Say Anything.

Or, if they actually had a brain, after the first dozen or so off-the-wall status updates, they would get an inkling that they're being trolled.

lol @ Veb trolling Roz's Facebook page and lol^2 @ my response

No, you cannot date my daughter ><

my moms the worst on FB. She takes everything seriously. Ive had to appologize to friends because she thinks someone is being rude to me or the city i grew up in... Sarcasm and the internet does not translate well for her.

Dr. Obvious says: Don't interview someone while they're driving a convertible, or standing on a beach. The film is 45 years old, but wtf... it seems like it was produced by cavemen. Ironically, I suppose they did this because they couldn't find a better way to structure the time for the interview. I guess they figured it was more interesting than watching two people sitting in chairs... but WTF WE CANT HEAR YOU GUYS.

[video=youtube;sDOGhI2OKd8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDOGhI2OKd8[/video]

Also amusing is the amount of smoking going on in this educational film. Watching this shit makes 1966 seem like it was ages ago (like, ice ages), and makes me feel old.

Sometimes I think that our audio, and to a lesser extent, video technology has reached a point where progress can only be made in maintaining clarity under greater and greater forms of compression. If you listen to a recording from 1985, you can tell, hey, this shit is from like, 1985. If you listen to something from 1995, you can't really tell when it was recorded. Or maybe it's just me. But I feel like with the advent of digital media, the only way our descendants will have to determine what era it was produced in is by our mannerisms, speech, clothing, and copyright dates.

End of random interlude.


PS: That's Eric Berne and he's a neat guy.
PPS: I meant something like "progress measurable without specialized instruments (e.g., waveform analyzers revealing the sampling rate)" when I said "progress". I know we can make "clearer" recordings, but that will never be apparent to human ears, just like human eyes will never detect the difference between 200 frames per second and 2,000 frames per second.

Three days in 9 that I've done a 3 mile ride on my bicycle; I've noticed a difference in my legs already. I'm really enjoying it, though riding around my hometown is old hat; I used to do that back when I was 8, 9, 10. There are 12+ miles of bike trails near my office; the problem is getting my bike there. I could buy a trunk rack, but driving 12 miles to ride my bike is a bit off kilter. I was pondering doing that, and taking it into the office during the day, then after my shift when waiting for picking my dad up from dialysis, I could ride in between...

Be spending another 4th of July away from m'Lady. It sucks. She will have to work all weekend, so told me to go to the yearly 4th party put on by the folks who host the Halloween party.

I'm tired of gaming for now. By the same token, I wish I could get my brother to play (insert collectible card game here) with me.

Looking for both a place to live, as well as a new(er) car, is draining.

I asked m'Lady how many days off she's taking in August for her birthday. She couldn't answer; she needs to find out what staffing's going to look like. I had two and a half ideas in mind:
A weekend at a B&B in northern Pennsylvania - lots of relaxation
A weekend in DC - lots of busy-ness
A weekend (somewhere else) - a mix of relax and busy.

Trying to keep the expense on the down low, as she will expect to pay half; the b&b would be cheapest, but is twice as far as DC. As of tonight, I have under 50 days to decide. She DID seem rather enthused when she guessed DC as an option - she's never been there.

Tired and nodding off at my desk. Last night's thunderstorm kept me up after 3am. Plus seeing a lightning bolt as clear as day through my eyelids was a bit of a shock. It must have been a close one.

I used to babysit for these people who spent their weekends riding their bikes from Phoenix to Tuscon.. pretty sure they were somewhat insane..

[video=youtube;Ay7srP7lOlE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7srP7lOlE[/video]

"Intelligent falling" = lol

Let me preface this upcoming cynicism with a positive note: After the Miss South Carolina thing a few years ago, most of these ladies are refreshingly well-spoken and intelligent (or at least thoughtful). This almost gives me hope for mankind. I like that the overall opinion is that people should be able to choose what they want to believe for themselves. I mean, that's sort of like... obvious... but it doesn't seem to me that many people actually feel that way. Or maybe I've been reading too much about politics.

To me, the funny part isn't the people saying we need to teach "both sides", but the people saying we need to teach "everything" in school. Everything?? EVERYTHING?? "Children should be taught as much as possible in school"... isn't that the whole point of school? "Science is important"... ya think?

I admit that I can't understand why anybody would advocate the teaching of religion in school on the basis of giving a "well-rounded education" or some sort of academic equal rights thing. Who decides which religion to teach? Some of them behave as if there is only one religion, and then science. What? The people who were opposed to teaching evolution (and even the ones afraid to actually say they were opposed to it) all pointed out that "evolution is a THEORY and blah blah" and that's their reasoning for both why evolution should not be taught, and religion should. Again... what?

I think Miss Colorado's beliefs most closely coincide with my own - which, ironically, I inherited from some asshole philosopher because I'd never really given much thought to specific details about the "debate" of whether or not to teach evolution - in that it should be taught, but not until high school. Let the parents indoctrinate their children with whatever they wish, and then once the children begin to see the world through their own eyes, start presenting them with "the other side" of such "controversial" topics, so that they have a foundation from which to base their judgement, instead of just presenting them with "both sides" at the same time at an early age which would give one side or the other undue weight from their parents and sort of block out the other before they're even able to give it any serious consideration.

I guess that viewpoint doesn't really give people much credit. Well, like I said... cynicism.

Now I feel like I just typed out a bunch of shit everybody knows, like "the sky is blue, and fire is hot", but I spent enough time typing it that I don't want to just erase the whole thing, so I'm going ahead and posting it anyways :( It's almost 3 AM and I should be in bed.

They're either stupid or just saying what they think is the right answer.

Dang. I shot down someone's fallacious argument suggesting that illegal immigrants are the cause of our national debt, and he thanked me, saying he hadn't really thought about it. Now I feel guilty for pointing out the flaws in his logic. That's not fair... I'm supposed to feel righteous or something. :\

illegal aliens :p

An alien isn't necessarily a resident; an immigrant is. An American on vacation in North Korea is an illegal alien.

Some of us are entirely self sufficient :) And also going back to our home country on Saturday :(

On a side note!

They bitch about Arabs here and how they hate immigrants etc. I love to see their faces when I point out that I am an (illegal) immigrant. They quickly back peddle and say well you're ok, you're different. How am I different? Because I am white? Because I speak English as my first language? I'm still an immigrant. An illegal one at that. Kinda... I came in legally...I just didn't go home... yeah...

 
[video=youtube;rUTnNKhF-EU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUTnNKhF-EU[/video]



Edit: Goddamned embedding disablers! DEY TOOK ER JERBS!!

Edit2: Found one that allows embedding!

Alien is the legal term, illegal immigrant is the media being sympathetic. Its a false term.

"False term"? Not according to the internet!

Jet, I've been thinking about that since he posted that status. I want to get a picture of a room full of white men in business suits and tell people "these men are about to be stripped of all their possessions and sent to another country against their will... how does that make you feel?" The response would be quite different if I showed them a room full of non-whites, I'm sure.

lol, and you believe everything you read on the interwebz!? :p

Your skin color does matter. I was waiting to get my new ID card with mike during that big walk out parade thing a couple years back - all the immigrants decided not to go to work that day and staged a huge walk in - I forget...anyway, it was mostly mexicans and nonwhites. Some fucking asshole said, "Let's just round them all up and deport them!" and laughed like the fucking hillbilly he was. I sat there, the only nonwhite in the room and looked at him. Fucked up thing? Other people in the room laughed.

Fucking narrow minded bigots.

The subject is too close to home for me, and I wont get into it here. But my opinions have nothing to do with race, regardless. :p

If you say so... you are the one trying to claim illegal immigrants is a "false term". That seems to me that it must take some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to legitimize that viewpoint. It's words. They have meaning. The meaning is logically sound. Illegal immigrant is more specific a term than illegal alien, because of the difference between "immigrant" and "alien"; nobody really gives a shit about "illegal aliens"... they care about people who live here illegally, ostensibly draining funds that could be put to use for the benefit of taxpaying citizens (or causing crime or whatever, because white anglo-saxon protestants don't commit crimes). All illegal immigrants are illegal aliens, but not all illegal aliens are illegal immigrants. If anything, it's the people who insist on using "illegal alien" who are openly displaying a bias.

But people do use the two terms interchangeably, and yes, they tend to use "immigrant" when it's in a "positive" light and "alien" to arouse negative emotions. But that doesn't mean the term is "false". I can scan an article from the American Legion newsletter, a magazine for retired servicemen and women - historically some of the most conservative people out there, wherein both terms are used; "alien" when they talk about money, "immigrant" when they talk about granting them rights (casting themselves as benevolent "good samaritan" types I guess):

See what they did there?

Do I believe everything I read on the internet? No. Do I believe everything I read in print? No. But at some point you have to believe SOMETHING, and I choose to side with my own faculty of reason - just like every other human being out there. Confirmation bias and all that jazz. When it comes from a source that generally holds an opposing viewpoint, like the American Legion for me, it gives it even more weight. Unfortunately, this phenomenon works in reverse, too, and when presented with hard data that contradicts our worldview, we would sooner renounce all of science (or etymology!) than admit that we are wrong. One of evolution's quirky things that helped to make us the dominant species on the planet.