Okay, overstating it a bit, but this was the craziest windstorm I've ever seen. On my way home and getting on the freeway, there was a well west of me blocking most of the wind and rain. Once I pulled past that and got on the freeway itself, my car got SHOVED to the East and I couldn't see... Read More
So even though I warned you, I'm not here to specifically discuss what happens at the end.
Instead, I wanted to talk about something this movie made me think of: the art of the twist. Knowing this flick has a twist is just about enough to spoil it for you. It... Read More
It's nice when a Suicide Girl becomes really popular and you can tell she becomes very confident in herself, and starts feeling more expressive, and you can, as much as you can over the Internet, get to know the girl behind the pictures.
But I will say that I like it best when a girl isn't quite so popular that she's generally tired of reading... Read More
You are right, I should be patient... But only for so long. In the end it is not the things you do that you regret, but the things you don't do. I would regret waiting too long for my family, even though my Prince Charming does.
I also bet that's the first time you have gotten to comfort a girl with that phrase.
I do subscribe to your outside blog, through. This might be random, but I'm sorry about your friend who died way back when. Sounds like a pretty awesome guy.
I don't know if I'm going to make this a habit. This is a post I'm just copying over from my blog. I originally wrote it in July '09. Normally, that's plenty of time for me to decide it's crap and wish I never wrote it, but looking through it again I was actually reasonably pleased with my analysis. And when I do post stuff... Read More
I don't think any of them would ever stoop to the level of allowing anyone to call them by their SG blog names in the real world, had they known about it. Perhaps with the exception of Ace, since... Well, that's what he is.
But you are right, they are very Top Gun and Top Gun stopped being cool even before Tom Cruise turned scientologist. Better suggestions will be recieved with delight,
I know... I might change Bugsy though. Never really liked that name.
Roseanne does ring familiar. I think it had something to do with a very big woman with almost equally big dark curly hair... This was, however, before we got cable and I was probably too young to appreciate it anyway, just as I was too innocent to understand the briliance of '"Allo 'allo" until only last year.
Even though I was feeling decent about myself by the time Nikki and I broke up, I still found myself in a somewhat precarious position as far as the future was concerned. At that time, I had a shit job. Like the kind that doesn't require you to graduate high school to get. My degree turned out to be only slightly better than useless.... Read More
Only you wouldn't like adorable, upbeat, synthy cute freezepop, you bitter old man xp.
This was a good read. Im sorry about your childhood friend.
Aw Nikki's my real name too (dont tell xp)
I dont think organized religion is particularly nefarious unless its used to serves a personal agendas. It fulfills, quite effectively a societal need, for order, and control that government or any worldly threats cant. Being a bit of a socialist, and not trusting much of the ignorant masses knowing whats best for themselves, unless they are lead by a code, I understand the need and benefit for it. It serves our culture in many important ways. None of which instilling a "ultimate truth" as much as hope, drive, ethics and responsibilities (by way of the greatest motivator, peer pressure and fear)
For me the most important thing I've ever gotten from Christianity was hope. While its important to be skeptical its hard to function to your full potential with out hope of some kind. Its just as improbable to believe you will find a "soul mate" as you will "go to heaven" but no one argues the first as much. We all need to lie to ourselves just a little if it helps you make it thought the day, as bleak as that sounds. People need to believe they will reach there dreams, they will be rewarded for hard work and ethical behavior, because for the most part, these are beliefs that are in there best interest regardless of the validity of what pushes them. Strong people learn to drive themselves based on pride, and work ethic, some of us need something a little more lofty to kick us in the right direction be it imaginary or not, its in societies best interest.
At the same time ignorant religion often cripples and scares people with innate "fringe" beliefs, ideas, and preferences. I remember when I was 16 and was being pursued by a girl (ironically also named Nikki) I had feelings for, I didnt give in for the longest time because I was raised christian and thought it was a sin. The entire time I was with her I felt guilt, sullying the memories of what should have been a sweet first love, not something to be made to feel dirty and forced to hide because of an oppressive self created god.
College is a really good time for intelligent discourse about religion and critical thinking free of stigma, and judgment. Sophomore year I took one of my favorite classes to date, "science of survival", it was about thinking critically with a intelligent skeptical mind. We touched on everything, from religion, to pseudo science, to new age, to homeopathy. At the end of the course I asked the professor, a self proclaimed skeptic, what he thought about god.
He said something that pretty much turned me from a then atheist (who wished she could still be a christian for hope alone despite the skeptic in her saying it was nonsensical) into an agnostic. He said that while he has a skeptical mind, he believes that the probability of humans to exist, to have evolved so, with so many potential obstacles, so many complex systems, even despite our own self destructiveness, that its only logical to believe that we are a "miracle" (a freak happenstance defying probability and explanation).
While god may not be kind, care about you as an individual, or be omnipotent, or even have a grand design, I believe there is a creator of human life, be it merely the spark that set forward motion to human life.
Although being a fan of foreskin, girl on girl action, and sodomy, I was never really a good christian.
Another teacher of mine in my aesthetics class brought up the collective unconscious, another thing that makes me believe in some kind of etherial one-ness despite the skeptic in me. How can so many people, across so many cultural, ethnic, religious groups all have so much of the same iconography, needs, origin stories, architypes, and how can we not be interconnected on a higher level then we allow ourselves to be.
This teacher, Professor Smith, has some out there self-serving beliefs you might find funny. He thinks that true artists, and the great aliens of society, are really more higher evolved creators, endowed with the ability to tap into the collective unconscious, to the very soul of what makes us human, and use it as a tool for communication. Then again he perverted Kant's theory of genius (which was that only truly independent thoughts free from evolution from other thoughts could be deemed as genius) by claiming that while newton wasnt a genius (since his ideas were lent from earlier ideas) that my profesor was a genuis because he worked on some of the first CG generated 3d printed sculptures (which is a evolution of ideas, not genius). Egos
I feel like I somehow got really off topic. Dammit.
I like reading your works. It is very much like what I have always thought about the world, although I have chosen to face the results of this it a little differently and although I could never express my thoughts as eloquent as you. You have a way of making very much sense in a world full of more or less reasonable theological and philosoohical arguments
I like the thought that there are, after all, quite a lot of intelligent people out there.
I was in high school and quickly learned the art of taking myself very seriously. This is also where I made friends with Mike, who was the first up-front atheist I'd met. Until that, I don't think I'd ever considered that some people might not believe in God.
It didn't bother me that he didn't, but the first arguments he threw at me were... Read More
It is definitely a good city to visit. It is a good city to live in too, I suppose, just not for me, not now. If you ever do drop by though, send me a note and I will show you my favourite caf and the sci-fi bookshop.
I was mostly done with the third grade by the time we moved to Arizona, and I was to switch schools at the start of the fourth grade, so I didn't really make any friendships until then.
Franklin AuYeung was my first really close friend. I don't remember exactly how we got to know each other in the first place,... Read More
I thought I'd share my "deconversion" story for the hell of it. I'm always interested to hear where people come from on this, so that is absolute evidence that my story must be fascinating.
I put deconversion in quotes because, though I was raised Christian on paper, it was about a half-step away from a secular upbringing. God was mentioned, so were angels, I think... Read More
Oh, fun story thus far, cant wait for the gripping conclusion of the "deconversion", me myself used to be a practicing christian, who became agnostic, and is now teetering back again as I get older, mostly out of hope more then logic.
I like reading your writing though, you have a really good sense of humor (I laughed at the bit about accepting jesus into your heart then answering for him).
Recently noted that the only things I've really been reading were RPG books. Don't get me wrong, they're interesting and entertaining as hell and really give you an inside look at how to build a fictional world, but they're not necessarily the most intellectually stimulating. So, in an effort to not get Old And Tired And Too Grumpy To Care About Things Anymore,... Read More
And those guys - Andrew and Chan - they were the guys in the bar!