Author Archives: Candice

Blame the media!

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I read today in the Chicago Sun Times that 74 percent of urban and 67 percent of rural people think that in general, people are are ruder today than they were 20 or 30 years ago (link will probably die — deal with it).

Well, I will agree that a lot of people are pretty damned rude. But I have to wonder, how much does the frequency of rudeness vary from year to year? My guess? Not much. Social norms evolve over time. Grandparents are always going to be shaking their heads at their grandchildren, and comlaining about “kids these days”. So, what is the perceived frequency of rudeness in the present in comparison to the perceived frequency of rudeness in the past (not in retrospect)? I’d bet that the numbers aren’t that different.

Who’s to blame for the fact that young people don’t have the exact same social norms as old people? Why, their parents, of course! (Also, the media. It’s some kind of vast ______-wing conspiracy orsomething.) Boo fucking hoo. Plato thought that certain kinds of music would lead to terrible terrible death and destruction and evil and the downfall of society at so on and so forth and whatnot and yadda yadda yadda. Does this sound familiar? (My parents never tried this shit, so I was a little bit stumped on ways to annoy them sometimes…)

37 percent of adults in a survey said that they had used a swear word in public. Wikipedia says (no, seriously, Wikipedia is indeed taking over Google — it’s within the top five for any search I try.)

The offensiveness or perceived intensity or vulgarity of the various profanities can change over time, with certain words becoming more or less offensive as time goes on. For example, in modern times the word piss is usually considered mildly vulgar and somewhat impolite, whereas the King James Bible unblushingly employs it where modern translators would prefer the word urine (2 Kings 18:27; Isa 36:12) or urinate (1 Sam 25:22, 25:34; 1 Kings 14:10, 16:11, 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8).

(The entry also reminds me about how much we used to enjoy talking about seals in French class…)

It’s all just bullshit. Fuck.

(P.S. I’m one of the 13% of people that will admit to making obscene gestures while driving…)

Linus Pauling didn’t know nothin’

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Who needs studies? I just got over a cold. Now I have another cold. I drink about eleventy-seven glasses of orange juice a day. I am led to believe that either vitamin C is useless, or that God hates me.

In any case, this is not fair. The universe is a cruel, cruel place. Know what else is useless? Every type of nasal decongestant available. Or maybe the medicine is working, and I’d be twice as sick without it. I don’t want to find out. I guess I’ll keep popping the pills.

Man, I feel super attractive lately. Bright red clown nose from constant nose-blowing, bright red zits from sleeping in a room that feels like it’s on the surface of the sun, bright red eyes from who knows what (but they’ve been freakishly dry ever since I moved here — it’s probably just jhe chemtrails — hah!). Just perfect for job interviews! Gah!

No, seriously. Steal my car.

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Still didn’t manage to get those stickers for my windshield, so I had to park on Mars all this week to avoid my car being mysteriously disappeared. Stupid Cubs and their stupid night games! Even when I’m parking somewhere that it’s legal to do so, I feel ridiculous amounts of terribly terrible paranoia. Because the only reason I can ever think of that somebody wouldn’t be parked in a nice big spot already is that the spot is the most illegallest spot in the universe, and they’re watching me park there at that very moment, and are going to mysteriously disappear my car as soon as I round the corner. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m going to find out when I go outside today. I don’t enjoy being preoccupied with parking my car, and this is why I really wish it would no longer exist. Plus, parallel parking still makes me anger. Whatever the secret is that allows people to do this amazing feat, I have yet to discover it. I blame the driving instructor that “taught” me these things. His method involved lining up the back of the other car so that it would be in a specific position in the window. Yeah, that works for your car, mister. Too bad I don’t have the same kind of windows in mine. Bastard.

It’s not all that bad here, though. Ha! I moved here from Indiana, are you kidding me? The grocery stores here sell a few President’s Choice products… and since I am Canadian, and there is no Zehrs in the area, I find this quite acceptable. I am eating me some PC cookies at this very moment. And also, they had Heinz baked beans without disgusting brown sugar and/or molasses (or any kind of pork product) added in order to ruin my delicious beans on toast experience. Sean says “What are you, a hobo?” He does not understand how I can be excited about beans on toast. More for me! I saw some Nestlé chocolate bars that I haven’t seen since I’ve moved to the U.S., too (no Smarties, though). I found a few of these things in the “International” aisle, in what seemed to be the British section. At least, I must assume that only the British could be responsible for something as disgusting sounding as “spotted dick”, which was right next to the beans and the HP sauce… Then again, I guess they’re also responsible for beans on toast, so I forgive them.

If only it was this simple…

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I was watching the extras on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy DVD last night. Included is the second half of the Guide entry about Babel fish that describes how irreducible complexity proves that God doesn’t exist. The logic is just about on the level of that used by Intelligent Design morons. Actually, I take that back. It’s at least several thousand times more advanced (okay, I’m just being snarky :) Can we apply this reasoning to eyeballs or flagella as well, plz?

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist”, says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But”, says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”

“Oh dear”, says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Ah, Douglas Adams… He was very much ahead of the times.

But, wait. Nevermind. Intelligent Design has nothing to do with God, religion or faith. It’s a good thing, because if they screw up one of these days and accidentally stumble upon some real facts or evidence, it would denigrate their presupposed beliefs to the level of despicable, despicable science…

[EDIT]: Okay, well. Ack. Douglas Adams was ahead of his time, and is probably also rolling in his grave. I’ve seen people quote the passage above to make fun of Intelligent Design before, but a Google search reveals that these IDiots are also using it as an allegory to demonstrate their argument (they really don’t know a joke when they see one, huh). Asshats. Hands off! You have your Good Book, and I have mine.

Also, they struggle with the very issue DNA pointed out. What is God without faith? And OMG! What would happen if Intelligent Design actually did prove God! Wouldn’t that undermine Christianity? There are more than a few people out there that think this, and if they’re going to believe something stupid anyway, I fully support this viewpoint, because at least they’ll stop bullshitting about science. Because seriously. Proof is dangerous! Belief that isn’t based on irrational superstition doesn’t count, because faith should be enough, they say. And I’m sorry, but once I’m given facts, they’re going to take precedence over everything else. Therefore, evidence for ID would prevent me from ever having faith, and probably condemn me to hell. They don’t want that, do they?

Yeah, I’m not going to read any more about this right now. I hate the “we don’t need no steenking facts” argument. This is why run away from preachy religious types. Even if you finally get them to accept that there’s no way they’re going to convince you of anything without facts to back things up, and to admit that they really don’t have any facts, they just start ranting about how you’re being stubborn and shallow to require them in the first place. And how do you argue with someone who’s essentially saying “Hi! I’m full of shit, and I’m better than you because of it!”

I have to return that DVD now, anyway.

Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome

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Otherwise known as ACHOO syndrome, despite the word dominant in the name (pretty dumb, isn’t it?), Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome is the name for a crazy sneezing reflex that 20-30% of people (myself included) experience when they look into a bright light. Photic sneeze reflex is another, much less stupidous name for this. I am not a fan of backronyms… I got this BS from my dad.

(I’ve got a cold, so I was Googling about sneezes for no particular reason.)

There isn’t a name that I know of for sneezing when plucking your eyebrows, but I’m afflicted with that one, too, and so are plenty of other poor women, says Google. God bless us. I sneeze two or three times in the sun, usually when it hits my eyes at a certain angle while I’m driving (not cool, since sneezing makes your eyes close — Wikipedia says that I wouldn’t be allowed to be a combat pilot for the same reason), but two or three times for every hair I pluck near the insides of my brows is just freakin’ annoying!

The sun is essplode!

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SpaceTramp brought my attention to the current increase in solar activity that’s been happening over the last few days. According to SpaceWeather.com, Wednesday’s X17 flare was the fifth largest ever recorded!

A quick search on Technorati for other posts about the solar storm brought me to Astinus’ Blog where I found a couple of amazing animated GIFs that show a two-day time lapse of the recent activity. The National Weather Service’s Space Environment Center website (which is where you want to go to find the most recent solar stats, images, and predictions BTW) led me to the source of the images The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (I think there’s a reason they refer to this as LASCO…) SOHO (The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) is a good source of pretty pictures and information as well. And there are news stories up at NASA (Huge Solar Flare Spotted) and NOAA (NOAA issues another space weather warning; powerful solar flare erupts).

I’m supposed to be getting ready to go out right about now, but I have this awful glut of information attacking me! Can’t… stop… clicking… links! The possibility of seeing me some aurora would probably get me out of the house, if there weren’t all of these nasty buildings in the way (which reminds me of how annoyed I was not to be able to look at Venus and Jupiter on the 1st — it was my first day living in Chicago!)… I’m not sure exactly what conditions are necessary for it to be visible way down here, but just a guess… they might be something like the current conditions. I saw the aurora once from my home in southern Ontario, and I must say, it took me a while to figure out what the hell it was (it was partially cloudy, so I assumed it was some sort of freakish lightning at first :) Hey, I’m not that dumb… Roman emperor Tiberius once sent his men out to Ostia to put out a “fire” that was actually a freakish occurance of red aurora (of course, I can’t seem to find a source for this, and the internets don’t seem to agree about whether this happened in 34 or 37 BC — I’ve gathered that Seneca recorded the event, but that’s not very specific, now is it) (UPDATE: Seneca wrote about this in his Quaestiones Naturales — Book I. I know enough Latin to find the section of the text that talks about it, but not to translate it, for I am very rusty, and didn’t know that much Latin to begin with).

I wish I could remember when my aurora happened, so I could link it up with a particular storm, or that I’d thought of doing so at the time. It was quite impressive even that far south, so I can only imagine what it must be like up north. And see, dammit… I clicked on some more links — did you know that September is aurora season? Because I didn’t.

I’m going to stop now, before I dig into my browser history to find the link to recent crackpot theories about sunspots that I’ve read. Whoever wrote the page I saw had some pretty precise predictions for what is now the present, and related sunspots to earthquakes and one causing the other, somehow. I’ll dig it up later if I can find it, and link it here. Because everything’s more hilarious once crackpots get their hands on it! Now I’m gonna get me out of the house, and stop rambling. Since I’m fairly sure that I’m not even being intelligible, anyhow!

My internets are back!

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Comcast only took three hours to get it working, WTF. But it works. And I am still unemployed! Therefore: look forward to regular posting again. For a week or so. Until I start slacking and find myself a new excuse.

9-64-090 (e), eh?

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Rebuttal: 9-64-090 (k).

So, yeah. Nice new apartment in Chicago. In a residential parking zone. I just moved here. I do not have a city sticker. I do not have a residential parking permit. I do not have any of the 87 other things my car needs to be legal in this state. I am not required to have these things yet, because there is a 30 day grace period. There is no way for anybody looking at my car to know that, though. Those stickers are what keeps cars on this street from being ticketed and/or towed. So everytime I go outside, there’s a happy orange suprise waiting for me on my windshield. I would gladly pay for the darn stickers, but it’s a long weekend. I would have paid for them first chance I got, on Friday, but the paperwork I needed was still buried in a box somewhere. I will pay for them sometime in the near future, but in the meantime… please to not be towing my car, thx. Luckily, this street is only a tow zone during speicial events. Unluckily, Jimmy Buffet counts as a special event, and he’s playing just down the road. I guess it’s okay, unless they decide to tow me in the next two hours or so… but still. Very lame. Maybe I’ll just go sit on my hood until then. Or maybe I’ll just stick a copy of my lease and a note in giant magic marker letters with lots of exclamation points on my window. Or maybe I’ll just sit here eating ice cream and not watching TV or using the internet at any acceptable speed because our cable isn’t hooked up yet. Yes.

Fair Trade

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Just shelled out $340 to fix more broken parts of my car. I think that in future, it would be a better idea to set up a reciprocal agreement with somebody: if he will fix my car whenever it is broken, I will fix his computer whenever it is broken. Also, I am looking to make friends (before September 1st, if possible) with somebody who has free access to a large truck that doesn’t mind being taken advantage of.