Truth! - part 15

The following statements are at least true if not interesting.

The story of David and Goliath is probably not the best metaphor for overcoming one's carnal lusts. SPOILER ALERT: The little guy wins.

If you believe that masturbation is immoral and/or unhealthy you are a fucking idiot. I know I try to pretend that I'm an intelligent writer and generally tart up my points more than that but to be less blunt would be dishonest. Every reputable doctor and psychologist in the world disagrees with you and the ONLY reason you think it's wrong is a silly misinterpretation of the "Sin of Onan" story in the Bible (his sin was disobedience to God's will, not spilling his seed). Masturbation is so healthy in fact it should be mandatory. Okay, well maybe that last bit is just opinion.

One of these days I'm going to learn not to go into Whole Foods. Every time I go I leave broke and angry.

The letters C and X serve no purpose. Every sound they make can be made by other letters. All C sounds can be made by K, S, and Tsh. All X sounds can be made with Ks and Z.

I never thought I'd live to see the day when a political candidate would lie about her father being Bozo the Clown. No really, it never would have occurred to me to think that.

The phrase "Theory of Evolution" is not intended to imply that evolution may or may not have happened. It refers to the body of theoretical ideas regarding the exact mechanisms by which evolution occurred. It's the same way scientists use the phrase "Theory of Gravity". No credible scientist disputes that evolution happens anymore than they dispute that gravity exists; just the exact how of it. It is as close to a fact as science can responsibly get.

Having done some "ghost hunting" in my time and caught some really cool EVPs (electronic voice phenomenon) I can say with absolute certainty...that it doesn't scientifically prove ghosts exist. Not even close. Catching an EVP, include the terrifying jump-to-the-ceiling one I caught, proves one thing: that EVP is a real phenomenon in the sense that something was caught on a recording. What it really is is another question. To leap to the ghost hypothesis skips the steps of establishing that consciousness can exist outside a brain (of which we have never seen and example in nature), that disembodied consciousness is aware (of which we have never seen and example in nature), that said consciousness can affect its surroundings despite its lack of matter (of which we have never seen and example in nature), and that a digital recording can be used by them to communicate (of which there-okay I'm sick of typing that).

If you are 30 years old and look like you are made of jerky and smell like a rotting corpse and have a voice like Tom Waits gargling a handful of scorpions, it's time to reevaluate the wisdom of doing all that of crystal meth.

At some point during every theatrical production I am involved in I have a moment when I think to myself "What a weird activity this is!".

I agree with conservatives on one issue: we need to go back to the sensibilities of the 1950s. Not in all areas. Just in taxation. The top tax rate was 91% for incredibly rich motherfuckers and the economy thrived because of it. As opposed to 35% now. It's a good thing Reagn and Nixon are both dead. Otherwise they'd be run out of the country for being such Marxists. The top tax rate under them was 50% and 70% respectively.

"Pants" is plural, even though they're really only one thing, because they originally came in two pieces. One for each leg.

Frotteurism is defined as "sexual arousal from the recurrent urge or behavior of touching or rubbing against a nonconsenting person". I generally insist on proper use of language but I think we should make an exception in this case and for the sake of humor call it "Icopaphilia".

Everyone dies confused.

Truth! - part 14

The following statements might be true. Or maybe not. Who gives a shit? Like anybody listens to me anyway:

Depression can occasionally serve an important purpose: To get you to stop moving around so much. People suffering from the after effects of a trauma in almost all cases suffer from depression. This is because when one is injured, it is usually in their best interests to do nothing (or next to nothing) until the body has healed enough to start doing things. It's similar to how we get depressed in the winter because food is scarce and inaction conserves energy.

I feel like the best way to understand the "nothing" that is death is to have a concussion. We all lose consciousness through sleep, fainting, passing out drunk etc, but with those there is always a sense of the passage of time. I recently was involved in a serious accident and was convinced that I never lost consciousness through the whole ordeal, until several witnesses assured me that I definitely did. It was that level of nothing. Utterly devoid of perception, to the point where I could not tell that any time had passed whatsoever. I've come to the conclusion that must be what death is like.

The Mayans were an amazingly advanced people. With chilling accuracy the Mayan Calendar predicts the end of the Mayan Calendar.

100% men are from Mars and 100% women are from Venus. However, gender is a continuum not a dichotomy and none of us are 100% one or the other. Therefore we all are from somewhere in between. Now let's see, what's between Mars and Venus? Hmmmmmmm. Oh yeah, EARTH. I guess we should get over this men vs. women bullshit then and figure out the simple fact that we all want the same basic things.

It's 2010. That's 8 years after the Jetsons took place. I think it's time to start putting resources toward firing bigoted fuckheads into the sun.

Escargot are a delicious vehicle for garlic butter and I'm always into the garlic butter. However, with the intensity of the garlic butter, you can't really taste the snail. It could be anything. I suspect that escargot with a pencil covered in candle wax instead of a snail would taste exactly the same.

Speaking of French food, Absinthe? Nonsense. There's no green fairy. There are no hallucinations. The wormwood in it is only a trace and not anywhere near the volume that could do you any damage. It's not even delicious. It's just bland and lacks the burn of the other liquors. That's the only reason artists went crazy on it. It's so bland you can drink a ton of it and not notice.

Every time I or an incident I've witnessed have been mentioned in a news report (more than you might think) they always get at least one detail wrong. Usually more. Casts a degree of doubt on the accuracy of rest of the news.

Cats are not aloof. They're just socially awkward and are afraid to show interest in things because they don't want to look stupid.

"Pope" is a variation on "Papa" indicating a male. If the Catholic church ever gets to the point that they elect a female head of the church they'd have to call her something else. "Mope" perhaps?

I am frequently embarrassed by the racist thoughts that pop into my head. But then I think it through and realize I think similar thoughts about every other race including my own. As it turns out I'm not racist. I just don't like people.

The word "apology" comes from the Greek "apologos" which means "statement or story about". This means that the original use was not as a statement of remorse for some infraction but presenting your side of the story in defense of whatever fucked up thing you did. That's not an apology; that's just an excuse.

"Tabloid" is commonly used now to indicate silly, sensationalist journalism, but you know what the word actually refers to? The shape and size of the paper. 11"x 17" printed down the long side. I find that interesting for some reason.

I just figured out what really killed Soviet Communism. In every bit of both pro and anti communist propaganda, everybody is either a factory worker, farm worker, or scientist. If these films are true (and why wouldn't they be) Russia had no doctors, firefighters, cooks, teachers, office workers, accountants, house painters, etc. You can't run a country like that.

Did you know that one out of ten people is in the minority? Also four out of ten people are also in the minority, but a larger minority. Conversely four out of five people outnumber the remaining one by a daunting 400%. Seriously folks, how long are we going to let this go on?

A List of Things I Don't Like As Much As One Might Think...

1. David Bowie
2. Lesbian Porn
3. Joss Whedon
4. Comic Book Conventions
5. S&M
6. Belgian Beer
7. Dungeons & Dragons
8. Anime
9. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
10. Las Vegas
11. Tony Bennett
12. Helping the mentally ill
13. Dancing
14. Saturday Night Live
15. Hulu
16. Norse Mythology
17. U2
18. Kielbasa
19. Bowling
20. Mario Bros and all its various permutations
21. Bob Dylan
22. Marvin Gaye
23. The Three Stooges
24. Stimulants
25. Martial arts movies

Facebook for Luddites

One of my faithful readers (possibly my only reader) refuses to get on Facebook. Her reasons are sound so I won't bug her about it. However, she's missing some of my best one-liners and as possibly my only fan she deserves a larf. Here then are some of my funniest status updates from the past 3 months:



I can't tell you how comforting it is that I finally know all about Jamie Lee Curtis's bowel troubles. When I was a kid I would often wake up in a cold sweat, tormented by the thought "What if I never find out whether or not that girl from Halloween and The Fog occasionally can't poo?!" Now I know. Thanks, TV.


I'm going to change my name to Ansalem Enselmo and start a jazz combo. I'll call it the Ansalem Enselmo Ensemble. We could visit schools and have an Ansalem Enselmo Ensemble assembly.


Every morning I want to punch the preacher guy with the Public Access show who takes the same bus as me. Why? Because he has a courier bag, just perfect for carrying books in, but he insists on holding his bible in his hand. So he's basically trying to show the world how holy he is. Apparently he hasn't read Matthew 6:6-8.


A good clue that the story you are listening to is fiction: When the name of a character describes his or her function in the story.


John McKenna just wants to eat, drink and be...Mary. [snap]


Dear Customer, Congratulation! You are the lucky user of my last shred of compassion for the mentally ill. By yelling at me and insulting my intelligence for not answering a question you NEVER ASKED, you have forced me to retire from my role as a caring person. I'm sure my friends and family will learn to appreciate my newfound lack of empathy.


Q: What do all scientists who don't believe in the G-Spot have in common?
A: Short fingers. http://www.alternet.org/sex/145504/meet_the_scientists_who_think_the_g-spot_doesn%27t_exist




I have evidence that alien civilizations are visiting us but it relies exclusively on a drastic redefinition of the words "evidence", "alien", "civilizations", "visiting", and "us". I am using "that" and "are" in their traditional senses though and James Randi can't prove otherwise.


Every time I pass a "Pedestrian Underpass" sign I think "Pedestrian Underpants" and I giggle to myself, temporarily becoming a mildly retarded 8 year old (as opposed to the mildly retarded 12 year old I am the rest of the time).


An elegantly simply answer to "Why is there something instead of nothing?": That which tends to exist (something) will tend to exist. That which tends to not exist (nothing) will tend to not exist. In a nutshell it is illogical to assume that nothing is the natural state of things.


WARNING: Persons denying the existence of robots may be robots themselves.


So, when Toucan Sam was repeatedly saying "follow your nose", was that just his way of saying "Okay, there's no actual fruit in Fruit Loops...but it kinda smells like there is."?


Y'know what really bugs me? Stuff. On the other hand, y'know what's really cool? Stuff.


I think in 2010 I am going to take my Freudian slips in a nude erection.


Hey, preacher man, I can't say for certain because I've never met him, but I'm pretty sure the omnipotent creator of the universe is not impressed with your hat.


Word of the Day (that I just made up): Metaphasia -- when you can't remember the word Aphasia.


Best comic book movie ever? 'Prick Up Your Ears'. That fight scene when Doc Oc kills Commissioner Gordon with a hammer was awesome!


No, it's very important that you fax that instead of emailing it because it's still 1990 and wood pulp has maaaaaagical power.


John McKenna is very [positive adjective]...except when he's not.


Avatar was toootally the best movie ever made...except for all the ones without, schlocky Cameronesque dialogue, 2D characters, trite storylines, and gigantic plot holes. (C'mon, Sully was nearly naked. Where was he getting all that ammo?) On the other hand, I rather enjoyed the game I invented while watching: "find the nipple".


I know we're all brought up with this myth that geniuses are hard to work with, but unnecessarily complicating the already complicated theatrical process does not make you a genius. It just makes you a pain in the ass. Not getting along with your teammates is a sign of weakness not talent.


I'm going to become a suicide balmer. I'm going to rub soothing lotion on myself and everybody around me.


We all know that canned Spam is disgusting, but have you ever had fresh Spam right of the Spig? Delicious. Oh if only we had not hunted the Bolognadons to extinction.


Hey! There's no baby in this bathwater! What have we been holding onto this for?


This horny cat is just ruining everything.


My New Year's resolution is 1152 pixels by 864 pixels. No wait, that's my new screen resolution.


I just sat in as a departmental advisor at a strategic planning meeting. I feel so grown up. I guess it's time to start shaving and looking at girls.


Thanks to Micheal Buble, I'm feeling a bit 'adult contemporary' today. Would you care to share a bottle of wine by the fire and talk about our feelings?


If you wish to be taken seriously when criticizing atheism, you might want to refrain from mentioning Cambodian dictator "Paul Part". The rest of your arguments just seem silly after that.

Truth! - part 13

The following statements are true (even if not all Macacqs are Trou):

I look forward to the day when "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is replaced with "HA! I totally called that!".

Most of what we call "trivia" in the game sense is not actually trivia. Most of it is really just general knowledge. Trivia is trivial, meaning "of no consequence". Knowing the British Prime Minister during WWII (Winston Churchill) is not trivia. Knowing the top selling soft drink in the DC Comics universe (Soder-Cola) is trivia.

If you are male and someone asks you if you're watching the Super Bowl and you say no, they will then ask you why. "Busy? Not your team? More into other sports? " If you are female, they won't ask you why. Why should I have to defend my lack of interest simply because I own a penis?

A weird coincidence: The Tao Te Ching, the book by which one interprets the I-Ching is called the "Book of Changes". I-Ching is done by throwing coins. In the west sometimes we call coins "change". "Ching" is a bit like the sound of falling coins. Doesn't mean a thing but I find it funny.

Emotions are not illogical. They, like all things, follow the dictates of logic. The issue is that too many of the variables involved in emotional response are unknown because they are internal to the one experiencing them. The external observer would have no knowledge of the internal variables, and the experiencer has a distorted view of the variables because of the emotional reaction they produce. Therefore neither the experiencer nor observer are able to predict an emotional situation with any reliability.

Saying you do or don't like Jazz, is like saying you do or don't like salads. What's in the salad? Lettuce? Potatoes? Dog shit? What are the ingredients of the Jazz? Sometimes it's iceburg lettuce (Glen Miller). Sometimes it's swiss chard with blue cheese and pear vinagrette (Miles Davis). Sometimes it's dog shit (Kenny G).

The best thing the Abrahamic religions have done for the world, arguably the only good thing, is the weekend. Sabbath schmabbath, but 2 days off work is pretty cool.

I'm 6'2" 210 lbs and have a comically large head. I want to replace my Jeep with one of those tiny little Smart Cars, just because it would always be funny to see me get out of it.

"Late adopter" is synonymous with "cheap bastard".

I don't enjoy reading in the strictest sense of the word "enjoy". Not in the same way I enjoy sex or good food or watching movies. I like having read things. I enjoy having the stories or knowledge in my mind once I have read them. The actual act of doing the reading though is not what I do it for; I do it for the results of having read. It's like house cleaning. I enjoy the clean house, but the actual act of cleaning is not the enjoyable part. There must be a word for that distinct type of delayed enjoyment. Maybe in German.

I stumbled upon an exquisite form of revenge against someone who chronically won't shut the fuck up. 1) Get him stoned 2) Read aloud from your blog until he pees his pants and runs from the room.

Truth! - Part 12

The following statements are still true despite their delay in reaching you:.


It occurs to me that irritating morning people have a distinct survival advantage over the rest of us up to a certain critical point when it becomes a detriment. The early bird does get the worm and therefore will go on to breed more, but eventually the early worm stealers get pecked to death by the hungry late risers. No point here. Just a random brain dropping.

Along similar lines, early to bed and early to rise can contribute to you being healthy, wealthy and wise. It can also leave you perilously unprepared for ninja attack as your night vision will be sorely underdeveloped. Just sayin'.

There are two classes of people that need to be whacked on the nose with a newspaper and told in a firm voice "NO":
1) The people that have a distinctive hat that they wear in an office setting to signify that they are interesting, in lieu of actual interesting qualities. Case in point: the lady with the Cheshire Cat visor.
and
2) The people who, in an office setting, will constantly remind you about how wacky/crazy/messed up they are. They won't act wacky; they'll just say they're wacky. "Oh I am just wrong.". They never actually are.

I spent the last eight years reading the news like a person who's afraid of flying stares at the wing: "Can't look away. Something bad might happen." Now that we have a new administration of people I generally agree with, I'm finding it hard to focus on the news. I know we need to pay attention and make sure campaign promises are kept, but my political attention is fucking exhausted. I'll keep trying, but man....

"That's just how I was raised." is not a reasonable excuse for unsupportable beliefs or behaviours. I was raised to boil the shit out of rice and pour a ton of soy sauce on it to make it edible. I grew up. I learned a better way. The societal disparagement of bigotry should be more severe than it is. In the West, we all have access to the same media now. We all have exposure to enough information to stop that shit permanently. What stops us from doing so, is what psychologists would call "enabling". "It's generational" should not be offered to excuse prejudice anymore. Homophobic? Racist? Sexist? Ethnocentrist? Anti-science? Sorry, you're a bad person. That's all there is to it.

People complain about headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain, and backaches. Considering, though, that the average head weighs about 30 pounds and we have to balance it on what is basically a narrow stack of lincoln logs tied together with meat, it's a wonder we can keep it upright at all. It's actually surprising it doesn't hurt more.

'Rock Band' is just a variation of 'Guitar hero' which is just a variation of 'Dance Dance Revolution' which is just a variation of 'Simon' which is just a variation of 'Simon Says' which is game used to teach children to follow orders. Still feel like a rockstar?

This is a topic I've covered before, but as fall approaches I think it needs a reheat. Have you noticed that in the movie 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' that none of the citizens of Halloween Town are Princesses, Sexy Nurses, Sexy Pirates, or anything else either cute or slutty? Is this an oversight on the part of Tim Burton? No, this is because Halloween is about fear and horror and death, not cuteness or sexiness (which are really just child and adult versions of the same thing).

Some people leaving the gym smile and are friendly. They could not possibly be experiencing what I experience when I exercise. Even at times when I have been in great shape, exercise always elicited an emotion in me best described as utter, abject despair. Some people, through no fault of their own (I'm glaring at you, judgemental, high-energy people), are just not wired in a way that allows them to get that endorphin bump. But I exercise anyway. I feel despair while you lot get high, and you think I'm lazy for not exercising more. Fuck off.

Afterthought: I used to think that fertility clinics were terrible. There are already too many people so if you can't have a baby just get over it. That was my thought anyway. However, I just realized, although it's counterintuitive, fertility clinics would in the long run have a net negative affect on population growth. If those who have difficulty conceiving conceive, then some will pass on that difficulty to the next generation and it will continue to be passed on and in the long run help reduce the population. The people that want to breed get babies, and the crowded people in the future get less babies. It's a win/win.

On the other hand, Lasik surgery and plastic surgery will eventually turn the species blind and ugly by making poor vision and lack of attractive features no longer evolutionary disadvantages.

The Anit-Religious Sign in Olympia

This reminds me of a story:

True story. Many years ago I had an acquaintance who was involved in Theatre and had a strict Christian upbringing. Her family did not approve of her acting. They thought it was sinful and inproper for a godly young woman. She herself was not particularly religious and, like many of us in the theatre, looked on the theatre and her friends in it as a refuge from the psychological repression that her religious family represented. Like it has done for many of us, theatre saved her life, and like it has done to millions of people since it started, religion made her life nearly unbearable. As if the psychological abuse of religious fundamentalism wasn't enough, at the ripe old age of 23, she got cancer and she died. Her funeral was attended by her family and her friends. The services were extremely religious and spent a great deal of time talking about what Jesus did for her in her life, how much she loved God and Jesus, and how she's finally reunited with them in heaven. All of us theatre sinners were relegated to the outskirts of the service. Later at a gathering of the friends I couldn't take it anymore and started mouthing off (if you know me, you know my internal censor has a short battery life). I railed against religion and repressive families and stated that it was spitting on her memory to talk about how important God was to her, when it was God that made her unhappy for so much of her life and if God existed he was evil for allowing this nice, talented young woman to be struck down by something as painful as cancer at 23 fucking years old long before she could have had anything that could be called 'a life'. I probably said some other things but I don't remember. It was a long time ago and I was ranting.

In retrospect I was 100% correct in what I said, but I was 100% wrong in the time and place to discuss it and the way in which I presented it. The owner of the house was somewhat religious and we were all upset; instead of supporting my friends in times of trouble, I turned the whole thing for a few minutes into a forum for my views. That was wrong and I ended up apologizing to the host.

I think the same thing can be said about the Anti-Religious sign in Olympia. The content is all correct, but the context was ill considered. I know. We all get tired. When you're surrounded by people who disfigure their lives and their minds and the lives and minds of their children, sometimes you just lose it and start mouthing off. That's why so many atheists are called arrogant by the religious community. The goal though should not be to lose our cool. We are the more rational position, and we are therefore held to a higher standard of rational behavior. I applaud the Washington State government for honoring the separation of church and state and allowing us the forum, but let's face it: We blew it.