speaks

So. The family is watching the TV show Glee. As part of the show, one of the female characters (Quinn) is impregnated by the school lothario (Puck), but her regular boyfriend (Finn) thinks the child is his and she is allowing that misconception. Puck knows the kid is his and everything goes round and round in humorous fashion.

In the most recent episode, Quinn actually considers that Puck might be a better father for her child than Finn. Ultimately she decides on Finn as the best father of her baby. My wife and I had a discussion about this and thought it would make a good Livejournal discussion.

Finn is the all American stereotypical quarterback. He's none to bright and shows an amazing lack of initiative. One gets the impression he is pretty good at doing what is expected of him but you get the impression if he were left in a field he'd just slowly starve to death. He's very nice and caring. He is surprisingly progressive. (He objected to the football players tormenting the oddball characters and has been surprisingly tolerant of the Gay Character although that could also be a sign of his cluelessness)

Puck is a criminal. He sells pot. He lies and steals. He sleeps around with not only other high school girls, but their mothers. However he is very resourceful. He owns his own legitimate business in addition to his drug dealing. He obviously cares a great deal about the baby and is willing to do 'whatever it takes' to provide for the baby.

So here is the thing. Is being a nice guy better than being a provider? I think both Finn and Puck will love the child. I don't think Puck necessarily loves Quinn. But I also don't think Finn will be a very good provider for the child.

As part of the hypothetical, Quinn cannot give the child away. Who does she spend her life with?

So we have a time change. It happens every time around this year so its not surprising. The thing I find surprising is the speed in which my internal clock handles it.

My body seems to flow into natural rhythms with astonishing ease. I first wake up at 6:30 or so when the alarm goes off for Mongasika has to go to school. (Why 2nd graders should go to school so early is beyond me). I then doze off until 7:20 when I roll over, look at my clock and sleep again until 7:40 when I repeat the process. At 7:50 my body is fully awake. I shower dress and fly out the door.

You'd think that my body would have started doing these things an hour later under normal circumstances, but no all of them happened the same as if there was no time change. I briefly remember at 7:20 being annoyed at how much light in the room there was, but saw that it was sunlight and not artificial and so just rolled over.

And I've always been able to do this regardless of when I go to sleep. If I lie down at 11 (my normal sleep time) I get up at htose hours. If I stay up til 2:AM I get up at those hours.

In college, I could look at a clock, determine what time I needed to get up, and my body would wake up at that time (within 5-10 minutes). Its a neat trick.

In other news, my dog seems to have the same ability. One of the reasons I get up at 7:20 is that the dog wants to go pee. Apparently she has also adjusted to the time change because she was whining at the door at 7:20 and not 6:20.

So, I went and saw "Where the Wild Things Are" with my youngest daughter. She loved it, but I think that it was because she was too young to understand the subtext.

The entire "wild things" part of the movie is an extended metaphor for the Kid dealing with his broken home life. (Dad divorced Mom. Son lives with Mom and Negligent Older Sister). That made the movie rather dark and depressing to me. Watching the 'feeling nobody listens to or love me' personified or the 'anger that everything is going all wrong' walk around and scream and moan is disconcerting. I much preferred the whimsy of the 10 sentence book.

One part i did like was the Monster "Carrol" was voiced by James Gandolfini. I was able to handle the movie much better when I thought it was a Whacky Dream Sequence from "The Sopranos" and imagined it as the REAL Finale to the series where Tony choked on a bad Onion Ring and blacked out, only to awaken as a giant muppet!

Another movie that is coming out that looks fun is "Planet 51" which is an animated movie where a human astronaut lands on a planet inhabited by space aliens and whacky hijinks ensue. (The Human is the monster, get it!)

I was kinda jazzed about the move but got confused by the casting. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays Captain Charles T. Baker. Thats cool. The Rock has proven himself to have decent acting chops, particularly in comedy roles.

However, when you watch the move Charles T. Baker is a blond haired blue eyed caucasian astronaut. The Rock is part Black part Samoan. He's a good looking man. Did they think that to sell the movie they had to make the lead caucasian? And not only white but NORDIC.

Should this bother me? I didn't complain that Mike Myers wasn't really an Ogre.

So, anyone who loves the Lovecraftain/Gaimanian lovechild that was the Bas-Lag Universe knows that China Mieville is a treat to read. This book no less so.

It starts as a typical Murder Mystery fare with a dead body dumped in an alley. You soon learn that there are weird and mystical implications with the Co-Located cities of Bezel and Ul-Qoma.

Ultimately a conspiracy theory and convoluted past emerges that puts to shame any Dan Brown work, and Mieville doesn't have to crib from "Holy Blood/Holy Grail" or Robert Anton Wilson's "Illuminatus Trillogy" to get his info. Mieville creates the entire story whole cloth and makes a uniquely fascinating world.

There are times I actually think Mieville is giving a nod to Dan Brown with visits to old professors and crazy conspiracy themes. I like to think he is saying 'THIS is how you do it, you hack!' Of course Dan Brown looks down on Mieville from his giant pile of money with a shrug, but it makes me happy.

Read Mieville. Everything he writes. Woot.

Occasionally I have moments that make me doubt my sanity. Generally this involves dealing with Brokers or Agents (Apologies to howlwhite rltrlarper or others who may read this).

( Crazy Person #1 )


( Crazy Person #2 )

Some days you just can't get there from here.

Ok. We're running into the last few days before Aion Launch. My plans are still:

The Asmodian Guild will be on Kaisinel and the Elyos Guild will be on Lumiel.

Kaisinel is a West Coast Server so everything will be 3 hours off, for whatever thats worth.

Lumiel is an East Coast Server but is also apparently an RP server. Does anyone have a problem with this?

I am thinking of buying a vent server. Would people use it?

Can someone set up a message board?

Legion Name so far: Aion Flux

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

Someone quoted from the book of Poor Richard's Almanac that "The Lord helps those who help themselves." I suggested this did not appear in the bible anywhere and that in fact Matthew 25 suggested quite the contrary (One can argue that Genesis sets us up as our brother's keepers).

Anyway... I found another verse that I really took to heart...

Proverbs 28:25 “He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat.”

Suddenly all is made clear.....

So I had a long talk about religion last night, and I came to some interesting insights. In government, our laws start out simple and move towards increasingly complex systems. I believe that religion starts out complex and moves towards increasingly simple systems.

In government you start with anarchy or no laws. Then you get a few laws with simple ways of dealing with them. For a long time there were only 4 felonies (Murder, Rape, Arson, Theft) and the only punishment was Death. Eventually more and more crimes were added on, and different punishments for different crimes (Stocks, Prison, Branding, etc).

After society gets suitably complex, you start adding civil laws. Tax Codes, Contracts, Intellectual Property. Towards the end you get literally hundreds of books proscribing behavior where originally there were 4 felonies with 1 punishment.

Religion seems to work the other way, at least in the West. We start out with Leviticus which goes on and on about often the most simple behavior. I believe that Talmudic codes actually go into even greater detail that the Christian Bible, particularly about what is clean and unclean. Then Jesus comes along and actually SIMPLIFIES the law. He says: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Now presumably one can argue that all of Leviticus is contained within these two edicts. But I am not sure how shellfish or polyblends work into these two.

Just because its more simple doesn't mean that it is EASIER. In fact, I think its harder to love your enemies than it is to not steal. Yet Jesus wants us to do just that.

The impression I get, particularly as I have kids of my own, is that in order to develop as a moral person, you NEED to start with a bunch of rules. It starts as 'because Daddy says so.' As the child gets older you explain to them why the rules are there and what they mean. As the child gets older, a good parent gives more and more latitude for the child to make their own decisions and interpret the rules as they see fit.

So I guess I see fundamentalist Christians as very young children who really only understand the rules because 'daddy says so.' I often fear these type of people, without fear of hell, would wantonly commit crimes or sins. You often hear that sort of reasoning when they talk about athiests. They literally don't understand why an Atheist would be moral or good.

After a while, a Christian matures into their faith. They understand and love God and try to love their neighbor without the need for spouting bible verses. They understand that God has written the word in their heart and they try to act upon what they learn as an adult.

Ultimately, I think we don't NEED religion in order to maintain our relationship with God. All the tools are there to teach us, but we can grow beyond them. Just like i don't need to remember all the parts of speech in order to talk, I don't need to memorize the bible in order to live a life pleasing to God.

And I think if you look at a lot of other religions, they teach the same lessons. The same tools are used whether you are Buddhist Wiccan or Christian. Many roads to the same destination My Fathers House has many rooms. All that good stuff.

It appears, as part of my job, I will be getting flown via private Jet to Limerick, Ireland next week.

I'm not sure how long I will be staying. It may be one meeting then back across the pond.

Now I must scramble to get my passport... and probably a new suit.

During part of the trek to Evansville, IN for a cousin's wedding, I listened to a lot of Fresh Air from NPR. One of the stories was about a man whose mother died, and his father asked him to help find a new wife. While this was kind of funny in itself, there was a particular passage that made me think.

The dad bought three plots in the cemetery. One for his wife, one for him, and one for his son. He told his son, "You'll be with me and your mother for all eternity." And the son kind of freaked out. He actually was concerned about having to spend the rest of eternity with his parents.

Now the first part of me simply says "The physical Location your remains have nothing to do with eternity." The guy's corpse is not going to know or care that it is resting next to his parents.

Then I thought about this more. My thoughts are if it would make someone happier to know they would be buried next to me (or me next to them) then go for it. My remains aren't doing me any good so if they can comfort someone else, that's all well and good.

I considered this for a while and thought "what DID I want done with my remains." My first thought is that I would prefer to be cremated. Why waste space putting me in the earth, at least as a 6' by 2' box. I think there are some services where you just get a shroud and get buried and ultimately return to the earth. I guess that wouldn't bother me too much.

So assuming I am cremated, what is to be done with the ashes. I suppose you could just scatter them. As I said, I don't care at this point. I guess I would be screwed if the Russian Orthodox are right and my body is resurrected in the state of death, but I'll take that risk.

It seems like it might be nice to be on a mantle somewhere. I think I would like to have my wife's remains in a jar on the extremely off chance that I survive her. Maybe she'd like to keep me around as well. But THEN what. Maybe one of my kids would want me. PERHAPS a grandkid. There's an outside chance there is a great grandkid who might know me and have some sort of bond that would lead them to want my remains.

But really outside of 2-3 generations no one is going to know me. If I were given my great great grandparents body in an urn, it damn well better grant me super powers, or it gets dropped into storage space. I don't know my great great grandparents and I feel no particular urge to keep their remains around to meditate on or anything. I assume my descendants will likely feel the same about me.

So do I put in my will 'after anyone who cares about me is gone, just scatter the damn ashes already.' Will that inflict some sort of guilt on my descendants as they finally give up and scatter me? Its very confusing.