The land of February sun.

There was a land in the northwest region of a small continent which graced the surface of an equally small chunk of rock floating through the vast void. This was a land of perpetual rainfall and clouds that would make even the most emotionally stable person occasionally want to pull a Greg Louganis off one of the many bridges built to ease transportation of people, logs and illicit substances over the rain-swollen rivers. The people of this land were prone to some unusual habits, especially concerning the sun.

You see, when, after the end of a particularly wet and cold winter, these people get a glimpse of the sun, things begin to go a little haywire. The first signs that something is amiss is the switching of foot ware from the perennial Gore-tex hiking boot filled with wool socks and sweaty feet to “Kicks” of Pac Sun fame. Sandals are also worn but this is never, ever a sign of anything in the winter but the rampant cannabis consumption in the area. As the temperature rises, these people and their foot ware undergo several transformations culminating in a notable and rather odd happening.

At this time, it seems that the young women of the land are forced to pack all of their feet and ankles (themselves usually capable of performing load-bearing duties in any industrial building) into impossibly small shoes designed to leave the smallest possible imprint on the ground. This is presumably because they are constantly under threat of being stalked by tigers and need to not leave a trail… or something.

As these bizarre foot ware habits continue, the same happens with their clothing. As soon as the temperature hits 55 degrees (which is, coincidentally, not considered warm by most of the civilized world), the habitants of this land declare winter over in a flurry of rising hemlines and Frisbee golf. As the young men gather on the basketball courts to bare their chests and declare their virility through self-inducing bronzing of muscles sculpted through obsessive trips to the gym, the women skimp on the clothing and declare their virility by dressing like trash. These women ignore the goose bumps caused by a wind that brings a chill factor of 45 degrees with the steadfastness of soldiers at Bastogne while flaunting skin left pasty and weird from the long winter spent cowering behind $75 wool socks (purchased from companies whose factories maintain the economies of several small nations in the Pacific).

Interactions of these groups are painfully funny to watch. The strutting males, bouncing their basketball off the ground with the ease of a pro, parade around the commons in their overly large and ill-fitting shorts baring legs tiny and atrophied through cold months of X-Box playing. This while the females lay sunning themselves, on grass which has yet to begin to grow, to no avail in a sun left weak and low in the sky by the fact that it is still winter.

As soon as the sun begins its daily trek toward the horizon, the temperature cools. Those left outside without sufficient covering begin to shiver as the cacophony of hundreds of thousands of frogs begins to rattle the eardrum of those ‘lucky’ enough to be near the wetlands that are everywhere. The rituals of those who see a fleeting and random confrontation with the sun as an excuse to cast off the bonds of winter (or at least set it aside until the next cold-front moves in) are sure to be repeated, and be no less funny.
* * * * * *

For Christ’s sake, it’s February, people!

When Darkness Reigns, Silliness Ensues.

Quick!!!  Someone bang some pots and pans together! A giant serpent is eating the moon and it’s bleeding all over the place!  We have to scare it away before it eats the whole thing! Dear God(s)!!

Okay, so maybe there is no serpent in the sky eating the moon.  Odds are that the earth is casting a gigantic shadow and the moon is sailing through it on its monthly trip around its host planet.  It could be that the red color comes from the fact that the Earths atmosphere filters out all of the blue (and much of the green) of sunlight and thus what is left is the red stuff that bounces off the moon and comes back to us, double filtered for out viewing pleasure.

In fact, that is what I would put my money on.  It’s either that, or some hair-brained idea the US Government dreamed up which involves shooting down a spy satellite that it claims went bad and is plunging to earth with a tank full of deadly evil-juice, hell bent on destruction of some poor suburban neighborhood.

Oh wait….

Anyway, if I were a 17th century Chinese Scholar and looked out the window a the beautiful spectacle unfolding slowly in the night sky, I wouldn’t be so sure.  In fact, there are bunches of myths and legends surrounding the periodic occultation of the pie-in-the-sky by the earths rather obese shadow.  Many of these usually involve some combination of something eating/fighting the moon and are remedied by large groups of devout people screaming at the sky and pounding on things.

Far be it from me to argue with people finding a reason to howl at the non-moon and bang pots and pans together (being loud is a past time of mine), but I find it interesting that some ancient people thought something ridiculous like a giant dragon is eating the sun.  Thats right, ridiculous, unlike the modern version wherein science tells us that there is this gigantic rock floating in the sky and occasionally the earth flies between it and the million degree nuclear fireball which is also floating in the sky and casts a shadow on the first rock, making it dissapear.

hrm.

I feel that I should point out that not all ancient peoples had zany pseudo-religious-yet-highly-imaginative reasons for the occasional disappearance of the moon.  Indeed, the Ancient Greeks were the first to postulate that the Earth is round based on the shape of the shadow projected onto the moon.

There; there is your exception.  Other than that, based on the exhaustive and thorough reserch done in the last 10 minutes, until people figured out what the moon really was myth and legend revolved around peoples seeming hatred/hunger/lust for the moon, projected through their religious and mythological beliefs.

Bang on, ye pot and pan bangers.  As I finish writing this, I see that the eclipse is over.  Good Job.  See you in 2010.

…Is for suckers

Once again it is upon us.  The annual right of passage wherein those who have a loved one spend too much money on things that that their significant other does not need in the hope that they get laid, and those beret of love spend too much money in bars.

Valentines Day.

What a contrived pile of garbage.

This was a holiday attributed to three different people, all saints in the Roman catholic church.  Two are buried at the gate to Rome and one of them has faded into obscurity.  One of these was a criminal who was, according to the history channel (who’s information I take with a grain of salt unless it deals with Hitler or Lincoln or some dead pharaoh), beheaded by the Roman emperor Claudius II for defying a decree that no one was to be married young.  No one really knows much about the other guys, despite the fact that they are important enough for Hallmark to ravage several forests worth of paper in an attempt to allow awkward moments between 5th graders who shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts anyway.

At the time of these men’s beautification however, the date of the 14th of February meant nothing.  The 15th, however meant everything.  That was the date of a fertility festival (Lupercalia) for the Romans that was simply about *ahem* procreation and was devoid of romantic undertones.  Thus the idea that Valentines day has anything to do with three dead Roman priests from 1,700 years ago is retarded.

Valentines day as we know it  is said to have been started by Chaucer.  Feb 14 has been chosen as the relatively  arbitrary date used to represent romantic intent and hearts and all that crap.  This is, some say, because this is the time that the birds begin to breed.  Thats right, you are out there buying cholcolate and pumping billions of dollars into the coffers of the companies that have convinced you that long dead-and-buried priests would want you to buy diamonds dug out of the ground by 14 year olds with AK-47’s and digital cameras made by 14 year olds pulling down 6 cents a week because birds realize that spring is almost here and can no longer stand the impulse to make it with that red-breasted gal three trees over with the tail feathers that go all the way up.

Indeed this holiday is a dream for the manufacturers of all kinds of things.  From the phones that for some reason have become a valid Valentines day gift to thing that get a person messed up.  Liquor stores do a brisk buisness and every bar that I know about is planning on being packed full of men and women destitute of love and looking to forget their woes.  You can spot these people because they will be the ones sneering at the couples making out in the corner, over past the shuffle-board table, right where sally puked a few minutes ago.  The ones who look angry and confused and more than a little sad despite their overly loud and compensatory laughter.

Valentines day is a feast for the geek out there.  Many an important thing happend on Valentines day throughout history.  Not only was today the day in 1945 that the US  8th air force firebombed the city of Dresden, completely destroying the city and laying waste to the surrounding countryside, but it was the day that Al Capone and his band of merry tax-evaders took it upon themselves to gun down the members of a rival mob in a warehouse in Chicago.

So there.

All told I call bullocks  to this waste of a perfectly good day.  If you need me I’ll be at the bar sneering at people and hanging out with my friend Mr. Daniels.

Drum and Bass is not a valid License.

If you are a girl that listens/dances to drum and bass, listen up.

You do not have a free hand to step on people and spill your drink everywhere and make a complete ass of yourself while trying desperately to get the attention of every guy around you by acting “hardcore.”  Name dropping does not give you that license.  Acting hardcore does not mean  dancing like you are having a grand-mal (sp?) seizure.  You are not the baddest chick in the joint (that would be the girl with the dragon plugs in her ears and the immaculately clean dreads who is not only  wearing matching skirt and halter while 6-stepping without spilling a drop of her beer or touching another living being, but catching the attention of every guy in the joint without even trying).

Get rid of the camouflage  jacket that is entirely too small for you and leave those of us who are here to enjoy and dance to the music the hell alone.  I am sure they appreciate sloppy drunks with no fashion sense and an abundance of misplaced attitude back wherever it is that you came from, but on my dance floor you need to sublimate into a gas that can be easily handled by the smoke-eater in the lounge.

Thanks.

ignorant (adjective): destitute of knowledge or education.

People on this planet who do not believe in the validity or usefulness of an education really piss me off. This little tirade starts with me walking around Portland this weekend engaging in a little consumer therapy with my headphones on. Mind you, the iPod was not turned on, but simply wearing my headphones. You would be amazed the things people will say when they don’t think anyone is listening. This is something I do on airplanes as well.Anyway, I was walking behind these two people for 4 or five blocks listening to their conversation. It contained such gems as “college is for suckers,” “I have a roof over my head and don’t have to do shit for it. Just tell the govt. I’m broke and they pay for it all” and “those communists in Iraq are really getting what they deserve.”

Communists.

In Iraq.

Yup, college is sure for suckers. If it weren’t for college I wouldn’t know that the communists in Iraq (the ones fighting the dinosaurs) are actually just black people who couldn’t get welfare and were sent there by America to satisfy the Jews.

Jesus H. Christ.

Ignorant people, those who do not care to know what is going on in the world around them are why America is the way that it is. Walk around any big city and you see very little other than a mass of people who, in their infinite selfishness and total lack of ambition, are dragging the cultural and intellectual IQ of our country down to a level unseen since the Indian eradication campaigns of the late 19th century. Probably net even then, actually. The people who care, who are in the know, who can read and who want to make their world a better place stay out of site. They are busy doing things that don’t include bitching about (insert ethnic/gender/orientation/education level group here), using the phrase “the Iraq,” or being electrocuted to death stealing copper from high voltage power lines.

Because that actually happens.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not rallying against people who did not go to college. That’s fine. Most of the people I know didn’t go to college and are completely intelligent, awesome people. I’m rallying against those who do not care to further their education any way or exercise their lack of said education by ceaselessly and worthlessly deriding other groups (usually racial or sexual). If I have to hear one more person, in all seriousness, put down another another ethnic group I’m going to stab myself in the neck.

Read a newspaper every now and then. Pull away from the cesspit that is network television and watch something educational. Better yet, don’t watch TV and maybe, I don’t know, read a friggin book.

This is not meant to be a diatribe about the sorry state of the United Stated Department of Education. I actually believe that they are doing the best they can under the stranglehold of Congressional pork. It is a diatribe against those who don’t care to take advantage of opportunities to further themselves.

Ignorant people, those devoid of education (in any form) and DON’T CARE about that are the bane of my existance a nd will end up being the downfall of our culture.

Goings on.

What the hell is the issue with this week?  I have come across some of the more bizarre aspects of human nature this week, and I am still trying to make sure that I have it all right in my head so that I can properly make fun of it.  So far it has been capped off  by, with one of my teachers.

Now, I am not a teacher.  I have not taken the classes, learned the theory… Nor have I received that golden license that seems to be so useful in the state of Washington; you know, the one that says that I am legally allowed to pass on the infinite depths *cough* of my knowledge of Lewis and Clark to the young and eager minds.  Those minds, unfortunately, belong to a swarm of post-pubescent kids who could care less if Lewis and Clark came west looking for a passage to the Pacific or for the closest White Castle.

“Then Sakajaweeeeeeeeea lead them south to the land of the uni-clams, where they fought alongside George Washington in the battle of Midway.  This was a few days before they found the Pacific Ocean and claimed it for Spain.” God.

Truth be told, I don’t want to be a teacher, because I know that I would come across a student like me someday and want to stab them in the neck.

In all seriousness, though, I feel that a teacher has an obligation to know what the hell they are talking about.  As a case in point, I’m currently taking a geology class that:

A) I wish I hadn’t taken because I already know all of the information that the prof is presenting, turning each class period into a herculean effort to simply stay focused enough to maintain conciousness and

B) I know more about it than the teacher does.

I know that seems like a bunch of self-congratulatory bullshit, but it’s the truth; thats what makes it so weird. The teacher was giving a lecture today and got stuck on one of her points. She admitted to the class that she “didn’t really know much about [her subject]” and then continued to talk about it for 10 more minutes. With a bunch of humming and hawing, she proceeded to shovel a room full of desperately non science-minded people a complete load of factually incorrect information (which they will be tested on, no doubt), which they will then filter own through the social strata to their kids and coworkers, thus creating the type of argumentative and mis-informed little cretins that make teaching such an unattractive option for me.

Don’t get me wrong, every now and then there is a nugget of new information in this class, and that makes it almost worth going to, but for the most part I wouldn’t notice anymore if the teacher pointed to a picture of a tornado and called it god’s snorkel, “to be used so he can breathe while fighting in the subterranean city of the mole-people of Babylon prime.”

Invention Nation: Generators For All!

Okay. This shouldn’t take long.

There is this show on the Science channel called invention nation.  It is a show about people who have no engineering background whatsoever who travel around the country finding ways to make electricity, or energy in general.  It is a neat show most of the time, finding things like a liquid Iron furnace that vaporizes industrial waste to create a hydrogen-CO SynGas that burns clean and helps create a zero emission electricity…  Pretty neat, right?

Right.

On the other side of the coin there are people like the two hippy-dippy chicks that are trying to create energy by putting a Neodymium magnet generator on top of a revolving lobby door.  I have a few suggestions:

A) To the science channel: please, please get people who have any kind of stage presence to be on TV. The last thing that people who are working hard to bring respect to renewable and clean energy need are two poorly dressed and overly ditzy engineers giggling and/or ho-humming their way through an interview.  I know that you live in New York, and I understand that your hot-pink, 3/4 scale generator is neato, but lay off the weed long enough to present yourselves well on TV. (I would like to extend this invitation to all of you who have been on this show, especially pedal-power battery-charger guy.)

B) I think that it is cool that there are so many people with alternative energy ideas and that many of them are willing to put the money and energy (haha!) into actually inventing/engineering them, instead of just sitting around and bitching about the trouble oil creates (like me).  Why is it, though, that instead of finding a clean, renewable energy source that can be broadly distributed and used, we have to stick a generator on every moving object in the world?  Seriously, folks, we are going to cover our cars, doors, walkways, dance floors, elevators, streams, plains and crosswalks* and still have to rely on burning last years Christmas presents from grandma to stay warm in the winter.  What did that accomplish, except covering our planet with magnets that are probably giving us all cancer?

C) Devoting the entirety of 1/3 of a half-hour show to an entire energy source is not even close to enough time to lay out what needs to be told about it.  I appreciate the idea of trying to be “hip” by using a few stoned, long-haired engineering grad students in their bio-diesel minibus, but this being the science channel you should realize that your target “hip” audience probably have pocket protectors instead of girlfriends and don’t smoke weed.  Give us the benefit of the doubt and actually explain how these processes work.  Thanks.

I guess I can say that it is fun to see the different approaches that people are using to attack the rapidly declining energy reserves of our planet (seeing how our government isn’t doing a damn thing about it), and in that vein this show is fun; but once again I am struck by the seeming lack of regard for the intelligence of the people who watch the geek channels.  I get that lot of the people who watch them do so because they like to see things blow up or see people catch crabs, but dumbing down your information and its presentation because of them dilutes the integrity of your programming.

Now I will stand down for my soapbox, but seriously; hippies in a microbus? Come on.

*These are all places that people are currently trying to put generators. Srsly.

Rhinovirused!

Thats right, the Rhinovirus has become a verb.  This has happened because of its apparent ability to thoroughly kick my ass.

This pesky little sucker has infultrated my bodily system and declared war on my sanity.  In what I can only assume was a precision-guided attack by multiple, well coordinated foes, my defense systems have been innundated with viral enemies.  The Maginot Line of my seemingly worthless antibodies have failed in their job of keeping out the invading forces of evil.  Indeed, these devious forces of homeostatic upheaval looped through the Poland of my alcohol consumption and rapidly took the Paris of my Lymph nodes.

All completely over-wrought  World War Two similes aside, this sucks.  I have been fighting off a cold for the last week or so, and somehow, some way, the little bugger finally took over.  My mental block prevents me from taking any medicine, because that stuff can’t be good for you.  Basically, I’m sitting here being bored, not working on school work because my brain is full of what I can only imagine is the same stuff being flung from my lungs on a semi-regular basis.

Yeah, lame.

In all seriousness, though, the ability of the human body to manufacture snot astounds me on a fairly regular basis, but when a person gets sick; holy crap.  Whatever mechanism it is that make it possible for a freshly-blown nose to instantaneously refill itself  with goo surely has to be one of the marvels of evolutionary biology.