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Eight Hours of Recommended Reading
(But only if you're really slow.)
- PETA: The Worth of Animal Souls Is Great
- Celestial Roulette
- My Body is a Private Club for Members
- Label Maker
- The Fear of God and Spiders
- You Must Be Smoking
- Caffeine: The Devil's in the Drip
Eight Hours Worth
of other Blogs
I've been to too many blogs to list them all in this column, but you can see the list here.
At Least Eight Hours Worth of Podcasts I'm Not Supposed to Like:
April 2006
- Dulling Occam’s Razor
- The Saturday of My Discontent
- Beer in Class
- Immigration Revisited
- DNA
- Invasion
- Insanity, Thy Name is Douglas
Dulling Occam’s Razor
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
9:10AM
Occasionally when I find myself on a real masochistic streak, I visit bulletin boards online where people try to argue in defense of their religion. It’s amazing to me some of the mental hurdles people try to force themselves over to maintain their world view.
This morning I skimmed over a post that spent five pages arguing over the finer points of peer review, quasi-scholarly journals and DNA research. Knowing full well that reading the entire thing in detail would be a complete waste of my time, I jumped to the end and posted this:
“Here’s what I don’t get. If a god were really behind the Mormon church (or any other), why has (she?) he gone to such great effort to obfuscate it to the point that there even has to be scholarly research?
I mean come on! ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light. But my apologetics are deep, confusing and contradictory.’
There’s only one way to tackle this as far as I’m concerned. From the first premise, i.e., that god exists. Sorry, he doesn’t. If we can’t get past that point, then it’s worthless to even bother discussing whether or not he’s behind Joe’s, Constantine’s or Hubbard’s church.”
The Saturday of My Discontent
Saturday, April 22, 2006
9:08PM
Some people love Saturdays. They get to sleep in late and wake up with Mr. Bluebird on their shoulder. Not me. I woke up this morning at five o’clock to one of the devil’s own pet sparrows. He was shouting down our swamp cooler with a microphone and an 800-watt PA system.
Fortunately, I speak fluent sparrow, so I knew just what he was announcing to the entire block.
Yeah, I draw. A little.
(Insert loud microphone feedback and a slight pause.)
“I WANNA GET LAID!!! Woot!!! Thankyouverymuch. I’ll be here all week.”
And that’s exactly what he kept on saying over and over and over again at five in the goddamn morning with no sign of stopping. Ever.
Just as I was about to climb on the roof in my underwear and pummel him into a feathery oblivion with a five-pound hammer, it occurred to me that this bird was just on spring break—I should let him have his fun. After all, he wouldn’t be this carefree and young forever.
It was about an hour later that I woke up again, only this time to the sound of my six-year-old daughter whistling and singing happily in the next room over. Yeah, it was six-thirty on a Saturday morning, but I can’t tell you how much a relief it was to know that it will be years before she’s on spring break.
Besides, if any of her guy friends come around her singing the same song as that damn sparrow, I’ve still got my five-pound hammer.
Beer in Class
Friday, April 21, 2006
7:43PM
There are some people who pick one thing to do for a living early in high school and stick with it forever. And they’re happy. Some of them are rich. I hate those people.
Just kidding. I mean in a way, I wish I had decided early on what I wanted to do with my life, gotten really good at it and earned buttloads of money so I could sit here writing, drawing and taking pictures for all ten of you every fucking day.
As it turned out, I went for the employment smorgasbord. Looking back, I’m kind of glad it turned out like that. I believe I’m richer for the wide variety of experiences I’ve had. Not that I wouldn’t trade some of it for a little cold, hard cash. Hell, I’m not picky. I’d change it for cold wet cash if that’s all you’ve got. Just make sure it’s in Ziplocs, ok?
Anyhow, in one of my past vocational incarnations, I taught computer hardware repair and some Web design and programming classes. I can honestly say that I tried to make every class worth it for each of my students. (Just don't get me started on how corrupt I think the majority of the tech-vocational schools are. That's another article for another day.)
I taught for at least eight hours a day, oftentimes twelve, for five or six days a week. I typically had about fourteen new adult students at a time. At the end of each course, each group filled out an instructor evaluation form that rated our performance in several categories on a scale of one to seven (seven was the highest). For about three years, I rated straight sevens for nearly every student I taught. I’m still pretty proud of that.
One of my favorite straight seven evaluations included this comment:
“Doug was a great instructor, but he talked about beer all the
time a lot. I don't care what he does with his personal time, but I
don't think we need to hear about it in class.”
I laughed so hard when I read it that I immediately made a copy to take home. I hung it proudly in my office until we moved. I plan on displaying it again in the new house.
What do you mean? It's BEER. Of course it's half empty!
Do people like this really not care about what I do in my personal time? I doubt it. This is exactly the type of person that would make beer illegal if they could. Hell, they're already doing it with cigarettes.
Immigration Revisited
April 11, 2006
8:06AM
I’m afraid people might misconstrue my position as against immigration (it's not). On the other hand, I'm not for completely open borders, either. What I am for is the enforcement of existing law. In such an environment, sensible laws for reasonable immigration would be upheld, and our standard of living preserved.
The unprecedented success of our country is unique in the history of the world in that it depends largely upon ideas. Our continued success depends upon maintaining a population that understands that these ideas, made into laws, are important. People who despise our form of government, who sneer at the rule of law and seek to force change by mob rule are rightly considered our enemies.
Suppose you were to open the borders tomorrow to everyone in the world regardless of their philosophy of government. No questions asked you grant them citizenship. You give them the right to vote. You offer them every available government service. But what if they don't know or care about the principles that have led to our country’s success thus far? What if instead of voting on principle, they vote in the person who gives them the most stuff? More than a few morons and despots have come to power this way, and they have the power to ruin lives.
Besides, I'm not sure we would be dealing with any of this had 10,000,000 people marched on Mexico City 20 years ago and demanded more from their own country.
DNA
Monday, April 10, 2006
12:41PM
On my lunch break I bumped into a really cool song that seems to be especially appropriate given my recent cholesterol level and subsequent prescription. It's called DNA by Jonathan Coulton, and it's pure nerd delight.
While you're there, check out some of the other songs. I really liked When I'm 25 or 64, Baby Got Back, W's Duty and Skullcrusher Mountain. Great stuff!
Invasion
Monday, April 10, 2006
7:23AM
Am I missing something in the immigration debate? When did it become ok to let foreign nationals petition our government and dictate our domestic policy? Where does it stop? Millions of non-citizens pouring over our borders, waving their country's flag and demanding rights in any other era would have been seen for exactly what it is: an invasion.
Now before anyone gets their panties in a wad, I want you to understand that I think most of them should probably have been allowed here in the first place, but under the rule of law. I can't see any other way that they can possibly hope for fair treatment.
Illegal aliens are an easy target for discrimination and exploitation because under our law, they have no rights—as it should be. Otherwise, what's to keep a retired couple in Uzbekistan from filing in the US for Social Security benefits?
(I'm putting on my asbestos suit now).
Insanity, Thy Name is Douglas
Sunday, April 09, 2006
10:34PM
I’m sure you’ve heard the tired old Einstein quote about the definition of insanity. So sure, in fact, that I won’t insult you with it here. Besides, I hate that quote.
I’m sure you’ve heard the tired old Einstein quote about the definition of insanity. So sure, in fact, that I won’t insult you with it here. Besides, I really hate that quote.
I’m also sure that by now you’ve heard that whiny bitch Alanis Morriset singing about irony for at least a full three minutes without getting it right even once. Damn! That is ironic. She’s good!
My greatest irony appears to be this: My life seems to be the one thing that keeps me from actually living it. For example, not long ago I said that I’d have less time to write now that I’m freelancing in addition to my regular job. I have to say I was truly frightened about the drop in personal time. Hell, I’ve felt burnt out for a few years.
So how should I fix it? Probably not like this:
• Start taking guitar lessons for half an hour every Saturday.
Add daily practice.
• Stir in a new gym membership, complete with a one-hour Hap
Ki Do class twice a week. Add generous amounts of practice to prevent
embarrassment.
• Spend an evening patching over Dad’s discovery of your
blog. (I may write more about this later).
• When schedule tightens further, fold in a weekend road trip
to Las Vegas. Start at four in the morning on a Saturday. Wake in dark
hotel room at 6:00AM Sunday to your insanely hyper child bouncing off
walls and your chest. Arrive home in bed at around 1:30AM Monday. See
the pictures.
• Return to work at 7:30AM. Pick up kid from school at 10:30.
Return to desk by noon. Scarf down lunch while working. Try to stay
awake. Leave at five, pick up kid, home around six. Repeat daily for
five days.
• Squeeze in a couple visits to the doctor. In the second visit,
discover insanely high cholesterol (thanks Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, et
al).
I’m only 36, but it’s hard to describe what I felt when I took my first Zocor tonight. I know it’s just medicine, but it seemed symbolic. For the rest of my life, I’ll be taking the medicine I had once associated strictly with old people. Of course, they might not have gotten old if they hadn’t taken their medication.
Some people, on the other hand, seem to die before they stop breathing. They burn through days doing things they hate and numb the pain with television. Maybe part of what makes me so uptight about boredom is that I’m afraid. I know I only have so much time, and I want to make it count. I want to taste as many of life’s different and amazing experiences as I can before I die. Maybe I’m not so crazy after all.
