Dreams, Outliers.

Yesterday night before I slept I told myself that I was going to keep a dream journal.
This morning I woke up having a vague recollection of the dream I had.
It had something to do with Veronica Mars.
I've been watching too much of that lately.
It's really good. You should try it.
Then I went to fry 2 eggs, eat 3 pieces of toast, some yogurt and a glass of juice.
Now I can't remember What I was supposed to be writing about.

How DO people keep dream journals anyway?

It just struck me that I had no idea what they're for.
Maybe later.

Funny how dreams almost wants us to forget them when we wake up.

**

My copy of "outliers" arrived yesterday or the day before.
I've been devouring it since. Malcolm Gladwell has been one of my favourite writers ever since I read "blink". I got the hardcover version for 7 pounds. yay.

Reading "Outliers", it's easy to think that success, big league, Microsoft, Apple kind of success is only possible by circumstance. Maybe it's what's the book about. I'll have to read further to judge, but it's been interesting, as his books or talks usually are.

Insights abundant.

Doesn't hurt that the man writes like a genius. Short, succinct, yet never lacking in details.

The bland cover belies it's true secrets. If you've enjoyed any of his previous books, give this one a try.

wtf.

Keyword analysis showed me that at least 2 dudes came to my blog looking for "no arms no legs porn."

Why not believing in God helps me sleep at night.

The word God here refers to the monotheistic judeo-christian God. Polytheistic religious systems should require a different article as far as I'm concerned.

Say what you will about evidence, belief in God is still a choice. The 2 major camps I see in this debates are the hard-core atheists who believe He definitely doesn't exist, and the fundamentalists, whose positions are well documented in various ancient works of fiction authored by many, edited by more and translated by even more. Neither side, in my opinion provide enough sound evidence to prove or disprove the existence of He, and I for one used to believe there was no point in arguing. Until now that is.

So belief in God is simply a choice between having faith in the book that has been in print since the dawn of time, or siding with existential allegorical arguments that make sense, but don't necessary disprove God's being here in the grand scheme of things.

If you were a fence sitter like I was, you probably don't care anymore. The arguments have become old and boring, lost their punch like a catchy pop song overplayed, and the so called "evidence"... well they were never really sound or real to begin with and require a great suspension of disbelief to be taken seriously. Like bad science-fiction, only set in the past.

The question of which side of the fence I should fall into has remained largely in the back of my head for quite some time. Being in the middle forever didn't seem like a good option, and being on either seemed to be contradictory to what I thought I believed. Here's how I arrived at my decision.

Faith, by definition, is believing without doubt. By having faith in God, we accept that everything that happens in our lives is an act of God. Good or bad, God has a plan. His plan shall not be changed, and in the end it all will be well, no matter how terrible it may seem now. God has a plan. Always have, always will and always have been. Adhere to the plan and ye shall be welcomed into His Kingdom Come with arms wide open. Disobey and suffer in Hell for eternity.

Staunch atheists on the other hand, believe a variety of things, and since there is no specific scripture or book I can reference, it's rather difficult to provide a broad generalization and hit everyone's definition. One thing Atheists can all agree on however is that there is no, or probably is no God. Nada, zilch, ditto. God does not run lives, he answers no prayers, there is no plan, no heaven and no hell. John Lennon famously invited us to imagine, and imagine these people did. They imagined a lot of things previously thought to be simple truths and facts of life out of their system.

Looking at it from the "what's happening in the world" point of view instead of the traditional "what happens after I die" point of view, the answer is pretty clear. My choices were, believe in the existence of God and accept that all the wars, suffering and bullshit going on in the world is the work of God, and have faith in his plan, therefore admitting to myself that God, should he exist is a twisted, evil, seriously disturbed individual who desperately needs help, and has NO business whatsoever trying to run a Universe in which our planet is smaller than the size of a pixel on my screen, or accept that there probably is no God (I cannot, with all the conviction in my heart, say he definitely doesn't exist) and all the terrible things happening in the world are a result of human doing and therefore admitting to myself that we human beings are the most revolting creatures ever to walk the earth. We might someday destroy for fuck's sake.

The problem with the former option is this. It really doesn't have any room for other interpretations (it wouldn't be called religion if it did) despite what many "religious" people have told me. The book's the book. It could be taken any number of ways but it probably wasn't written to be used that way. At best it's an outdated moral compass that proclaims it has the answer to the human condition, the recipe for salvation, at worst a mind-control tool. A very successful one at that. Guiness Book of World Records like.

Given the choice between Deity fallibility and human fallibility I happily chose the latter. The other kind is just too scary to think about. Given the choice, I'd rather not believe in God and than believe in him. Because if he were there, he's probably not doing his job, or not there. At all.

That's my argument. It's not much different from what has been said before, but at least I've said it. If you've humored me this long I thank you, this really wasn't for you, but please accept my thanks anyway. In this overcrowded, overloaded society that we live in, I really wonder what keeps me sane.

Job hunting.

I still haven't given up though.

The list.

Fairy Liquid
-Let it pile up, you'll spend last time anyway.

PrittStick
-Nothing special, just good on paper.

AnnSummers
-Contribute to the population problem sexily.

Subway
-custom-made to specifications.

Extra chewing gum
-So you taste nicer.

Best Beginnings
-Why using your nipples can make your kid smarter.

Smallville

Is a good show, well now... season 8 of it...the past episodes.. that I've watched. Have been... quite. enjoyable.

Despite how bland, boring and frustrating Clark Kent is. I cheer every time I see Green Arrow, Mercer, Doomsday, or any other character come one screen.

How can a show with such an unlikable main character be so good?

Nevermind.

Can't have less Clark, but please have more everyone else.

Oh the doomsday origin is also pretty sweet. Coming along nicely.

GO OBAMA

*crosses fingers*

Spoliers: Kill your Boyfriend.

A one shot comic written by Grant Morrison drawn by Philip Bond, this is probably the greatest comic I've read this year. I enjoyed it so so much that I'm gushing whenever I think about it. Which is why I haven't talked about it to any of my friends yet and I choose to vent my feelings here.

"Kill your boyfriend" to me is a love letter to the bygone days of youth spent thinking about all the things we could have done and didn't for some reason or other. Right at the start of the book there's a classroom scene where our heroine daydreams about whipping out a machine gun and gunning down everyone in sight, all the while having her blouse hanging loose, bra exposed. I can't count how many times thoughts like that have struck me while I was in anywhere akin to meetings or classrooms, sans the bra and blouse part of course.

Our main girl starts out relatively innocent, with her sins equally so. Hiding skanky underwear from her parents, getting caught with a condom in her room, wanting to fuck her dork boyfriend Paul desperately so yet denied every time by Paul himself no less in favour of "fantasy books written to be more poetic" or some shit like that.

Adventure starts when she meets an anarchic, out of control, free-spirited youth that shows her the little things in life her parents worked so hard to keep her away from like drinking, smoking, guns, drugs, and letting loose. With him in tow, they set off on a small road trip across the UK, ending in Blackpool. Along the way, our heroine breaks away from the confining dictations of society, allowing her to do, and be whatever she wants.

"I'm a page three gril, a Warhol superstar, I'm a dyke, a riot grrrrl, I'm the queen of sex."

Reading "Kill you Boyfriend" is pure guilty pleasure. A perfect vent in which misgivings about that fat fuck that blocks the stairs at the station can be exorcised. Remember that asshole back in high school you've always wanted to drag back an alley and beat the living shit out of? How about the queue cutting fuckers at the ticket stops? I hate those guys too. Reading this was like being given an opportunity to do all those things. Of course, there's no big moral at the end of the story, no big revelation or moment of clarity. It's always great to see that you're not alone in your own sick, twisted desires and this really did resonate with me, and my earlier days spent doing jack shit.

Like being given a loaded gun and being dared to fire.

Fucking excellent.

Washing the dishes is boring.

It's one of those things that refuses to be interesting no matter what you do. They invented dishwashers but that doesn't solve the problem of having to scrub dishes before they go in. I'd take cleaning the toilet or vacuuming the floor over fucking dishes any day of the week. At least those jobs are visually stimulating, there's a good chance you'll walk away from cleaning the toilet (our toilet anyways) with a story worthy of Kevin Smith's dvd release. All the poop scrubbing and porcelain shining will at least give me a good, ugly story to talk about with my friends the next time I'm high or something.

But doing the fucking dishes? No chance. I don't think it's possible to spice up a conversation about dish washing. Bad source material. I'd say even Jim Carrey couldn't do it. It's beyond human reach.

The holy grail of comedy maybe? The time I hear a joke about dishwashing that makes me laugh is the day I stop playing videogames. AKA never.

...

On with the dish washing liquid ideas.

It looked at me squarely in the eye.

A black letterbox around the screen. "Happiness, leaves when wanted." it said.

Funny. Welcome to the fan-translated world of mother3 indeed.