H to the Pizzle

Until today, I was very purposly making a point of not blogging about Harry Potter. I pre-ordered the last book weeks before it came out, recieved it in the mail Saturday afternoon and spent 14 hours straight on Sunday reading the whole damn thing.

I didn't blog about it because everyone was blogging about it. I didn't (and don't) have much to say that hasn't been said a billion times all over the internets. I'm still not going to put my two cents in about the book.

I'm breaking my silence on the subject now because of an interview Rowling did that explains a little more about what happens to the kids after the end of the book. The epilogue was vague and left much to be desired. I certainly don't want to know every single detail about what happens to every single character, but I was upset that the epilogue didn't cover what the kids (exept for Neville) were actually doing. So here's a link to the interview for any of my devoted readers who are interested. There are not any surprises, really, but it's interesting anyway.

Update: The Leaky Cauldren has even more answers here

I Wonder

Is it wrong to write when one has absolutely nothing worthy to write about?

Of course, that prompts the question: What qualifies something as worthy to be written?

I would say that this quandary does not qualify. But my fingers are desperate to type something and I have no amusing anecdotes to record, or any particularly deep thoughts to throw out into the universe.

A fly just landed briefly on my ring. That was odd.

I think, in lieu of anything personal to blog about, I'm going to talk about . . . SPACE!

How 'bout those dust storms on Mars, eh? As bad as it is for the rovers, I think it's kind of exciting. I mean, it's not unusual for Mars to have big wind storms, but we haven't had two rovers up there for any other ones (have we? If we have I give you permission to call me a schmuck). Not that the little guys can do much, what with low sunlight and everything, but it's sort of almost like being there. Only much more comfortable. No one likes getting sand in their panties, and I'm sure sand would be EVERYWHERE if a person was actually up there.

The Phoenix looks pretty flippin' sweet too.

Finally, (this is old news, but I haven't mentioned it before) New Horizons got some really wicked pictures when it flew by Jupiter. Please, don't judge me too harshly when I say that I'm totally turned on by the volcano pics on Io. And the pics of the Little Red Spot are just freaking hot.

This concludes my geek-out of the day. Thank you for your patience

Pull Yourself Together Man!

Sometimes I think that I should ascribe some sort of theme to this blog. Some possibilities that have crossed my mind are:

> Literary discussions of the books I have read, am reading or want to read

> Some sort of chronicle of the stuff I'm doing to get ready for the 111 mile bike ride I'm doing in a few weeks (eeek it's coming up quickly)

>Snarky movie reviews or celebrity commentary ('cause there aren't enough blogs out there already doing that)

>Snarky reviews of random stuff (food, bands, venues, festivals, restaraunts) that I try/go to.

I think having some sort of structure to my blog might make me more popular. People I don't directly know will find my blog interesting and worth checking several times a day. Then I can become QUEEN OF THE INTERNETS and rule the world. (insert maniacly evil laughter here)

But then I think "no, that's boring." Not ruling the world. Having structure. Is boring. As are complete sentences. If I had structure to my blog, I wouldn't be able to post a lot of stupid shit that is generally apropos of absolutely nothing.

That reminds me, I want to re-read a book I read a long time ago called Sir Apropos of Nothing. It was hilarious.

See, non-sequiters like that would... no they would still be there if I had structure. They would either make more sense or less sense though, depending on what the theme of my blog ended up being.

I'm thinking of putting a poll on my blog. It sounds like fun. It would be more fun if there were more people to take the poll. Maybe if I leave it up long enough....

Re-Vamp

You may have noticed (those two of you out there that read this ever) that things look a little different around here.

I decided that, after two and some years, it was time to give my blog a little makeover.

Don't it look spiffy? It's a little busier than it was before, and I'm not sure my super colorful posts are going to work well anymore, but I kinda like it.

If you don't, well that's your problem, isn't it?

I'm A Terrible Person! Here's Why:

Right now I am looking out the window in front of my desk at two fire trucks and an ambulance. Some random drunk guy just passed out on the grass around our parking lot. I don't know if it was heatstroke (it's 103 degrees today), dehydration or just normal drunkeness. It's aweful, but it you're going to be drunk and out in the sun when it's 103, that's what you get.

I'm a horrible person because, before I found out it was a random drunk, I was rooting for it to be Hector.

Hector is a creepy old (mid-late 30s. Not that old, but old enough) hispanic (great, now I'm going to sound racist too) guy who's been doing landscaping for us all summer. He's creepy because he hits on me all the time. And he has gold teeth. And smokes. And hits on me all the time. A month or so ago he gave me a dozen roses totally out of the blue. A few weeks ago he tried to give me a bottle of perfume. He's asked me out to lunch, to go dancing, to dinner, to get coffee on several occasions. He has also asked for my number. He really bothers me. I guess I should say something to one of the higher-ups about it.

Anyway, I was really hoping it would be him because if he got carted away, I wouldn't have to deal with him at least for the rest of the day. I'm terrible. It's not good to wish bad things on people, no matter how creepy and yucky they are.

The random drunk just walked off. They had him sitting in the back of the ambulance for a while. I guess they revitalized him.

Ah Sweet Redemption

Some of you may recall, (and for those who don't, here is a link (just read the penultimate paragraph as it is the only one that is relevant)) back in January, I sold my soul to American Express. I am happy to report that today, just a few moments ago in fact, that soul has been emancipated! That's right, I just paid off the last of my credit card debt! YAY!

I am now one step closer to getting the hell out of my parents house. It's really about time, don't you think? I do.

Since we're on the topic of goals I had/have for this year (also mentioned at above link), I've done quite a lot along the lines of growing up. I'm not totally sure I like it. Because I have to wake up so darn early every day for my "real job," I've become kind of a party pooper on the weekends. Most Friday nights I can barely keep my eyes open after 11 pm. That's really early for fun lovin' twenty-somethings.

Most of my friends hang out late at night during the week too. I simply can't because I have to get up early and I'm cranky if I don't get at least 6 hours of sleep.

Oh, and because I'm training to do the ULCER, I've been getting up ungodly early on Sunday mornings to ride my bike. This ruins my Saturday nights. No hardcore partying for me because riding 50 miles hungover after only getting 3 hours of sleep is not a happy thing.

I'm not totally sure I hate this grown-up stuff though. It's nice to actually be doing something with my life (even if it's not really much). I've kind of been passively floating along for a while, so it's refreshing to assert myself a little.

Now I have to actually get back to doing work.

Cheddah

Warning: You May Find This Post to be Cheesy as Hell (they have cheese in hell?)

This morning at work somebody thanked me for smiling at him. It the kid who delivers paper for our massive-big-pieces-of-paper printer and today he had several roles of paper that he was dropping off. This meant he had to take several trips back and forth. When he first came in, I did the "hello, how are you" basic greeting, and every time he went past my desk, I looked up and smiled. Not really a big deal, one would think.

On his way out the door after he had dropped off the final roll of paper, he said to me, "thanks for the smiles. I've been having a kinda bad morning and that was really nice."

I told him he was welcome and that I hoped his day would get better. I was a little surprised that such a small gesture on my part could have much impact on his mood.

Now that I think about it though, there have been days when I haven't necessarily been in the best mood and I've passed a stranger in the street (or somewhere) who smiled at me and made me feel much better. Corney as it sounds, that kind of random happiness is quite contagious. I kind of wish more people would bother to look around them and grin occasionally instead of brooding in their on little universe. I don't know that it would really make some huge difference in the world, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

Gadgets

As I'm sure everyone knows already, the new iPhones come out on Friday. Today in the SL Trib there is an article about what they will and will not be able to do. I have to be honest, I haven't really been very excited about this new gadget and now, after reading the article, I am even less so. It seems to me to be a really expensive phone that doesn't do half the things that my phone does now (or at least is capable of doing. I don't take advantage of the internet stuff because I don't want to pay extra for the plan).

I'm certainly not going to rush out and buy one. Though I probably know people who will.

This is hillarious:




Update 6/27: There is an article in the New York Times today that makes the iphone sound a little better. I still have no real interest in getting one though.

Silly Rabbit

On my way to work this morning I heard a story on NPR about Kellog's and thier sugary cereal. Because kids today are fat and sugar crazy (this is bad) the big K is going to stop marketing ultra-sugary products to kids under 12. Anything with over 12g of sugar (still seems like an aweful lot) is either going to be re-formulated or they're going to stop marketing them to kids.

Ok, so when they figure out that Fruit Loops and Apple Jacks just aren't the same without sugar crammed into every bite (they can't change the formula if it messes up the "great tast people expect from [their] products"*), just who are they going to market these cereals to? Even without the cartoon characters et al, how many adults want to eat sugar for breakfast. I know there are some, but most grown ups want to go for something with a little nutrition to start out their day. However they change the marketing, this kind of breakfast food is still going to appeal to kids more than anyone else.

I think the target group will be teenage/twenty-something boys. This guess is based solely on the fact that my brother eats a full box of choco-sugar-bits for breakfast everyday (ok, he doesn't eat the whole box, and I made up the cereal, but you get the point).

As for me, I'll stick with boring standards. Raisin Bran anyone? All those sugar saturated cereals just don't taste that good to me anymore.

*I'm quoting from memory. I'm not sure that's exactly what the guy said, but it was something along those lines. To hear the story, go Here

Happy Solstice!

Huzzah for the longest day of the year and the official start of summer!

Huzzah is a grand term, isn't it?

It certainly feels like summer. I'm begining to think it might be worth it to fix the AC in my car ($500 (!!!!!) to fix it, yuck). Probably not. It's more likely to be worth it to ride my bike to work and take the nicely air conditioned bus back home. Or take the bus both ways. Hmmm, lose half and hour of sleep or suffer in a sweltering hot car? That is the question du jour.

Actually the question du jour is "How terribly cliche am I if I flirt with the FedEx guy?"

And that's not so much the question du jour as it is the question of the minute. I don't have the attention span today to have a question du jour.

"What's the soup du jour?"
"The soup of the day."
"Great, I'll have that."

I leave you with this to ponder:

Follow the Fold...

...And stray no more. One of our clients at work just a moment ago asked me where I went on my mission. Apparently I have the niceness you get when you go spread the "word of our lord" for two years. When I told him I hadn't gone on a mission because I am not LDS, he was very disappointed. He said he was going to pray for me.

After his meeting, on his way out the door, he said he's going to "find a nice young man and send him my way." Not really knowing what to say to that, I just smiled and nodded. Now I'm afraid I may get accosted by missionaries while at work. Won't that be... interesting.

Ah the joys of living in Utah. At least we don't have any Jehova's Witnesses. I hear they're nearly as bad (if not worse) than the mormons. I could go on some rant about organized religion and how much it bothers me when one group of people tries to impose its beliefs on others. I'm not in the mood to rant today though.

I am in the mood to tell all my loyal readers (2 of you?) about the movie I saw last night. Day Watch is the sequel to Night Watch, a bloody fantastic Russian Horror movie. Night Watch was really amazing and Day Watch is perhaps not quite as good but still well worth seeing. Here are the trailers for both (Night Watch frist cuz it's the first in the series)







There's a third installment too which is in production (I think) called Dusk Watch.

Dear Old Dad

As most everybody already knows (thanks to the million "Dads and Grads" ads out there now) Father's day is right around the corner. Father's day is a really hard holiday because my dad is not an easy person to shop for.

He has hobbies, true, but they all either require expensive gadgets (he does photography) or he has pretty much everything he needs. Maybe if I were rich (which I'm not. But speaking of money, I owe American Express less than $1,000 now! Yay! I should have my soul back in just a couple months! Back to dad) I could get him some super cool camera thingy or something fancy for his bike.

I almost always end up resorting to a DVD or CD. Usually it's something that I give him because I really want it, and it's easy to borrow Dad's stuff. This year he gave me a specific title. I'll most likely give him the DVD. It's easy. It doesn't feel very meaningful though. What a cop-out gift. Can't our parents be appreciated without us buying some silly little bauble?

Along those same lines, Amazon has Coolest Father's Day Present Ever! Seriously, it rocks. To really appreciate the awesomeness of it, you have to read the customer reviews.

Eharmony and Strippers

First read this.

Personally, I don't really care about the lawsuit and all that. It's just another sue happy american trying to get all they can. I roll my eyes and get on with my life. I am really tickled about the analogy that eHarmony is like a strip club. That made me grin.

My Mashed Potato Lied!

It's my Birthday! Yay Me! I'm going to take this moment to sing my praises, because it is, after all, national ME day. Youtube failed to provide me with the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they praise God and it goes into one of Terry Gilliam's animations. You know the one where there are clouds and lots of hooplah and trumpets that are being played by bums (not the homeless kind). I really wanted to post that here to illustrate the praise of me. Since I couldn't find it, I leave it to you, dear reader, to close your eyes and picture the scene in your head. If you haven't seen MP and the HG (what's wrong with you!!) or can't quite recall what the hell I am talking about, you must (no excuses) drop everything, find a copy of said film, and watch it!

I'm determinded that this is going to be a wonderful day. It's amazing how well it works just having the right outlook. I could easily be very disappointed about today - I have had a cold all week and it's still lingering, I'm at work, blah blah blah, the cough drop I just ate tastes really terrible! Eeew. Despite all that I'm quite happy. (double eeew, the cough drop is chewy too. Gross. I can taste the zinc.) I refuse to be in a bad mood, and therefore I'm positively chipper. Life is grand.

I think I need to share some exciting pictures now. Last year on my birthday I had dancing Storm Troopers. It's going to be hard to beat that, let's see how I do. I present:

Stewie! Beavis and Butthead! Random Dancing Bear!

And finally, just to make the day complete, here is a kinda really crappy super special Birthday Flash just for me (it will also make sense of my headline). YAY! GO TEAM VENTURE!

As CCR Put It

Have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?

I'm unhappy today.

The weather is perfect. It's maybe a little windy, but it's sunny and warm.

I wish my mood and the weather matched.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeer

I promised my next post would be a happy one.


This made me laugh:

Living With It

It sucks having an autoimmune disease. It sucks having it be in remission and it sucks trying to find the balance between abject fear of relapse and a normal, healthy life. It sucks having a rare autoimmune disease because no one really understands how much it sucks.

There was an article in Self Magazine's March 2007* issue that said it very nicely: ...with severe autoimmune illness, you get to go through all the official cancer crap without getting any of the cancer credit. There is no pretty ribbon to adorn your lapel. You do not get a story line on Sex and the City, nor do you rock out at the Grammys. You cannot purchase lovely pink products to help find a cure.

Not to belittle people who have had cancer - it's not easy dealing with that either - but do you know how many time I have wished that I had cancer instead of Wegener's? It's not easy, but it's much easier for cancer people because they have a gigantic support system and publicity and just tons of people they can relate to and share their experience.

I know that makes me sound like a terrible person, but it's really true. Cancer survivors also have the joy of not worrying if every cough, headache, nosebleed, earache or joint/muscle ache is a symptom of their cancer coming back. I do. It sucks.

A friend of mine pointed out the other day that I let Wegener's Granulomatosis be a fairly major thing in my life (well, no shit!) and that I should try to make it influence me less or not at all. Because whether or not I have a relapse is out of my control, he essentially said I should ignore the disease. His sister has had cancer and he used her as an example of how one should cope. He actually kind of pissed me off because he implied that I was a slave to WG and that I should really just be passive about it.

That's not really a plausible idea. I have to pay very close attention to any symptoms that might indicate a relapse because, while I can't control if a relapse happens, I can control how soon it's diagnosed. Catching a relapse early could save me from being on dialisis for the rest of my life or keep my nose from collapsing completely. I've found a few support groups online too. It's comforting to have found people who went through something similar, and it's helpful to be aware of what I can maybe expect if I do have a relapse. Not actively dealing with WG is likely to be more detrimental than not.

The truth is I don't really let it have that much influence on my life. If I were to really let Wegener's control my life, I would be a total hypocondriac and would never do anything but worry about it. I do very normal things for a person my age. There are a few things I don't do because they would increase the risk of me getting sick, but they're kind of stupid things to do anyway. I don't even talk to most of my friends about it because right now, it's not a really big deal. Occasionally they'll ask me about it, and I'll tell them, but I seldom bring it up.

Blah! I promise my next blog will be happy. This one and the one before are a bit ponderous.

*I couldn't find a link to the Self article itself that didn't require some sort of password. I've posted it as a comment though (it's kind of long so I don't want to put it on the main page). I highly recommend reading it; it's a great article.

Have You Waxed Your Philosophy Today?

I'm waxing philosophic today. (What the hell does that mean anyway, "waxing philosophic"? Well, I know what it means, but where did it come from and how does it make sense?). One of the guys I work with asked me yesterday if I was LDS (being in Utah one gets asked that question frequently) and I said no, I was atheist. Today he asked me if I believed in "all those energies" - you know, the weird energy thingies that godless heathens sometimes believe in. I told him that I kind of dabbled with Taoism but was mostly an Existentialist. Not surprisingly, he asked me what that meant. I explained it to him as best I could; existentialism is kind of a tricky and controvertial little philosophy even within the existential community and my major exposure to it has been a few plays by Sarte, Camus and Beckett.

From a shit happens perspective, Taoism says "shit happens", Existentialism says: "Shit doesn't happen, shit IS"

That conversation got me thinking that existentialism and taoism don't really go very well together. I occured to me that you may not really be able to do both; an existential taoist? Seems a little far fetched. Based on my limited exposure and what I learned today on wikipedia (mostly just refreshing my memory about the two ideas really) I will now attempt to desipher whether or not the two can work together without totally cancelling each other out.

Existentialism (really over simplified) is based on the idea that human existance is fundamental and inexplicable. A big motto of this thought is "existence precedes essence" which essentially means that there is no predefined meaning of life, people just exist, and any meaning that we find is there because we (humans) ascribe it, we define our essence through our actions, reactions, our life. We are "thrown" into existence and we simply exist until we come up with some definition of ourself. We live in a universe that is random, irrational and totally indiffernt to us. According to Sarte, rationality is "bad faith" - it is an attempt to impose structure on the structureless universe. As far a God goes there are three ideas: God is dead, belief in God is a personal choice based on faith, experience and/or observation, and Agnostic Existentialism. The last one is the one I like. It doesn't claim to know anything about the "greater picture" - about God or the grand scheme of things or whoever it is that throws us into existence or whether any of those things actually exist. Whatever the greater picture is, it's far beyond human comprehension so it's futile and useless to try to figure it out.

Enough of that, let's move on to Taoism.

I'm going to simplify Taoism even more than I did Existentialism. There are several reasons for this, one is that "Taoism" coveres a whole shit-load of philosophies, religions and interpretations there of. Second reason is my understanding of Taoism comes mostly from a religion survey class I took which really just covered the basics. I like understanding (in a limited way) Taoism like this because it really leaves the whole thing flexable and open to interpretation. The third reason is that this blog is long enough already and there simply isn't time to dive deep into the Tao.

Let's pretend that Taoism is pretty much the sum of it's parts; looking at it this way makes it easier to look at it in relation to existentialism. The parts are (more or less) Tao, De, Wu Wei, and Pu.

Tao is a concept that is really difficult to explain. Actually it's impossible- those who know the Tao don't know the true Tao (or something like that). As much as I would love to be cryptic and leave it at that, Tao is (big surprise here) a major component of Taoism and really needs to be sort of understood. Tao is the flow of the universe - it's the influence that keeps everything balanced and in order. It's kind of like "the force" in Star Wars or Chi in feng shui. It is also "the way" or the path you must follow to find the Tao. It's beyond human comprehension to fully understand what Tao is; that's not just me saying so, that is part of the definition of Tao.

Part number two: De can be literally translated as "virtue" but its meaning is different than the typical western definition. De is essentially following the Tao (as in "the way" more than as the universal force). Being virtuous by Taoist standards means doing the right thing for the right reason. De means you return someone's wallet not because you want the reward but because it is the right thing to do and in harmony with the Tao.

Wu Wei is sort of related to De. Translated it means "without action." A big part of Taoism is also "Wei Wu Wei" which means "action without action" - I dare you to try to wrap your head around that. Wu Wei doesn't mean (as the translation would imply) that you should sit around and do nothing. It means that you shouldn't fight the Tao; you shouldn't exert your will on the universe. Let's pretend the Tao is a stream, Wu Wei would be like a stick floating down the stream - it's moving and "acting" but not fighting the current. Not Wu Wei would be a big old rock in the stream which would eventually be worn away into dust.

Finally, let's talk about Pu. Pu means "simplicity" and is the true nature of the mind. Have you ever had a moment when playing an intrument or playing a sport where you're so into what you're doing that your mind is kind of blank and everything just comes together but the second you start thinking about what you're doing (really start paying attention) it all falls apart? That moment of blankness is Pu- at that moment you are one with the Tao. It's awareness without definitions, lables, knowledge or experience.

Now comes the fun part! How can Taoism and Existentialism work together? There are some bits of Taoism that work pretty easily; Pu, for example is more or less just existing without any ascribed meaning. When you are one with the Tao, you simple ARE. The Tao itself goes quite nicely with the "greater picture" Agnostic Existentialism. Of course, you run into a big problem when you look at the part of the Tao that orders the universe. A truly random, irrational universe cannot have Tao, especially since Tao is all about balance. Ah, there's the rub. Taoism is a way of structualising the random universe; this is a problem. Another problem is that Taoism is essentialy giving a pre-existence meaning to life; we exist to follow the Tao. I could then argue that the Tao isn't there to follow until we define it or create it or chose it as an essence.

At this point, I'm a bit flummuxed. I don't really know that anything I just wrote actually makes sense. I would like to point out to any readers that I really don't know what I'm talking about. This blog has been me just thinking aloud (in a typing sort of way). I think I'm going to simply continue to exist and if I happen to follow the Tao along the way, good for me!

Meat Pies. YUM!

I just found out that Tim Burton is directing a new movie version of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. Sweeney will be played by Burton's favorite actor, Jonny Depp (I heart him, but I have to wonder if he can pull off the Sondheim score), and opposite him Mrs Burton (Helena Bonham Carter) as Mrs Lovett. Alan Rickman is also signed up as the judge. Sacha Cohen (Borat) also has a role, not so sure I'm totally psyched about that. Most websites say that it will released December 21 this year, but one said Jan 11. In any case I can't wait.

Another film I'm quite excited for is 28 Weeks Later, which comes out this Friday. I loved 28 Days Later and this sequel looks to be just as good. I miss Cillian Murphy though.

As for the rest of the Summer of Sequels:

I can live without seeing Spider Man 3 - especially after hearing about it from friends who saw it over the weekend. I wasn't too impressed by the first two (though they are good for comic book movies) and all their redeeming quality are lacking in the new one, or so I hear.

You will find me in line on opening day to see Pirates.

The Harry Potter saga continues with Half Blood Prince coming out on July 13. I will probably go see it, but I'm much more excited about the final book release two weeks later.

Ocean's 13 should be decent. Let's be honest, the first two Ocean movies were really just hollywood hotness getting together and having fun. It worked. This latest installment doesn't look like it's going to be anything more than that, so it should work too.

What else is coming out this summer? Fantastic Four, Bourne, Die Hard... I'm fairly indifferent to those three. Transformers? Eh.

Hairspray should be fun. If nothing else, it might be worth it to see John Travolta in drag.

What's The Matter With Kids Today?

Seriously, when does this even start to make sense?

I guess it's good that I can't relate to a total sociopath, it means I'm not one myself, right? I just don't get why doing something like that would even cross someone's mind. Especially since it was a duck that the school had sort of adopted and was monitoring.

In the article, they mention that the kid might not be charged with anything. I think letting him get away with it with a slap on the wrist and a couple shrink visits (god knows he needs those anyway) is almost reinforcing the psycho behavior. Even if he's not wired to know the difference between right and wrong, he could still understand the logic of doing something illegal and facing the consequences.

Can you just imagine what his parents are going through? Unless they're the "oh my kid could do no wrong. He's not bad, just misunderstood" kind of parents, they have got to be freaking out. How do you handle the idea that your kid is showing classic signs of being a violent sort of nut job? I would be scared to death. And I would never be able to watch Haloween again.