Firstly, evolution is not a zero-sum game: for every major achievement in evolution, there are variable stages. Take the lungs, for example. The fossil records gives us an incredible array or various types of tissues, sacks, prongs and all sorts of other weird stuff that creatures have used to utilize oxygen from the air or water. The big problem with a wheel-type appendage is that variable stages required to get to the end product (a real, flesh and bone wheel and axle mechanism) would be completely useless. Also, you have to consider that for quick stopping and turning, climbing and jumping, nothing really beats a set of legs, even primitive ones. Also, I’ll bet the interstate system really sucked about 130,000 years ago.

iHate You

All you iLifers can take your iPhones and shove right up your iHoles.

That being said, this is pretty funny.

(Author gracefully bows out stage right so as not to draw attention to his grossly apparent absence of late. As if you care.)