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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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And so it ends.   PROMPT November 30th Wow, it's the end of the month! With Thanksgiving behind us (here in the States), and Christmas on the horizon, what, if any, are your Christmas traditions? If you have no holiday traditions, do you have any plans for this month? As we careen into December, I think it's of the utmost importance to remember the real reason for the season: Axial tilt. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the axis stays pointing in the same direction (roughly toward Polaris) (or away from it, depending on your perspective), which changes the apparent path of the Sun across the sky. In summer (assuming a location outside the Tropics), the Sun climbs higher, baking us with more direct rays for a longer stretch of time, while in winter, that bastard can barely get out of bed, and things cool down. And I'm still not sure which is worse: burning under the pitiless gaze of the accursed daystar, or freezing from its absence. Okay, I'm going to go with "freezing is worse" because I'd rather be too hot than too cold. In any case, axial tilt is the reason for the season, and, relative to the Sun, it'll be at its most tilted in about three weeks: The solstice this year (winter for me, summer for the folks hanging upside-down) will occur on December 21 at 10:59 am EST. Why it couldn't wait another minute for a nice, even 11:00 is beyond me. And now I'm tired of coddling the Down Under, so everything else here is going to be presented from an unashamed Northern Hemisphere perspective. I always celebrate that moment, because it marks the point when days begin to gradually get longer, when the light begins to conquer the dark. Not that there's anything wrong with dark, per se; it's just that, as I noted, less sunlight means lower temperatures, and fuck lower temperatures. Unfortunately, as weather tends to lag astronomy, the winter solstice isn't usually the coldest day. Obviously that's going to vary from year to year, but on average, around here, that doesn't occur until close to the end of January. Still, I'll take my victories where I can, which in this case means appreciating the solstice. And then, once I'm done appreciating the solstice, I remember that the next two months are going to be utter hell. The only month I hate worse than January is February. But at least for one moment, I can believe that, as they put it on an episode of Doctor Who, we're halfway out of the dark. As for other things in December, well, that remains to be seen. Literally. This is the month when I'm supposed to get my eyes worked on. I dread the operation, so I try to focus (pun intended) on the expected result instead. That's hard for me. I've never been one to endure temporary hardship for longer-term benefit. They do one eye, and then a week later, the other eye. Supposedly it has a solid success rate. I'm still absolutely not looking forward (pun also intended) to having them screw around with my eyeballs. Other things? In the Before Time, I used to go to California every year in December. Travel's a bitch now, though, because a lot of people are infected with weapons-grade ignorance. Perhaps I'll be able to do that again one day, but this year is not that day. Rather than inflict my presence on those who don't want me around (which as far as I can tell is everybody), a couple of years ago, I began a new tradition for myself on Christmas Day, a day which otherwise holds little significance for me: I walk over to the drafthouse cinema, get drunk, and watch a movie before staggering home. This year, I don't know if I'll be able to do that or not; my second surgery is scheduled for the 23rd. Probably I'll be able to. Unless they botch it, in which case my movie-watching days are over. Hey, it's important to expect the worst, so I can only be pleasantly surprised. For anyone else who's made it this far through 30DBC, thanks for reading. But I'm on a roll and I don't expect to stop blogging, so tune in next month for a whole lot more of the usual -- and maybe some things unusual. |
| If you don't have regrets, you're doing it wrong. PROMPT November 29th Imagine for a moment that you are near the end of your life. What do you want to have done that would make you feel satisfied? What do you mean, "imagine?" Everyone has some regrets, I think. Not necessarily the mind-consuming ones like "Oh, I shouldn't have jumped off that cliff, plunging me into a lifetime of pain," but little things, like "I really should have asked her out," or "Damn, I should have had the lasagna instead." Nothing wrong with having regrets; I just think it's counterproductive to dwell on them for too long. Like, one thing I wish I'd done when I could was see the Roger Waters version of Pink Floyd in concert (or any Pink Floyd, really). Or Led Zeppelin. Both of those eras ended when I was in high school, though, so it's not like I had a whole lot of agency in the matter. But I don't live my life thinking every day about how awesome that would have been. Besides, I have seen other performers that I like, and I'd rather remember those than the might-have-beens. But with the use of the future perfect in the prompt, I think the intent is: what do I want to do between now and my inevitable embarrassing demise that would make me feel satisfied before I kick it? Well, other than having a romantic interlude with Halle Berry, which ain't gonna happen; or maybe finding the Fountain of Youth, which is marginally more likely... really, not much. Some traveling, if things would fucking settle down. I've done much of what I'd set out to do, and I'm fine with what few regrets I have. (Occasionally you'll see me making references to having lived my life toiling in the regrettium mines of Regrettistan, but that's for humorous effect and not to be taken seriously.) So, no, I'm good. I'm pretty damn satisfied. Smug, even. Yes, I'm insufferable (you think that's bad, try having beers with me). It's not like there aren't things I still want to do, but that would be the case even if I lived until the heat death of the Universe. And no, I have no reason to believe I'm actually near the end of my life. But I have no reason not to believe it, either. |
| If you can write about something, is it really intangible? PROMPT November 28th Hopefully a little change of pace tonight. Write about something intangible: faith, magic, energy, power, or creativity. Just choose one topic, and write about it. Well, sure, I suppose it's still intangible if you can write about it. Consider a hole, for example. A hole is defined by its surroundings. You can't meaningfully point at a spot in mid-air and go, "That's a hole." It's a thing, but it's not a thing, at the same time. Thinking about it too hard makes your head hurt. I guess, though, I'm limited to one of those five topics in the prompt, which is too bad, because I've been mulling over a rant about the abstract concept known as "freedom." I guess that one can wait. So let's talk about energy. As far as I can tell, energy has two distinct, separate definitions: 1) The capacity to do work; 2) The capacity to do work. The first definition is physical. That is, it comes from physics. "Work," in this context, is force exerted over some distance. (Energy is also equivalent to mass, per Einstein's well-known formula). For example, the force required to move your car over a flat surface for, say, a mile, can be computed, and that force is (usually) supplied by energy produced by the car's engine, be it internal combustion or electric. Unless said engine isn't working, in which case it's supplied by your muscles and cuss words. This kind of energy has several modes, such as: kinetic, potential, thermal, chemical, nuclear, etc. The important thing to know about energy is that it requires a gradient in order to perform the work. Solar energy works because the Earth's surface is cooler than that of the sun. Well, usually; may not apply in Phoenix in July. Even though it can be measured and quantified, it's still intangible. A hydroelectric dam doesn't only have water, fish, and dead mobsters behind it; it also stores potential energy, though it's not like you can see or touch such energy. When the water passes through a turbine, it does work on the turbine, which converts (some of) that potential energy, by means of kinetic energy, into electrical energy. The second definition is physical. In this case, by "physical," I mean related to your body. Isn't English wonderful? And "work," in this case, is what one commonly gets paid to do (or receive some other form of compensation for), such as digging a ditch, writing an essay, or fixing the turbine in a hydroelectric plant. At times, you may get the feeling of having low energy, and at these times, you just wanna lie in bed and not do any work. In reality, your body continues to chug along, using its (mostly) chemical energy (first definition) to do fun things like keep your organs functioning. When that process stops, it's called "death," and at times of low energy that can look pretty good -- fortunately, though, at those same times, we lack the energy to stop our energy. Confusingly, you also don't want to play at such times -- "play" being the vernacular opposite of "work." This unfortunately does not have a corresponding definition in physics. There's an old, really bad joke, which was featured (spoiler alert) in Ghostbusters:Afterlife: "Why should you never trust atoms? Because they make up everything." Now, I've never let the facts get in the way of a good joke -- or a bad one (especially a bad one). But as the joke was told by a certified nerd, I winced. Not because the joke was so bad (it was) or because it is so old (it is), but because a nerd should know better. Atoms don't make up everything. The sun, for example, doesn't have many atoms in it. It's so hot that the electrons are stripped from the nuclei, and what you have is a bunch of free-floating protons/neutrons and electrons. And an "atom" is defined as nucleus plus electrons. Physicists call this phase of matter a "plasma." As the Sun contains the vast majority of the mass in the Solar System (according to Wiki, 99.86%  ), atoms don't make up everything.Also, dark matter isn't atoms (as far as we know), and it makes up something like 85% of the matter in the universe. But okay, here on Earth, the vast majority of matter is composed of atoms. (If it seems like I'm using "matter" and "mass" interchangeably, it's because I am, because I can.) Still, going back to that equation I mentioned earlier, all of those (roughly) 1.3*1050 atoms can, in theory, be converted to an unimaginably large amount of energy. Doing so, however, would ruin your day. Hell, they'd probably see the explosion in the Andromeda Galaxy oh, two and a half million years or so from now. The point being that atoms don't make up everything -- but energy does. So much for being intangible, I guess. |
| Well, this one has all the potential for disaster. PROMPT November 27th Things have progressed well in your town/city with the Pandemic. So well that you've been allowed to return to the office instead of working from home. Your co-worker Karly, is sneezing and coughing and refuses to wear a mask. Who do you call, or do you let it slide. Tell us why you would act that way. I'm going to weasel out of this with "insufficient data." Well, not really. This is already a highly hypothetical situation, as I haven't worked in an office in over ten years (I worked from a home office for a while before I retired). Enhancing the hypotheticalness of it is the idea that I would be "allowed" to return to the office. No, given a choice, I'd keep working from home. If we're talking about my actual career here, and not something fictional (to continue the hypotheticality), there's no reason for me to be in an office 95% of the time. I know some people who would rather work in an office than from home, and that's fine too, but we're talking about Me here. Karly's an asshole. But my response depends on a lot of factors unclear from the prompt. Am I still in charge? Probably not, if I'm not the one making the decision about working from home or in an office. Because if I were in charge, I'd fire her ass on the spot. (I live in a state where I can do that). Since I'm not in charge, though, there is a lot of missing information here. 1) Who else is in the office? If it's just me, I wouldn't be overly concerned about it. Assuming it's the 'rona and also assuming other things conforming to reality, being vaccinated means my chance of severe problems is probably less than the chance of me getting into an accident on the commute. Therefore, it's other people I'd be concerned about. And clients. 2) What is the company policy for shit like this? I'd want to follow that. If that means being a snitch, I'll be a snitch. 3) Is KarenKarly above, below, or equal to me in the corporate structure? It matters. Most likely, I'd just want to go back to working from home. It's my preference anyway. People are fucking crazy with this stuff these days, and they've turned it into a political issue, which I prefer to stay away from (most of the time). I've bitched about it before in here, and I see no need to repeat it, or go off on a tangent about it. I will say this, though: I definitely think less of people who are inconsiderate of others. I say that as someone who generally doesn't give a shit about too many other people, but I still don't do stuff that actively endangers them. It's like how I live an alcohol-positive lifestyle, but I'm very, very careful not to drive drunk. Drinking only affects me. Driving drunk can cock up someone else's day. I treat the unmasked and unvaccinated like a smoker in a restaurant. That shit used to be acceptable; it no longer is, because of studies about the effects of second-hand smoke. Same thing. Actually, I'd rather be around second-hand smoke; it's safer. Though I do understand there are legitimate reasons to not get vaccinated; "I don't wanna" isn't one, and neither is "it's against my religion." And that's all I'm going to say about it. Today. |
| Well, its been a while since I've done a free-form entry. PROMPT November 26th Today is Thanksgiving here in the United States. I know this is the prompt for tomorrow, but I'm going to give you something to be thankful for. The prompt for tonight is to be yourself. Write whatever is on your mind. Provide your own prompt, so-to-speak. I look forward to reading your posts! I woke up Thanksgiving morning to find a fraud alert on my principal credit card. Apparently someone had gotten my digits and paid their utility bill, signed up for Apple Pay (I'm an Android user), and racked up hundreds of dollars in charges at Carhartt's and some place called Ice Bling (which cracked me up). All in the space of less than 24 hours. Nothing to be thankful for, right? Well... This is why I use a credit card and not a debit card. Quick call to the issuing bank, five-minute hold time -- and not a single one of those charges are my responsibility. Debit cards just don't provide the same level of protection (if there are any out there that do, I'm not aware of them). And you might not think it'll happen to you, but it will, eventually -- someone will skim off a gas pump (not what happened here because I don't use that card for gas and anyway, I haven't bought any since July), or a waiter will help themselves to an extra tip, or there's a website breach somewhere. Doesn't matter how. So this is where my optimistic cynicism comes in: I take precautions, but I also expect them to fail at some point, so I have plans for when that happens. There is a measure of inconvenience involved. It won't be until sometime next week before I get the new card, with a new account number and whatnot, in the mail, so I get to go the entirety of Buy Shit Weekend without my main credit card. Whatever; I don't buy much anyway, and besides, I have other credit cards for precisely this reason (and also because some of them offer extra rewards for certain types of purchases). I will also have to change all of the accounts that autodraw from it, like Uber and Netflix. Pain in the ass, but it's not like I had anything else planned for the weekend. "But Waltz, don't you pay more in interest charges than you get in cash back?" Well, no, see, if you treat your credit card like a debit card, never spending more than you have cash to cover it, and pay the balance in full every month, turns out they don't charge interest. I haven't paid a penny in interest or fees on a credit card in decades; rather, they pay me. I mentioned sometime last month how I feel about thieves. They all suck (and that includes the banks with the interest some of them charge people who don't pay their balances in full). And in this case, who eats the fraudulent charges? The issuing bank or the CC company, I don't remember which. They expect this to happen, so they charge merchants accordingly. In the end we all pay, so yeah, fuck that thief, but it doesn't directly affect me. So all in all, nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Therefore, don't mistake this for a plea for sympathy or a complaint; it's just that nothing else of note happened yesterday and I thought I'd point out exactly why credit cards are better than debit cards, if they're used properly. One other thing I did yesterday was go see a movie, as I'd planned. So here's a review.   One-Sentence Movie Review: Ghostbusters: Afterlife: Although this movie won't make a lot of sense if you're not a fan of the original Ghostbusters, I think the three people who aren't won't bother with this one, anyway; and while I'm glad I saw it in the theater and parts of it are a lot of fun, the movie suffers from several missteps in pacing and editing, with some real head-scratcher shortcuts. Rating: 3/5 |
| I have to admit I've been dreading this one all month. PROMPT November 25th We all have something to be thankful about. In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving today. Tell us what you are most thankful for. It's not that I'm not thankful. It's that I have a visceral aversion to talking about it. Even right now, it's difficult. I've written and then deleted several sentences already, because none of them seemed quite right to me. And the temptation is definitely there to turn the prompt to something humorous. I'm going to go ahead and give in to that urge by linking to a special Thanksgiving poem I wrote a few years ago:
Well. Now that that's out of the way, what am I actually most thankful for? Despite the poem's title and content, I've never been with a hooker or done blow (that's cocaine, for anyone not used to US slang). Alcohol, yes, sure, but is it really what I'm most thankful for? I'm in a pretty good place in life. Not without problems, of course; everyone has problems. But overall, things are pretty good for me right now. There's a downside to that, though, which is that it gives me no incentive to try to improve my situation further, because any move I make to improve could backfire and make things worse. So while I'm thankful for all the beneficial things in my life, that wouldn't be the top of the list. I suppose when it comes right down to it, the thing I'm most thankful for is existence itself. That may be a kind of cop-out -- after all, if I didn't exist, I wouldn't be here to experience gratitude. But I think that, by itself, is enough reason to be thankful. And it's not just my existence I'm talking about, either. No one can exist without reference to what's around them: air, water, sunlight, people, whatever. I'm not doing anything for Thanksgiving this year. Well, not exactly. It's traditional to eat turkey, so I bought a frozen turkey pie to eat later. And nothing goes with turkey as perfectly as Beaujolais Nouveau, a delicious red wine that gets shipped here every year from France just in time for Thanksgiving (so thanks for that, France). So yeah, I'm going to be a cliché single person, eat the pie, and drink the bottle of wine. Probably while watching TV shows. Some might consider that pathetic. I do not. It is far less stressful than having to deal with other people. After that, I'll go out to see a movie, because I can. Existence? Maybe I spoke too soon. I think what I should be most thankful for is not having to abide by others' schedules and preferences. I get to do exactly what I want to today, not what other people think I should do. And for that, I am truly grateful. |
| I want to say I respect all of my former teachers. PROMPT November 24th In a previous prompt, I asked you to write about your best, or favorite teacher. Tonight write about your darkest teacher. I want to say I respect all my former teachers, but I can't. I know I've spoken before about a 7th or 8th grade science teacher who was absolutely certain that it is rotation that causes gravity; that if the Earth weren't spinning, nothing would stay stuck to it. (This is a different issue from if the Earth were to suddenly stop spinning, which would be Bad for other reasons). But okay, everyone is wrong about something, and most of us refuse to consider corrections. In this particular case, I could have forgiven it if it had been, say, an English teacher. But science? No. Just to be clear, it's mass that produces gravity, not spin. I'm pretty sure she got confused from reading science fiction stories that featured spinning spaceships or whatever, which generate something akin to gravity on the inside as a result of their rotaion. Still, apart from that blind spot, I don't think she was a terrible teacher. In the same school, though, I once had a Nazi for a teacher for a whole year. Now, keep in mind that this was a very long time ago (though not quite so long ago as WWII), so I don't remember a lot of details. It's mostly just the impression that I'm left with at this much later date. She was pretty old then, so I doubt she's still around, but just in case, I'm going to call her Fraulein Braun instead of whatever her real name was. Most years, through elementary and middle school, teachers would be eager for the class to learn about something other than mainstream US Protestantism (the majority representation in a public school in rural Virginia), so anyone from a different culture was always encouraged to enlighten the class about their traditions. Like, they'd make me go up to the board and talk about Hanukkah every damn December. I got pretty good at drawing menorahs and dreidels with chalk. Anyway, other people talked about their experiences too. One guy was a Native American. Occasionally we'd have exchange students and such, from other countries. Not F. Braun, though. Such things were suppressed. The other thing I remember clearly is going to the principal's office far more often than usual that year. Which was remarkable, as the principal already had a special chair with my name on it; it just got a lot more use that year. She wasn't too overt about it, though. Couldn't be, I suppose, or she'd have been fired. It was a more subtle attitude, though it was obvious that the white kids got more of her help. I don't know if she fudged grades or anything; I didn't care as long as I didn't fail. I also can't recall a thing about what we learned that year. I think I was too busy trying to keep the teacher from remembering I existed. It's not like I hadn't already figured out that bigotry existed, by that time, so F. Braun didn't destroy my innocence or anything of that sort. It's just unfortunate that such people had positions of authority over a diverse group of students. |
| I don't really have a favorite joke. Jokes depend on circumstances, context, and audience. PROMPT November 23rd In your blog today, tell us your favorite joke. It can be long, short, it does not matter. What makes this particular joke your favorite one? C'mon, show us your sense of humor! While I don't have a favorite joke, there are a few I remember from the days, pre-internet, when it was important to remember jokes because you couldn't just look them up by Googling the punch line. Of those few, a couple stick out because they elicit the best responses from the audience. Sometimes that response is hearty laughter, and that's fine. But sometimes, it's... well, let's just say I make sure they're not holding anything lethal when I tell them. There are a few versions of this one circulating. I'm not going to look any of them up, but I'll tell it my way. Also, I'm pretty sure I've typed it in here before, but I can't be arsed to look that up, either. Likely I told it differently before. That's how jokes are supposed to work, you know; there's not one "official" version, but they mutate over time. So this scientist was working hard, researching a way to vastly extend the lifespan of marine mammals. One of the important ingredients in the serum was extract of mynah bird. One day, while at a critical stage in the serum's development, testing it on his pet dolphin, he ran out of mynah bird extract. So he set out to the pet store to replenish his supply. While he was gone, though, there was a problem at the city zoo; some of the big cats escaped. The biggest cat of all ended up wandering around until he curled up on this scientist's doorstep. So he comes home, bag full of mynah birds in hand, but stops up short when he sees the King of the Beasts, right there on his doorstep, sleeping soundly. "Oh man," the guy thinks to himself. "Oh, no, what am I going to do? I have to get inside. I'm at a critical stage in my experiments! There's no other way into the house, and I sure don't want to wake him up." So he thinks about it for a few seconds, then starts sneaking up to the sleeping beast, ninja-like, tiptoeing as quietly as he possibly could. He gets one foot over the animal when suddenly a dozen cops appear out of nowhere, guns drawn. "Freeze, mister!" they call. "You're under arrest... ...for transporting mynahs across sedate lions for immortal porpoises!" And that's why I need to make sure there's nothing sharp or heavy in the vicinity when I tell it. That's also why it's one of my favorite jokes: I get to laugh at the audience's pain, and pain makes the best humor. Regarding the title, gelotology is the study of laughter. Not to be confused with Jellotology. In fact, I don't know how to pronounce the G. I'm going to go ahead and assume it's a hard G like in gif, not a soft G like in Georgia. |
| It's been said that everyone has a superpower. PROMPT November 22nd You have found that you can do something no one else can do. What is this special talent you have? Would it be considered a 'Super Power'? If you could have chosen this special ability, what would it be? Still, the idea that "no one else can do" what you do is farfetched. The world population is damn near 8 billion now, which is a number you can hear bandied around a lot, but we don't really have a grasp on it. If you counted to 8 billion, one number per second, it would take you just over 250 years. If someone describes you as "one in a million," then they're saying that there are 8,000 people just like you in the world. Some few people manage to stand out, for whatever reason. Jeff Bezos' superpower seems to be amassing wealth (obviously, supervillains have powers too; I mean, shit, the guy even looks like Lex Luthor). But other people are almost as wealthy. I remember reading about someone who scaled Mount Everest without support oxygen. But other people can do that, too. Some free-divers can hold their breath for minutes -- again, not unique, even if there's one who holds the record. And those people who go ice swimming? Having anti-freeze in your veins is basically superhuman. It's not unreasonable to believe that we all have some extraordinary quality or ability, but it is unreasonable to expect that no one else has the same power. I had a friend who thought my superpower was punning. While true, I'm certainly not the only punster in the world, and yes, the others annoy me just as much as I annoy you. Besides, I make an effort to tone it down, like how Clark Kent has to tone down his handshakes so people don't find out he's Superman. But I think my actual superpower is drinking. Not quantity, though. A lot of other people can, and do, drink way more than I do, and I'm really not interested in competing at that, because I usually drink more for the taste than to achieve an altered state (that's just a side effect). No, my superpower is being able to drink multiple different drinks, in any order. There's a saying people have: "Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear." I had to look it up just now, though, because I can never get it right -- and the reason I can never get it right is it doesn't apply to me. It's not that I never get sick or hung over; far from it. It's because the order in which I drink things appears to be irrelevant to the intensity of the effect. Now, maybe the saying is bullshit in general; I don't know. It's possible that there's a psychosomatic effect involved, too, kind of like the placebo effect, where if you believe it, it becomes true. And as I said, I'm under no illusion that I'm the only one who can do this. But it's a useful talent, anyway. Still. If I could have chosen a superpower, it would have been total recall. Not of life experiences; there are some I'm glad to have mostly forgotten. But of books, movies, music, etc. Many's the time I've remembered how much I liked or disliked a unit of entertainment, but when pressed, I couldn't come up with a single thing to support my reaction. It would be nice to be able to say more than just "Yeah, I read that, I don't remember what happened or who the characters were, but I didn't like it." I know, I know, this is probably incompatible with the drinking thing, but as I already have two superpowers, it would be greedy of me to want three. Or, you know. Being rich would be a nice superpower to have. I solemnly swear I'd use the money better than Bezos does. |
| Music certainly has the capacity to provoke emotion in me. It's one reason I started this blog, and one interpretation of the title. PROMPT November 21st Tonight/today, listen to this beautiful song. Where does your mind go when listening to this? What emotions surface as you experience the music? If you've seen the movie (Return To Me), tell us how this affected you. Has it changed you at all? This one, however, doesn't do much for me. Oh, I don't dislike it, not at all. It's technically brilliant, and the particular version linked above is especially well done. Where does your mind go when listening to this? There was a particular musical style, popular mainly pre-Beatles, that featured the "crooner." Frank Sinatra was probably the most famous of these, but also Dean Martin, who originally sang the song in question. Maybe Sammy Davis Jr. Almost all of them ended up in Vegas. A few years ago, I got to see one of them, Wayne Newton, perform there. Amazing vocal talent. You'd never know it from listening to him speak; his ordinary voice is kind of raspy and undisciplined, but as soon as he starts to sing, it's like magic. Anyway, Tony Bennett was certainly in that illustrious company. People nowadays dismiss it as "lounge" singing, but it's a legitimate art form. So much of music these days emanates from talentless hacks whose only draw is their looks, or maybe their dance moves (not that dance doesn't require talent, but I'm talking about the music itself). Hell, even their songs are autotuned so they don't have to work on their voice, only their display. Me, I prefer to hear songs by people who can actually sing, even if they flub a note or two from time to time; that's part of the charm. Don't get me wrong. I'm not ragging on "damn kids these days and their music." Some contemporary music is remarkable. There was plenty of talentless tripe when I was growing up, too (but without autotune); it just tends to be forgotten, much as many of today's acts will be forgotten. Anyway, the point is, I believe that, as with movies, it's very helpful to have a sense of historical context when considering music, be it jazz from the WW2 era, folk from the early 20th century, disco from the 70s... or lounge singers from the 50s. What emotions surface as you experience the music? None, really. I have an appreciation for the talent involved, but the songwriting doesn't move me. I especially appreciate the spirit of international cooperation displayed; music has, as I've noted before, the capacity to bring people together. Mostly, because it's a couple of old guys who are excellent singers, it made me miss Leonard Cohen. Now that's music that affects me emotionally. If you've seen the movie (Return To Me), tell us how this affected you. Not only have I not seen that movie, I didn't even know that the movie existed until I saw this prompt. So of course I read the Cliff's Notes versionWikipedia page. There's no way to get the emotional impact of a movie from reading the plot synopsis (which I didn't mind doing, despite spoilers, because it's in a genre I tend to avoid anyway), but I was surprised to find some really big names involved. Surprised, because as you all know, I'm a movie fan, though my participation has waxed and waned over the years. I've always especially liked Minnie Driver as an actor, and of course David Duchovny is David Duchovny. No desire to see it, though. The plot seems trite and way too mushy, like many romantic comedies. To each their own, of course. Has it changed you at all? I guess you could say yes, because I now know that something (the movie) exists that I didn't know existed before a couple of hours ago. I suppose it's possible I did know the movie, but forgot about it. Still, I hope no one interprets this entry as "that song sucks and the movie looks like it sucks too." That's not my intention. It's kind of like with beer. I like certain styles of beer. Other people like certain other styles of beer. But that diversity is awesome, because it keeps beer companies in business. Likewise, different genres of movies and music keep people making movies and music; I'm always going to prefer some to others, while other people will have different preferences. What a boring world this would be if we all liked the same stuff. |
| Don't we have enough crazy conspiracy "theories" in the world already? PROMPT November 20th In your blog tonight/today, write about a story you've been told, or use a newscast story and CREATE a conspiracy theory. Tell us why you chose this subject, and of course, provide 'evidence' that your theory could be rooted in truth. Earth is flat, the moon landing never happened, JFK was assassinated so Johnson could take office, 9/11 was an inside job, the Holocaust never happened, aliens built the pyramids, and Santa Claus isn't real. While planning for the 2017 solar eclipse trip, I noticed that the path of totality crossed Yellowstone, so I got an idea. Other people start crazy just-barely-plausible rumors that get repeated as fact (such as the one where you can only balance an egg on its small end on the equinoxes -- sorry if you bought that one, but it's utter tripe), why not start one of my own? So I started putting out there that during the eclipse, the combined gravity of the sun and moon would be just enough to trigger the Yellowstone Supervolcano. I felt dirty doing it, though. It's complete nonsense couched in semi-plausible astronomical language. True, an eclipse can only happen during a conjunction, and during conjunctions (eclipse or not) ocean tides are measurably higher. But there's no way it could be strong enough to trigger a supervolcano, at least not particularly during an eclipse. The gravitational effect isn't significantly different than during any new moon (or full moon for that matter). Unfortunately (actually, fortunately), I don't have nearly enough influence online for that to catch on, and it didn't "go viral." But... that's not really a conspiracy theory; that's just more spreading bullshit, and I've since sworn off that particular method of trolling. So. This is one I've been knocking around in my head for a while: Consider PETA. Buncha loonies, trying to move the center by being so extreme that "middle ground" gives more rights to animals. But what if, at the top, they're not actually animal rights activists, but instead have a more honest motive? Like money. See, everything about PETA starts to make perfect sense if you accept that it's being directed by business interests -- specifically, companies such as soybean growers and fake fur manufacturers. If they can push veganism more into the mainstream, we'll need more soybeans, right? For tofu and other disgusting concoctions. And the fake fur thing is obvious; I mean, hardly anyone wears fur anymore anyway, but they still need to grow their business, right? I'm sure you can think of other business interests that would be aided by such a shift. Why do I choose this subject? Well, I like animals -- some of them are delicious. And PETA is, shamefully, based here in Virginia. Also it was simply the first thing that came to mind after my failed attempt at eclipse fearmongering. As for more evidence, well, consider that PETA operates an animal shelter with an abnormally high kill rate. Does that sound like an organization that truly believes animals have the same rights as humans? So there must be another agenda at work. We don't eat dogs or cats (usually), so they're not competing with the tofu industry; therefore, it doesn't matter to the organization if they're alive or not.Still, I have to admit I miss their naked protests. Those always made me hungry, and I'd have to go out and get a big thick juicy steak whenever I saw one. Anyway, I should note that I have not one single shred of evidence that business interests are behind their craziness. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if I turned out to be right. |
| I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, but it's been a while and I've been thinking about it a bit recently. PROMPT November 19th We've all had one or several epiphany's in our lives. Tonight, write about a moment in your life that changed the way you view the world. And I touched on it in this week's Fantasy newsletter, but most people don't bother to read editorials. I know I don't. I've heard people describe creation and destruction as opposites, or as two sides of the same coin. But one night, driving alone (which is one reason I like to drive alone), it hit me like a truck: they're not opposites, they're not two sides of the same coin... they are the exact same thing. Of course, there is one distinction, and that's local entropy. As we all know, the total entropy of a closed system has to stay the same or increase (you do know that, right?) But the key there is "closed system." We can construct a building, for instance, which has lower entropy (at least at first) because we're putting energy into it, causing entropy to increase elsewhere. So for what I'm talking about here, entropy is local and irrelevant. I'm talking about the inability to make a truly objective decision as to whether a thing or system was created or destroyed. Any such label applies only to the value we put on the things that have changed. Take the building I just used as an example. You can speak of creating it, building it, which is usually a massive coordinated effort between many different specialists, not just onsite, but all of the people who make the individual items that go into the building's construction. So you chop down a tree, which destroys the tree -- but you make lumber from it. One could even say that putting the lumber together into the building's frame destroys it; it's no longer lumber but studs or joists or whatever. The value we put on what is created or destroyed is subjective. One might object, "sure, but if you drop a bomb on something, it's destroyed." Yes, it destroys the bomb and the target, from one point of view. From another, it creates debris and rubble and... well, at the risk of getting morbid, maybe corpses. Sure, the people getting bombed would consider that a bad thing, but to the ones doing the bombing, that's the desired outcome. They've created what they set out to create, as chaotic as that is. Right now, I'm creating a blog entry, but in order to do so I'm destroying the previous arrangement of atoms on a semiconductor chip. You can't write a book without destroying blank paper. Now, before someone comments about it, yes, I'm fully aware that in the larger picture, nothing can actually be created or destroyed, only transformed, but that's not the point, either. The point is, like I said, "creation" and "destruction" are mere value judgements slapped onto the larger concept of change. And that was the epiphany I had maybe a quarter-century ago for no particular reason except that I was driving, it was night, and it was my birthday. |
| I swear the site's running faster after the switch. PROMPT November 18th An easy prompt for tonight. I'm tired, don't want to think much, so an easy one. What did you do during the 'Great Shutdown For The Upgrade' of WDC today? Tell us all the 'gory' details!  Not much to tell. Charity Marie - <3  wanted to host a server-party Zoom meeting, so she did, but what with one thing and another it didn't get promoted enough so it was only a few of us attending. I think everyone had a good time, though.Of course, I had some beers. Hopefully everyone knows we have regular Zoom parties every other week. The next one is this coming Saturday. Watch my newsfeed for details; I'll try to remember to promote it later today. Anyway, like I said, it seems to me that pages are loading faster now, but I don't know for sure. All this server migration, website coding, and hosting stuff might as well be sorcery as far as I'm concerned. I mean, yeah, I have a vague idea about how it all works, but it's really vague and it's certainly not something I could do. It's not as if I'm not curious about it; it's just that, like everyone else, I only have 24 hours in a day, and I need to sleep for a good chunk of that, so, much to my eternal frustration, I can't learn everything. I'm just glad someone knows what they're doing. I think most of us have things like that - specialties that, to other people, seem like magic. I mean, could you design a drainage and stormwater management system for a shopping center? I guess, probably, if you'd had some of the same training I did, just like if I'd had a different education I'd probably understand more about website coding, brain surgery, electricity, or human interaction. Besides, I'd rather learn about beer. Preferably through hands-on experience. |
| Yeah, I'm going with the cliché here. Or am I? PROMPT November 17th You have been invited to a posh dinner party hosted by one of the wealthiest people in your small town. When you arrive, your host is does not greet you, and the butler informs you they have been missing last night. A quick search by all the party goers finds him/her dead. Their body is in a small clearing in the woods behind the mansion. Being a modern day Nancy Drew/Joe Hardy type of person, you begin your own investigation. What do you find that leads you to the murderer. Who is the murderer? How was the host killed? I mean, come on, everyone knows the butler did it. But since everyone knows that, obviously the butler wouldn't have done it because he'd be the prime suspect. But knowing that everyone knows the butler did it, thus removing suspicion from the butler, brings suspicion back on the butler because they know that he knows that they know that he knows... Obviously, this is fiction, because I don't get invited to those sorts of parties. But see, the host was trying to make nice to me because he wanted to hire me as a ghost writer. What Mr. Grabcash didn't remember was that, about ten years ago, he hired me to do some web design work, which I did, and it was remarkable (for the time). And the cheap bastard stiffed me out of my fee. Since then, I've been waiting for a chance to exact revenge, but Grabcash is surrounded by flunkies, minions, and bodyguards, so what could I do? Well, I took a page out of the disinformation playbook, and started spreading rumors. This was only partially successful, at first, as Grabcash became convinced that the gardener, Elrod, was boning Mrs. Grabcash. I was hoping to hear about a divorce, but no, all he did was fire Elrod, which wasn't my intent (I made sure to hook him up with a venture capitalist in another town, but he really did shag that one's wife and I have no idea what happened to him after that). Thing is, though, I believe in asymmetric warfare and nuclear revenge -- provided, of course, that I'm on the giving end and not the receiving end. Still salty about the $799.95 he owed me -- closer to $1000 now, because of interest and late fees -- I had to hatch the perfect plan. Grabcash liked to take a stroll around the grounds most evenings. I know in stories you always hear about "oh, so-and-so goes out at the same time every single day and does the exact same thing, so that's when we move." This is often the most unrealistic part of heist or mystery dramas, because seriously, no one is that regular, even if they eat nothing but Fiber One. Mr. G's evening constitutional schedule was nowhere near predictable, except that it was always sometime after 3 pm and before whatever time sunset happened to be at that time of year. If, of course, he bothered to go out at all. Oh, yeah, how did I know this? Because I was boning Mrs. Grabcash, and she told me. Anyway, the whole thing was her idea, which was a good thing, because she was the only one able to stash the silver and some of her jewelry in a secret compartment in the butler's quarters that even the butler didn't know about. After what happened to Elrod, clearly Mr. G would, upon finding out about the butler's secret stash (which of course even the butler wasn't aware of), fire the butler, and of course the butler (I suppose I should note that his name was Aragorn, because even his parents hated him) didn't want to be fired, so he did the only thing that made any sense, which was to wait in hiding with Torgo the bodyguard's sniper rifle from Afghanistan. One shot to the head, bam, no more threat of being fired and Torgo (not his real name; he got it from a movie) gets fingered. Only problem is Torgo didn't do it; that's an obvious setup. Once Aragorn's secret stash is discovered - much to everyone's surprise, especially Aragorn's, though everyone will think he's faking it - it will be absolutely clear that the butler did it, using Torgo's rifle which happened to have Aragorn's fingerprints all over the barrel because Mrs. G had put them there late one night while Aragorn slept. No one knew I had sniper training; that was a different life and I've changed names three times since then. And no one could possibly suspect that anyone would off Mr. Grabcash over a measly $1000 unpaid bill, but hey, it's the principle of the thing. Plus now me and the former Mrs. G can scramble off to Tahiti once the dust settles. I'll even give Torgo a raise. |
| Hey, it's one of my favorite subjects, too! What a coincidence! PROMPT November 16th This one will cover one of my favorite subjects, Food. Do you follow a certain regimen/diet when it comes to eating? Other than something you might be allergic to, are there any foods you avoid or limit yourself to? What's your favorite meal to prepare. Share your recipe if you like. (I have a 'killer' chocolate recipe!) Tonight, I made my beer chili again. Normally I use ground beef, but there was some ground pork in the fridge for whatever reason, so I blended the two in an unholy blasphemous union, and it worked. The chili is something I like to do when it starts getting colder. I'll get tired of it after a while and put the recipe away until next fall. I don't accept the existence of "comfort food," but there are certainly things I like for certain times of year or moods. Do you follow a certain regimen/diet when it comes to eating? Yep, a seafood diet. When I see food, I eat it. I followed what you might call a diet or eating regimen for two years. I lost over a hundred pounds. Then I reached a point of diminishing returns. Then it got to where I was eating 1200-1300 calories a day and not drinking, and I was still gaining weight. So I said fuck that, if I'm going to become a cliché and regain the weight anyway, I might as well enjoy what I'm eating. Hence the return of my cooking. Other than something you might be allergic to, are there any foods you avoid or limit yourself to? For a long time, I wasn't allergic to any food or medicine. I mean, nothing. I'd go to the hospital and they'd ask me again and again, and each time I said "nothing," they had a look of shock and disbelief on their faces, just like when I said I have no more than one alcoholic beverage a day (which at the time was true). I was pretty proud of my lack of allergies, too. Everyone else has an allergy, mostly so they can be unique, and I didn't, which made me actually unique. It's a superpower! Until a couple of years ago when I ate a protein bar with an obscure spice from India called moringa, and my skin turned red in patches and my lips puffed up and my tongue blew up and everything went numb and my heart started racing and my vision faded and I could feel my blood pressure plummet as I collapsed. I survived. Obviously. But I had discovered my Kryptonite. Fortunately, it lives on almost the exact opposite side of the planet from me. Except when they put it in goddamn energy bars. Anyway. Apart from that, I only have one hard and fast rule: I never eat anything smarter than I am. Why? Because anything smarter than I am would find a way to take revenge. We know that corvids will remember a wrong done unto them and exact a hundredfold vengeance upon the perpetrator. How much worse, then, for the genius eldritch horrors of the deep such as squids and octopodes? Granted, they might have a problem tracking me down on land, but as soon as I get into the water, Boom! Hentai city.I do make an exception for pigs, though, because they're just so damn tasty. So I guess it's not that hard and fast a rule. What's your favorite meal to prepare. Share your recipe if you like. The great thing about being single is I can cook whatever I want, without worrying about picky eaters not liking my mushrooms or complaining about the ghost pepper. The crappy thing about being single is that either I cook something that keeps, like the chili, or a lot of food gets wasted, because there are no recipes for single-serving things. And even if there were, shit's not sold in single-person portions at the supermarket. Anyway, what would be the point? I'm not trying to impress anyone. So here's the recipe for my favorite meal: 1) Pull box from freezer 2) Partially unwrap and shove into microwave. 3) Nuke and eat. Okay, it's not my favorite recipe, unless by "favorite" you mean what I do most often. And yes, I exaggerate. I don't actually do a lot of microwave meals. I admit to a fondness for Marie Callender's pot pies, but those flat-out suck if you nuke them; I (uncharacteristically) take the time to bake them in the oven. Fortunately, I ate before writing this so it didn't make me hungry. Might have some of that chocolate, though. |
| Well, at least I have some experience with this one. PROMPT November 15th You and your two best friends are going on a month-long road trip. Where are you going? What three items must be in your luggage for this trip to be a great experience for you. While I normally road-trip alone, in August of 2017, two of my closest friends and I traveled halfway across the country to see the solar eclipse. It's something I'd always wanted to see, and Missouri is a bit more accessible than Svalbard, which was where the previous eclipse had been visible from. And we could have gone someplace closer, but I wanted to reduce the risk of cloud cover. That trip wasn't a month, though; it was more like four days. My limit for being in close quarters with someone, in order for us to remain friends, is something like two weeks. But okay, according to the prompt, I'm going on a month-long road trip. Let's set the trip in 2024, because that's when the next solar eclipse crosses parts of the US. Since an eclipse takes about two minutes, and we need the day before to get there and the day after to get back (solar eclipses tend to not be visible at night), that leaves four weeks to do other stuff. You know what would be fun? To roughly trace the path of that eclipse as a road trip. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to chase the shadow. Even jets have a hard time chasing the shadow. But just taking the time to do it for the hell of it. Pick the spot where you want to actually see the eclipse, and plan accordingly, but also trace the path as best you can while the sun's actually shining. And visit breweries along the way, of course, because that's what I do. The path of totality across the US can be seen here.  As you can see, the center of the shadow crosses the border from Mexico just southwest of San Antonio (and no wall is going to keep it out). It kisses Oklahoma (ew), darkens Arkansas, then swings through southeast Misery, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, before skipping across the Great Lakes, western New York, a bit of Vermont (saying hi to Canada too) and thence across Maine.Just for comparison, there's also a map that shows both the 2017 and 2024 eclipses here.  So... "What three items must be in your luggage for this trip to be a great experience for you?" Well, clearly there will need to be more than three items. Hell, I'll need at least three pairs of underpants alone. But okay, fine, apart from the obvious. 1. Eclipse Glasses. I still have a crapton of these from the 2017 eclipse. Seriously, folks, don't be an utter idiot and look at the sun before or after an eclipse. Or anytime, really. No, the reason I need eye surgery now isn't because I didn't take that advice. 2. Camera. The last time I saw an eclipse, I wanted to simply experience it, not fuck around with camera settings or have anything between my eyeballs and the conjunction (except for Item #1 above). Next time, I want to try to get pictures. No, the camera on a mobile phone won't cut it. 3. GPS. Unbelievably, there are still people who freak out about GPS. Is it perfect? No. Neither are paper maps. But it's freakin' sorcery, and yes, it will even work during a solar eclipse (if the sun spits out a flare, though, all bets are off, which is why I also always carry a road atlas as backup). Like I said, though, I'll need way more than just those three things, like earplugs so I don't have to listen to my travel companions snoring (I'll bring spares so they don't have to listen to me snoring). And money. And maybe a change of underwear. ...and everything under the sun is in tune but the sun is eclipsed by the moon... |
| PROMPT November 14th A Mystery Genre prompt tonight. You are researching your genealogy and find that ancestors from a different generations and different countries made visits to the same remote place. Tell us about this remote place. Why were your ancestors going there? I don't much care about genealogy. This is not to say that I think people who do are wrong. Everyone needs a hobby, and if that's yours, great. I'm only talking about my own proclivities here. I know a bit about my adoptive family's ancestry. They shaped who I am just as surely as genetics must have (when it comes to the ancient nature vs. nurture debate, I'm firmly on the side of "both"). I know about it because my parents, aunts and uncles told me about it. I know, for instance, that my father's mother died when he was very young; later I put two and two together and realized that she was a victim of the Spanish Flu epidemic of the late 1910s / early twenties. I've even tried to find records of them, out of curiosity, but ran into brick walls after grandparents (only one of whom I ever knew, and she died the day after I turned seven). But I didn't care enough to dig deeper. As for my biological family, I have no interest in finding out about them at all. I am who I am, and I prefer to think of myself as unbound from any ancestral shackles. Go back far enough, and we all come from the same place anyway. It always bugs me in shows and movies when a character is like, "Oh, I need to find out who my REAL parents are" when they've been raised by perfectly acceptable human beings, people who cared about them. And they're going to snub all that for the family who gave them away? Rude. In one of them, the character was a law enforcement official; she discovered that her biological father was a criminal, so she started acting like a criminal because she thought that was a part of who she was. Turns out (plot twist) he wasn't her bio father after all, so that was all her, not genetically programmed. I know that's just a story, but stories reflect attitudes, and that was an attitude I didn't appreciate. So, to address the actual prompt, I'll write a story of my own, something I rarely do in this blog, but it fits. The only thing I'll preface this with is to keep in mind that every place on Earth is remote from somewhere. "So, Dad, I was looking into family history." Ted spooned another morsel of chili into his face. "Oh?" The older man dabbed his napkin at the corners of his mouth. "Find any skeletons?" Ted swallowed. "Just one weird thing I don't understand. Seems like everyone on your side was born in Baltimore." Ted's father leaned back in his chair. "Yep," he acknowledged. "I was. You were. Your father, his father... not sure about great-grandpa, but even his father was born in Baltimore, and they were still living in England at the time. And we've always lived here in California." "Well." Dad pressed his lips together. "That's all because of the prophecy." Ted blinked. "No, really, what's the deal with that?" "I'm not kidding, son. There was a prophecy. Let's see." His eyes searched the ceiling. "Nope, I don't remember the exact wording. Something about how a son born in Baltimore would one day save the family." Ted snorted. "Right." "My dad thought I might be the one, so he took your grandmother to Baltimore to have me. His dad thought he would be the one, so, same deal. And on back as far as I'm aware." "And none of you fulfilled the prophecy?" Dad shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. What exactly is saving the family?" "Maybe it's about me," said Ted. It was Dad's turn to snort. "Son, I love you, but you're 45 years old, single, childless, working at Wal-Mart, and living above my garage. You're the last Thistlethwaite. You ain't savin' nothin'. Prophecy's bullshit." "I'm 47," Ted corrected him. "Whatever." Dad stood with a grunt and picked up his empty bowl. He headed toward the kitchen. "Doesn't change my point." "Hey, at least I have a job. What do you do all night while I'm at work, anyway?" Dad raised his voice from the kitchen. "Sleep, like a normal person. And I worked for thirty damn years to put food on the table for you and your no-good mother." "You call this food?" Ted mumbled, pushing the chili around the half-empty bowl. "What was that?" Ted cleared his throat. "I said, at least Mom could cook." "You're a disappointment, son." "You're disappointed now? Wait 'til you see your nursing home." |
| Oh man, I thought I had that first draft of a story set on private. PROMPT November 13th A Science-Fiction type prompt tonight. In your world, all citizens are temporarily neutered at birth. When you want to become a parent, you must prove to the government that you’ll be suitable caretakers and providers before you are allowed to procreate. How do you 'prove to the government' that you'll be a good caretaker/parent. Oh, yeah, it is set on private. But I can't have been the only person to think of this, because... This is an excellent idea. I have long thought that one of life's great injustices is that in order to adopt a child, prospective parents have to jump through all sorts of fiery hoops, balance on a tightrope across a pool of smoking acid, and juggle chainsaws. Meanwhile, any two idiots can (and often do) get together and procreate with impunity. There are at least two ways to fix this. One, just let anyone adopt who wants to. Yes, this risks people adopting kids for nefarious purposes, but as there are biological parents who use their offspring for nefarious purposes, I don't think this is a good argument against it. Two, go the other direction and make everyone who wants kids do the circus act. There are certainly other solutions, but for the sake of (relative) brevity here, I won't consider them; the prompt goes with option 2. This would, in theory, ensure that everyone who raises a kid has some minimum qualifications for the job, just like any job has certain minimum qualifications. Result: happier, healthier, better-adjusted population. It would be utopian. Like I said, in theory. Because... This is a horrible idea. In reality, such a system would be rife with corruption. Around the time when I was born, there was really only one way to adopt a child, which was to go through an adoption agency. Those agencies would vet potential parents and make the decision for them. All of the adoption agencies in the US were Christian, and so they only placed kids with Christian families. My parents, being Jewish, had to do an end run around this to get me. Religious discrimination is only one of many ways the system would fail. There would be racism, too. And if whoever's making those decisions doesn't like homosexuality, then gay couples would never be able to adopt or even make arrangements to procreate. There is scientifically no way to design a fair system of deciding who is and is not allowed to have kids. Want to make sure they're well provided for? Discriminates against poor people. Want to have only the most intelligent people reproducing? Well, that's eugenics, and we all know how that works out. Whoever is in power would use the system to punish anyone who doesn't fall in line. That's just the way politics works. Wrote something criticizing the government? No Procreation Pass for you. Participated in a strike against your employer? We only want citizens who are willing to work for low pay, so rejected. Have that one social media post where you got drunk and peed on a cop car? Sexual deviancy; no kids for you. No, it would be dystopian. The closest thing to a perfect system would be to find a way to ensure that anyone who wants a kid gets one, and anyone who doesn't, doesn't get saddled with any. No more accidents. I mean, if you're talking science fiction, I could see something like the setup in the prompt happening on a temporary basis, say on a generation ship where resources are limited and tightly controlled. It would still end up causing conflict. Which is great for stories, but not so wonderful in real life. But that doesn't address the prompt. "How do you 'prove to the government' that you'll be a good caretaker/parent." Answer: I don't. I never wanted kids. But if I did, I'd demonstrate that I'm not abusive, that I'm stable, and that I have the means and ability to care for a larval human. However, I can demonstrate all these things in real life — I've been able to do that for a while — and I still don't want kids. It's not like there's a shortage of them right now. |
| Hey, what's wrong with negativity? Nothing. PROMPT November 11th A reminder I could say to myself before I’m tempted to respond to anger with anger, to fear with fear, to negativity with negativity is... "It just doesn't matter." I need to make that into a motivational poster. I wonder what the picture would be? A mushroom cloud? Nah, too violent. Maybe that iconic image of the black hole that astronomers managed to obtain, to remind me of the ultimate fate of everything. No, everything is probably not going to get sucked into some black hole or other, but there's no image I can think of to represent the eventual and inevitable heat death of the universe. Hell, over a long enough time scale, even black holes dissipate. But I'm not usually tempted to respond in such ways. I've developed coping mechanisms over time. Mostly these coping mechanisms consist of avoidance. It works for me. Someone gets angry, I leave. Someone gets fearful, I leave. And when someone gets negative... well, okay, you got me there; I'm already a black hole of negativity. ("Are you positive?" "No.") But on the rare occasion when I can't leave, I remember that soon enough, one or the other of us will be dead, and what little time we have left isn't worth spending on anger and fear. That's why negativity is such a wonderful thing: it makes me realize that nothing matters unless I want it to. Of course, I dislike it in other people, but hey, who doesn't have internal contradictions? One-Sentence Movie Review: Eternals Eternals distinguishes itself well from other comics-derived team movies; it's gorgeous with plentiful effects, solid camera work, and decent acting, with each character well-defined, and it earns its extended runtime (cue "eternal" jokes) by giving us time to get to know each player in the large cast, but somehow it manages to fail to live up to its hype — though that's probably more a fault of the hype than of the film itself. Rating: 4/5 |
| I'm almost sorry to go comic on this one, because it's a shitty situation to be in. Er. So to speak. PROMPT November 11th You are desperate to use the bathroom. But, you share this with several others. It's down the hall (waaaay down the hall), and it's cold despite the heat being set to the 'normal' temperature. Being an older person, your legs and ability to hold it ain't what it used to be. How do you handle this dire situation? Depends. In a sane world, I'd end this blog entry right there, but we live in the actual world, so I'll just give it a minute for everyone to get that joke. There are a few benefits to being a dude, and this situation is one of them. I'm reminded of an old joke: Adam and Eve are chilling in the Garden one day when God appears. "Hey, listen," he says. "I'm almost done here, just have two things left to Create. And I figured I'd give one to each of you." They nod. "That's fair." "Okay." He checks his notes. "First we have: the ability to pee standing up." Adam jumps up and raises his hand. "Ooh! Ooh! Oh, man, that would be awesome. I could be out in the fields and, boom, just let go right where I am. Pick me, pick me!" God looks at Eve. She shrugs. "Okay, that one's all yours, Adam." God makes a check mark on the list. "And finally, we have: multiple orgasms." Where I went to college, not far from where I live now, one of the greatest honors bestowed upon a fourth-year student who had great grades and participated in many different activities (e.g., not me) is to live in the original lodging at the University, rooms designed by Thomas Jefferson himself and built in the early 1800s. As these rooms predated many modern conveniences, none of them include bathrooms; one has the honor of going outside, along a covered but otherwise very open walkway, down a steep flight of stairs, and into a communal restroom/shower. And in case you don't know, it gets cold in central Virginia in the winter. The Lawn rooms (for that is what they're called) do have sinks, but the rules forbade Lawnies from using the sink for anything apart from hand-washing and teeth-brushing, even during the cold and sleety season. People being people, that rule was frequently broken. Hence a graffito I saw in an actual restroom near the Lawn one day while I was enrolled there: Roses are red Violets are pink If you can't find a toilet Pee in the sink None of which is very useful to about half the population, though. Or the other half about 1/4 of the time. But keep in mind that indoor plumbing is fairly new as far as civilization is concerned, and for a lot of our history, they mostly used, essentially, buckets. Therefore, to prepare for the situation described in the prompt, one of my priority purchases would be a bucket. I mean, if you want to get fancy about it, this thing goes for about 20 bucks new (and I don't want to know what it sells for on the used market).It'd be the only thing on the list, really. An actual, literal bucket list. |
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