Cent Jours Quatorze

August 31, 2014

On “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” earlier this year, a show that reaches unheard of heights of what one can ever imagine awesomeness can be (appropriately enough), Neil deGrasse Tyson condensed the life of the universe into a single year. In this cosmic calendar, the sun was created on August 31. That’s today! You know what else today is? That’s right…

DAY
100


It’s the last day of Round 14. So let’s recap.

Day 1, I’m off to New York City. Sound familiar? Well, this time I got dragged along with my family. Got a cool hotel next to the new WTC, though. Amazing views!

Day 2, still in NYC, terrible service at restaurant and mad dash to Penn Station to catch train home.

Day 15, Triple Crown Winner? Come on, California Chrome…. Nope. -_-

Day 21, sweet! World Cup games on big screen at work!

Day 23, Kingdom Hearts!!! Expert mode this time. 😀

Day 32, my voter registration wasn’t updated when I changed my address six months ago! I need to vote in the primary but don’t know where! Grrr.

Day 37, Frozen sing-a-long at WES… I WANT TO SEE FROZEN AGAIN!!!! So picked up a copy of it right afterward. Got How to Train Your Dragon, too, because why not?

Day 42, ‘splosions!

Day 48, me: “Wow. This fruit salad is spicy.”

Day 49, How to Train Your Dragon 2 in movie theater! Toothless is adorable!!! 😀

Day 50, think I’ll spend the midpoint at a state park on the Chesapeake… or not, it’s too damn hot outside and the beltway is backed up because of course it is. Back home. Try again some other time. And start replaying Kingdom Hearts 2.

Day 57, Planes 2 with little brother.

Day 64, very old grand-aunt’s memorial service and distant cousins.

Day 78, National Air and Space Museum with little brother! And flight simulator.

Day 90, EVERY SIMPSONS EVER!!!!

Day 93, Nationals game!

And finally…

Day 100. A WES platform with lots of pets! And afterward, some unfinished Day 50 business, even though the day was even hotter but at least no beltway traffic. Calvert Cliffs! After a two hour drive and then a two mile walk. Very nice. 🙂

I think my memory is getting bad since I’m just not remembering much for these recaps. Or less of interest is happening. Or I’m getting more sensible about what I share publicly. Or I’m realizing this is a whole lot of Shit Nobody Cares About. There was also a conspicuous lack of any NYRA activities, namely an Annual Meeting. I need to do some interesting stuff.

Oh, well. As these 100 Days of Summer draw to a close, well, I guess I need to do more interesting stuff. See you for the fifteenth round beginning May 24, 2015, in whatever form the world will be in then. Probably about the same.

This has been Day 100 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 14.

Offend the Offensive

July 28, 2014

Quick! Define “offensive”.

Okay, okay, okay, shut up…

Whatever it is you just said, my answer would be different. So would everyone else’s. What is offensive is subjective. And, whether some want to admit it or not, absolutely everyone is offended by something.

There are a number of things that tout themselves as being proudly “offensive”. South Park was once a prime example. These days, there are a number of Facebook pages with taglines saying something like “If something on this page offends you, ha ha, too bad! Go punch your parents for having raised a pussy.”

Such messages tell me nothing about what is on that page. Why do they think one might find their content offensive? They say “fuck” sometimes? They mention sex? Irreverent humor? I’m not offended by any of that. Hell, the things that offend me are often found in places that deem themselves inoffensive. The radio station I wake up to is the local generic Clear Channel light pop station (97.1 WASH here in DC), and it offends me quite a bit. This is a station that cuts the word “screwed” out of Gotye’s “Somebody that I Used to Know”, and yet, I still find some of the DJs’ commentary offensive. Almost entirely, what’s offensive is their remarks are grossly anti-youth.

And here’s the other thing. It’s worth looking into WHY something is offensive. Sometimes it in fact is someone being oversensitive, as there are some pretty damn stupid things people find offensive. My being offended at ageism is unusual, in that not too many other people find it offensive, and they might consider me oversensitive. Well, there’s a reason I take offense at ageism, and that is not only that ageism is wrong, but not enough people know that, and hearing ageism promoted so much just encourages and perpetuates it. Of course, the real harm and wrongness of ageism is what a complaint about such commentary would be based on, not simply the fact that I find it offensive.

If someone says something is offensive, the correct response is to ask why, not to simply say “shut up, you’re oversensitive”. That’s the difference between communicating and being an asshole.

Some that say they’re proudly offensive turn out to mean they’re proudly bigoted. Or maybe not necessarily bigoted, but they might frequently use racial or other slurs jokingly in their posts and images. They might take shots at women or the disabled. Basically, anyone who isn’t an able-bodied white straight cis male. Funny how that works out. They think they’re so badass espousing prejudices that most people already have.

In fact, if you were to point this out to these people, you know how they’d react? That’s right. They’d be offended. They’d pretend they aren’t. They say the idiotic well-worn “I’m offended by those who get offended”. But the idea is they would object, so they would be offended. And for less reason, since saying “your group of people is inferior” is a more reasonable thing to be offended by than “I didn’t laugh at your joke”. So, yeah, who’s the oversensitive one again?

Finding something offensive is not in and of itself a reason for something being wrong. There’s a difference between offensive and wrong, of course. If something is wrong, explain why and how it is wrong. But just because something that is wrong is also offensive doesn’t mean that the person pointing it out is simply being “easily offended”. After all, complaining about someone being offended is not a defense of the possibly-offensive thing in question. 😉

This has been Day 66 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 14.

7 Incredibly Stupid Criticisms of the United States

July 4, 2014

The USA has a lot of problems. Dear sweet God, are there a lot of problems! And that’s just what we know about. There’s also problems and major flaws we don’t even know about, and others we just don’t know the extent. So many many flaws this country of ours has!

These are not among them…

“When are you going to switch to the metric system like the rest of the world?”

We’ll switch to the metric system (which we learned in school alongside imperial measurements, by the way) when the UK, Ireland, Japan, India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand start driving on the correct side of the road “like the rest of the world”.

“The national anthem mentions war and bombs! It’s the only one in the world that does!”

First of all, do you think Canada is the only other country in the world with a national anthem? Because it’s not, and plenty of national anthems are pretty bloody and belligerent. Also, have you actually listened to the Star Spangled Banner? It’s about our flag not getting torn to shreds in a battle. It’s about surviving being attacked, not us doing the attacking.
Continue reading “7 Incredibly Stupid Criticisms of the United States”

Best and Worst

June 30, 2014

There’s a popular quote attributed to Marilyn Monroe that goes something like: “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”

And seeing as it has comes off in even the slightest as empowering for women (even though no gender is stated), there’s no shortage of anti-feminist jerks (the so-called “men’s rights activists” but I don’t like to call them that because men’s rights isn’t something they actually care about) whining about it and calling Monroe a drug-addicted slut who therefore had no business wanting respect. Because a woman wanting respect is oppressive to men somehow.

But I digress. There’s that and there’s an actually reasonable criticism of the statement, which involves responding with “Define ‘worst.'”

If “worst” means “abusive”, then surely one shouldn’t be expected to handle that. Or even if “worst” isn’t necessarily abusive but is still extremely draining and leaving very little of any “best” to speak of, yeah, that’s not a great situation.

Or just take it at face value, in which case “worst” might simply mean sad or sick or stressed or scared. Rather normal human lows, that if you’re going to cast off someone for experiencing, you’re kind of an asshole. Or at least it’s not much of a relationship or friendship or whatever.

Humans are imperfect. It’s not a bad thing to remember. But, hey, why get in the way of some accusatory overthinking? 😛

This has been Day 38 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 14.

Lucky Thirteen

August 31, 2013

Once more, it’s been ten days times ten, and here we are in yet another…

DAY
100

Alright. So Round 13 is just about in the books. Let’s review.

Day 1, fourth day on job. Yay employment!

Day 9, “Screw work. Let’s build a fort!”

Day 19, worst sushi ever… but with Victoria!

Day 25, fun day of baseball, pizza, and video games with little brother!
Continue reading “Lucky Thirteen”

World News

August 21, 2013

Just a little while ago, a friend of mine posted to Facebook about the high death toll from some attacks in the Middle East being mostly ignored by mainstream American media. It’s a typical complaint, one that I even agree with. In fact my comment to that status was “That’s because people outside the US aren’t people, especially if they’re yucky brown people. Duh!”

Then I thought about it some more.

While it is in fact a shame that such disasters on other continents get mostly glossed over, and that there are often crypto-racist reasons for it… Have you looked at the world news section over on Google News or something? Every single damn article is about either some political scandal or some explosion or natural disaster or attack somewhere that left a nasty death toll. Imagine if all of those always made the headline news.

We’d be right back at square one, in that you’d just tune it all out after a while.

Then the mold is broken by some news that doesn’t involve tons of devastation, such as Prince George’s birth or something. Nice to have happy news for once, right? And then the response is “Why should I care about that? I’m an American, damn it!”

I’m beginning to think all anyone really cares to talk about with international events is whether or not anyone should be talking about it.

This has been Day 90 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 13.

Estimating Earth

July 25, 2013

I hate this fucking game.

GeoGuessr

Go ahead. Give it a try.

I’m awesome at it. I think my highest score was up over 28,000. I often get over 25,000 anyway and seldom lower than 20,000. I’ve mastered the art of pinpointing the exact spot to within meters. I very rarely check Wikipedia or the like, and when I do, usually it’s a matter of “okay, I know the name of the town and what country it’s in, I’ve just been panning all over the country’s map looking for it and am getting impatient.”

And oh dear God, the constant panning! Dear Lord at the long barren usually-Australian roads. Yeah, I can pinpoint exact locations within meters after a LOT of panning and clicking down a road, hoping that there will be a sign showing the name of a nearby city or at least telling me what language is spoken in this place. Or the number of the road.

Only twice have I screwed up so badly that I didn’t even pick the right continent. Once wasn’t too long ago. A lot of locations in the game are in Brazil, and usually a sign or something in Portuguese can be spotted before too long telling this, along with rather obviously tropical scenery. Well, sure enough, at one point when I couldn’t identify any town names, was on some endless forest road, and saw some signs in Portuguese and finally guessed a random spot in Brazil and hoped it was close… it was in Portugal! :irked:
Continue reading “Estimating Earth”

How to Be Religious

June 6, 2013

I reject the notion that religion is inherently evil and causes all the Bad Stuff in the world. For one, that view is incredibly simplistic. Yes, many horrible acts are committed in the name of religion, but then again, so are many good ones. And while, yes, the good ones don’t require religion to be done, neither do the bad ones, really.

So by all means be religious if that’s what you want. Just please be the good kind. How can you do that? Well, here’s a handy guide to the Good and the Bad of faith-based actions!

So if your religion inspires you to…

-Donate food, clothing, and other items to the needy? Good!

-Volunteer for some sort of disaster relief effort, such as rebuilding houses? Good!

-Visit people in hospitals or nursing homes? Good!

-Take someone into your home when they’ve fallen on bad times? Good!

-Sing in your congregation’s choir? Good.

-Fight oppression? Good!

-Spread peace and love? Good!
Continue reading “How to Be Religious”

Microwave Cookery

May 31, 2013

It occurred to me recently the way people use microwave ovens. How different they can be. How just plain weird and wrong they can be! :doitnow:

You see, when I’m microwaving something, I set the timer to something sensible depending on the item, very rarely more than two minutes for anything unless it’s frozen solid.

And yet, now and then, whether at work or elsewhere with a shared microwave, I see people just heating up some lukewarm soup or chicken or something and setting the timer to something like three minutes! True, the cans and packages sometimes say to microwave for that long, but it’s sort of a general rule that the amount of time they give is more than you need, unless your particular microwave sucks. Then again, packages also give stove top or conventional oven instructions, which nobody who isn’t my mother is dumb enough to pay any attention to.

Hell, I had a burrito once whose conventional oven instructions said to cook for 65 minutes. Not sure if trolling or really fucking crazy.

Anyway, as it sometimes turns out, the people setting their three ounces of clam chowder to microwave for four minutes don’t actually leave it in there the whole time. Oftentimes not even a minute has passed and they decide to stop it and remove their food. Which sort of boggles me further. If the time didn’t even matter, why not, you know, just set the time lower? And, of course, they take the food out and away, and the stupid timer is still blinking with the remaining time. Which the next person has to clear off.

Okay, it makes some sense if they pull it out early to see if it’s warm enough yet, so they could just pop it right back in if it isn’t without having to reset the timer. But they don’t even do that. And why such a ridiculously high time, heating something for four minutes that would be plenty hot in 45 seconds? Is your tongue made of asbestos?

Meh. I don’t know why anybody does anything. 😆

This has been Day 8 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 13.

By the Dozen

August 31, 2012

Like every year so far this century, it began on May 24 and ends today on August 31, for today is…


DAY
100

With Round 12 coming to an end, let’s review!

Day 3, meeting Kathleen in Georgetown, finding place to park. Finding expensive parking meters. A nickel gets you a minute and a half. It says that. Make that finding world’s most sarcastic parking meters.

Day 9, Victoria has come to DC! We welcome her with dinner at Full Kee in Chinatown.

Day 10, to LGBT poetry slam with Kathleen at Busboys and Poets. Girl who won was quite awesome.

Day 13, uh oh, Kathleen needs to go to ER! Going to be a late night.

Day 17, charades! Well, more a game of Taboo we’re calling charades. Sort of both.

Day 21, first board meeting in almost five months. Passed a corporal punishment position paper at last. Then a whole lot of staff issues. And a repealed bylaw change that was foolishly done in closed session where no one could see it was being done. Ugh.
Continue reading “By the Dozen”