Meanderthal Man: 10/01/2005

One dark and gloomy evening

Two brothers camping in Northern California begin to hear a sound coming from the woods. It's like a massive expulsion of breath: huge, rough, and gutteral. What quickly becomes disconcerting is that the grunting is now coming from at least three different positions around them. Darrel and his brother Tim quickly center themselves in the middle of their camp, holding their rifles, and waiting. To their left, the brush explodes and a deer is standing in front of them, no more than fifteen feet away. The grunting continues throughout the night, seemingly communicating back and forth. The Trimm brothers and the stag never move from their positions until dawn the next morning.

Cheesman Park in Denver, Colorado is said to be one of the most haunted places in the United States. It used to be a cemetery and the brilliant politicians decided to turn it into a park. They paid a guy $1.90 a body to relocate the remains, but they mostly had children's caskets, so they guy would just cut people up to fit in the caskets. They finally stopped it after much debate and 2,000 graves are still underneath scenic Cheesman Park and everyone agrees that the remaining spirits aren’t happy.

The producer's great idea was to put two college girls in a tent on top of an unmarked grave in Cheesman Park. They lasted about an hour after the sun went down. The best part was that two paranormal goofs were watching them from a distance and they kept telling them that nothing was happening outside their tent. Then, the lamp went out, the compass they were using to test paranormal activity kept spinning out of control, and something kept "touching" them from outside the tent. They broke down in record time and refused to stay the night.

I love this time of year. Halloween may be my favorite holiday, because it's the holiday for the over-active imagination. And TV loves to share in that with great programming you won't see the rest of the year. They break out the ghost stories, UFOs, Loch Ness, and my all-time favorite, Bigfoot. I do have a personal philosophy that protects me from myself though: "If you go out looking for trouble, then eventually, you’ll find it." That’s why I’m completely satisfied watching the young, dumb, and Caucasian go out and find trouble for me. Happy Halloween!

Maybe they're like Sea Monkeys!
Trent Lott doesn't think of minorities as men or women (see previous entry). Maybe he sees them as their own special little species capable of creating their own little societies and playing on the beach, but thinks of it as necessary to keep them in a "special holding container", for their own good.

I love Sea Monkeys. I just watched a new South Park episode involving Sea Monkeys and it rekindled my love for them as a child. I was one of the morons that ordered them from the back of the comic book. I totally screwed it up.

Okay, I think I just wanted to work Sea Monkeys into a topic, Trent Lott be damned.

So what are they then?
Trent Lott, (R- Miss.) had this to say about the new potential Supreme Court appointee after Harriet Myers stepped down: "I want the president to look across the country and find the best man, woman, or minority..."

What fantasy character am I?
Elrond (I wasn't guessing this guy)
A stern yet benevolent organizer who often knows best, your wits are keenly fixed on aiding efforts you deem worthy. "Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril to Mordor." Elrond is a character in the Middle-Earth universe. TheOneRing.net has a short biography.

I always want to be the beloved scoundrel, like Han Solo. Or the the wounded loner, like Aragorn. No, I get the elf. I took a different test to find out what D&D character I was: I was a friggin' Neutral Good Bard Elf Ranger. Great, I love music and I'm a defender of nature...how Rogue-ish.

Christian tested as Obi-Wan Kenobi. I was robbed.

My entire family's made of meat?
Mmm...meat. A friend sent me a wonderful link to Dinosaur Comics. I had seen this site some time ago, but I love being reminded to have fun. Even if it's so obscure that I sometimes don't get it. I love a great T-shirt and this one was probably my favorite. I won't buy any of them because the graphics are just montrously large and offend my sense of design, but they also have stickers. I like stickers. I could live with a sticker.

This is just a test...
An elephant walks up to a camel. "Why are your boobs on your back?"
And the camel says, "That's an odd question, coming from a guy with a giant penis on his face."

Dear Ryan, part II,
Saw this and thought of you. I like it it when he starts slapping his head.

This is where I play...again
I was playing with Google Earth and I looked up my disc golf course, one thing led to another, and I "had" to make this thing.

Dear Ryan,
I went and played disc golf at Sanders Ferry Park today and shot all 18 holes, with no ankle support. I’m feeling it now, but I wanted to force myself to finish. I took it slow, but I around hole 10, I could have quit and felt okay with my progress. I shot a +9, got two birdies (one shot was a 40’ putt), and had to take two penalty shots. I played both water shots, on holes 14 and 15, and lost a disc on hole 14. I was throwing a 175g XL and got off an unexpectedly good pull and over-shot the water, the trees, and then the parking lot. I was waving at it like crazy for it to fall back into play (it didn’t listen), but I must have put too much Anhyzer on it for it to fight back against the wind. It landed at the rear of some dubious-looking, chest-high weeds, and I just wasn’t up for another Midnight Tick Check, so I donated it to the disc gods. I liked the throw: there was a nice right to left wind, so it probably carried 375’ with a one-step throw. Unfortunately, it was carrying in the wrong direction the entire time. I also pulled off a 400’er with a one-step on hole 8: the boring straight-ahead, open shot with a low hill in the middle that prevents you from seeing the basket.

Interesting finds today: the 150g jelly Storm that I picked up in Bowling Green turns left if I throw it level with any speed, so I have a great turning disc now! It says it’s “stable”, but I had to put tons of Hyzer on it just for it to fly straight. It’s also a first-run, a 150, and I did hit that tree with it, but that was only one time. It shouldn’t be that fragile! I also found a 173g black Buzz sitting on hole 18. Someone must have forgotten it was there and walked away. It’s a collector’s disc from this years' Scottsdale Memorial. It's a crazy little full-color graphic with ducks and a three-eyed fishy! Unfortunately, Mr. Genius wrote his illegible name and number in black ink, on a black disc.

USA! USA! USA!

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. -Albert Einstein

Hello?

It happened again today. I picked up my ringing phone and wandered into the middle of someone's completely clueless life. I hate when this happens and it's been happening a lot lately. This is the transcript from one of these travesties of communication:

[Ring, Ring]
Me: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hello?"
Me: "Hel-loooo?"
Caller: "Hello?"

When did we, as a culture, forget how to conduct a phone call? Are we this socially retarded from lack of basic human contact in our electronic lives that we can only parrot the simple phrases that we hear within a five-second period?

[Ring, Ring]
Me: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hello?"
Me: "Rutabaga?"
Caller: "Rutabaga?"
[Click]

That's me hanging up.

Your responsibility as the caller is to identify yourself to the business or residence you have called, and state your purpose for calling or ask for the person with whom you wish to communicate.

Your responsibility as the caller is not to be a complete moron and repeat the word someone has just said to you. That's not communication, that's mimicry. Babies, simians using sign language, and the mentally impaired are capable of that basic function. The bar for socially functioning adults is little higher. Let's all take a deep breath and try it again...

1984

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again

And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

From Top To Bottom: Real, Real, Fake

Our Leader.

"'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" -1984, George Orwell

"Fascism should more properly be called Corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -Benito Mussolini, father of Fascism

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (Predappio near Forlì, July 29, 1883 – Giulino di Mezzegra near Como, April 28, 1945) led Italy from 1922 to 1943. He created a fascist state through the use of state terror and propaganda. Using his charisma, total control of the media and intimidation of political rivals, he disassembled the existing democratic government system. -Wikipedia

Fascism- A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism. American Heritage Dictionary, 1983 Edition

My eyes are red and burning from reading about totalitarian governemnts and fascism. I found some Bill O'Reilly quotes amongst all the fracas. Bill thinks everything liberal is fascist. I don't think Bill knows what the word actually means.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

There's something that's happening in our country that disturbs me. Our country is changing into a large, hideous beast: brutish and thoughtless, fearful and violent. We want our safety and our SUV's, and we're willing to kill suspicious-looking people and relinquish our civil liberties to accomplish these goals and continue our consumptive patterns. We are starved for direction and leadership and follow anyone flashed in front of us by a dominant network. We are a fascist state now, asleep at the wheel, and we don't know any better, are unaware, and don't care.

Great, now I sound like Tyler Durden from Fight Club. I think Chuck Palahniuk gets fascism. Bill, not so much.

I called FOX News Network fascists yesterday and got called on it. In a way, they're not: they're more of a propaganda machine for a totalitarian regime. Okay, I'm kidding, they are fascists. I found a link that leads to other fun links regarding my theory that FOX is a bunch of fascist bastards. It seems that I wasn't the first one to imagine this as a feasible theory.

WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Things that now fascinate me
Baseball: hated it as a kid, played one season of church softball last year, now I can't get enough of it.
Politics: fell in love with The Daily Show and Jon Stewart. The news has never been funnier.
History: Love The History Channel and discovering how and why things fit together as they do.
Math: I don't so much love it as much as I see a need for it and accept it now.
CNN: ditto. And anything's better than FOX (bunch of friggin' facists!)

All ths stuff is still new and shiney to me. I've just never paid attention to it. So if you know any good shortcuts to learning this stuff, send a link!

Just moved, still unpacking the dishes

I don't know if I like this blog color. I'm still making my decision. I wish I wasn't so lazy that I didn't want to learn CSS and some random HTML. There are larger issues in my life...wait, no there isn't. I think I'm going to switch all my posts over to this blog engine, but I'm torn. Okay, I'm not torn, I'm apathetic at the thought of that proposition and stymied with procrastination.

Yeah, definitely Libertarian. Who knew?

This is what I found:Libertarians support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

If you didn't like the other test, take the World's Smallest Political Test as a second opinion. I took the test and I agree 100% with Libertarian social views and 60% of their economic views.

My point is: there's alternatives to our freakishly corrupt two-party system. Examine what you believe kids before someone tells you what you believe! Check out the Libertarians and the Greens. You might be surprised what you find.

Huh, didn't see that one coming

My wife and I are apparently Libertarians. I took the test the first time and I was a Democrat, but my wife wisely said that I shouldn't think about my answer so much, because your first answer is usually the right one. So, I took it again and I was a Libertarian.

I'm tired of the Republican/Democrat debate anyways, so I think I'm going to investigate this Libertarian Party-thing and see what they offer.

-Ernie, wife: Libertarian (Registered GOP)
-Me: Libertarian (Registered Democrat, have voted Republican in the past)
-Alon, buddy from San Diego, borrowed the link from him: Democrat
-Wendy, family friend from San Diego: Democrat (Registered, GOP)
-Wendy, taking the World's Smallest Political Test: 90% LIBERTARIAN
-JJ, Friend & Spiller Of All Stainworthy Foods: Democrat
-Steve, buddy from Texas: Centrist

Scroll down and click on the link. Go take this test. Yes, it's probably incorrect, but what isn't? I'll post your findings and the WORLD will know you're a fascist. Go ahead, it'll be fun! Right up until we're contacted by the government and herded into camps.
P.S.-Yeah, that's Clint. He's a Libertarian. I just thought the picture was adorable!

Screw my politics, did I survive the zombie hordes?!?

I had to also take the Zombie Test, from OKCupid.com, to see if I would live through a good zombie attack. I scored much lower than I thought I would. I decided to barricade myself in the Gun Store I found and I think they would have preferred that I gather weapons and keep moving. I live in a rural area. There wouldn't be that many zombies. In my opinion, you don't go out looking trouble, because you just may find it. I think I also lost points because I stopped to help a group of people. You generally don't gather large numbers of people to your faction in generalized zombie scenarios. Large groups of civilians have their own opinions, make lots of noise, and attracts zombies.

They said I scored a 72% Test Rate, I lived because I made it to the Evacuation Helicopters. Whatever, that never works out from anything I've seen, because they usually evac you to a place that's worse than the place you've already been, but because they have "military" there, you're supposed to be safe. Yeah, I need an 18 year-old with no discipline and an automatic weapon to save me like I need a zombie as a sidekick.

No, Drew Carey isn't a zombie, but he is a Libertarian. Conservatives would probably consider that the same thing.