Slices of life … mine.
I belong to a little atheist Meetup group, and we got an email from a lady in the South not long back, asking for … well, moral support, mostly. Most recently, she asked us some philosophical questions related to our personal experience of atheism. Here are my answers.
Would you say that you were an ideal model for society?
So. All the blues and reds went out to vote today.
From numbers harvested off ABCNews.com, at 9:30 p.m., the total number of nominating convention delegates won by the various candidates makes McCain look like he’s well ahead of Clinton and Obama, but if you look at the raw numbers of votes each candidate got, a different story entirely emerges.
Looking at the vote tallies for the frontrunners of each state for which there were comparable figures at the time I wrote this, the Democratic frontrunner is outvoting the Republican frontrunner like so:
I realize all the numbers aren’t in yet. In a couple of the states, the numbers showed a 10-time lead in raw votes for Democrats, and I figured something was squinky with the tallies for those states, so I threw them out.
Still, if these early results show a lead in numbers of voters in each state ranging from 1.6 to 3.7 – roughly 2 to 4 times as many voters picking a Democratic candidate – we might have a really good November.
Subvocalizing to self: don’tgetcockytoosoontocelebrate
But damn! Wouldn’t that be nice??
I was in one of those video stores tonight to return a movie. I rented “Cars” a few days back. I was in the mood for an animated story, and Cars fit the mood.
Took it home to play it, got about 20 minutes or so into the movie and the scene froze. Nothing I could do would make it work. It did have a scratch on the shiny side, but it didn’t look that bad. But apparently that one scratch was enough to bollix up the laser thingie. I went “eh” and figured I’d return it and get a refund.
Turns out Hwd Video, according to the well-trained corporate-ette in the store, will give you only this very special “refund” — they’ll give you a credit which is good ONLY for that specific movie. In other words, they’d give me another copy of Cars.
She explained it to me: “Because otherwise, you could get to watch another movie for free.” Left me gaping. Huh?
Continue reading “Hwd Video Sux — but that’s just my subjective opinion.”
If you’re new here, you may not know this about me: I’m an atheist.
Yep. And here’s where you find out why.
A reader on another blog I frequent, Unscrewing the Inscrutable, posted a comment that got me thinking about it:
It does seem to me that most of the people here have some problem with christians and christianity beyond that toward other religions and superstitions. And I am willing to hear if or even why this may be true. […] I’d really like to hear. And it’s ok to be blunt.
My answer was:
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Weighed myself at the gym today, and I’m down about 8 pounds. So I’m losing about four pounds a week. Is that good?
I know I feel different. My workout today really felt good — I powered through it, and upped several of my weights for next session. I can really feel the mass difference in my arms and shoulders. That 8 pounds is 8 pounds even with this increase in muscle mass, so I think I’m down a good 10 pounds, if we’re just counting padding. Continue reading “Day 14 – Too Much Hank”
Um … Did I mention I’m a photographer? I have some of my pics posted at my Flickr site.
You can click the photo to go there.
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I was thinking about The Matrix movies this morning. The whole mystical woo-hoo surrounding them annoyed me, because I wanted only special effects and explosions. Hey, sue me, I’m a guy.
But The Matrix came to mind because I was mainly thinking about the … deepness … of us. The unseen part. The motive force.
Okay, stop right there. Whatever you’re thinking – spirituality, or oversouls, or thetans or whatever – that’s absolutely not what I’m thinking.
I’m considering us in a totally non-mystical way, thinking about all the stuff we could be doing but aren’t. The capacities we have but don’t display. The full range of our personal capabilities which most of us never explore.
I looked at my calendar today and noticed an anniversary coming up next Tuesday. January 29, 1998 – ten years to the day Ranger died.
Ranger the Valiant Warrior, my German shepherd pal of 12 years and a bit. Puppy who slept on my bed, big bony boy who played fetch and tug and chase, magnificent friend whose companionship I wore like a second skin for more than a decade. He rode with me in my truck, went on hikes with me, waited avidly outside whatever building I was inside, left the house and came into town looking for me whenever I was away too long.
Ten years gone.
I’m over it. Sure. The misty eyes brought about by noticing that date on the calendar are just silly. I mean, who pines over a DOG??
Fred Thompson out — good. I think.
Heath Ledger dead? — Bad.
I’m hoping this was an accidental overdose rather than a suicide. I liked the kid. I thought he was a pretty good actor. I loved “A Knight’s Tale.” And just when he’s breaking new career ground as The Joker in the upcoming Batman movie, he’s gone.
Dang.
Whew! Sure was a lot of gravity last night. I think it may have gusted up to 1.5 Gs or so.
I felt heavy, anyway. Coming out of my newspaper office last night, I noticed how tired I was, and how “compressed” I felt. For a moment as I thought about it, it really did feel like I was carrying a 45-pound backpack.
Yet I woke up this morning thinking how good I felt.
Which is a topic all its own: I should tell you I have this weird ability to maintain tension even when I’m sleeping. I developed it over the course of years, I think mainly because I read in bed at night. When I was younger, I’d fall asleep and drop the book, but over the years this came to happen less and less, until finally I’d wake up hours later still holding the book in position for reading. My subconscious had learned gradually to hold the book in place without dropping it. The ability generalized to my whole body eventually, so that if I went to bed clenched up from the day, I’d maintain the tension all night long and wake up the same way.
