December 2014 – Sure, Why Not?

Let’s Go 2014

December 31, 2014

Well, that was something. Another year gone. Time for another recap!

January: Viewer Discretion Is Advised

-Better change my address after lots of laziness.
-Ooh, possible job. All the way in Frederick, though.
-Mmmm, almond cookies.
-Why does Downton Abbey have a viewer discretion warning? There’s never anything racy or violent in it…
-Oh. That’s their way of saying “trigger warning” I guess.
-Cat ran away! 🙁
-Volunteering at WES. Because unemployed and bored.
-I made chili! 😀

February: Backwards N Thing

-Making chili and guacamole and cookies for Superbowl.
-Prep ran long. Did I miss kickoff?
-Aww, I missed a safety?!
-Winter Olympics in Sochi!
-Ooh, US women’s hockey is about to take Gold against Canada…
-FUUUUUUU- They remembered they’re from a country whose capital is Washington DC. :irked:
-Didn’t get other suggested job, but got interview for another one with same company but much closer location!
-And I got it!!! 😀

March: 37 Cents Per Ounce

-Ski night!
-French brunch thing.
-New job!
-So many trainings and SOPs to read.
-Lego Movie!
-More snow!

April: Existentialism

-Huh. The lab doors unlock each other.
-Brookside on Easter Sunday!
-Philosophy discussion lunch. Followed by fajita dinner. Fun day!
-Hendrik and Sasha visiting DC! 😀

May: Next Door

-I shouldn’t have said that.
-Where’s my birthday cake? Everyone else got a birthday cake.
-Oh, I finally got it a couple weeks later. Okay.
-Trip to New York sounds great… just not with my family. :irked:
-Wow, hotel room right above World Trade Center site.
-Good thing I came. My family couldn’t steer themselves around this city for anything. 🙄
-Holy crap, this sauce is spicy!

June: Councilmanic

-Netflix!
-Kingdom Hearts!
-What do you mean my voting registration address wasn’t changed with my address change? They said it was!
-I hate provisional ballots. They’re as good as not voting at all. :irked:
-World Cup!

July: This Fruit Salad Is Spicy

-Fruit salad has no business being spicy
-Dinner with Pam!!!
-How to Train Your Dragon 2!
-I think I’ll go to… Ugh, it’s too hot to drive anywhere. Stuck in so much traffic.
-Memorial service for dad’s aunt with lots of distant relatives I never see.

August: Red Trail

-Welp, I’ve gotten myself addicted to GeoGuessr again.
-Smithsonian with little brother
-Every Simpsons ever!
-Nats game! 😀
-Finally successfully went to Calvert Cliffs for Day 100.

September: Photospheres

-Mmmm, Middle Eastern Bazaar…
-Perfect 25000 score in GeoGuessr!
-To Baltimore with little brother! To Aquarium and other stuff!

October: Wild Pitch

-Nats are in playoffs!
-And lost badly. Sigh. :irked:
-Winter Festival rehearsal time!
-There’s a trick-or-treater dressed up as the Eleventh Doctor!

November: Windmill

-Sugarloaf climb!
-Auction night! I’m a devil! 😀
-A drunk devil.
-Big Hero 6! I’ve seen a lot of movies this year.
-Wait, why aren’t they playing Christmas Canon much in the Christmas music lineup this year? :irked:
-Almond cookies! Trying to get it just right.

December: Give Us Hope

-Shoulder hurts.
-Holiday potluck at work. I think I’ll make hummus.
-I put a lot of chopped parsley into the hummus. Now it’s green. It looks like guacamole.
-Got to bake lots of cookies for Cookie Walk!
-And dress rehearsal.
-And Washington Ethical Society’s Winter Festival. I’m Pandora! And my little brother’s a prince!
-And I get to pull the Hope banner!
-Cookie Walk! There are my cookies! 😀
-Trans-Siberian Orchestra! Damn, Verizon Center is packed!
-Dinner with Victoria!
-Time for Christmas shopping. Oy.
-Running around at work giving Christmas chocolate to coworkers!
-And finally… Christmas Eve. And Day.
-For New Year’s Eve, saw Mockingjay in movie theater.
-And now I’ve posted an entry every day in December!

With 2014 about to be in the books, it leaves a few things dangling. Though I suppose every year should, what with the arbitrary nature of when we determine when a year ends and a new one begins. The next year could prove very quickly to be great or another let-down. I guess, of course, that remains to be seen. We’ll see if I have more to say this time next year. Or at least something more interesting.

We’ll see.

Happy New Year!

Leelah Alcorn

December 30, 2014

What happened to Leelah Alcorn is tragic and infuriating.

She was transgender but stuck with super fundamentalist religious parents who told her that she’s really a boy and that she’s going through a phase. When she wouldn’t relent in wanting to transition, her parents pulled her out of school and removed her from social media and friends, completely isolating her for months. Finally, after leaving her suicide note on Tumblr, she committed suicide.

Why didn’t her parents accept her? Because she brought shame to them. Because they wanted to maintain for themselves an image of Good Christians. In their minds, she stood in the way of that. In their minds, she had to be removed.

So they did. They removed her from school and from public pretty much. They tortured her with religious pseudo-therapy. Did they think they would “cure” her? Or keep her out of “sin” long enough for her to outgrow this supposed phase?

Any way you look at it, they wanted Leelah gone. They might have preferred that she simply stopped being LGBT or maybe not. They wanted everything that Leelah was to be gone, out of their life, out of sight, so that she would no longer sully their image, their honor.

So now that she’s dead… problem solved! It may be more extreme than her parents intended, or maybe not. They saw her as a problem that needed to be removed, so she removed herself for them. In fact, given the treatment of her leading up to it, clearly this is exactly what they were hoping would happen.

They couldn’t kill her themselves without going to prison or – gasp! – tarnishing their image as Good Christians, so they drove her to do it herself, not only to keep their hands clean but to ensure, in their minds, that she goes to hell where she belongs. They wanted an honor killing, and they got one.

And, as a youth rights supporter, I must ask the very important question here. Why in the hell were her parents even able to put her through all this shit in the first place? She should have been able to transition whether they wanted her to or not. She should have been able to stay in school and stay in contact with everyone regardless of how her stupid parents feel about her. She should still be fucking ALIVE and happy!

But they had power over all of this. Because just like they cared more for their image than her life, our society cares more about their “parental right” to control her (even to death) than for her life. And that right there speaks volumes.

Tyson the Christmas Troll

December 29, 2014

On Christmas Day, Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted the following:

On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642

Hehehe. Cute. I shared it. Why not? 🙂

Then, as I should have expected, a bunch of idiots complained that this was offensive to Christians. Tyson tweeted a bunch of tweets on Christmas, all of them a little snarky, yet somehow this is the one that pissed people off so much.

How the hell is this even news? Is anyone that surprised?

Well, actually, I’m a little surprised. This Newton tweet was just a clever play on words. I can’t even find anything in it that would even be offensive to Christians.

If anything, it’s some of the other tweets they should take issue with. Like this one:

Merry Christmas to all. A Pagan holiday (BC) becomes a Religious holiday (AD). Which then becomes a Shopping holiday (USA).

Two problems with this one.

One, Pagan IS Religious. It’s so often that the non-religious calling out Christian hypocrisies talk about paganism as if it’s some other thing entirely, forgetting that pagans are also religious, just not members of an Abrahamic religion. This sort of statement implies that only the Abrahamic religions are truly considered “religions” and that those that aren’t are just something else. Which is, needless to say, rather disrespectful and othering.

Two, yeah, the USA is not even close to the only country that spent the past month in a shopping frenzy. Come the fuck on! 😆

But aside from that, well played, Tyson. Well played.

In a Nutshell

December 28, 2014

Youth need rights.

Ageism is bad.

I love Christmas!

I mostly love Christmas music.

Harry Potter is awesome!

People are stupid about religion.

People are stupider about politics.

People are especially stupid about love.

Everyone else does things weird.

Food is yummy.

Unless it’s cheese. Fuck cheese.

Minesweeper rules.

Disney movies give us a lot to ponder.

Go Redskins!

Dallas sucks.

…

That about sums up the past nine years.

Happy 9th Anniversary, Eight Mine Fortress! 😀

Reproachable Rights

December 27, 2014

(I wanted to call this “Right Doesn’t Make Right” but I already used that title for another post eight years ago. Oh, well!)

I’ve mentioned before that merely having the right to say something doesn’t mean you can’t be criticized for saying said thing. Yet so often when someone says something completely abhorrent or just stupid, and they get called on it, they come back with “Hey, free speech! I have a right to say it!”

No shit, you have a right to say it, dumbass! Nobody is saying otherwise. It’s not an attempt at censorship. It’s a reply. Replying is – gasp! – also free speech!

Seriously, a friend of mine shared a screen cap on Facebook recently of a conversation with an acquaintance, in which said acquaintance posted some racist article, and my friend asked why they’d post such an article, and the person literally came back with simply “Free speech.” My friend asked again, and the person gave no other answer.

As it often does, xkcd covered this one nicely.

This goes beyond speech, though. Sometimes those defending the right to something seem to act like any and all use of said right is okay or even heroic.

You see this with gun rights, where there’s a nasty shooting, and the problem is not that the shooter had a gun, but that everyone else didn’t. 🙄

You see it with abortion rights, too. Pretending every woman who has an abortion is a hero. Barely a word against those who abort because of the baby’s sex or (compatible with life) disability. Yes, you can support abortion rights and still say sex-selective or disability abortions are really shitty. Even in general, you can support abortion rights without necessarily even believing abortion is a good thing.

It’s an important distinction to make. Believing something to be wrong and believing something should be illegal are and should be very different things. It’s the difference between believing someone shouldn’t do something and believing said someone should be arrested/imprisoned/have their life ruined over it.

Imagine how much better the world would be if this distinction were more widely recognized!

Not a Christian Holiday

December 26, 2014

I hereby decree…

Christmas is not a Christian holiday.

Well, it’s not.

Yeah, “Christ” is right there in the name, and I find switching the name “Christmas” out with “Solstice” or “Yule” to be really fucking obnoxious. But Christmas is not a Christian holiday. And it shouldn’t be.

There are Christian aspects of it, and that’s how it got its name (in certain languages anyway). There’s the nativity story and the midnight masses. But that’s about it. And that’s far from all there is to the holiday.

I see people getting all up in arms, that they feel being wished a Merry Christmas somehow excludes them because they are not Christian. Which is fucking stupid. Christmas is not a religious holiday. It’s a holiday of lots of stories and symbols of varying degrees of association to the winter solstice. It’s everything this very awesome Cracked article talks about.

What do we do for Christmas? It varies. I go to the late night Christmas Eve church service, but that’s about the extent of any explicitly Christian activities for the holiday. Other than the Christmas carols whose subject is the nativity, but those are just telling stories, right alongside the other songs telling about glowing fog-light noses or sentient snowmen or a man playing the cello while Sarajevo gets bombed. Other than that, it’s a lot of twinkling lights, fuzzy garland, sparkly pine trees, candy and cookies, and of course gift exchange. Much of it is derived from other religions’ winter solstice traditions, but other than that, there’s nothing Christian or otherwise religious here (well, unless you want there to be, but it’s up to the individual on that one). Some aspects are specific to certain cultures or regions, but as a whole, it’s just a worldwide human thing.

So that’s why I don’t get why people think they’re being excluded. They’re human and part of the world, aren’t they?

С Рождеством!

December 25, 2014

Oh, have I run out of Roman alphabet languages already? Er, no, there’s a few more. Next year, next year…

Well, nothing all that unusual about this Christmas. Same stuff. Work early on Christmas Eve, which was cool, not because I had to work but because I actually have a job at Christmas time for the first time in three years. Then cookie baking. Then putting up with family. Then church and Silent Night. Then wrapping presents. Then finally in bed at almost 6am, having been awake nearly 22 hours.

Anyway, it’s Christmas Day. Today is for joy. For love. For peace. For hope. For generosity.

We’re a bunch of assholes to each other much of the year, in many ways. But for this day, let’s just try not to be. Let’s at least be the peace we want the world to be. Let’s put kindness and understanding first. Let’s forgive and be together and be happy. Let’s put aside differences and annoyances. Even if just for this day. So that even when we go back to our normal rotten selves, we’ve at least had a taste of what could be. So we know it’s possible, at least in theory, at least in small doses.

Or, well, that would surely be nice. Anyway, I’m stuck with my family today. Excuse me while I get back into the fray. *cocks shotgun*

Merry Christmas! Drink up! We'll need it.

Three Ships Too Far

December 23, 2014

Yay, Christmas songs are fun! 😀

I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning.

The Virgin Mary and Christ were there
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there
On Christmas Day in the mor-

*massive earthquake*

*reality itself seems to split at the seams*

Whoa! What’s happening?

“OVERLOAD! OVERLOAD!”

Huh? What? What’s overloaded?

“THERE IS TOO MUCH SHIT IN THE NATIVITY SCENE!”

There is? How so?

“HOW SO?! THINK ABOUT IT. IT’S FAR BEYOND JUST MARY, JOSEPH, JESUS, AND THE STAR. THERE ARE SHEPHERDS. THERE ARE THREE WISE MEN. THERE ARE A CRAPLOAD OF FARM ANIMALS. THERE’S THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY. AND NOW… FUCKING SHIPS!”

I didn’t write that song. I was just singing it. Besides, what’s wrong with ships?

“THERE ARE NO BODIES OF WATER CLOSE ENOUGH TO BETHLEHEM FOR SHIPS TO MAKE ANY DAMN SENSE!”

What if they’re flying ships?

“WHY THE FUCK WOULD THERE BE FLYING SHIPS? HONESTLY!”

For the same reason there’s a baby born from a virgin impregnated by God, under a conveniently placed star. Why the hell not flying ships?

“ONE SUPERNATURAL THING AT A TIME!”

Speaking of supernatural, what the hell are you supposed to be?

“NEVER YOU MIND.”

How about repairing reality? Whatever you are, you sure pitch a fit when the nativity scene gets out of whack. Wait, does this mean you’re…?

“EVERYTHING NORMAL!”

*reality restores itself*

Huh. That was weird.

Rondo alla Builders and Bashers

December 22, 2014

One of my favorite pieces of classical music is Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca”. Believe me, you know the piece even if you don’t know the name. Go find it on YouTube, listen to the first three seconds, and be all “oh yeah, this one!”

Told you!

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes. So, like I said, this has always been one of my favorite classical pieces. Just a few years ago, I finally taught myself to play it on the piano, though not very well. It’s a lot of fast parts and unnatural stretching of the hands for some monstrous chords! But I more or less got it down and have thus achieved a goal I’ve had a long time. Yay!

So how did this piece of music come to my attention? Did I hear it on a classical radio station at a special time that it stuck with me? Did I see or hear someone perform it at an event I attended?

Nope.

It’s one of the background music tracks in Lemmings. 😛

Seriously.

How I found what would become one of my favorites was hearing it repeatedly while trying to steer some adorable little blue-green idiots through a bunch of violent obstacles.

Here, give it a listen. It’s the first level here, Fun 11, and the first level in which it plays.

So, yeah, that’s some serious rocking out there. :cute:

But, no, it’s not weird. This sort of thing is why the music from Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda is so popular and beloved. Because we all spent so much time listening to it while working our way through these games that the sounds grew on us.

And, hey, I got lucky in that the Lemmings background track that caught my attention was one that was already a real piece of music and not one of the created-for-the-game tunes as several of the others are.

On a related note, all the above having taken place like literally 20 years ago, it was only a year and a half ago that I learned that one of the other Lemmings tracks is a modified version of Pachelbel’s Canon.

Background Music

December 21, 2014

You know what’s fun about listening to Christmas music? Well, a lot of things.

One thing is that it makes everything you do seem like it’s part of your very own Christmas special. That mundane actions suddenly become festive.

Filing paperwork? Meh. Filing paperwork with “Sleigh Ride” in the background? Festive!

Driving to the grocery store? Meh. Driving to the grocery store with “Jingle Bell Rock” in the background? Festive!

Stuck in traffic while in a hurry? Meh. Stuck in traffic while in a hurry with “Carol of the Bells” in the background? Festive!

Sitting around eating cookies? Delicious. Sitting around eating cookies with “Holly Jolly Christmas” in the background? Still delicious. And festive.