I am aware of a problem with viewing this site through the narrow and unrefined lens of IE6. I have a fix for it in mind and will implement it as soon as we are done moving and settled in.
For now, why not get the juicy taste of the Twenty First Century in your mouth with a shiny new web browser? They’re Box Modelicious!
When i am dead, i wish to be burned to a crisp, and have my dirty ashes scattered by close friends wherever they please.
It is my wish that whatever organs are desperately, vitally needed by someone else in their direst hour be given to them, free of charge, with the condition that such license to use and/or modify shall be taken up by them also, and that no derivative works shall result in profit. After all, i am an open source, Creative Commons person.
My stuff shall be dispersed however my few close friends see fit. However, Tony D. is not to have anything until he sobers the hell up. There’s no point in giving anything to a man who’s only going to exchange it for crappy booze or some other escapist bullshit. On the other hand, his wonderful daughter Abby is welcome to anything she chooses.
I want my unfinished work to be wrapped up somehow. I don’t care how, so long as i become extremely famous and fabulously wealthy after death. Just don’t screw it up like you do everything else. This is Important Shit.
A grave marker will be permitted if anyone wants to bury my ashes, as long as the epitaph is funny as hell. My suggestions:
If you have something better, go for it.
No serious religion shall stake a claim on any part of my death, including but not limited to any services performed to mark my exit. No rites or stupid ceremonies are to be performed, with the lone exception being that my homies will be permitted to spill some on the curb for me. No spiritual messages are to be given, and no priest of any faith shall officiate. It is to be wholly remembered that i was a devout agnostic, who leaned heavily toward atheism. Anyone caught claiming that i somehow had a soul that lived on after death shall be haunted by my fictitious ghost forever, or until they come to the conclusion that i am not haunting them at all, whichever comes first. I lived through enough horse shit; i don’t need to deal with more of it once i am dead and gone forever. My passing should be viewed as permanent. There is to be no prayer of any kind, except in jest. Silent meditation is permitted, but please: no god shit, and no afterlife crap.
Two religions which are permitted practices and/or short rites are the Church of the SubGenius and the P.O.E.E. (disciples of Eris, goddess of confusion - i think), and they should mock the whole goddamn thing, if they even bother to show up. I also do not mind Buddhism all that much.
No flowers, please. Take your money and donate it to a non-religious charity that does work with AIDS patients or research, breast cancer (again, patients or research), homelessness, runaways, asthma, the environment, civil and/or human rights, putting an end to consumerism, humanitarian efforts, nuclear disarmament, or anything related to promoting atheism or agnosticism or the like.
On the other hand, any services performed to mark my escape from this terrible veil of lies should have a darkly humorous bent, and anyone eulogizing me must include at least one tasteless joke at my expense, or (more preferably) the expense of others. Weirdness should be encouraged at any cost. Attempts should be made at gallows humor. Thou shalt have joy, and laughter, damn it. Death is nothing serious. Be wholly glad i am gone!
I’m working on a project for a friend right now involving Wordpress, which has got me excited enough to go ahead and overhaul this site once again.
So i will FINALLY be upgrading my WP installation and fixing my ACTUAL theme once and for all! I hope to have this completed by the end of the summer.
I promise to make it a whole lot cleaner, too, in layout if not in language.
That is all.
OMFG why didn’t anyone tell me about this!? Westboro Baptist Church apparently has its very own movies site! It’s hilarious and sad at the exact same time. The music videos are priceless! Why on earth do people like Rev. Dr. King and the Kennedys get shot while Fred Phelps is still walking???
To my mind, there is nothing better than the idea that THIS is all there is, that there is no afterlife and no ultra-benevolent (yet strangely, fiercely jealous) Super-Grampa waiting to scoop us up in His arms when we die; that WE are responsible for what we do with our lives and how we shape our future as a species and individually. The idea that this is our one chance to get things right just makes life that much more important and special and precious. To me, life is sacred and holy enough without superstition or outdated ideas regarding how things work.
I also don’t see any problems with the idea that we are a wonderful accident of nature (which includes, but is not limited to, life). There is tremendous beauty in chaos.
And here’s a philosophical question hardly anyone ever bothers to ask:
We think of time as a line on a graph representing the space-time continuum. We know that we can move in any direction in space. There is, theoretically, nothing really stopping us from moving in any direction in time, either, if time is a fourth dimension (as has been repeatedly suggested by theoretical physicists and philosophers alike). So… we if move “backward,” aren’t we then uncreated? Does the flow of time alter god? Does god become cruel and sadistic depending on which direction s/he/it is facing? And does that, by definition, blast into smithereens a whole lot of god’s “omnipotence”?
p.s., i used to be a hands-waving-in-the-air-for-some-reason zealous Christian as a teenager. I even destroyed my Duran Duran records over it, strangely assuming that Jesus was so egotistical that he only ever wanted to have songs all about himself. Thank [ ] i’m reformed now.
“These worst male-bashing ads will get you riled up…“
Not me, man. Men really ARE idiots. And some of these ads are funny as hell.
Ok, i pretty much only associate myself with people who meet my admittedly high standards. So, present company definitely excluded, dudes. But other than my close friends (ok, even some of my close friends) and my online guy pals, most of the males i have known have been boorish dicks, mindless oafs, and knuckle-dragging morons. I’m talking about the “beer+fuhbaw+chicka-wings” crowd of Maxim-reading gargantuan-pickup-driving dolts. You know them. I know them. They’re imbeciles, and they’re inevitably the ones who spring to mind when Europeans think of Americans. I’ll say it right now, out loud, in a very public place: i hate those retarded jackasses. They can all go straight to shit.
Exploring The Creation Museum - America’s New Mecca of Fanatical Ignorance
Excellent article on religious super-fundamentalism!
Former U.S. soldier droppin’ some Truth about this bullshit war in Iraq. Do your self and your conscience and your country and your fellow human beings a favor by watching this and then doing something about it.
I totally just felt an earthquake! In Dayton, Ohio! I have not experienced that since way back in the 80s!
The house vaguely shook, and i heard a slight rumble, followed by the house creaking and popping, woodly. My first thought was that we were being invaded by something [non-supernatural].
Wacky!
Ben Stein, who we no doubt all know and love from his appearances on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Win Ben Stein’s Money, has made a little movie. It’s called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (my thoughts exactly), and it’s a cute little rickroll of an adventure flick with Pro-Nazi Chuck Darwin leading the hoary brigades on a fell mission of genocide and eugenics. Only problem is, it’s a big fat fart-sucking lie. Unfortunately for Mister Stein, he got all of his facts wrong. Well, nearly all, as the credits (both opening and closing) do appear to be accurate.
Here, then, is Scientific American’s John Rennie and Steve Mirsky, reporting on the pitiful, outright lies perpetrated in this ridiculous movie.
Oh my god. This creepy, unthinking mechanical thing is the precursor to the terrible things that will replace us. I, for one, welcome them with open arms.
When you finally get to that point where you can start to FEEL the change, the in-process reinvention of your Self becomes evident, and you realize that, in at least some respects, metaphysical or not, you are becoming truly free. You start to understand that even the chains of your own past can be lifted off and you can become someone else - who is still you but yet new, emergent, and refined.
Think about all the cells and microorganisms of your body. After a period of several years, each and every little bit of you has eventually been replaced. You are a constantly renewing fountain of change. You are not even the you that you were when you were a child. You are someone else, a replicant, and yet, you are you, just… the new you. (What makes us who we are anyway?)
Incidentally, the reason why our memories from so long ago are so cloudy and errant is that we are merely xeroxed copies of ourselves. All the atoms in your brain have been replaced or reconfigured a few times by now. It makes sense that some files are illegible or missing altogether.
As long as you are becoming anew, think about ways you can help not the process but the results.
For smokers: this thing can be beat. I am 99% of the way there myself, and i have tried and failed just like you no doubt have. Although we may never be non-smokers, it is absolutely possible - and a whole lot easier than you might think - to become an ex-smoker.
Don’t listen to anybody but your body.
Even your mind concocts labyrinthine machinations silently against you. Fear is just another formulaic and substance-deprived bestseller. Write your own middle and end, even if someone else already wrote your beginning.
Okay that last bit was a little tongue-in-cheek, but think about it even still.
I have been absent for a few months, due to a huge variety of reasons. I’ve been having system issues. Some of these issues are ongoing and may eventually require me to reinstall my OS. Some have been resolved with new hardware and some vigorous kicking.
I’ve also quit my job and have been taking time to myself, to play and think and forget about the increasingly troubling world outside my immediate environment and all the long hours of often emotionally demanding work*. You could call it a complete mental breakdown if you want. I would not stop you. I was having a hard time getting anything done and was feeling very overwhelmed. I still have a hard time and am feeling overwhelmed, but i’m also learning to live forwardly, if that makes any sense, and to commit to fewer obligations so that i can focus more and not spread myself so thin. Another thing was that, after my grandfather’s death, i almost immediately jumped back into the mandatory 50-hour work weeks. I do not think that was the healthy thing to do. I should have argued for a leave of absence, or just quit then. I recently found myself re-grieving, and it was not fun.
Anyhow, all this boils down to the announcement that i will soon be overhauling this site yet again. This time, it will not be a radical overhaul, just an update of the back-end, and some cleaning up of the bloated CSS.
In other news, i have also recently begun to quit smoking. It is going surprisingly well, and i am down to just a few hand-rolled cigarettes a day.
On a completely separate note:
Lastly, my car is making weird klonking noises, so if i die tomorrow, please make sure my funeral and headstone are hilarious and completely lacking in both taste and respect.
*The next time you curse out or yell at a customer service person, remember that they are not paid particularly well to listen to people like you for eight to ten very long hours every workday of their miserable lives. Be calm, speak clearly, and don’t expect more than is fair to all parties, and things will get worked out.
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