The Fuchsia Ones Are The Best
This is what people keep telling me:
"Look Daddy, look! I disproved Christianity!"
This is my response:
"That's great, kid. Go back to eating crayons."
-Revan
If you want a non-jaded look at this topic, you may wish to read Pastordave's post.
My Other Half (so to speak)
It’s been nice posting here on the blog, but something is missing. Axiom is missing. Remember him? Mr. I-Like-To-See-Girls-Kissi ng-On-Film? Well, whatever happened to that guy?
Well, I told him I’ve been posting on the blog again, but it does not interest him I guess. What’s happening in his life..let’s see…la la la. Okay he is still going to college, unlike a lot of people I know who have given up and gone home. One of them is actually better off for it, I hear. I will post about him later.
Right, so Axiom’s in college and wants to be a web designer. He knows the degree he wants, the professional certification, etc. He wants also to host a lingerie party sometime in the future. He says girls will actually come to it. Axiom dreams big. That is for sure.
Axiom also plans on attending his high school’s prom this year. I am against this, because he is after all in college. Prom is for high schoolers only in my opinion. It is weird, because when he was trying to talk me into going to my prom last year, his big reasoning was that prom is a huge cornerstone of your life; it is so important; blah, blah, blah. Now of course he says it’s just hanging out with his friends, and why would I want to keep him from doing that, he asks? Because it’s not for him, that’s why. Once you are gone from high school, I think you should move on. Keep in mind, this guy was prom king, so it’s not like he missed anything the first time around. What do you people think about going to prom after you’ve graduated?
-Revan
How to have no shame in just five easy steps!
It's that time again--complaining time! Woo!
For Christmas my mom got me a subscription to the magazine Men's Health, thinking it was about men's health. It is not. Men's Health is in reality Cosmopolitan for guys. You have your articles on how to look better, and you have your articles on how to get the opposite sex. Where Cosmopolitan might have an article titled "50 Ways to Please Your Man", Men's Health would have "50 Ways to Get Your Woman to Please You". Both magazines assume the reader is entirely occupied with their own vanity and satisfying their carnal desires. Both of them also sell the same thing repeatedly without any objection from the reader. Despite the inclusion of the article "Touch Her Here" in the March 2007 mag, my guess is the subject is going to be breached on numerous occasions in the future, regardless of whether or not the info has changed. There are, after all, only so many places to touch.
Yes, the Cosmo girl and the Health-y man seem to be in a constant and never-ending search for each other. Will they ever arrive at true love? Probably not. That is, unless true love means to "Turn Your Bedroom into a Pleasure Palace", in which case they are way ahead of the curve.
So, I have surmised that my mom did not, in fact, ever read Men's Health before subscribing me to it. If she had, I would have been a tad insulted, but I believe if she had come across the sex advice, she would have balked at making it a Christmas gift. Still, Men's Health is not completely useless: In the March issue there are several samples of cologne, which my dog will be thrilled to roll in.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find out how Ryan Reynolds stays so thin.
-Revan
Ford Expedition strangles two kids
Environmentalists—W hat is up with those people? Are they never satisfied? The answer to both of those questions is yes.
Recently at the university I attend, there was an article in the school newspaper. This comes as no surprise. The newspaper often contains articles. And I am in a giddy mood for unknown reasons (But I digress). So…there’s this apartment building or housing structure or whatever somewhere in town, and instead of everyone having cars, there are seven cars provided for the 56 people. Can you guess what the environmentalists’ objection to this was? If you answered “ZOMG, one of those seven cars was an SUV, an offspring of Satan himself, and only three of them were hybrids” then you are correct. That was the reaction. It is a stupid reaction:
- There are already 1/8 the cars there were going to be otherwise
- No one knows how much any car effects the environment, if at all
Many of you will foam at the mouth upon seeing point No. 2, and only a small percentage of those people had previously been bitten by squirrels and raccoons (note: an “et cetera” is implied here. I’m sure lots of animals carry rabies.). But one must agree, even if you are not going to anyway, that this is pretty out of hand. You’re not satisfied with 7/8 of potential cars not running? Come on. Out of hand.
There is also a movement here for a “sustainable campus”. Frankly, I…well…I mean…the campus has been here for one hundred years (or more, depending on who you ask). It’s not being overrun by mold, or termites. People are not dying from overexposure to CO2. The word “sustainable” here is pure BS, and it must be admitted. The university is being sustained just fine, thank you. It is not going to burst into flames suddenly just because you decided to become activists this year, students. Sheesh.
What the hell, environmentalists. What the hell.
-Revan
You and Kermit the frog took bioethics together
Okay, so the guy might not be as bad as I let on. It is more of a sine wave of hate, because whether or not and how much I hate him is really dependant on what he's doing and where he is. Nevertheless, the list goes on and is currently at thirty items.
Today's topic: Fictional people on Facebook. Facebook is a site much like Myspace, but more organized and geared toward college students. Facebook also has a policy of deleting the profiles of fictional characters, but this is an extremely slow process for them. After all, how do they know Carth Onasi--from Knights of the Old Republic--is really someone fake and not just a guy with a video game character as his profile pic? And, how would Facebook know to look for him anyway? Oddly enough, there are easily viewed groups with names like "fictional characters unite", and you'd think Facebook would just go in and wipe out everyone inside, but it doesn't. Frankly, I am all for fictional characters; I just befriended two over the past 24 hours and I can't help but smile at the prospect of one of my real friends logging on and reading "Revan and Detective Olivia Benson are now friends." Although some issues could theoretically arise, I think for the most part fictional characters on Facebook are harmless.
-Revan
Don't read this if you hate hating
No offense--but you're the bane of my existence
It's offical--I hate having a roomate. There is a certain level of peace that just cannot be obtained with another person in the room or even with the possibility of another person showing up in the room at any time. Thankfully the sentence will be up sometime in early May.
The roomie himself is not ALL bad, or wouldn't be if I only knew him outside of living with the guy. But he has been back from home for about ten minutes and already created quite a disruption. I think my eardrums would be healthier without him, if that is a valid reason for not having a roomate. In the context of living with him, however, he is a nuisance unlike anything I have ever known, and it's time to admit it. Sometimes in the PC/liberal quagmire that is college life (although based on experience I would say community colleges may be free from this) you get caught up in some of it, a little bit of it rubs off on you, and it makes you lie to yourself. Well. I hate having a roomate.
It's funny; he left Friday and I knew I would get all of Saturday to myself so I planned it so I'd do all my work today (Sunday) and spend all of saturday relaxing. And that is exactly how it turned out. Kind of scary how I've adapted like this. But whatever. I saw Napolean Dynamite for the first time last night (in PEACE too, mind you). It started off kind of iffy--I thought it was going to be one of those movies where pompous critics SAY it's a comedy, but nothing in it is actually funny (like The Royal Tenenbaums). But it was pretty good.
One of my final exams is May 3 so I'm assuming I get out of here at the latest May 10...One good thing about college is the short school-year. March 10 kicks off Spring Break...Only 19 more days.....I will survive.
-Revan
So it's Valentine's Day
So it's Valentine's Day and I'm not completely pissed off like usual. This may be because I'm in college now and you don't see everyone walking around with balloons, stuffed bears, roses, severed ears, etc. As for me, I actually am not fixated on anyone, which is odd, but who am I to blame for that?
Now, for the complaining part of the post. Not about Valentine's Day; about the Daily Show. Anyone who watches the Daily Show has to admit that when it comes to liberals, the show is more a source of news, but when it comes to conservatives and/or Christians, they get slammed irrationally at every turn. Case in point: Ted Haggard. I really like how the Daily Show, political cartoons, and everyone else pretends to know exactly what is going on in this guy's life and what he is going through. Case two: Barrack Obama. You can guess the comedy John Stewart made at the expense of this guy. John's view: Why don't more people like him? Zing! Take that, Obama. Without the support of the Daily Show, you're going nowhere. This is the sort of hard-hitting analysis I have come to expect from the Daily Show and I do not believe it will be letting up any time soon.
My Aura of +6 Intelligence
Ever since I read Jurassic Park for the first time when I was nine years old or so, Michael Crichton had been my favorite writer. As you can tell from the wording of the last sentence, this was not to last until the end of time. It was to last until I realized he was nuts. Mr. Crichton has gotten a few things right over the years; the topics of his books are heavily researched. Nevertheless: Nuts.
I ordered his non-fiction book Travels late last year and was instantly absorbed. It begins with his experiences at med school and then describes his travels…I had been forewarned though, for the back cover informed that “spiritual travels” were also discussed therein. So, as you might imagine, he goes on to talk about how he investigated psychic phenomena and the like. He goes to psychics and sees what they can tell him. Next comes the fasting in the desert, the talking to cactuses (cacti, whatever), the chakras, the auras, and the spoon-bending (I am not making this up.
Then he begins talking about the Bible, and how it is “preposterous&rdquo ;. The reason, he says, that the stories in the Bible are plausible, is that they happened a long time ago. “…Noth ing like that was going on now. Not even in New York City!” It’s painful, watching such an educated man use such a low-brow justification to blow off God. Crichton does not go looking for answers about religion with the zeal he has with the psychic stuff.
Crichton even goes so far as to say these auras, these chakras and so forth—they are science, and should be treated like it. Partly this is because they are “boring”. This is correct—not only does he rebuff God in favor of spoon-bending, but his attitude toward these same phenomena is, “So what?...No big deal. Not really worth much conversation”.
Now some explanation—some response, I believe, is needed for the psychics and whatnot. How are they getting their answers? Through demons. Take Deuteronomy 18:9 (KJV):
When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. (10) There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. (11) Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. (12) For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
The Bible does not deny the existence of psychics conjuring up spirits, it forbids it. Take also these verses from 1 Samuel 28 (KJV):
(12) And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, "saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul".
The woman is shocked, because instead of getting the familiar spirit/demon she is used to hearing from, she actually calls up Samuel himself! (God allowed this to happen; the woman did not have, and no one has today, such powers)
These evil spirits have certainly been around long enough to know anything about a person that otherwise “only” that person would know. But this conjuring can only deceive and turn a person further from God. There is no real use or good that comes from it, as Crichton readily admits.
And so, that is why Michael Crichton is no longer my favorite author.
Further explanations about psychics can be found here, which is where my info came from:
-Revan
It is Not That...
Given the choice, right now I would be studying for the upcoming Calculus quiz, the one I have in two hours. But something is preventing that; something is chafing against my brain, and that something is the various noises my roommate is making. In reality, I know the real problem is not that he has one of the most annoying laughs in the world and does not hesitate to use it (it is one of those loud, literal “HA HA HA HA” kind of laughs, and if you are in the radius of six feet, it does cause physical pain to your ears), it is not that he loudly slurps every spoonful of cereal/soup he ever eats, it is not that he snores loudly, or scratches himself for minutes on end(also somehow loudly), or turns on the tv every time he enters the room. It is not that he loudly exclaims, “What the HELL?” at anything remotely surprising/different on tv (example: a trailer for a new movie). It is not that he starts every sentence in which there is an observation with “I’m sorry, but…” (this is in no way implies an apology for anything, it is just an opener). It is not the annoying and poor-quality whistling that sometimes emanates from his lips (although to be fair, there never has been and never will be any good whistling, from him or anyone else). It is not that when he washes his hands, he first soaps them and rubs them together for what seems like an eternity, filling the room with the soapy odor, leaving you to feel as though it will dissolve your very brain. It is not that he will randomly mute the tv for what seems like no reason at all (this is especially bad when you yourself are trying to watch whatever is on). It is not that you realize it is not so random after all, and that he mutes it—and sometimes even leaves the room—whenever there is a cringe-worthy moment going on, whenever someone is expressing actual emotions, or it must be noted, when there really is no reason at all (it must also be noted that he never mutes commercials). It is not that he basically has a fit and goes into some long rant whenever he sees in some form of media an Asian girl with a white guy (he is Chinese and from what I can tell not very attractive, so probably does sees Asian female/ white male relationships as seriously infringing on his chances with the Asian females. Which in itself is odd, considering that, based on other commentaries of his, he has no shortage of attraction for other races anyway.). Yes, the boy certainly craves attention (this is a hypothesis based on the realization that he is always creating noise in some fashion or another.) It is even so—and of course, it is not that—at night when he is sleeping, his legs twitch in a way that keeps your own mind at the surface, far from any refreshing reverie.
No, it is not that. It is not that at all. The real problem is that I have no solace here. I have no place where I can go when I’m feeling stressed—which let’s face it, is all the time—and at once unwind just by being there. And when the room is free, it is never for time enough. Never for enough time to, for example, pop a cd in the cd player, lie down, and let the music ooze over me. No. Not enough time for that. But I am thankful for the time, like now (he left in the middle of the first paragraph), that I have alone. I cherish it.
Retrospect (looking back from a day later): Gosh, what a whiner I am. Then again, my roommate does do all those things, and they really are that annoying. I’m just in a better mood after a good night’s sleep.
-Revan
Death to Ticking
The first (they are usually aired consecutively) consists of your everyman, standing on train tracks. He mentions how “some say irreversible consequences are thirty years away”. Some who? Presumably scientists, but if that was the case, you’d think ED’d be extra sure to throw that in there. Than again, perhaps our everyman is just trying to speak plainly. Also, the “scientists” “quoted” in the ad did not determine via research; they did not come to a conclusion; they are merely saying. If you’re going to imply that I am contributing to the destruction of the Earth as we know it, you better have cold hard facts to support your statement. The man goes on to say, “Thirty years? That won’t affect me.” Scrambling for ideas, ED suggests that people aren’t doing more to stop global warming, because they will be dead before the Earth is engulfed in flames and are uncaring bastards with regards to the rest of the population. Now, I will be the first to agree the general moral compass of the common man is no longer pointing north, but that also means people are looking out for number one above all else. If “irreversible consequences” means Earth’s climates have gone out of control, past the point of no return, than conditions are going to be less than comfortable well before the thirty years are up, too. What makes this spot even dumber, is that the guy is in his late thirties to mid-forties. He’s got more than another thirty years, unless hanging out on railroads is a major hobby of his. Everyman deftly steps aside, revealing the little girl behind him. She has what is quite possibly the most pained/pathetic expression on her face that has ever been expressed. To make sure you soak up the maximum amount of empathy rays, her face fills the screen in a close-up, and you are told to fight global warming—while there’s still time (of course).
The second spot consists of various kids saying the word “tick” over and over, as if we could not here the clock in the background (for the record: we can). Between the exclamations of “tick” are interjected the phrases “massive heat waves”, “severe drought”, “devastating hurricanes”, and “our future is up to you”. As we all know, last year’s hurricane season was disappointingly devoid of hurricanes, practically proving that 2005’s were not caused by global warming. No, those hurricanes were caused by Bush (this is also sarcasm). For the rest, I guess we’ll have to adopt a wait-and-see strategy to finally knock out the global warming activists. However, I fear if these things do not come to pass, the activists will merely pat themselves on the back for saving the world.
I said at the beginning that these ads would change your position on global warming, and this is true. If you previously doubted its existence, if you thought, “this is a politics-driven load of BS”, ED’s ads will change you. You will instead think, “Oh, how I wish global warming was real, so those kids would get it!” Between the cries of “tick!” to the poor-me faces it’s hard not to turn malevolent. But we must try, my friends. We must try….
-Revan
Go Bears!!! Woooooooooooooooooooo!
Today marks the, um, fortieth (?) Super Bowl, so it’s time once again to touch on the subject of sports fanaticism. Fun!
It’s easy to sum up the whole subject with a smarting statement like, “You do realize you’re investing your life in the ability of people you don’t even know to relocate a ball, right?” Statements like these, however, are more likely to garner a punch in the face as a response than they will honest consideration.
Sports fanaticism is like any other addiction, and yet remarkably it goes unnoticed in today’s society. The following are physical symptoms of drug addiction:
- Changes in eating habits, unexplained weight loss or gain.
- Loss of interest in things that were important before.
- Loss of interest in family and family activities.
- Violent temper or bizarre behavior.
- Unexplained silliness or giddiness.
- Obsessive thought about the addiction
- Uncontrolled cravings
Now, aside from “unexplained weight loss”, that sounds a lot like a sports fanatic to me. Here is a joke to close:
A man had 50-yard-line tickets for the Super Bowl. As he sits down, a man comes down and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to him. "No," he says, "the seat is empty."
"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world, and not use it?"
He says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first Super Bowl we haven't been to together since we got married in 1967."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else-a friend or relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?"
The man shakes his head. "No, they're all at the funeral!
The above joke comes from a page dealing with how sports fanaticism affects one’s relationship with God:
http://www.scionofzion.com/sports.htm" title="http://www.scionofzion.com/sports.htm" target="_blank"http://www.scionofzion.com/sp...
addiction signs from:
http://www.addictionca.com/drug-addiction-signs.htm" title="http://www.addictionca.com/drug-addiction-signs.htm" target="_blank"http://www.addictionca.com/dr...
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/a/addiction/symptoms.htm" title="http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/a/addiction/symptoms.htm" target="_blank"http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com...
-Revan
I'm Back....Again...
Here I am. It’s January again, and—no, wait…Okay, well it’s the beginning of a new year, and that means once again Casual Harangues is returning until I get bored with it sometime in mid-June. You’d think after an eight-month-or-so hiatus one would have an inkling of what to post, but, you would be wrong. Part of what could make this run of CH so difficult is having a roommate. Revan (me) likes his privacy, and other people looking at his computer screen is an extreme pet peeve of his. Anyway, the roomie is gone for the morn, whereabouts unknown. If he doesn’t show up for a few weeks, I’ll be sure to alert the proper authorities. ‘Til then—There will be peace…
Anyway, I’ve noticed that for the recent series of Star Wars novels (called the Legacy of the Force), there are more and more parallels between that galaxy and ours. Or at least, that is what they are trying to do. You can guess what that means, and you will be right…Yes, they really have spent three whole books just discussing going to war. Current belligerents: the Galactic Alliance and Correlia. They may or may not be trying to write a commentary on Iraq. If they are, they are failing for the most part; there are just too many differences.
Morality of the Jedi is also quite wonked out recently (just like here!), what with the whole “there is no dark side of the Force” motif and all. One thing that truly disturbed me was this quote from one of the first two books in which Mara Jade (a “good” guy) says something like, ”Beware of people who claim to have the answers.” Luke Skywalker then goes on to say that he is always unsure of what is right and wrong. To me, this was a major WTF moment (I don’t like cursing, but is there any other way to put it?). Here is Luke Skywalker and his wife, fourty years after A New Hope, saying they don’t know right from wrong and to beware of people who do??? Thankfully, in the latest entry to the series, they appear to have reversed their position, judging by their actions. Honestly, I cannot tell if they’re all for the whole moral relativism thing or if they are trying to show the folly of it…(By the way, I keep saying “they” because the over-arching storyline for the series was already planned beforehand by whoever is in charge of these things)
-Revan