Apparently Alcohol Doesn't Dull The Pain of Schism

When we are babies, we don't notice our separation from the rest of the
world. We are the world, and the world is us. As we get a little older,
we notice our separation from our parents. And then we notice our
single gender; it is then that the pain begins.

Evolution is a process of adding layers. Humans are not animals alien to this world,
we are simply the latest layer of life on earth. We contain within us
all subsequent layers. Our self-relativistic ego, which thinks it is in
charge, is simply making decisions based on supplicating the demands of
our lower layers. It thinks it is the master because it makes the
decisions. But in reality, it makes these choices only to placate the
baser urges. In reality it is the dutiful slave.

One of these most famous urges is the one Freud and every advertiser in all of human
history loves to exploit: sex. But in the layered human being, sex is
mostly a lowest layer yearning, a simplest understanding, of the desire
to once again be whole like we were when we were babies; like we were
before we recognized that we are alone, cast out of the bliss of Eden.

I thought maybe getting tanked tonight would salve my isolation, but it has only made it more acute.

You know guys, when I said "I do" five years ago, I meant it. Not "I do for
a little while." Not "I will for three years." But I didn't marry one
person, I married two. I married the woman I loved, and against my
wishes I married a woman damaged and angry, who craved but feared the reunion
of man and woman. A woman who made sure I never got too close for too
long, and would hurt me just to keep me at a safe distance. It wasn't
her infidelity that made me finally decide to break my promise, it was
the realization that I would spend my life never getting back to the
wholeness I knew before I could form a cogent thought.

I know that I have three dates with three girls this weekend, but in all
honestly I was only interested in one. I thought that she was
interested in me. After our first date, she asked me out for a second a
few hours later. Only I found out last night that those weren't dates,
and neither was the dinner we just ate. In fact, she just is too busy
to date anyone right now.

But I know that she feels the schism too. She feels it and fears it; fears being let down again, just like her father let her down. And if I knew that she wasn't interested in me, I could let it go. But since she contacted me every day this week
before our date; since she shared her insecurities with me, I can't let it go. And at the same time, I won't bug her. I've told her how I felt, and now I'm giving her her space.

And none of this helps me on a Saturday night. And neither did the alcohol.

So here I sit, tanked out of my gourd. I walked twice as far as I needed to from the party to my house because I was tacking back and forth. And now here I sit, hoping to feel my separateness just a little less by babbling to all of you. My loneliness hangs from my heart like a heavy plumb, and the best I have is a blog.

I meet so many girls. I meet so many girls I can make giggle, smile, flip their hair. But when it comes to getting the ones I want to give us a shot, I feel like a three-legged cat trying to bury turds on a frozen pond.

I just want to feel whole again, like I did when I was an infant. When I was the world, and the world was me. Like I did for a brief time with Traci. But now thankfully, I think I feel the temporary bliss of passing out coming on.

When in doubt, just find some flatulence humor...

Just felt like I needed to get the picture of the scantily clad woman in the post below away from the top of the blog, and thought bathroom humor was the way to go.

The trouble I get into just looking for an innocent picture of a Cylon...

So I went to Google Images to find an appropriate picture for this post, and to my bewilderment when I typed in "Battlestar Galactica," I got the above picture of Grace Park (aka Sharon/Boomer/Athena) as first on my search return.

OK, men. Take a minute to breath. Blood flowing to appropriate places (i.e. your brain)? Great. Now get your mind out of the gutter! You're married, for cryin' out loud! Firecracker George--you're excused.

To any women that regularly read this blog, my apologies for the gratuitous use of scantily clad women to get my Gang's attention. It was only my intention to show the trouble young children can get into simply by looking up an innocent thing like BSG on the internet. If this is what I get as the prime match for my query, to think what sinful images must lay hidden on the last page of my Google search (strangely, a picture of the cast from The Office). If it's any consolation, they do provide some nice pictures of spaceships and Dirk Benedict in the midst of all that smut, too. Alright, I'm going waaay too over the top now, and have probably lost all respect from my female readership (which I'm guessing is, at most, somewhere in the ballpark of zero and three).

Anywho, what did I want to post about anyway? Oh, yeah. So Battlestar Galactica is running it's final two episodes of the season, starting this Sunday night. As is typical for any show at the end of a season, you can expect a cliffhanger, and boy are the one's they have in store for the season finale in two weeks a doozy. Ain't It Cool News has some major spoilers on its site that I could not resist looking at. Don't look for the hidden Christmas presents somewhere in the house, don't touch that hot pan, don't skip to the end of the book--yeah, I can never resist when you put it that way.

Anywho, remember to watch BSG this weekend. Based on the spoilers, I don't know if these last two episodes answer more questions than they raise, but they sure sound exciting.

Yes, I ate a butt, and I liked it!

In this month's Esquire, Ted Allen writes about the under-appreciated pork butt. I'm not sure where the term "butt" comes from, but this cut actually comes from the shoulder, and is probably the least expensive part of the pig you can pick up at the butcher shop. However, it's also supposed to be the most flavorful given the high fat content marbled throughout.

Those of you unfamiliar with Allen may know him as the food and wine connoisseur from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and is frequently one of the judges on Iron Chef America. But he's also been a contributing food editor to Esquire for many years, and probably knows a thing or two about a good meal.

The article briefly describes a Puerto Rican style of preparing a traditional pork roast dish called pernil by stabbing a bone-in pork butt all over with a knife, slathering it all over with olive oil, garlic, salt, black pepper and oregano, marinating it for a day, and slow roasting it in the oven.

Sounded easy, so I gave it a try. Cooked it at 250 degrees for around eight hours overnight in a pan to let it roast in it's own juices while I slept, turned off the oven when I went to work, and turned it back on for an hour when I got back home to reheat it. The aromas that filled my condo that night had me salivating in my sleep, and really did a number on my wife's REM stages--she apparently had this dream of wild animals invading our home to get to the delicious meat cooking in the oven. What resulted was exactly as described in the article: "wondrousness" and "succulent, crispy-on-the-outside, fall-off-the-bone roast."

Give it a try if you're trying to impress your woman, and don't want to sit on your porch by a smoker all day long. She'll think you're a gourmet genius. I was mighty proud of myself after this one, yet it was so simple to do. Now that's what I call a man's recipe.

Oh, and the total cost of the 6 pound slab of meat I roasted? $5.80--that's cheaper than the meal I bought at Subway for lunch.

Almost makes me want to revert back to snail mail...

I'm not one to take many random camera phone pictures, but I couldn't resist with this one. Look what was at the entrance to the MetroLink station at the hospital today! How cool is that? I had read about these R2-D2 mailboxes on various websites, but never imagined I'd run into one during my work day.

The United States Postal Service apparently has some more things up their sleeve to be revealed on March 28 in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. As if these mailboxes weren't cool enough.

Breakout the Zyrtec! It's allergy season!

Man, the Vernal Equinox may not be until next week, but when the tree pollens explode like it did here in St. Louis yesterday, it's already Spring in my book. As I type this, I have tears streaming down my face and a Kleenex stuffed in my nostrils which gets displaced every three minutes when I sneeze.

It rained here last night, meaning the molds will likely crop up with the next warm up, in addition to the trees. Talk about a one-two punch knockout to my allergy profile. It's days like these that I seriously consider moving to Greenland.

Misery, thy name is allergies!

Now we know how she really feels...

I saw this picture on Wonkette today. The photo was taken at the National League of Cities meeting, but if you know that, it completely ruins the shot:

Penis envy...

Well, I guess it's true. Women really don't care all that much about penises. When asked to find out information about George Brett on a biographical page, men would focus on his face and crotch while women only looked at his face.

This observation was used in a story about news article design and how to create a tighter story with pictures and layouts that do a better job to grab a reader. Probably something a professional writer like Firecracker George might enjoy, and worth a read for everyone if you ever worry that no one is reading your post.

The points I gleaned from it:

• Bullet points help focus your audience.
• Know your audience, i.e. bathroom humor and anything related to Star Wars should be a big sell on this blog.
• If you choose a picture to grab the audiences attention, make sure it's a guy with a big package and a nice smile. If you forget the crotch shot, well, then you're thinking like a girl because men never forget to look at the private anatomy, and then in some twisted way, you're actually homosexual.
  

So I guess this means the next time you're at some club and catch some well groomed guy glancing at your manhood, it's OK. He's not trying to hit on you. He's just being a man. It's what men do. The guy that keeps staring into your eyes, though, well...

What do you think I am, a radio?

This article appeared in John Tierney's column in The New York Times a couple of days ago about the primal origins of human laughter, and starts off with a muffin joke about as funny as everyone's line about the penguin. As you would guess, some would laugh at seemingly unfunny jokes, but why?

The human ha-ha evolved from the rhythmic sound — pant-pant — made by primates like chimpanzees when they tickle and chase one other while playing. Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Washington State University, discovered that rats emit an ultrasonic chirp (inaudible to humans without special equipment) when they’re tickled, and they like the sensation so much they keep coming back for more tickling.

He and Professor Provine figure that the first primate joke — that is, the first action to produce a laugh without physical contact — was the feigned tickle, the same kind of coo-chi-coo move parents make when they thrust their wiggling fingers at a baby. Professor Panksepp thinks the brain has ancient wiring to produce laughter so that young animals learn to play with one another. The laughter stimulates euphoria circuits in the brain and also reassures the other animals that they’re playing, not fighting.

Laughter stimulating euphoria circuits? Sounds like I need some more humor in my life.

The article goes on to theorize that laughter may also be a method used to establish social hierarchies and gain allies if you're low on the totem pole. So don't make fun of that ditzy blonde or clueless guy (which often times is me) when they laugh at your bad jokes--they're just trying to make friends.

If there's no one to pick on, where's the fun?

Wow. Remember when I commented that I had that fleeting feeling of disgruntlement with 300 because of its possible racial undertones with the depiction of Persians as the evil villains trying to disrupt the society of the good guys representing Western civilization? Well, I let it pass, and enjoyed the movie for the entertaining action movie that it was. But it turns out the Iranian government isn't so amused. Apparently, Xerxes is considered sort of a legend in Iran, and Iranians, who are direct descendants of the Persians, were quite offended by the movie:

Warner Bros.' "300" is being greeted in Iran with about as much warmth as a U.N. weapons inspector.

While U.S. auds see the film as a comicbook come to life -- replete with hyperstylized action and broadly drawn heroes and villains -- it has a deeper resonance in the Mideast, where it's seen as a distorted view of very real events.

"Hollywood declares war on Iranians," exclaimed a headline in Iranian daily Ayandeh-No.

Javad Shangari, a cultural adviser to Iranian prexy Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, attacked the film as being "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological warfare aimed at Iranian culture."

This leads me to wonder who you can depict as the bad guys in television and film these days, without pissing off a major ethnic group or country, regardless if it's fiction or historically accurate. 300 may have come out at a somewhat inopportune moment, but history seems to remember that the Persians got beat by the Greeks. It's difficult to distort that too much, although I guess if a national hero of mine were depicted as an overgrown, overplucked, and high maintenance homosexual, I'd be a bit miffed, too.

Me? Pass up a free cup of joe? I think not...

It's not that I'm that big a fan of Starbucks Coffee, but I have this strange desire to hit up every Starbucks in St. Louis, and get a free cup of coffee. Something about the word "free" linked with anything that's edible somehow perks up that part of my brain that must be intimately connected to my belly. I really need to learn how to rewire my head.

Lotus Dreams

My youngest Brother-in-Law turned 21 yesterday, and I left work early and picked up Tellulah so we could drive down to Boulder to meet all of her family for a birthday dinner. It was 70 degrees yesterday with not a cloud in the sky, and there were legs and breasts on display everywhere. But the only thing I cared about, the Lotus Elise the exact color as the one above that went zooming around us outside Boulder. A rare car to begin with, it is even rarer on the pothole scarred, gravel covered roads of Colorado. I don't remember the last time I saw a Lotus, and it immediately made me think of Swany. Nice taste in cars there buddy. I'm still drooling.

In case you felt like quitting your day job...

Hold that Gas-Ex! For some reason, I think Firecracker George could easily pick up this talent:

Legend has is that one day, while swimming, Pujol discovered his unique ability. As he took a deep breath before submerging, he felt water enter his rear. He soon discovered that, with abdominal control, he could deliberately suck water in through his anus and project it back out with great force. Further experimentation led him to discover that he could also do the same with air and, by varying pressures, he could produce distinct notes.

Pujol became the first flatulence musician. It was a skill that eventually made him the most well-known and highest paid entertainer in all of France.

Read more about "The Fartiste" here.

With W.M. Scratch and his own unique tricks, this could make for quite an eclectic variety show.

Troop escalation? Forget that. Send in Chuck Norris...

What pathetic excuses for men we are. This past weekend on March 10th marked the 67th annual Chuck Norris Day. In tribute, I give you perhaps the greatest role Chuck Norris ever played--Major Scott McCoy in The Delta Force:



(Extra Chuck Norris trivia: Did you know his first name is actually Carlos?)

Was it just me, or did anyone else feel like they had to go home and do some sit-ups after this movie?

Hmmm. With all the hype behind this movie (from myself included), the stellar box-office returns it raked in for its opening weekend ($70 million), and the fact that it enthusiastically had Frank Miller's endorsement as being completely faithful to his source material, I'm almost a bit afraid to write my opinions about 300 on this page, for fear I'll be ridiculed and thrown off a cliff like a defective Spartan baby. But my fortune cookie from last Saturday's dinner said, "Do what you believe is right," so I'll just say it--300 wasn't great, it was just OK.

The star of this film, of course, was the stylized visuals created with a mix of cinematography and green screen CGI magic. The faded out colors with the somewhat golden-bronze wash emphasizing the crimson red of blood and ominous shadows certainly make this film look more like a painting than a movie, and pays respect to its graphic novel origins. This may be the only reason why I would highly recommend seeing 300 on the big screen before it hits DVD. Unfortunatly, I think there may have been too much exposure to the final product in the promotional trailers prior to the film's openings. I remember seeing The Matrix for the first time and being completely blown away by the bullet time visuals that completely changed how action films were shot ever since. With 300, I wasn't so much impressed, as I was satisfied, having seen so much of the slow-motion/realtime-motion action sequences prior to sitting in the theater.

The biggest disappointment with the film, though, was that I never really got the sense of the importance of this battle. There's a lot of talk about fighting for freedom and the preservation of Greece, but I never got the essence of what that really meant. Was living under Persian rule really that bad? I don't know. Perhaps the modern take on this story and its implications on the world as we know it today is that the stand of the 300 helped preserve Greece, and therefore Western civilization. Instead of the United States being the world superpower it is today, the Middle East would be the center of the world had the 300 crumbled easily under Xerxes armies. No wonder audiences are trying to weave some political propaganda into this movie. But that's just me trying to put some greater importance on this event in history--the director never really developed that for me, which is a shame.

The secondary story with the Spartan Queen trying to rally up reinforcements for her husband seemed unnecessary. In the end, her efforts seemingly had no impact on anything that went on in the movie, and may only have been included to give the audience a bit of a break from the tense action going on at Thermopylae. And although I can't say I mind seeing Lena Headey's boobies, the sex scene between her and Gerard Butler seemed a bit gratuitous to me. I guess we're supposed to understand the deep love between Leonidas and his queen after this, which is supposed to resonate throughout the entire movie until his glorious death, but it just doesn't work. In fact, Gladiator, a film where you only get a glimpsing shot of the protagonists family, does a much better job of conveying that sense of family longing without resorting to some cheap eye candy to pander to the nerdiest of comic book fanboys out there.

Alas, in my mind, 300 will fall short of being the groundbreaking film that the hype made it out to be. Essentially, it was good action movie eye candy that was entertaining, but not all that satisfying. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow actually already accomplished much of what 300 does visually, and has since been lost in the bins of DVD obscurity. Both of these films essentially forget what makes a truly great film--characters and good plot development. But until a director can meld these new technologies to tell a compelling story, I guess we'll have to snack on these kind of movies for awhile.

Let the arguments commence--the comments section is now open.

(**1/2 out of *****)

This post is...meh...

Occasionally, I catch Firecracker George throwing in a "meh" in his posts or comments. I never really thought much of it, but apparently its use is beginning to catch on, and The Simpsons yet again may be responsible for it. From The Guardian:

He thinks, however, it sprang into common usage from the Simpsons.

I can enlighten him further. Some credit the 2001 episode Hungry Hungry Homer with the first use of "meh" as a dismissal, when Homer asks Lisa and Bart if they want to go to the Blockoland theme park and receives the answer, "meh". But the Language Log website notes a 1995 episode in which Bart dismisses Marge's discussion of weaving with a "meh".

The article also goes on to say that "meh" is not suitable for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary, but it's principal editor for new words has a "meh" file. Can you imagine a whole file cabinet with each folder being a different word? He's probably got a whole file for "booty."

300 hasn't even premiered, and he's already creating buzz for his next movie...

Of course, the video above is yet another trailer for 300. It's a bit NSFW for some decapitations and a couple of flashes of boobies (the female kind, not the pumped up man ones). I post this not to go overboard with the 300 praise before I've even seen it, but to tell you that according to Ain't It Cool News, a flash of Rorschach that Zack Snyder intentionally put in as an Easter egg is 1 minute 52 seconds in. If anyone's forgotten, Synder is already in preproduction for the film adaptation of Watchmen, and the photo of Rorschach is from one of the test shots he's been working with.

It's not as frakked up as you think...

I know Battlestar Galactica has ended up on some of your "probation" lists, but I hope everyone caught the most recent episode "Maelstrom" this past Sunday. For those that did not or have ignored all the blog traffic related to the ending of that episode, I'll write the spoiler info here in invisotext:

They killed off Starbuck! Or at least she won't be in the show for awhile until they resurrect her character somehow. Perhaps she's one of the final five?

Some promising news I found out while listening to the Ronald D. Moore podcast commentary this week while driving in my car is that he considers this episode sort of the beginning of the third and final act of the show, meaning he does see an end in sight. Most rumor boards say that he's aiming for a five season run which would allow him to develop the underlying mythology enough to bring it to a final conclusion, and to make the Hollywood executives happy since this is the magic number that allows for syndication later on.

Another interesting tidbit from the podcast: The ending scene with Edward James Olmos where he demolishes his model ship was completely improvised. Apparently, the ship was a museum-quality piece worth tens of thousands of dollars that the set designers were actually just renting to use for the show which Olmos was completely unaware of. I wonder who gets the bill for that?

Oh, the irony...

America...f*ck yeah!

That video post from a couple of days ago? Complete coincidence.

So the top news from the world of comic books today is the death of Captain America. Coming off the heels of Marvel Comics recent crossover event, Civil War, Steve Rogers turns himself in to the authorities after leading a group of heroes against the government who has required official registration of all superpowered beings. Apparently, as he's leaving a courthouse, he's gunned down by a sniper. A sniper. Lame.

I actually picked up all seven issues of Civil War, but I honestly thought it was pretty ho-hum with a storyline that I actually thought was a bit stupid. About the only reason I was still shelling out money for this thing was the art by Steve McNiven. The impetus behind this major comic book event was the post 9/11 world we live in, but in the end, I don't think this limited series lived up to the inspiration. We needed a story with a bit more grit and substance, rather than a easy excuse to have two page spreads of all out "war" between superheroes.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh, though. After all, some comic books still should be for kids. Still, children shouldn't be subjected to such lousy storylines. I just hope the way they resurrect Captain America isn't equally as lame as how they made him die. And you know they will resurrect him. No superhero with this much history really dies in the comic universe.

I've been bad.

I've been fretting lately over some of my responses. True, I think that they're funny and I giggle my ass off when I'm writing them, but I feel like I've sabotaged some potentially good discussions with my silliness. My most recent transgression is going wild and wacky on Swany T's post. I really don't want bears to eat libs and dems. We should use crocodiles.

But really I'm thinking in particular of Wild Willie's post a few weeks back about what inspires us. I didn't really have an answer, or rather I didn't know how to articulate my answer. The humor wasn't a substitute, however. I was just being a goof. From some people I might accept indignation that I didn't respond with a serious answer, but not from Wild Willie. (Did you know that if your aunt had balls...) Still, it was a very good topic that I unwittingly sabotaged. Sorry W2. I wanted to bring it back up, but then I didn't want it look as if I'd bollixed W2's attempt only to then say, "hey, I've got this great idea..."

So sorry if I'm screwing up people's post. Please feel free to reiterate the idea or get us back on topic, because I don't think that I can stop myself.

With all the building hype, this better be much better than Cats...

Frank Miller seems to be the hot topic du jour at the moment. I seem to be finding specials and articles about him all over the media from television, to radio, to print. Even Esquire magazine of all places has a brief interview of him in their most recent issue. Yes, we were all much more GQ than we realized back in the day when we were already talking about The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, and Miller's run on Daredevil. ;-)

Of course, this is all part of the publicity machine trying to build up buzz for the premiere of 300 this weekend. Wander has already posted about what we might expect with this movie, so I won't belabor the point. Interestingly, though, this movie is generating quite a bit of unexpected controversy, with some audiences trying to tease out political overtones in Miller's story that weren't his intentions. From The New York Times:

Shortly after his press-junket grilling Mr. Snyder — an established commercials director, whose best-known previous credit was a remake of George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” — ran into some surprising reactions at the Berlinale film festival in Germany. Some attendees walked out of a screening there, while others insisted on seeing its presentation of the Spartans’ defense of Western civilization in the face of a Persian horde as propaganda for America’s position vis-à-vis Iraq and Iran. (By contrast it drew applause at a Los Angeles screening last month.)

Perhaps the oddest thing about this political slant on 300 is that different audiences have come up with completely opposite views of how this so-called allegory to the Bush administration matches up, with some seeing George W. Bush as the invading Persian emperor Xerxes and others seeing him as the Spartan king Leonidas. Stranger still, this is a story that predates the existence of modern civilization that has been used countless times simply as an example of sheer bravery, and not as some political flagpole. Or maybe Herodotus really was that prescient.

To be honest, though, I did have a slight wave of disgruntlement when I was watching the trailer for the movie a couple of nights ago. Is there something to be said about the racial aspects of a movie where the "good guys" are all essentially white and the invading "bad guys" are made up not only of Persians, but also deformed freaks of nature?

But now I'm convinced I'm thinking way too much. Frankly, I could care less about it's political or social implications. I just want to see it because it looks damn cool.

For those needing to stretch your brain a bit and procrastinate from work...

I've been seeing this "Name the 50 States in 10 Minutes" quiz posted on various websites and blogs. I figured it would take me, at most, a couple of minutes, but it actually took me almost the entire 10 because I got stuck on one state. Strangely, it wasn't some obscure place I've never been to--it was a state I've actually visited many times. Odd how your brain can blank out on a seemingly easy list to recite when it doesn't have any visual clues to help. Or maybe I just need more sleep.

Free Floyd!

The professional cycling season is already underway, but this year's races are still suffering from the specter of doping that has carried over from last year. Perhaps the greatest cyclist of the last few years whose name is not Lance Armstrong recently announced his retirement. After being a winner and runner-up five times in the Tour de France, Jan Ullrich has decided to call it quits while still in the midst of unfounded accusations stemming from the doping investigations of "Operation Puerto" in Spain that shook up the entire field last year. Ivan Basso, an Italian rider who is the heir apparent to the Tour de France throne, switched teams after being dropped from CSC due to the allegations and now rides with Lance Armstrong's old Discovery Channel Team this year. He, too, has had to defend himself from the "Operation Puerto" fall-out after being named in the scandal. Yet despite being cleared by his own country's athletic governing body and never actually being proven to be guilty of doping by anyone, rumor has it that the organizers of the Tour de France may still elect to ban him from the race later this summer.

I'm not quite sure what the governing bodies of professional cycling are trying to accomplish with this "guilty until proven innocent" stance they've taken on the problem of illegal performance enhancements. Some of the best riders who may very well be innocent are being pushed out of the sport, leaving a field of relative mediocrity instead to watch. Last year's Tour de France was a prime example of a legendary race being whittled down to a group of obscure riders all on the basis of unproven accusations. And even when the race gets interesting and tries to create new heroes, the sloppy systems of doping accusations and detection manage to screw it up. This brings me to last year's Tour de France champion, Floyd Landis.

As you may recall, Floyd Landis was reported to have had relatively large amounts of testosterone found in his urine samples following a dramatic ride in the Alps where he essentially won the Tour. Further radioisotope testing seemed to put the nail in the coffin by showing that the testosterone in the urine sample was synthetic in nature. Floyd adamantly denied the accusations, but his defense looked pretty paper thin by this time.

But not so fast. In the offseason, Floyd Landis and his defense team have come up with some interesting findings, and what seemed to be insurmountable evidence proving he was using performance enhancing drugs, definitely seems to have some holes. A summary of their defense case can be found on the Floyd Fairness website, but the major points as I understand them are as follows:

1. Floyd's urine sample was mislabeled more than once. Although possibly just a technical issue, this raises some doubt as to whether the "positive" sample was even his at all.
   
2. There is evidence that the urine sample was either contaminated or underwent a significant amount of degradation. As such, any testing resulting from those samples were spurious, and the sample probably shouldn't have undergone further testing at all.
   
3. The lab which ran the tests reported extreme variability in the results obtained from Floyd's urine with one being within the range of normal, and the other raising the suspicion for doping. Since their results on the same sample were so different, the ability of this lab to produce reliable lab results is suspect.
   
4. With carbon isotope testing, a sample must test postive for four testosterone metabolites to be considered a true positive test. However, Floyd's sample only came up positive for one, meaning he didn't even test positive for synthetic testosterone.

I have remained in the Landis camp since the accusations started, and this defense case only strengthens my stance that Floyd Landis is clean and is the true champion of the 2006 Tour de France.

Another American cyclist, Tyler Hamilton, will return to the cycling arena this season after serving a two year suspension on grounds of blood doping that he's vehemently denied to this day. His case has some similarities to Floyd's, as the timing of his supposed use of a performance boost didn't seem to make any logical sense, and he, too, has extreme doubts about the laboratory methods used. I can only hope that Floyd doesn't fall to a similar fate as Tyler. Two years can be a long time.

The motto of American patriotism...

Another jingle to get stuck in your head for the day. It's NSFW for profanity, so beware:

It's so hard to say 'goodbye' to the pretty ones.

Here I am, blogging away on a Saturday night. Although the past few weeks have been about chasing girlies in the real world, this party night finds me e-wooing. And, *sigh* I'm afraid yet another crop of beautiful babies won't work out for this unassuming turtle.

It's so hard to say goodbye to the pretty ones.

Two of the most active - and attractive - matches on eHarmony just sent a disheartening "Must Have"; ten things we choose from a long list of things we must have in a partner. Dig what they sent:

Industriousness...... I must have someone who is willing to work hard at whatever they do.

And I had such hope.

One even sent along Ambitious and Organized, and then reiterated in her "Can't Stands" (obviously the flip side) with:

Lazy...... I can't stand someone who likes to spend excessive time sleeping, resting or being a "couch potato."

They're sending these to a man whose personal motto is, "Hard work is for people short on talent."

I had to level with Miss Type AAAAAAA. My next question is below, verbaitm:

Organized,industrious, ambitious...hmmm. I'd like to continue with you, but I need to be honest. I am organized, industrious, and ambitious only about the things that are important to me. Nothing else gets my best. Does this kill it for us?

If I ever hear from her again I will be truly flabergasted. And it's a shame too, because she is a knock out. But I know that I will find a way to soldier on...

...because every day I get between six and eight matches.

Heh heh heh.

Pharmacy adventures

While out looking at houses to lease I stopped at a pharmacy to get Monty's glucosamine for his doggy arthritis. While I was there, I gots me a chocolate bar, because I'm so rad. Eating it in the car, the crumbs fell on my lap and melted from the heat. I've got chocolate on my khakis.

So I look like I crapped myself backwards.

I swear this only happens to pants I have to iron.

One interesting thing did happen though. While I was oogling Christina No-underwear-a on the cover of Maxim, a voice came from behind, "that's contraband." It was a lady, who was pulling my leg. However, she thought of it because when she tried to send a Maxim or FHM to her grandson in Afghanistan, they told her that she couldn't because it was contraband. She then rightly asserted that if her grandson was ordered to war, then he should be able to look at a quasi-nudie mag. I of course agreed.

She then showed me the black bracelet she wears printed with his birthday and deathday. He was barely 21.

So, I'm glad that I'm 32, and that my biggest worry is the chocolate on my pants.

Even when she's not in the news, she's making news...

Apparently, the Associated Press has tried to place an internal moratorium on publishing stories on the AP wire having to do with Paris Hilton:

In the Observer article Washington [the AP wire editor] was quoted as saying, "There was a surprising amount of hand-wringing. A lot of people in the newsroom were saying this was tampering with the news."

I'm sure a mob full of So-Cal teenagers and the entire subscription base of Us Weekly are amassing right now as we speak to protest this blatant infringement of their First Amendment rights.

We are kickers, we kick ball...

The Dallas Cowboys just signed a punter to an $8.5 million deal over five years. A punter! You figure he's not even out on the playing field enough to break a sweat during practically any game, and he's going to make $1.7 million a year.

I am truly in the wrong line of work.

Put that down!

Last year I wrote an email to my friends describing how Le Chiffre in Casino Royale got himself into a position that required the poker tournament. He was trading options in the stock market. More specifically he was trading put options which make you money when a stock price falls. Today I got a sense for what he was hoping.

I happened to be in 3 put trades today, and I made quite a bit of money. Of course this is not real money because I am practicing, but I can say that I have never been this excited to see the market drop like it did.

Lovelife digest, Virginia Woolfe style

It's time for the skinny on my continuing adventures with the opposite sex. Hopefully you all actually care, since I am now the odd man out. If you don't, know that my feelings are officially hurt you heartless bastards.

Where to begin? So many women, so many rejections. Not to worry though, because like sparring once you get used to taking a beating, it's not so scary anymore. It's been quite a couple of weeks for everyone's favorite verbose box turtle. I have to say this in defense of Houston - there are chicks everywhere.

So I had a surprise this morning in my email inbox. A match I closed on eHarmony actually asked that I reopen the match. This for me is a complete jaw-dropper. The only reason I closed the match is because I hadn't heard from her in a few days, which in my experience means that I'm not going to hear from her again. The girl I was all excited about a few weeks ago (the one whose answers I posted) is a good example of that. No wait, I take that back. She just closed our match. Eh, at least she was considerate enough to not leave me hanging.

However, unlike the girl I just mentioned, I opted to reopen the match I closed. So, we'll see what happens.

Thursday night as I'm getting ready to leave the office, my boss says to me, "so what are you doing tonight?" I tell him "laundry," to which he replies, "too bad, me and my buddies are going to shoot pool with a bunch of hot girls." So, I put off laundry, got my mom to go let my dog out, and headed out for the pool hall. Now, when I asked about the hotties, my boss's friends said, "You actually believed him?" And then they all had a good laugh.

Jackasses.

Anywho, I did however get a phone number from the girl they were all hitting on. The beauty is that I was about 3/4 drunk (which means two beers in the same hour) and completely off my game. Not only does she choose me over three others, when I give her my phone number, she immediately calls it to give me hers (which also lets me know that the number is legit.) I must be just too pretty - I should wear my hillbilly teeth more often to give others a chance.

Of course, I called her Saturday and have yet to hear back from her. But, who knows? People get busy.

The funny thing is, when I called her and left a message, I damn near called her Christine (the girl I met Friday night) instead of her name, Katie. Yet another potential disaster averted because I've learned to think before I speak. I must be the man my father always dreamed of being.

So anyway, Friday night I was out bar hopping with a group of folks I know. And as I've mentioned I meet Christine, the 23 year old Vietnamese girl. She claimed at one point that Asian girls have no boobs or ass, which made me wonder what was I staring at all night. I'm no genius, but I think I know cleavage when I see it.

Now, some of you may have read the last paragraph and thought, "23? Dang, isn't she a little young?" Well, considering that I fell for a girl who's not yet 21 a few weeks ago, not really. After debating it back and forth for two weeks, I finally decided to not worry about the chronological age and ask her out. Well, she dug me but she just got out of three year relationship and a bad break up, and is taking time to be by herself before dating again. Considering that I wasn't smart enough to do that at 31, it reinforced for me that she was more mature than most her age. Anyway, she has my email address.

Come to think of it, the vast majority of women I've dated have been older than me, some by several years. See what that has gotten me? Hmm, maybe this is a new paradigm for Firecracker George.

Then, I've been chatting with Heather at work, but the more I talk to her the less I think we would be compatible. Nothing earth-shattering, just not many shared interests. Don't get me wrong, no one would have to twist my arm to go out with her, I just don't put her at the top of the list of possibilities.

All these girls, and I STILL can't find a date for the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert on the seventh. Fate mocks me.

I nearly committed a major faux pas this morning.

So, I'm pumping iron this a.m., and I see someone wearing a shirt emblazoned with the logo of my alma mater. She was a tall, built, black woman, and I was practicing a conversation in my head as I wanted to walk over and say hi. After the "hi" and "So you went to TCU?" in my imaginary conversation, I imagined that I said, "You must have been a basketball player."

Now of course, I'm thinking this primarily because she was tall and muscular, and probably a little because she was black (to be honest, if she were the same but white, I'd think basketball or volleyball - hey, stereotypes are hard to escape sometimes)

Regardless of how I meant it, that statement could have very well sounded like, "Oh, a black person at TCU. You must have gotten in on your athletic ability." Holy crap am I glad I thought that out before I said anything.

The end of this story is that I went back to my work out, but before I left I made sure to give her the sign and say "Go Frogs." She laughed politely.

She was pretty cute, too.

Hate to have been that computer programmer...

Remember that scene in the Battlestar Galactica miniseries when the Cylons first invade Caprica? A squadron of Vipers are launched to intercept the incoming enemy, but are rendered helplessly floating in space after a Cylon computer virus crashes their onboard systems. Seems that such events aren't so much science fiction fantasy after all.

A group of eight F-22 Raptors, the most advanced aircraft in the world, set out from Hawaii to their new home in Okinawa, Japan. Unfortunately, two of the planes ran into a bit of trouble. As reported on CNN:

The F-22 Raptor is our frontline fighter, air defense, air superiority. It also can drop bombs. It is stealthy. It's fast and you want it all to go right on your first deployment to the Pacific and it didn't. At the international date line, whoops, all systems dumped and when I say all systems, I mean all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. They were -- they could have been in real trouble. They were with their tankers. The tankers - they tried to reset their systems, couldn't get them reset. The tankers brought them back to Hawaii. This could have been real serious. It certainly could have been real serious if the weather had been bad. It turned out OK. It was fixed in 48 hours. It was a computer glitch in the millions of lines of code, somebody made an error in a couple lines of the code and everything goes.

Speculation seems to blame either the time change or the change in longitude from W179.99 degrees to E 180 degrees upon crossing the International Date Line. All this, because of a faulty line of code. Considering passenger aircraft are becoming more and more reliant on computer navigation and control, as well, my fear of flying has just jumped to another level.

H.R.G. Man has a heart after all...

What a great episode of Heroes tonight! It's amazing how well this show translates into the feel of a comic book. We get all kinds of background into Mr. Bennett, but still are left with all kinds of mysterious connections yet to be revealed. It's like reading the X-Men and one of those classic convoluted crossover plotlines by Chris Claremont and company that would run over a dozen issues and spill over into other titles.

I hope this episode got it out of Wild Willie probation for a little while, although I still have to remind myself it hasn't even finished up its first season yet. In another year or two, this could get as complicated as trying to figure out the whole Scott Summers-Jean Grey-Phoenix-Rachel Summers-Cable relationships from the X-Men.

Anywho, if you didn't catch it tonight, they'll be putting it up for online viewing pretty soon on their website.

An annual tradition that I just can't bring myself to stop...

Yet another year that I found myself watching the Academy Awards. I know I thrive on procrastination, but the Oscars are just a pure waste of time, listening to each winner thank everyone from their castmates to their parents to their pet turtle George. I'm a sucker for hype, though, and I end up watching nonetheless.

It's a rarity (actually, never) that my favorite film of the year wins the Oscar for Best Picture, so it was nice to see The Departed get the grand prize for the night. Even better that Martin Scorsese finally got an Academy Award for his work, although the fact that they got Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas up there to present the Best Director Award kind of took all the suspense away.

Sad, though, that Peter O'Toole yet again was denied an eighth time for an Oscar. Granted, I've never actually seen any of his Oscar-nominated work, but he's just one of those actors that you just assume has won an Oscar (or actually, many) when you see him in movies. I know he was awarded a consolation prize i.e. Lifetime Achievement Award a few years back, but you gotta feel for the guy who you know wanted to win one outright, especially when he looks like he could croak at any minute.

Then again, what does the Academy know? After all, this is the group that voted Driving Miss Daisy the Best Picture of the Year back in the 80's. Does anyone honestly still even remotely remember that movie? Field of Dreams and Dead Poets Society were up for the same award that year. Yup, a waste of my time. A waste of my time. Damn you, pop culture hype machine!

Yup, those were the days...

In response to Wander's post below, is this the movie you speak of?



Apparently, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles is available on DVD now, and even was showing in some theater for a couple of days last month in Firecracker George's neck of the woods. There doesn't seem to be enough sappy romance in this one from what I can tell based on the trailer, which I hate to admit is probably why I liked the original series so much.

Anywho, I liked the video Wander posted. Makes me think of less stressful days when I actually looked forward to getting up at 7:00 AM on a Saturday to watch that show. Oh, the things our kids will never understand with things like TiVo, YouTube, and DVDs. I'm surprised Cartoon Network hasn't broadcast reruns of Robotech. I feel the need to go get the original series on DVD now, though. Actually, I've been meaning to do that for years. Maybe I'll get around to doing that when I go purchase that Lotus I keep talking about.

The War Machine Springs To Life

Had this show on my brain lately, and I thought this video is pretty cool. New movie, show, role playing and video games by the end of the year I hear.

Trying to enjoy the nicer weather...

So the weather is warming up a bit, and the sun is out here in the Gateway to the West. Feeling a bit like a sloth and having avoided pretty much any physical activity short of the walk from my car to the lab or the effort it takes to lift a burger from the table to my mouth all winter long, I decided to take my bike out for a ride today. Now I've haven't even sat on my bike for about six months now. Basically, it has stood against a wall in my condo looking nice and shiny all year.

To further enhance my poser stance, my bike is a Bianchi, which would have made Wakinoffee drool uncontrollably back in the day. Sounds fancy, until you take a closer look and realize that mine is not of the legendary Italian-made lineage, but a cheaper line made especially for the American market with frames made in Taiwan. Not that M.I.T. bikes aren't made well, but it's kind of like comparing a Lexus to a Toyota. Like any decent poser, I also use clipless pedals (the bike came with them), which actually haven't been that problematic for me...until today.

If you haven't used clipless pedals before, basically your shoe has a specialized cleat that locks into the pedal. This improves your pedal efficiency, but also makes it a bit more difficult to free your feet for stabilization during a stop or fall. Stop without your feet "clipped out," and you remain literally attached to your bike, making for an extremely embarrasing situation for yourself (or quite a humorous one for onlookers).

This is what happened to me this afternoon. I seemed to forget this important principle, and ended up on my back with my bike held up in the air, still attached to my feet. Luckily, there were no eyewitnesses to my goof (at least none that I saw), and I heard no uproarious laughter erupt. Oh well. At least I finally made an effort to get some exercise.

Another election cycle, another term without a viable female presidential candidate...

The New York Times has a nice graphic on their website today which summarizes the stance of each presidential candidate on Iraq, and selected quotes illustrating their viewpoint. Probably the only real solution offered as an alternative to the strategy that's currently being used is from Senator Joseph Biden, who has repeatedly voiced his suggestion that Iraq be divided up based on their Islamic sects, and allowing each group to have some amount of regional control with a weaker central government. I have no idea if this idea would work, or if it would create even more sectarian conflict, but at least it's a bit more than the lip service we're getting from just about everyone else in Congress. Simpling saying we have to get out of Iraq, cap troop levels, or continuing to bash the current Presidential administration doesn't seem to accomplish much in my mind.

I was listening to some NPR story last night where someone used the recent problems revealed about the Walter Reed Army Medical Center as an opportunity to talk about failures of leadership in the current administration. Now, I don't disagree, but I've pretty much become numb to such dialogue. Short of calling for an impeachment (which wouldn't do the country any good, since Cheney would now be President), I just can't understand what anyone is trying to gain from such statements anymore other than some extra political capital or to give them some personal "I told you so" satisfaction.

A prime example of this political strategy seems to come from Hillary Rodham Clinton. Unlike every other Democratic presidential candidate, she still has not openly stated that her Congressional vote in support of the President going to war in Iraq was a mistake. Instead, she's manuevered quite adeptly around the issue by instead turning the conversation to the hot-button issue of Bush and his failed role as Commander in Chief. The quote this NYT graphic uses for her:

If I had been President in October of 2002, I would have never asked for authority to divert our attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, and I certainly would never have started this war.

Granted, this quote is a bit out of context, but her vote in Congress back in 2002 seems to contradict her statement. Seems like an easy thing to say after the fact.

My wife has been off the wall excited about the prospects of Hillary Clinton becoming the next President. I would like to be enthusiastic, as well, as I think this country is ready for a female in Oval Office. But the thought of Hillary being my President frankly disgusts me to the extent that George W. probably did it for most Democrats. It has nothing to do with her being a woman.

My wife would probably say that this is the way women have to play the game. After all, are we talking about any other women running for president right now? And haven't men been playing the exact same way all this time? I guess she has a point--women sometimes are judged a bit harshly when they play like the men. And being the sole woman in this field singles you out, and puts any political games you play that much more in the spotlight. The difference, though, is that she's the wife of a former president who was a bit of a controversial figure himself. Perhaps another woman running for president without the historical baggage of a Clinton would run into some resistance, but certainly wouldn't be as polarizing a figure as Hillary.

As you've probably heard, Hollywood heavyweight David Geffen was quoted by Maureen Dowd in her editorial column for The New York Times saying just that:

Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don't think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is -- and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? -- can bring the country together.

This, of course, made headlines yesterday because Geffen is publicly supporting Barack Obama in his presidential campaign. The Clinton camp denounced the remarks as personal attacks and mudslinging. Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, this is what most of America is probably thinking.

Looking back at that NYT graphic, only three of the presidential candidates were opposed to going to Iraq from the beginning. The most prescient quote from the three? Obama:

I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars.

We probably won't be seeing a woman taking over the Oval Office in 2009, but perhaps a man of color isn't that farfetched.

Am I sexist to think this way?

The big news in the world of tennis today is the announcement that, starting this year, women will be paid an equal amount of prize money as the men at Wimbledon. Perhaps I'm just an ignorant male, but if men play five set matches and women only play three, shouldn't men be paid more? Over the course of an entire tennis tournament like Wimbledon, those potential two extra sets per game can eventually add up to a lot of playing time on the court. It seems the fair thing to do would be to have the women play five sets, too. To pay women the same amount of money for what amounts to less work actually seems to make women look weaker, not stronger, like they can't handle the increased playing time. Maybe someone out there with a better perspective about the difference between male and female athletics can explain this to me.

A pitch that geeks can love...

For some reason, I'm completely fascinated by the legend of the gyroball. This isn't the first time I've posted something about it. Even if one really was thrown during a nationally televised game with the aid of slow motion to review the pitch, though, I'm not sure I'd be able to identify it. Heck, differentiating between a fastball, curveball, knuckleball, slider, changeup, etc. is still a bit difficult for me to pick up during the course of a ballgame.

Strangely, Daisuke Matsuzaka, the $50+ million Japanese import picked up by the Boston Red Sox during this offseason who purportedly is the only ballplayer able to throw the pitch consistently during play, denies he even has this in his bag of tricks. But to clear up the mystery, The New York Times ran a story complete with some nifty graphics featuring Kazushi Tezuka, the Japanese trainer who invented the pitch over a decade ago:

Tezuka used a standard fastball grip. He went into a basic motion. Only at the end of his delivery did he deviate. He turned the inside of his throwing arm away from his body and released the ball as if it were a football, making it spiral toward home plate.

The pitch started on the same course as a changeup, but it barely dipped. It looked like a slider, but it did not break. The gyroball, despite its zany name, is supposed to stay perfectly straight.

Is it a myth? Is it real? I don't know, but I'm kind of excited about the start of the upcoming Major League Baseball season.

News from around the Empire...

Something I found on the Internet today that Wander probably was already aware of a long time ago--is there anything Star Wars related that man doesn't know? I also noticed they were looking for writers. Sounds like a gig for our aspiring writers, Wander and 'Cracker.

An in-depth look at Frank Miller...

I don't normally watch the G4 network since I don't own any computer games or gaming consoles, but I happened to have it on today and saw a commercial for a show called Icons that will be focusing on Frank Miller on March 4th. Thought a few of you might be interested. I'm setting my TiVo now.

We LIKE you very much...

I'm sure most of you have heard or read about the homophobic remarks made by NBA player Tim Hardaway last week. Now watch the response from George Takei (aka Sulu from Star Trek) on Jimmy Kimmel Live!:

If only my house were at risk of being overrun by bear, I might have an excuse to buy one...

So as I mentioned in a comment to a post earlier in the week, I spent an afternoon this weekend shooting what amounts to an elephant gun. The .50 caliber revolver shown above is similar to what I got to use except I had the additional advantage of a telescopic sight attached to the top. The picture doesn't really give you any reference to how big and heavy this thing is, but I'll just say, I was a bit scared to even shoot the thing, and it took a bit of coaxing before I was convinced to even pull the trigger once. With the right ammunition, this gun is capable of stopping an elephant, and with the rounds I used, I supposedly could have killed a grizzly bear.

This experience was all thanks to a guy I know through one of my wife's friends who's been offering to take me out to the gun range for quite a while. To say he's a gun connoisseur might be an understatement. Not only does he have an impressive collection of firearms, he regularly takes gun courses that probably puts the typical policeman to shame, and even reloads his own bullets from spent casings. As a result of all his training, though, gun safety always seems to be on the top of his mind, and in fact, he probably spent 99% of the 30 minute drive up to the range reviewing such things with me.

By days end, I had the chance to shoot a 9mm pistol, two different models of .45 caliber pistols, a simple .22 caliber rifle, an AR-15 rifle equipped with a holographic sight, a vintage M1 rifle from World War II (complete with the "pa-ting!" as the clip flies out the top after shooting your last round), and finally finishing out with the "elephant gun." Now, you might be a bit concerned that I'd be exposed to so many firearms at one time. It sounds a bit nutty, and in truth, it was kind of strange unloading that arsenal from the car. But I think I learned a few things that day, and even erased some preconceived notions I had about firearms:

1. It's not easy to hit things with a pistol - I usually spend many a television show rolling my eyes because someone like Jack Bauer on 24 can't simply shoot out the tires of a fleeing car with his Sig Sauer. Little did I know that, gosh darn it, it's really hard to hit a stationary object, let alone a moving one. I was shooting steel targets from probably 25 yards away, which I hit pretty consistently, although with a considerable amount of time spent thinking about my aim, my grip, and my trigger pressure. I moved out only 10 yards, and hitting targets was exponentially harder. I've been told that a police officer recently had her pistol stolen off of her by a guy she was trying to bring into custody. The guy, standing over her, emptied out the entire magazine and only hit her twice.
   
2. Ammunition is heavy - I always seem to forget that bullets are made out of lead. Pile all that lead in an ammunition box, and boy, it's heavy! Yet again, more appreciation of the soldier in the field carrying around ammo.
   
3. Guns are still a bit scary, but not quite as scary as I first thought - Shooting something that can stop an elephant still scares me a bit, which is why he loaded it with the bear-stopping rounds instead. Still, it seems unlikely that a gun would just go off spontaneously. You still have to have someone put their finger on the trigger and pull. As long as you're always aware of where your gun is pointed and where your trigger finger is resting, shooting can be a relatively safe endeavor. Unfortunately, there are enough idiots out there to make this dangerous in the wrong hands. Perhaps mandatory gun safety courses, extensive background checks, and wait periods aren't such a bad idea.
   
4. Shooting something 100 yards away is A REALLY LONG WAYS AWAY - Again, one of those things I never really appreciated until I tried it myself.
   
5. Shooting is kind of relaxing - Trying to hit a small target from a distance certainly takes some concentration, and can be relaxing as you focus on your mark instead of whatever worries have been troubling you for the day. It's actually a bit like golf, except you don't have to go chase your ball. Granted, you can't easily kill someone with a golf ball (unless you're Tiger Woods), but still...
   

Now after this whole experience, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to go buy a gun or join the NRA. However, it has given me a whole new perspective on the issue of gun control and a very minute glimpse of the challenges of the U.S. Armed Forces in battle that, at least, makes me a more informed citizen.

UPDATE: My friend/firearms instructor just emailed me a picture of my day with the scary revolver. You can probably imagine the goofy grin I had on my face under the censor (since I still am holding to my relative anonymity on this blog)--the gun is practically bigger than my head!

Why wait in line when there's a perfectly good Baskin-Robbins across the street?

I've never actually had the opportunity to enjoy a cup of Pinkberry yogurt, but I seem to read about this thing everywhere. I'm not sure what the fuss is all about. Apparently, all it amounts to is some frozen yogurt with fruit or a handful of Cap'n Crunch sprinkled on top, but it seems to have become the "it" treat in Los Angeles/Hollywood. Pictures of celebrities with a Pinkberry cup in their hand are pretty commonplace now in the weekly paparazzi magazines, and the buzz around these things are so hot that people have been known to wait in line for unusually long amounts of time to get their fix.

The New York Times today has it's own story about Pinkberry. As is usually the case with anything so simple and yet so popular, it has spawned a number of copycats. The idea behind the yogurt started in South Korea, and the competition sounds like something out of some cross-town tae kwon do school rivalry.

Why does my mind automatically think of something dirty?

The Dark Side Beckons

My friend in the 501st, shown above in his custom made Mandolorian armor painted in the original white Boba Fett was going to be until the day before his scenes were shot for ESB, has all but talked me into joining him in his dark crusade. We're working on my Stormtrooper armor right now, well I should say he is; I don't know my hydrospanner from a motivator, and we're hoping to have it done in time for me to march in Denver's St. Patrick's Day parade (along with around 50 other troopers) and a visist to the Denver Children's Hospital afterwards. I think I may have just joined the Empire!

I'll post pics of yours truly in my 'white's' when I get them taken.

The Right Mix

After missing it two weeks in a row, I remembered to watch BSG last night. I know that there have been complaints that the show was lacking in it's previous luster, but I think last night had the right formula - a mix of character drama and action; man vs. self and man vs. nature (in the case of last night, at least.)
So last night was Admiral Adama's turn for self-reflection and growth; with the memory of his ex-wife, his son, and his possible new love interest. All very well done and convincing. Interspersed with this is an action story of sorts, Kalli and the Chief getting stuck in the airlock and having to go out the back way. So a good balance of character development, and harrowing adventure to keep the show from becoming a soap opera. I think that as long as they don't stray too far to either side for too many consecutive episodes they'll be good.

No Big Surprise

Well the reviews for Ghost Rider are awful. And that includes sites where the movies are reviewed by comic fans like IGN.com. Sadly, I had a feeling. Oh well, I still have Frank Miller's 300 coming out in a few weeks, and the early reviews are stunning. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival yesterday and was greeted by a ten minute standing ovation afterwards, as well. Swords, epic battles, men who stand up for an ideal and lay down their lives to fight for it, this film has everything I love in a story. Oh and it is based on one of my favorite Frank Miller graphic novels, so it has that going for it, too.

My name is Deja Vu. Haven't we met somewhere before?

I think when they finally wrap up Lost, I'll be hitting myself on the head, and saying, "Oh! Why didn't I think of that?" After last night's episode, I'm totally out of ideas as to how this whole thing will come together in the end. If they take some "Who shot J.R.?" plot twist ending and say this was all in someone's head all along, though, I may just have to find out where J.J. Abrams lives so I can egg his house.

Anywho, I'm not sure if all the six degrees of separation and such are important to the end plot or just something for the audience to "geek out" to, but this website manages to show all kinds of screen caps of interesting Easter eggs you might have missed on first glance.

It just fell on me like a ton of bricks.

It's weird how random elements often come together around the same time and coalesce in us as revelation. While some might see this as coincidence, I see this as providence. The latest gift I've received of providence has to do with Joseph Campbell, Pierre Abélard, C.S. Lewis' four names of love, Garret LoPorto's revelation that much of modern Christianity focuses on logos while all but abandoning eros, Jesus' command to "Love your neighbor as yourself," and the old truism that we hate in others that which we hate most in ourselves.

It starts with the marginally related elements. I've been thinking of Pierre Abélard recently, as I have a situation similar to one for which he is most famous, but that's not something I'm going to go into. Anyway, to soothe myself I've been listening to an interview of Joseph Campbell, where he speaks of love in western mythology, specifically Christianity's doctrine of agape, which is of course one of the four loves identified by C.S. Lewis. I was reading up on Lewis' The Four Loves because I'm organizing my music according to them. Let me paraphrase Lewis' definitions so everyone is on the same page:

• philia - brotherly or friendly love; generally love for another person devoid of sexual interest
  
• eros - sexual love, or as Campbell describes it, "the zeal of the organs for each other."
  
• amore - what we traditionally think of love, or romantic love. The love reserved for spouses/partners.
  
• agape - love of God, but also love for others that is both unconditional and voluntary. It is the love of which Jesus spoke when he commanded "Love your neighbor as yourself."
  

So having both the definitions of love from Lewis and the assertion that agape is the ultimate tenet of Christianity rolling around in my head, one or both of them must have bumped into my memory of LoPorto's assertion that many modern Christians focus on the logos or logic, dogma, rules, of the faith almost to the exclusion of its eros (which in this context refers to love, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding). Put another way, many Christians are acting in an Old Testament fashion to the exclusion of New Testament action. It's the type of behavior that turns so many off to religion; that has so many people sneer and scoff at the sound of the word "Christian."

The question is, "why?" Why do so many feel that judgment and condemnation are Christian virtues? The answer I think is in the old truism: we hate in ourselves that which we hate most in others. Now that I'm divorced, the distinction of 'person who most easily gets under my skin' is my dad. Why? Because we're so alike. I see his sheepishness, his lack of self-confidence, and his social awkwardness and I get angry with him. I get angry because those are all things that I wrestle with in myself. Those are things that I hate in myself.

So why are so many Christians so quick to condemn others when the second-highest commandment in Christianity is to "love your neighbor as yourself?" Why do so many Christians disobey that penultimate command?

Maybe they don't. If you look at the command, it states that Christians should love their neighbors as much as, as well as, they love themselves. But if you don't love yourself, then that pretty much dictates that you'll be a big jerk to everyone else, too. And from what I've experienced, much of modern Christianity may give lip service to self-love (agape in Lewis' definitions, not eros), but in fact promotes self-loathing. We are such bad people that Jesus had to sacrifice himself as a scapegoat for our sins.

But I agree with Abélard's understanding of the crucifixion that it is not a ransom paid or a penalty applied, but an act of at-one-ment (atonement) with all humanity. The crucifixion illustrates the suffering inherent all our lives, and removes our minds from commitment to things in this world in compassion for Christ. It is in this capacity that the wounded becomes the savior. Humankind yearning for God and God yearning for humankind on the Cross in compassion met.

Which is what we need, compassion. We need unconditional and voluntary love - agape - first for ourselves, and then for others. We must truly and without self-deceit love ourselves first, and then we can do so for our neighbors. When we can pluck the beam from our own eyes and can forgive ourselves for having imperfections in the first place, we will not mention the mote in another's because of our common unity (community) in imperfection and common passion (compassion) for life, suffering and all.

It's not snow, but it'll do...

Too bad I didn't find this link yesterday--it would have fit in well with the unofficial theme of the day.

Every Jedi vs. Sith Lord lightsaber battle from the entire Star Wars series in chronological order.

Yes, I really do excel at procrastination. If only they gave out medals...

More Is Better - A Pet Theory

Pimp's last post got me thinking about why some ideas get taken to extremes. He also got me wondering about the Girls Gone Wild stuff, and what prompts that kind of behavior.

Now, not being omniscient, any and all theories I have are subject to a bias of my experiences, and a lack there-of. That being said, my best guess is that somebody will always figure more is better. If moderation of alcohol is good, then abstinence must be better. Or, if moderation of alcohol is good, then total immersion must be better. If my parents were too harsh, then I should be far too lenient. What kids need today is a good ass-whipping. The solution imagined is often more of the same. As I've heard people say, "if violence doesn't solve the situation, then you aren't hitting hard enough." It's rare to hear someone suggest balance.

And why is balance so often neglected as a solution? Because it requires more of us. We have to make constant judgment calls, rather than make a single decision and apply it to every situation. Balance requires us to analyze every situation individually. And what if we're not good at doing that? Well, rather than admit it and try to learn how, we often simply yell louder, hit harder, drink more, or become stricter.

Now, as for the Girls Gone Wild stuff, I actually don't know. I do know that I've known plenty of girls who would do things at 20 that they wouldn't do at 25 or older. I don't know if it's an age + culture thing, and I never will - I'm a dude. I do know that every woman that I've known personally who had 'relations' with another woman at one point has also been promiscuous with men. And, they have had abusive or neglectful childhoods, usually heavily the fault of the father. I guess what I'm stumbling towards here is that often the joy and wild abandon you see on the late night commercials might come more from an attempt to salve a sorrow than anything else.

Or maybe I'm way off. I don't know.