My Gritty Captain Planet Reboot

It doesn't take long to figure out that the Planeteers are Nietzsche's  Übermensch, they are of this world but not basic human beings. They are not preparing for the Christian after-life but actively trying to create the Utopian paradise on Earth. It mostly works within the simple perspective of youth but at some point they become adults.

In my mind's eye I can imagine the situation:

The squad comes together to fight a logging company hired by the government to clear some old growth timber from an "ancient" forest. The company has been hired to clear deadwood but since they are making a profit there's a sense of impropriety. The Planeteers descend upon the logging crew and the fire kid, Wheeler,  tries to get the loggers attention by a display of fire. The fire grows quickly, far quicker than anticipated. Being a "superhero," that is an Ubermench, he believes he can control the chaos.  The rest of the Planeteers try to help him but can't. Wheeler and the loggers are consumed by the flames and die.


In aftermath Ma-Ti suffers from PTSD and uses his heart power to manipulate Linka to be a comfort woman, Linka doesn't consent but can't resist so turns to drugs, primarily heroin, to make the self hate go away.

Gi and Kwame try to hold the team together but they become isolated from the world and from other Planeteers. they slide into unhealthy co-dependent relationship. They are without peers and consider themselves unable to be understood by their lessers.  They try to care of Linka who is a full blown addict because of a sense of guilt and because she is a superhero like them.

Ma-Ti runs away to Northern Mexico and gets caught up in Nacro violence. He can't help himself but use his power to create para-military group which become a death cult. They battle the cartels and carve our own nation. He thinks he can fix the world by being in charge because he knows the power of heart,sympathy and understanding and that is all the world needs.

The death of Wheeler and the drifting apart of the Planeteers mean that Captain Planet can't be summoned.

Wheeler's younger brother, Jim,  seeks out the Planeeters, hoping to carry on hiss brother's role because he believes the world is worth saving. He finds them living in their disgusting self-pity. Jim finds Wheeler's ring in the hovel that Gi., Kwame and Linka are living in. He gives a moving speech about the burden of trying to be the best they can to make the planet a better place and that Ma-Ti is a danger because he cannot be checked by normal humans. He convinces the group to head to the American Southwest.

On the journey Jim gets to tell stories of the old days, of when they were a force of good. Getting ready to cross the border Jim gives a speech about good and evil, the need of good to never tire, to never yield or to never compromise. Their powers represent the greatest hope that humanity has to achieving utopia. Energized by a renewed sense of purpose, Jim convinces  the Planeteers to try to summon Captain Planet despite missing Ma-Ti, who commands the power of heart.

The summoning of Captain Planet is not a complete failure but the Captain Planet who appears is an an abomination. Without heart, that is without sympathy Captain Planet quickly grows angry and impatient with humanity. He gives the human race 24 hours to cease any activity that harms the planet. Captain Planet creates a luminescent and impenetrable shield that protects him from attack.

The United States military shows up and creates a perimeter. They begin attacking Captain Planet's defenses using weapons developed from studying the Planeteers but with little affect.

Mi-Ti shows up with his armed troops and tries the same with no success. Ma-Ti then approaches Captain Planet unaccompanied and explains that only him, Ma-Ti, can lead the human race to a planet friendly existence and that Captain Planet should be his ally.


Captain Planet impatient rages, lashes out and wipes out Ma-Ti's army from existence. The Planeteers have failed and only his extreme measures can save the day. Rejected and lost, Ma-Ti retreats to the wasteland which was recently his army's campsite.

Jim and the Planeteers find Ma-Ti lost and grief-stricken. Ma-Ti wants to lash out in anger and blame Wheeler's death on them but he is exhausted in every sense of the word and has become unraveled. Jim explains that will all the rings combined they can control Captain Planet and with Ma-Ti's help can give him the compassion not to destroy all human life on Earth. Maybe they can...

Hawkeye, the Adult Superhero

By Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Jason T. Poplin (http://www.navy.mil/view_image.asp?id=14389) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Superheroes are definitely having their moment in the sun, they are the modern pantheon of  pop culture. They conjure up childhood memories about tucking a blanket in the collar of our shirts and running around fast as you can pretending you're flying.

Superheroes are super because they have powers that we don't posses. They are super strong, they can fly, they know martial arts and they fight really well. When you're a kid you dream of these powers; how much better would life be if one had the strength to open the pickle jar yourself or knock out the bully who won't leave you alone? How great would it be to fly to the park or arcade instead of begging one of your parents to drive you?

So much childhood play was pretending to get the best of villains and saving the day which contrasted embarrassingly to having to be strapped into a car seat a thousand ways and running to your parents with any problem more difficult than building a really tall lego tower.

We are not kids anymore, we pick out our own clothes, we do our own cooking,  we pay our own bills and it's our job to make sure we do what we have to do to maintain our well being. We may not do it well but we're adults and we expected to have responsibility for ourselves and our actions.

Kid problems are the not same as adult problems. Being super strong doesn't pay the rent, being able to fly doesn't mean you can maintain a healthy, happy relationship and go around beating people up will most certainly get you sent to jail (but officer, I am the Night!).

While superheroes are almost exclusively adults they are adults through kids eyes. Looking at them with adult eyes we see flawed people. The Incredible Hulk reminds us of people who can't be happy because they can't control their anger and harm themselves and those around them. Batman is a man who has grown up never able to escape the trauma of his youth. His only lasting relationship is with his caretaker and his only true motivation is trying to undo the past by being a ceaseless guardian of the grimy city that took his parents' lives from him. Spiderman is forever a pubescent boy, constantly trying to figure out his powers, constantly trying to figure out how to fit in socially and never quite figuring how to use his powers without putting his friends and family in danger.

Where are the adult superheroes? The grown-ups who have it all. Where are the people who can defect unending obstacles that reality throws at us like Superman deflecting bullets (and emotional intimacy). When we get a superhero movie about an adult superhero?

We already have, it's Avengers 2 and the superhero is Hawkeye.

"Wait," you may say, "Hawkeye doesn't even have super powers!" I would disagree with that. Look at all the things we learn about Hawkeye in the film. He has mastered the family/work mix, he spends quality time with his kids, he has a meaningful life, he never gets overwhelmed, he builds strong relationships including a platonic relationship with a member of the opposite sex, he works hard and that hard work pays off, and he has the skillset to deal with all sorts of problems physical and emotional. In the previous Avengers' movie Hawkeye had something horrifying happened to him, he lost his own volition and was force to cause harm to those close to him. This trauma will be with him for the rest of his life but he doesn't let that interfere with his job and relationships.

While the rest of the Avengers are behaving childish and in dangerous ways (including falling down a well?) Hawkeye is able to keep the group together and be the adult of the group. He doesn't work alone. He's part of a team and he makes sure the team is greater than the sum of its parts.

Being an adult has many pitfalls. They can be carrying around emotional baggage, missed opportunities, regrets both personal and interpersonal, the feeling of wasted and aimless work and uncertainty about the future. Being able to overcome these problems, to face them and beat them sure seems like a superpower to me.

What would make you happier, flying around in your underwear and boots or not feeling overwhelmed when life throws you a curveball?

The Man Child Antichrist

A man child is a person who is a physically mature man but still has the emotional maturity of a child. Almost throughout the entire movie of Fight Club we see grown men acting like children; we see them riding a bike indoors, sleeping in bunk beds, having imaginary friends and treating real drama and violence as cartoonish or fake. In one series of scenes we see guys passing rumors around like they were at a cafeteria lunch table saying things like "did you know," and "I heard that he" in reference to Tyler Durden. We see these men making dick jokes, like splicing porn in children movies, and obsessing about their father issues. They form a "no girls allowed club." They do not accept the consequences or responsibilities for their actions like an adult would. They are man children.

It's easy to recognize the familiar traits of the man child lifestyle, there is sex without intimacy or love, there's working to buy stuff like furniture but not working to provide for a future and a family. The narrator says veiled but explicit things  such as "I can't get married, I'm a thirty year old boy" and "I'm six years old again." He talks about having a fridge full of condiments but no food to eat which is often associated with unencumbered youth not thirty year old adults

Another sign of this arrested development, of being stuck in boyhood, is the inability for healthy intimacy even beyond sex. The narrator labels relationships as a weaker person latching onto a stronger person not as a complementary pairing. The physical combat becomes an insufficient replacement to physical intimacy. An undeniable sense of brotherhood is formed through the only means available: violence.

The narrators job brings him face to face with death which he is too immature to process. Part of growing up is accepting our own mortality. The narrator tries to figure out how to face death by going to support groups for moribund people. Sleep becomes a metaphor for death and the character's insomnia a stand in for his own nonacceptance of his own eventual death . This is how Tyler Durden is created. His fear of death from an unlived life makes him pursue all the dangerous and fun things he considers "living." In the narrator's first meeting with Tyler, Tyler tells the narrator to "accept his fate." This is misguided because stupid and dangerous behavior is not living because living is adding meaning to life. It is our relationships, love and legacy which give life our value not cheap thrills in the face of death.

We start to see the break between the narrator and Tyler Durden when it comes to Marla. Tyler uses and exploits Marla as a play thing for amusement but the narrator feels the need to protect Marla and to look out for her safety and her well being. Whenever Marla is in danger or is vulnerable the narrator shows up. She spurs the character into to growing up and becoming a man. The movie ends with the narrator and Marla holding hands, a show of physical affection. 

Compared their first meeting, the last meeting of the narrator and his imaginary friend, Tyler, involves the narrator looking at an instrument of death, a gun, with his eyes open with the intended effect of making Tyler disappear. He is facing death and accepting his own mortality which forces Tyler out of existence.

While the narrator is coping with his own immature fear of death he creates what can be described as his own religion. He becomes an antichrist which is defined as someone offering salvation but who is not Christ. He refers to his followers as "God's unwanted children." When one member of the group dies, they bury him while chanting his name sounding like a form of prayer. In another scene he takes a beating as a sacrifice to save the existence of Fight Club and is carried away, bloodied and bruised, in the Jesus Christ pose. This sacrifice wasn't to save their souls or bring peace but to continue violence and immaturity. This makes Tyler Durden an antichrist, the savior of the man children who participate in Fight Club.

In the end we can say the narrator's soul is saved by rejecting Tyler's teaching and embracing an adult life with Marla. 

A Year of Resolutions

I don't normally do New Year resolutions because I don't think they work and they get quickly discarded. This year I've decided to give it a try but I want to find a way to solve some of the known issues.

First, I'm not going to the gym in January; the gym just gets too crowded because a ton of people decide to begin exercising on Jan 1st. I've decided if I was going to do a fitness resolution it won't start on Jan 1st and that's what got me thinking that instead of doing a bunch of resolutions on Jan 1st and throwing them all away by Feb 1st that I'll do one resolution per month.

I'm going to make a list of 12 things that I want to accomplish in 2014 and each thing it going to have a month dedicated to it without distraction. If something takes longer than a month, like a diet, then I'm going to commit to it for one month and then reevaluate. I find it much easier to make a month-long commitment than a year long one and I feel worse about breaking a commitment than never making one in the first place.

Another advantage of spreading out the goals is that some goals are best suited for months that are not January (e.g. learning to surf).

The plan is to write the goal on a post-it note at the beginning of the month and place it on my bedroom wall. At the end of the month I will write 'accomplished' or 'failed' and hope by the end of the year to have wall full of 12 post-it notes saying accomplished.

What I know about drywalling so far

Drywall notes:

1. Whenever possible, two or more people
2. Almost always use cleats
3. Line up seams over joist/stud/nailer
4. A small scrap of 2x4 with a deck screw is a good way to pull the sheet close to the nailing surface. Don't use the drywall screws until there is no gap.
5. Use screws no longer twice the thickness of the sheet
6. Don't do anything if you are off balance
7. Mark the sheet with screw lines
8. Dry fit
9. Somehow it will always take longer than you think it will
10. As few joints as possible and when there are joints, factory edge to factory edge.  Avoid butt joints and non factory edge to factory edge.
11. All Purpose Joint Compound is good for starting joints because it is strong but it is a pain to sand. Lightweight is easier to sand but not as strong. Both crack if applied too thick.

First coat use setting-type or all purpose. First coat should be thing and require little sanding. Screw holes and topping coats should be lightweight. Start straight joints with a 12 inch knife and corner bead with 6 inch. I don't use other knifes.

Mesh tape is good for factory edge to factory joints with little movement. Strong mesh tape or paper tape for difficult, uneven and butt  joints.

So far, putting an index finger off to one side seems to work.



Compound Type   | Sanding | Shrinkage | Strength
----------------+---------+-----------+-----------
Setting         | Hard    | None      | Strong
All Purpose     | Med.    | Most      | Medium
Lightweight     | Easy    | Min?      | Weak

The Importance of Giving Something Up

It has often been said that Humanity has two natures, the willful and the animal, and that these two natures are in constant contest with each other. While we wish that our willful nature would win out all the time the truth is it doesn't. The good news is that our willful nature is like a muscle that can be strengthen and can be made more powerful; its greatest ally is the ability to train our animal nature. 


A large part of being an adult and a good Christian is making the right choices and accepting the responsibilities for our actions but, as in all things worthwhile, the task is far from easy.
During the season of Lent we wonder what is the purpose and the importance of fasting and abstaining. By avoiding small indulgences and peccadillos we train ourselves to discover our control of our animal nature and our natural tendencies to selfishness and harmful behavior. We must always be pushing the boundaries of what we are capable of to achieve the effect of growth; we must exercise our power over temptation. When we do we often feel the same sensations we feel with excerising: reluctance, tiredness and a satisfying soreness/discomfort. 

It is the overcoming of smaller temptations, the sense of achievement however small, that gives us the strength to confront and defeat larger temptations. Abstinence (giving something up) becomes one of the tools we need to subvert our animal nature and to come closer to the willful person that we wish to be and this is the path to happiness. I believe the happiness is reason enough.

On Bachelor Parties

I heard this story and I don't care if it's true. The origin of best man dates back to a time of small villages where there's weren't always enough women to be brides for the men to go around so men would have forcefully acquire women from nearly villages. The best man would accompany the groom on his search and back him up. This conjures up the idea that a man entering marriage does not do it alone but with great support from his close male friends. Today this has grown into the idea of the bachelor party.

What is a bachelor party? What is it's purpose? What are the rules?

The bachelor party is a rite of passage, it marks the end of bachelorhood and the beginning of married life. The purpose is for the bachelor to convince his friends that he is ready for the challenge of marriage and from him to provide a bookend to say, "Here was the last time I was a single man; it is time to put it aside and grow as a person"

For different men and their friends the bachelor party will have different agendas, some may be laid back and uneventful and some may be an all-out, the-world-is-ending hedonistic bash but most are somewhere in between those two extremes. The party is personally customized for the bachelor by the guys closest to him in life who know him the best. The planning usually involves guys from many sides of the marriage prospective: single men, married men and, now more common, divorced men.

The secrecy of the party allows for the participants to interact with the bachelor in an open honest way that won't be judged by outsiders; all reservations must be aired and explored. Of course such things are quite difficult to accomplish sober so alcohol is required. Things such as written accounts of the event, pictures, checks-in or anything else that would make public the sensitive details of the party is very counterproductive to the propose of the whole event. 

Interference from people from outside the group will just foster resentment from the friends of the bachelor and might cause them to doubt support for the marriage. The readiness of the bachelor will be called into question if it seems the decision for him to get married was not his own. His friends will try to protect the bachelor from being strong armed and the damage could be permanent. 

So what seems like a stupid excuse to get together and act like idiots is actually an ancient ritual based on strong interpersonal ties between a man and his friends. What happens that night can have a huge impact on friendship and the strength of the imminent marriage and should not be tampered with.


(P.S. Don't ask any questions about glittered clothing)

The Machine has no loyalities: The story of Gladiator

*SPOILER ALERT*

The movie Gladiator is a good action movie and it is great for testing out home theater systems but story-wise it's a little weak. There is little character growth, few twists and not much deeper meaning. Well maybe there is a deeper meaning and that meaning is told in the opening scene.

Two sides line up for battle: on one side there is the Roman Army bent on conquest, well funded, strictly hierarchy with an omnipotent emperor, who while not always seen is always in charge. The Roman Army is a military machine, each soldier has a role, a class and a superior. The army moves in formation, mowing down all that lay before them, a bloody lawn mower. In charge of the army is Maximus, the army makes him powerful but the army can exist without him.

On the other side are German barbarians defending their homes in what is now Austria. These man are not organized, not rich, they did not seek out conflict but conflict found them. They do not fight in formation as soldiers but stand as warriors. There is no clear king, no clear class structure. These man are not part of a military machine.

In this sense, the Roman military machine represents the political machine and the German warriors represent individuals not part of a political system or machine.

At the peak of this battle there are two things going on of importance: first Maximus is fighting back to back with another soldier and he almost stabs him because he executing his role in the army mindlessly. Maximus would never murder a fellow Roman but caught up in the batle he is a different person. Second we see a barbarian champion, a hero like figure, fighting off many Romans, outnumbered but he stands above them undefeated. He is an individual fighting to preserving his way of life but he is soon devoured by the army, dead and defeated.

The machine cannot permit an individual to triumph not matter how worthy his cause, any success against the machine will be inevitably be destroyed.

Maximus does change throughout the movie, he a family man who fights for his livelihood and what is just (justice for his murdered family). He doesn't learn a lesson, he doesn't grow, he doesn't display any trait later in the movie that he didn't have in the beginning of the movie.

So how does he go from the powerful head of a very strong army to a lifeless corpse bleeding in the sand of the arena? It happens because he ended up on the wrong side of the machine. His friends crushed and betrayed him because they are loyal to the machine, he stood up to the machine and the machine crushed him because he dared to be an individual who challenged the machine.

The lesson? Where you stand is more important than who you are. Don't betray the machine.

The Tale of Two Beasts

In Disney's Beauty and the Beast we have two main male leads, Gaston and the Beast. Both of these characters are introduced the same way, superficial, strong and lacking compassionate. Both the Beast and Gaston view the value of a woman based on her looks, the Beast places little value on the old lady because of her looks and age and Gaston values Belle not based on her intellect and personality but the fact she is the attractive girl in the village.

The Beast and Gaston are not exactly the same, there are differences. Let's consider their roles in the community, the Beast's community is poor,disfigured servants and they are so because of the Beast. Gaston's community is just normal hard working people who are better off because of Gaston. Gaston is a skilled hunter and warrior willing to protect the village from all sorts of threats demonstrated by his willingness to hunt down the Beast which the villagers consider a grave and immediate threat. Gaston hanger-ons are taken care of by him, not exploited servants.

Now we can compare the two vis a vis Belle. Belle is portrayed as too intellectual ( a bookworm) and compassionate to be marrying Gaston who doesn't bring enough to the equation even though he can provide for her in all ways material. What does the Beast being to the equation? The Beast isn't bookread even though he has a huge library and doesn't show any human decency until we are deep involved with the plot.

The story of the Beast is the story of someone who was worse than Gaston who is redeemed and becomes what we are told is the perfect husband, the reward for Belle being the perfect woman/wife.

So let's look at outcomes here, Beast is a obnoxious prince who indiscretions causes him and those around harm but is redeemed but Gaston acting in accordance with the welfare of those around him is not offered a chance for redemption but instead pushed to his death by the "good guy"

I guess redemption is only reserved for some.

Just the Tip

What is a tip? A tip is partial compensation for a service provide with the wages paid to the server being the complement. Now that I have thrown a dry definition out there I can start rambling.

Current rule of thumb is that the tip is a percentage of the price of the food and drink order with a factor of service quality included. What is the connection between the price of goods delivered and the compensation of the related service?

Let's start out with a fresh sheet of paper, let's say we have developed a tipping system from the ground up. What factors to include? Well the two that come to mind right away is the amount of service provided and the quality of the service provided. You can even throw in a term for personality difficulties of people at the table. Since waiting is a physical job why not throw in a term for the weight of the food. Hold out a term for total distance traveled to provide the service?

In truth through, none of those things matter because a tip is not the price paid for services at all. Prices are known up front and the transaction occurs when both parties find the price agreeable. Imagine going to a gas station without knowing the price of gas until after you filled up or as a service example imagine taking a new job and not knowing what the pay would be until after you already worked two weeks.

For the tip to be a true price is must actually have only one factor involved and that's the quality of the service. As a corollary when a bare minimum service provided the tip must be zero.

So after all that, what is the tip really? Well it's a reflection of the quality of the service plus a price shift where the wages of the servers are not 100% paid out of restaurant's revenue.

As for me I never tip below %15 so the way I see it the actually bill has a hidden 15% surcharge for labor and the rest is a reflection of quality (well sometimes , especially at bars, I add some "combat pay"). So what's the implications of all this? I have no idea.

So you're dating a geek...

So you've lost a bet or you drank too much and you ended up dating a geek. Hopefully this guide will help you know what to expect.

First, you know how your VCR (or some other appliance) flashes 12:00 all the time? You will no longer have to worry about that butttttt you will have to worry about converting from Greenwich Mean Time (UTC) to local time in your head.

Second, Video Games, they were there first and they will be there after you leave. It's one of the few ways geeks get emotional satisfaction. Getting between a geek and his video game would be like interrupting one of your ice cream binges. If you want to talk to him or spend time with him, do it before or after the gaming session.

Third, Board Games, don't! One of you may not survive and the relationship is almost guaranteed not to. Relationships should be free from bloodshed and in this case this means no board games (especially not Risk).

Fourth, Geek Arguments, don't pick a side unless you are willing to defend it to the death. Han shot first and never mention Capt. Janeway.

Fifth, Talking, they saying you can tell if a geek is an extrovert if he looks at your shoes when he talks (as opposed to his own). If your geek says, "We need to talk," it's probably because you are still using IE.

Lastly, They are not toys! They are not dolls! And don't take 'em out of the box!

Scar the Good King

Say what you will about Scar but he knew how to get what he wanted, he made the right allies, he didn't let anything get in the way and he did achieve his goal.

He had no friends and no one liked him so he had nothing to lose by usurping the throne. If he was nice he could have had friends but not the throne because the kingship is not a popularity contest, no one votes for the king.

You have this minority , the hyenas, with no rights who are outcast to live off of table scraps. Maybe if Mufusa tried to build a respectful relationship with the hyenas they wouldn't have backed his brother Scar. All the hyenas wanted was to know where their next meal was coming from, they didn't want to go hungry, is that a crime? I think that it's not.

If the hyenas weren't incompetent then Scar's reign would have lasted for quite some time. Scar has been labeled as evil but was he really? He had the power to enable an oppressed and threatened minority so he dethroned a king that was there not because of merit but because of luck of birth. I thought that we are advanced enough not to judge or reward people simply on the luck of their birth.

Scar was considered handicapped but in spite of that he fought for an oppressed minority and won over an aristocratic regime. I think that makes him an American Hero.

TFA

What is TFA? TFA is Training for Awesomeness. TFA is the cure for quarter-life crisis. What happens when you realize that you are actually in what is called "The Rest of Your Life" and you're life is not going as you expected or wanted. You want things to change but you don't know what and you don't know how. What you need to do is to start training, Training for Awesomeness.

TFA starts by putting together a list of goals. The goals should range from small to medium to large. Small could be something like clean your desk , medium could be something like fixing a leaky faucet or brewing beer. Large can be something like finding a new job, buying a kitten or moving to NJ. Each goal should be something that you can cross out. Among your goals should be overcoming things that have been putting you down in your life like unfinished projects or unresolved problems. TFA is a road map that you draw for a happier better life.

You may not know what you want out of life but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do TFA, the TFA goals may not get you where you exactly want to be but TFA demonstrates that you do have control over your life and it gives you the confidence to achieve life changes. Each day you spend just one hour working on a TFA goal and on days off, such as weekends, you spend two hours instead of one.

One of the most important parts of TFA is having someone else, a friend, also do TFA at the same time to encourage you and call out lame excuses.

Is TFA right for you? Well, I guess it depends if you are happy with your life and the path you're on.

Organic Farming

From an Economist article

Perhaps the most eminent critic of organic farming is Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution”, winner of the Nobel peace prize and an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields. He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.

The Importance of Being Humiliated

Once of the most common questions asked of Christianity is, "why did Jesus have to suffer and die?"

There are many correct answers to this question and recent events on the world stage has produced a clear example of the importance of Jesus being brutally beaten, humiliated and ultimately put to death. Through this act and other acts and teachings of Jesus , He shows us the path to Heaven is through humility and servitude and the path to Hell is pride and selfishness.

Let's say a religious leader comes along and preaches the importance of servitude but emphasizes pride instead of humility, which do you get? Islam (which actually means servitude).

An artist comes along and puts a crucifix in a bucket of urine, WWJD? Jesus would shake his head and not demand revenge. An artist comes along and draws Mohammed in an unfavorable way, what then? Bloody Jihad. For after all, the pride of Islam must be upheld.

Those Christians who have spread their faith through the sword and violence have done so in stark contradiction to the teachings of Jesus Christ but those Muslims who have spread their faith through similar means have done so in a manner that follows the footsteps of their great prophet Mohammed.

To compare the two religions honestly praises Jesus and defames Mohammed. I believe this to be self-evident.

Hail to thee, Mr. C

Who rules the world? It's not the A students, once they get done with their bachelors degree they went back to school for their masters or their PhD's. They will get jobs as professors or some brain on display, a two legged encyclopedia but they don't do much work, sometimes contributing as research scientists. Even worse are those who work for the government in non-defense jobs, they produce things that are a waste of resources and often times harmful.

So I guess when can conclude that it's the hard working B students that rule the world. Nope, it isn't. They are too busy doing all the hard work their bosses dumped on them. They never bothered to figure out how to avoid doing so much work or how to get themselves in charge.

And it's not the D and F students either, it just takes a little more than that.

It's the C students. It's the C students that spend their time doing extra curricular activities to have fun and meet people. It's the C students who got by but didn't get inundated. It's the C students who figure out that getting ahead takes more than just hard work. It's the C students that con the B students into doing the hard work. It's the C students who stroke the egos of the A students to keep them complacent and out of the way. It's the C students who hire the D/F to wash their car or mow their lawn. It's the C students who get elected into politics. It's the C students who know they can't do the job themselves. It's the C students that rule the world.


P.S. We are talking about actually grades here, with all things being level. Those who cheat , hire other people to do the work for them or take simple classes aren't in the grade strata their transcripts indicate.

Sequel Recipe

So I finally got to see Pirates 2. It was a good movie but something bugged me.

I must warn you, read no further if it is a spoiler yer fear!

So all these big brains are sitting around at the studio after the first movie was a hit and they are trying to figure out how to make a sequel or maybe they had all three movies planned out from the beginning. The question must have arisen, "How do you make a successful second movie of a trilogy?" How has it been done in the past? What are some of the most successful trilogies in the past. Well, there was Star Wars and you must admit the parallel to Star Wars can not be denied so far in this series.

First let's do the line up:

Will Turner - Luke Skywalker
Jack Sparrow - Han Solo
Elizabeth Swan - Princess Leia
Davy Jones - Jabba the Hutt
Pintell and Regatti - R2D2 and C3PO
Bill Turner and Barbarossa - Darth Vader


So you have this restless young kid working in a dead-end occupation until the Imperium comes by and changes everything and plus you have a pampered high-born young girl who's independent and has no problem getting her hands dirty to get things done and eventually gets captured by the bad guys only to find out they have a horrible secret and they plan on killing her. So which movie is that? New Hope or Curse of the Black Pearl? Yeah, exactly.

So in the second movie the young kid grows up and is now involved in warfare and after getting himself into a tough bind discovers his father is still alive although he thought him dead his whole life. Now he is driven to destroy the evil enemy to save his father. Also in the second film the charismatic and Devil-May-Care outlaw is caught up by an old debt and ends up being "put on ice" with his fate undetermined.

Also through out both movies there are these two characters, one tall and skinny and the other short and stout. They provide comic relief as well as pushing along the plot at slow points.

In the second movie there is an introduction of two new villians. One is a human bent on ruling everything and will stop at nothing to acheive it and the other is a monster who is a dark warlord; who all the main characters end up getting captured by.

So the kid's long lost father made a deal with one of the villians a long time ago and since then has been damned to be in his service. His son, who was sent off many years ago, has come back to rescue his father.

My prediction for Pirates 3 is that Davy Jones gets thrown down a large vent shaft and Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swan go off and get married with a honey moon in an Ewok village. But all this takes places after Will Turner sneaks aboard a "Super Warship" that the East India Trading Company built to destory whole islands, the ship's name in the Full Moon.

I see they copied the Oracle out from Matrix which kind of breaks the thoery of copying off of successful trilogies but it doesn comply with the "Introduce a token black person in the second movie to balance out the the amazing whiteness of the main characters from the first movie" rule. Also known as the Billy-D-Williams Theorum.


May the Pirates be with you!

Spirit of '76

Here's a rant from one of my other pages RightWingDuck.us:

What do we celebrate on the 4th of July? Is it the anniversary of the first battle of the Revolutionary War? Nope, that was April 19th, 1775. Is the anniversary of the surrender of the British at Yorktown? Nope, that was October 17th, 1781. Perhaps it is when our new government under the Consitution was ratified. Nope, Jun 21, 1788. So what exactly is July 4th 1776?

On July 3rd, 1776 the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence which was presented to the public on July 4th, 1776. On July 4th America raised its head, let the divine light shine upon its face and looked its tyrant, and all tryants present and future, in the eyes and told him to GFY.

Hark and pay heed

Women,

Don't give crap to a guy you're not dating. If you're just friends and you nag him or treat him like a bitch that's not good. Men are hard to find (not as much if you're a homewrecker) and if you give a man crap he will give you crap back. You're just going to end up getting everyone pissed off and nothing gained. A guy who doesn't give crap back either isn't a man or is looking for some play.

Intergender friendships are difficult. To be friends with a guy you have to understand the male rules of friendship.

• Speak only when you have something interesting to say
• If you must speak then say something interesting
• If you are angry or pissed off or feel slighted say something or express it obvisiously (cursing and punching a wall are obvious, silent treatment not so much)
• Friends carry their own burdens, pay thier own share. It's one thing to help or be helped, it's another to expect it.
  
• If something disgusting is done it is fine to comment, forbidden to outlaw ("Oh man! What did you eat?" not "ew, that's disgusting, don't do that again")
• Comment and observe but don't pass judgement.
  
• Give and Take.
  
• A gentlemen always knows and respects debts or gratitude owed without being reminded.
  
• You and a friend should always be on the same team, no snitching.
  

If ya want to be friends with a guy you should know these things. You don't have to follow them as unbreakable rules but they are good guidelines.

If you give a guy enough grief you'll have one less friend.

An hour and a one: The truth about a and an

Why is it "an hour" and "a one" when hour begins with a constanant and one begins with a vowel? The truth is the rule states that the word an should be used before a word with a vowel sound not a vowel. Therefore the word hour with it's silent h gets an "An" and the word one with it's unscripted "w" gets an "a". This common in romantic languages but unlike romantic languages English has silent and unscripted letters.

Have a good week

People leaving on a Friday afternoon always are wishing others to "have a good weekend." How come we don't have people wishing others to "have a good week" on Monday morning? We seem to be able to have fun and relax over the weekend without well wishers but the work week can be tough. Maybe a little boost would be nice. Of course being chipper on a Monday morning could get you a punch in the nose. Well let me be the first to encourage Monday morning salutations (don't forget to duck) .

Top Ten Sports Movies

Top Ten Sports Movies I've seen:

10. Field of Dreams
9. Bull Durham
8. The Replacements
7. Rocky IV
6. Mystery Alaska
5. Major League
4. Sandlot
3. Slapshot
2. Miracle
1. Hooisers

My Plan to Save the Galaxy

Sometimes at work my mind wanders and today while listening to the SW:III score I began to think about Anakin's path the dark side. Basically he fell in love with Padme' and that all sorts of messed him up. While he would often wander towards the dark side it always seems that his involvement with Padme' is what would tip the scales. Forbidden love, saving her life, and being distracted from his duties all seemed to be problems brought on by that chance encounter.

So... what if Padme' was unattractive and didn't interest young Anakin? Probably no Darth Vader. This supports my theory that attractive women that don't go out with me are the cause of all the world's problems including fictional problems in fictional worlds.

Bottom line is that I could save the galaxy if Natalie Portman slept with me.

Funny Looking Words

Zeroes is a funny word

It kind of looks like a foreign word, look at it like Zer - oes.

"Oh that's the foreign exchange student from Greece, Zeroes Pappadoppolis"

These are the words that drive me crazy because they never look like they are spelled right. There seem to be a lot of words that get spoken quite often but you rarely see written. Another one that drives me nuts is Whether. I still don't believe that is the right way to spell it but every spell checker so far says so.

Back in Shakespeare's time there wasn't any standardized spelling, the Olde Bard himself spelt his name 16 different ways. One might convincingly reason that the productivity and quality of English compositions since then have been on a downward trend.

Yarr!!!!

Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. If ye landlubbers be needin' help , set yar URL rudder to the headin' this site me matey

Breakup Gifts

Whenever you break up with someone you give em a gift like a bottle of whiskey or rum. It's like a "no hard feelings" gift. After a break-up most people drink so it's perfect.

"Here , go use this to drown your heart-break"

There can even be special brands of liquor.

"Got a bottle of BreakUp Wihskey from FedEx, I guess me and so-and-so ain't dating no more"

Other brands can include:

• Let's Be Friends Rum
• It's Not You, It's Me Vodka
• It's Not Working Out Scotch
• You're Callow Schnapps
  

Quotes

Maybe from now on when I type I'll put everything in quotes so that when I say something stupid I can attribute to someone else.

I am a genius

The Power of Heart

See eveyone thinks the power of heart was a stupid power and the Indian kid got shafted but heart is an awesome power. The kid was a loser, imagine the power to invoke utter dispair in a person.

• Go to a bar
• There's this hot chick
• But she's with some dude
• You pick a fight with him
• And right before he hits you , you make not want to live any more
• You kick his depressed self and steal the girl
• And after you steal the hot chick, you use the power of heart again to make her like madly fall in love with this other hot chick
• So they start going at it
• And then you make them hate each other so they start fighting
• And ripping clothes off and another
• And then you make em like each other again
  

I'm telling you, that power was pure gold. That's why they didn't give it to a manly guy. A manly guy would definately known how to use that awesome ability.