After several lines of urine...

Yeah, that's not a great title, but for this entry, it makes perfect sense.

So, Shane got rid of the dog we were taking care of on Sunday night. There's something about a dog peeing on my carpet and the couch (I was visiting my parents, mind you) that made him want to kick the thing past the New Year. This was, of course, the last straw for Shane who then called the owner's son and told him he was bringing the dog over. Some hasty minutes of cleaning later and the dog was back at home, to soil himself several times over despite being taken for a walk only an hour earlier.

Someone responded to this story by saying, "aww, poor dog." Yes, exactly! Poor dog who we cared for and were nice to, holding in our anger after it peed on the floor for the third, forth, and fifth times. Another person told us to stick the dog's nose in the pee and say no. Mind you, I neglected to say that after nearly every time the dog peed in the house I would do this, to no avail. Plain and simply, the dog didn't like staying with us. He didn't like it, and he was being quite vocal without having to - I mentioned that he barked a lot right? I mean, a lot - actually say anything. For this, I hope I never see that dog in our apartment again; for if I do, and it pees, some four-year old and her father will be wishing on a shooting dog in the night sky.

REGRESS! REGRESS! REGRESS! REGRESS!

Shane had been telling me about the article about the Virginia congressman who wanted to prevent the new Congressman from being sworn in on the Quran all weekend and sent me the link a bit ago. I have to say, I really enjoyed this article though. In spite of the sentiment by Mr. Goode the article is a well written and fascinating look into prayer and religious history.

Progress comes in the form of the Quran

I could not be happier to read this story. Fantastic!

Why are you running away from you when its cold, wet, and raining?

Shane is dog sitting for the next few days, and based on what we've seen thus far, things are not going to go well.

See, I do not like Coco one bit. As I write this he paces his cage, whimpering and barking begging for someone to let him out; which I just had to deal with as well, and that was not fun. Intro, I took the dog out to go to the bathroom. Put him on his leash and walked to the backyard, stood there for a while, and realized he wasn't doing anything. So, I released him from his fetters thinking he would react similarly to the way he does when he's prancing around the apartment: following us around and generally being a sissy. This did not happen, however. Instead, he bolted. And I mean that in every sense of that word. Now, in this regard dog's playing around is fine for a while, but when the dog runs around the house every time you approach him, making his way to each neighbor's yard before being distracted long enough by the neighbors' son is not the kind of playing around that I subscribe to. In fact, that's the kind of playing around that I very strongly dislike. Human or animal, annoying playing is not my game. First, we were told that the dog doesn't bark, and yet, here we have him sounding off several times a second like his life's in danger. Second, I can hear Marc upstairs, walking around. The dude's usually asleep right now, and I bet he's also pacing but with thoughts of kicking our door down with a rifle and shooting the annoying bugger. Third, I released him from his cage thinking that he'll whine less roaming the apartment. Its working thus far, but he likes the idea of running around, investigating under the bed (which is fine), and jumping in with me (which is nowhere close to fine). The thought of sleeping is chased off by the constant scampings of this tiny dog with the high-pitched yelp, and the under bite. Actually, the thing looks like an Ewok; minus the crossbow, dancing skills, developed language, and general being adept at capering.

What I'm seeing here can be chalked up to being remarkably spoiled. A jaunty sweater, short designer leash, and Doggles. Yeah, Doggles. They're goggles for dogs. Awwwwww, no. Its not cute. That's insane. This is a dog. A wild animal. That means that up until a few thousand years ago they roamed the plains in packs hunting other wild animals and not whining because we've left the room. Sure, dogs have been domesticated, but this guy is a complete sissy in every sense of the word.

Skism further (the short version)

Remember the days when video games were about killed nameless, faceless characters instead of trying to convert them or attempt to kill the president? Those were the days.

Both games deal with the issue of 'conversion' or an attempt to - not brainwash but - influence people negatively. My biggest issue with the first game is simple, where is Christ in all of this? "The word 'convert' does not even appear in the game, he adds - and neither does the word 'Christian'." Well, why not? If it contains Christian principles, draws from the Bible, and eludes to Christian stories and prophecies its a Christian game. Plain and simple. The deception aspect is going to cause some serious issues as people will be confused as to what they're playing. They're, very simply, tricking people into believing that certain denominations of Christianity will reach Heaven and everyone else, well, they're heretics. They're evil and being controlled by the devil.

The second game, however, is terrifying. To say that this game isn't trying to recruit people or influence people's thinking in a negative light is crazy. You're shooting the president and his staff as well as the prime minister of the U.K. That's a very direct, very deliberate movement toward messing with people.

Lastly, what's to stop game makers from creating games where Christians are slaughtering Jews or Muslims are bombing sacred Hindu statues and spiritual buildings? The problem lies in creating games where there even might be an underlining mode of hatred. That's the real issue, and the real proof of the destruction of the Old World.

Peter Boyle passes at 71

This is a bit of sad news today. He was always such a hilarious guy.

Wii got a problem apparently

I've been alerted to two articles about people enjoying their Wii too much. Yes, that was intended and probably shouldn't even have been included in this post, but it just fit in so well. Regardless, here are the articles: MSN and NY Times Blog.

I find it immensely funny that people are throwing their controllers out the window, and have begun thinking about roaming the streets until someone tosses their's. I mean, it's cheaper than buying one.

Little Mosque on the Prairie

I'd watch it.

Many thanks to Sarah Lonning for the find

What we 'know' is what we assume

In my first philosophy class in college our professor, on the first day, asked us if two parallel lines intersect. She went around the room asking people, and we all said 'no' or 'probably'. The entire room was basically uniform as she explained that scientists and mathematicians have suggested that, somewhere off in space, parallel lines intersect. This is within the model of believing the universe and space come to a point instead of infinitely sprawled out like a college student after finals. Our professor explained the point of bringing this up was to draw our attention to the idea that what we have learned may not be as concrete as we believe it to be. So as to say, so many of us learn that Christopher Columbus sailed 'the ocean blue' in 1492 and landed in America. It wasn't until much later that we find out he hadn't; his trek concluded in the Caribbean. This is just one example of an item we're taught and supposed to blindly believe.

The problem here is that we all believe that what we 'learn', what is told to us is 'factual' when, in fact, these things are in a constant state of flux. Unless we believe that parallel lines didn't used to intersect but now do based on some change in the space/time continuum or whatever Star Trek quoting you're willing to pull out. The only things that remain constant, in my humble opinion, are the Words of God. Those Words don’t change, they evolve, laws adjust to accommodate human progression; but at no point do or will God’s Words come into question as the difference what ‘might be’ and what ‘is’. What we’re looking at is a vast and infinite continuum of opinions.

We have people spouting jargonistic thoughts and ideas that don’t really retain shape as our lives progress. If someone says, “Toyota’s are the best cars on the planet,” people are going to assume that the person is speaking from personal opinion; however, if someone says, “the berlin wall came down in 1989, (thank you Jeremy)” which is something regarded by many as a fact, we’d never think that what they’re proposing is their opinion or a thought created of experience or perspective.

The credence given here is that one person knows more than another about the subject that they are speaking about when, generally, people are simply relaying the information collected by someone else who is speaking from “experience”. There’s a book written by John Hodgman – You can see him on the Daily Show from time to time, but more regularly as the ‘PC’ in the Apple commercials – called The Areas of My Expertise about the idea that by simply saying you’re an expert people will assume that you are in spite of knowing very little, or anything at all, about the subject you’ll be talking about or representing. It’s an act that people have been using for years with great success: making crap up to sound important. Generally, these people know something or think they know something and go on television shows or are quoted in magazines or newspapers just plain speaking and making what they say sound real. And it is real, to them, but it may not be real to everyone else. When a teenager is asked a general question, as the sample of the population of teenagers, people accept their answers as facts across the board. There’s one answer given, one perspective looked at and the mass of people are clumped in with them. A man wearing a green shirt says it doesn’t look good on him yields people thinking that people in green shirts don’t think the color looks good on them. Sounds like a completely insane belief but the evidence exists to say that things like this happen, somewhere, sometime.

With this idea firmly plunged into our cortex we can understand how insane it is that we unquestionably believe one another. Now, I’m not saying that human beings are gullible or actually believe what is said by some stranger they’ve never met, but these situations exist. I’ve experienced them and therefore I, personally, can say that in my experience people do, somewhere and sometime, blindly accept everything that is spouted from the mouths of “experts” or friends or co-workers etc. But then again, that’s me, and I really don’t know much, if anything about anything. I just have a few ideas.

Start with a title; work backward

As I search back through the annals of my blog writing, my cannon, I’ve noticed several notes regarding use of words that begin with ‘i’ and ‘t’ to start entries and paragraphs. This has been a concern of mine for quite a while. Why the perpetual use of ‘the’, ‘its’, ‘then’, ‘I’, etc. when there are a myriad of other words to start sentences? It’s a confusing situation to be in. Something that probably doesn’t require all that much uncovering but interests me none-the-less.

Another issue would be the idea of naming entries after the entry has been written. This isn’t so much an issue as a challenge. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of shaping a title; narrowly averting using any real, direct correlation to the subject matter of the entry. Skimming subjects to alert the reader to a focal point, perhaps. It’s something that I see as a way of redirecting the reader’s eyes. The idea of pointing the direction I want the reader to look instead of simply being confusing (creating a title that has nothing to do with anything written beneath) or directly connected (more common). Anyway, I’ve decided to try writing the title first and compiling the entry around that title. No loosely based direction or misdirection. Not to mention this will force me to stick to a singular subject instead of tangentializing and hopefully getting the point I was initially trying to make.

The title I would have used if I had written it after I finished the entry: Like naming children

The first ever Civil Rights Game

It'll take place on March 31st in Memphis, TN between the Cardinals and Indians.

Bursts

Pandora is suggesting cold weather. Well, perhaps not, but the random song choices are creating images of frosted windows, stalled cars, canceled shoe traction, and scarves and gloves. I spent some time thinking about de-icing and shoveling the snow in our driveway all weekend, analyzing from both the kitchen and dinning room window pairs, but have done nothing more than stare and shrug and let the smells of tomatoes, string beans, kale, and chicken let me know the food is ready.

You can tell, in the eyes

I spent some time this weekend in a vain attempt to gain back the sleep I’ve missed out on over the last month or so. Round the clock cold pillows, coils in the space heater cooking dust remnants, and the natural light of snow refracting circles my room in constant patterns. Eight, eleven, and six hours later the dry, puffiness around my eyes lingers, peeling a bit, creating red spots where there usually aren’t and reminding me of tasks incomplete.