so what's worse?

the fact that i'm using wild turkey 101 as a cough suppressant... or the fact that it's working?

perception

oddly enough, it all started with broccoli. i hate broccoli, and started to wonder how anybody could enjoy the taste of that vile green stuff (or mushrooms, or asparagus, or any of a host of other disgusting things). or, another example: we all know that different people will remember the exact same event in different ways. why?

are events (or tastes) absolute? does broccoli have a fixed taste, one that some people enjoy and others don't? or is it more complex than that? maybe broccoli has a whole host of different tastes, and a person's physical makeup (in this case, their taste buds and sense of smell) causes them to pick up different parts of the flavor mosaic. same with memories... are we actually seeing things differently (thanks to the physical makeup of individual eyes and their connections to the brain)? or do we just attach different levels of importance to the various parts of our memories thanks to a variety of factors (upbringing, alertness, training, etc.)?

this was much more impressive when i originally thought it out about 1:00 this morning, but hopefully it's enough to give you a general idea of what i was thinking.

almost

this sums up my life almost exactly, except for the jerk part. other than the fact that they're not me, she's had fairly good taste in her relationships.

normal?

i would really love to learn to fight with a pair of short swords. is that weird?

goal

next week, i will build a portable desk, so i can get out of the house and write without any distractions. probably won't be too fancy, but as long as i can fold it up to stick it in the back of my car, and have enough space to have a few sheets of paper (or a stack of paper and my laptop), i think that should be good.

unemployment, week 3

so far, i've been fairly unproductive. finally finished off the pieces for my RISK board, got another paragraph on my story written (but i really need to go back to outlining), and studied absolutely no greek. about the only thing i've actually been consistent with is starting to get some exercise again, walking a couple miles 4-5 times a week. things should be nice enough to break out the bike pretty soon, and then i'll be able to expand my range a bit.

i'll be traveling a bit this weekend and again next week/end, and hopefully those will be enough to get me re-energized.

but the real question is...

... "is there an app that will let me block all those annoying iphone/app commercials?"

catching up

pat apparently gets hypocritical as well as jolly when he's drunk, because he decided to complain that i don't update my blog often enough. which is probably true... but considering the fact that it's been over 3 years since he updated his blog, i'd say i'm doing pretty alright.

student loans: as of next week, my loans (from the government, at least) will be paid off. which really means i just get to add a bit more to what i'm paying my parents back every month, but at least they're not charging interest.

europeans = ftl. but only partly, since they did show a bit of common sense in their most recent elections. mostly i have to complain about the way the write down dates. as a reward to myself for paying off the aforementioned loans, i was going to take a trip to belgium and the netherlands to see a couple of bands that don't have any concerts scheduled here in the good old US of A. but thanks to their sideways dating, a show that i originally thought was november 7 (11.07.09) turned out to be july 11, which means the concerts are 4 months apart, not 4 days like i originally thought. so europe will probably get put on hold until next year.

and for now, that's all. we've got some of an unfortunately small number of our "normal" relatives visiting, so i think i should be present for awhile.

best entertainment i've had all week

true, it's only tuesday, but still... good times.



h/t say anything

no, you wouldn't

"if you were God for a day, what would you do differently?" if you mean having God's powers, i'd probably do quite a few things differently, and the world would be a worse place for it. as well-intentioned as i generally am, i am far from perfect. but if you mean actually being God? i wouldn't do a single thing differently. God does what He does because of who He is. God is holy. God is love. God is faithful. God is merciful. the list goes on and on. i may try to be those things, but He actually is them.

which leads up to a conversation i had with my boss the other day. one of my co-workers has been treated rather poorly by her spouse. so my boss decides i need to listen to beyonce's "if i were a boy," to see if i agreed that it fit my co-worker's situation. so i listened. my first response; "this sounds like self-pity." she was essentially singing about how she would treat herself (or girlfriend/wife/whatever) better if she were a boy. which isn't really true; if we're following her stereotype, then if she were a boy, she'd act exactly like the person she's complaining about. also, i would find her much less attractive.

just for you, pat

the same pat who, although he hasn't touched his blog in almost 3 years, thinks i need to update mine. but since the laziness that kept me from posting in 2 weeks is still here, this will pretty much just be a bunch of bullet points.

• the snow is spokane is as bad as they say. most of division was missing a lane of traffic in each direction and getting in and out of parking lots and going through intersections on side roads were offroad expeditions.
• quote of the day: "Some people can put juju inside the helmets and when they are worn the victim can either lose consciousness or be struck dumb," passenger Kolawole Aremu told the Daily Trust newspaper. forget yellow cake... saddam should have been looking for juju in nigeria.
• memo to israel: do it right this time. don't stop until this job is done. maybe after all of this, the palestinian people will realize that groups like hamas are not saviors, but rather the source of their woes. get rid of the terrorists, and israel will have no reason to bomb you.
• i'm going to keep playing (and paying), but i'm starting to get WoW'ed out. any suggestions on a good RPG? i've heard good things about the witcher, but not sure if i want to go out and buy it yet.
• there is no luck in gingerbreadmanville.
• watching through babylon 5 again... great show. much like another one of my favorites (sg-1) though, i have to wonder how it ever made it through it's first season.
• estamos en los estados unidos. se habla ingles aqui.

thatisall.

absorbed!

that title might make sense to some people.

anyways, today the bbc brings us the story of the youngest ever member of cuba's national assembly, 18-year old liaena hernandez. key quote: "Having young Cubans in parliament shows that the revolution continues. It isn't just something from our history." the continuing revolution began on january 1, 1958, when fidel castro seized power. for reference, here are some other revolutions that come to mind:

american revolution: ~8 years, depending on how you count
result: the best country ever
french revolution: ~10 years, again depending on how you count
result: two of the greatest military leaders ever duking it out, and lots of dead people.

both marked major turning points in world history, and took less than 20 years between them to complete. 50 years later, the cubans are still right where they were--fleeing to america on whatever floats--only without soviet assistance and no more botched invasions of their island. cuba, i submit that your revolution is ineffectual, and it's time to give it up.

bass ackwards

i'm really not sure how amazon's shipping system works. i preordered Wrath of the Lich King a good two months before it came out, with regular shipping, and it got to me 4 days after the game released... which also happened to be one day after i went out and bought another copy because i got tired of waiting. last thursday, i ordered some beef jerky--a type i really like, but haven't been able to find locally lately. i chose the free "super-saver" shipping, which in theory is slower. the package shipped the next day, and was waiting for me when i got home from work. and it was shipped through the US post office, which is generally not known for it's speed. heck, it takes me three days to mail something from here to spokane, and i can drive there in less than three hours.

held up by the sheriff

we were well on the way to breaking the record (12 minutes) for fastest council meeting. and then the sheriff showed up. but harvey is a cool guy, so we didn't mind too much. and it still took less than 20 minutes, so i'm a happy camper.

various and sundry things

wow, i've been slacking lately. but it's been slow at work as well, so i've had a bit of time to peruse the BBC website for news... here are a few things i thought were interesting.

1) obama has already managed to piss off al-qaeda, so he can't be all bad. it was definitely in poor taste for al-zawahiri to refer to obama as a "house-slave" though. regardless of what may have brought the insult on, basing it on his skin color--which he has no control over--is pretty lame.

2) gays in california are still pissed about proposition 8; apparently "majority rule should not set the law." which, who really wants that messy democracy stuff anyways? they may actually have a pretty good case; if the courts deem this a revision to the state constitution instead of an amendment, it would have required a 2/3 vote in the legislature before being passed on to the voters. which brings us back to the majority thing; the gay rights folks got a majority of judges to agree to hear an argument that the proponents should have got a supermajority to vote in favor of prop 8 before the regular majority got to vote in favor of it. so apparently majorities are okay, as long as they agree with the gay rights people. personally, i'm going to side with sir elton john on this one. i don't remember the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of "marriages are for straight people, civil unions are for gay people... if you're getting the same basic rights, why should you care what it's called?" one is a relationship between two people of opposite sexes, and one is a relationship between two people of the same sex; they are, in fact, two different things.

3) philosophical questions for the day: number 1 is the only one i actually came up with an answer for, so i'm going to go ahead and post the whole thing and then give my answer and reasoning.

1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?

Consider another case: you and six others are kidnapped, and the kidnapper somehow persuades you that if you shoot dead one of the other hostages, he will set the remaining five free, whereas if you do not, he will shoot all six. (Either way, he'll release you.)

If in this case you should kill one to save five, why not in the previous, organs case? If in this case too you have qualms, consider yet another: you're in the cab of a runaway tram and see five people tied to the track ahead. You have the option of sending the tram on to the track forking off to the left, on which only one person is tied. Surely you should send the tram left, killing one to save five.

But then why not kill Bill?

no, we don't kill bill. in both situations given, at least one person is going to die regardless of what happens. in the original question, if we don't "harvest" bill, he continues living his happy, healthy life. besides which, we really don't know if his organs will actually save the people they're intended for. they could be rejected by the host, or the doctor could screw up the operation, and there are probably several other things that could go wrong as well. also, back to the first example they give... if the hostage taker gives me a gun to shoot one of the other hostages dead, the first thing i'm going to do is shoot the guy that took us hostage, and we're all free. the end.

random question

believe it or not, i made it through my entire school "career"--high school, community college, and real college--without taking a single chemistry class. so i've got a chemistry-type question that randomly popped into my head the other day.

what happens if you drop an oxygen absorber into a glass of water? assuming there's actually enough to absorb all of the oxygen in the water, are you left with liquid hydrogen or hydrogen gas, or does something else entirely happen?

entrepreneuer of the week

and the award goes to.... sarah's smash shack. good to see that at least someone should be doing well in these troubled times.

h/t wp

next step, retention

i learned something again today: when in doubt, just keep your mouth shut. i've lost track of how many times that would have been a good idea, but i'm hoping that one of these times--preferably this one--the lesson will stick.

son of the year

the award goes jim richardson, who managed to track down and buy the m1 garand that his father had used in korea, and presented it to him for his 79th birthday.

h/t wp

there's gotta be a better word for that

it's probably unnecessary, but i get pissed when people (usually PETA, but a few others as well) talk about the humane (or inhumane) treatment of animals. they seem to be missing the key part of that word: human. the royal humane society, for example, was originally founded to rescue/resuscitate drowning people, and they still give awards for doing so; i saw no mention of the treatment of animals on their site.

animals shouldn't be treated humanely, because they're not human. that's not to say they shouldn't be treated well; just that we need to come up with a better term for doing so. "animalane" just doesn't sound right, so i'm open to suggestion.