belated christmas meme---just like my cards!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
gift bags if they are available, but usually wrapping. I'm always disapointed in the results.

2. Real tree or artificial?
Real tree if at all available.

3. When do you put up the tree?
If I put up a tree it would be the second week of December, not to early not to late
*with the cavit that I haven't actually put up a tree in years

4. When do you take the tree down?
after new years most likely

5. Do you like eggnog?
yup quite a bit

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
hmm typically money

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
Nope

8. Hardest person to buy for?
my grandmother

9. Easiest person to buy for?
that would be people under the age of 8

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
sure... that's going to happen

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
a matchbook size zen sandbox, and ugly sweaters

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
alien versus predator!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
start of November typically

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
yeah I think it's perfectly reasonable

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
ham! it scares off the muslim terrorists! oh and pie for breakfast

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
don't really care?!

17. Favorite Christmas song?
we three kings

17b. Christmas Song That, When You Hear It, Makes Your Eyes Bleed And Your Brains Start To Leak Out Your Ears, Because That Is Less Painful Than Having To Listen To That *&%^&$# Song One More Time! almost all of them at anytime.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
light traveling!

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
I don't think it is wise to name animals you might have to eat.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
star

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Christmas morning. or afternoon (i'm older now)

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
the weight gain

24. Favorite Christmas Tradition?
baking giving gifts

25. Outdoor decorations?
bear traps for the carolers!

I'm better already!

Yesterday was probably one of the most depressing days of the whole year for me, but really I'm not that bad most days. I just suffer from a lack of friends to wax esoteric with and regardless of how great my friends are sometimes i just want someone with me to nerd out with or hug me when i'm having a bad day. I think that's the hardest thing about living alone.
Oh well it's gym day so I'm off to workout. I'll see if I can't knock out a meme or two tomorrow I've seen some great christmas ones I want to do.

Here's my comedian crush

Context

I Am, alive, feeling stuck in the middle, waiting.
So, what do i have to do to get unstuck at last?
Fucking, in church were I lost my virginity, thinking this was normal.
Lonely, for real affection, someone waiting for me, a voice.
Again, and again.



I'm just down, it's normal holiday blahs i guess. The Simpson's movie was funny, the weather was great. I broke my camera. Locked myself out of the house with the wrong set of keys. I'm a dork. My USB ports still don't work. The sun will come out tomorrow, or eventually, Puff, Puff pass.

Updated, these things look horrid in daylight

What I did on my winter vacation

So the first picture is of my back yard the second my front yard, i had an extensively wooded 1/3 of an acre. The recent ice storm broke off all the tops and probably killed most of the trees. We get ice storms here every year, that isn't unusual, what was different about this storm was the length of time that the icing lasted. Three days. Under that kind of weight every tree that still had leaves on broke in half and bare limbs snapped if they were to close together. The trees that did best had lost all their leaves already, and had branches spaced well apart from each other.

Gah the damage...if the roof is damaged and it very well might be, I can kiss my europe trip goodbye till fall at least. The amount of wood on the ground and still hanging in the air is huge. I'm depressed about the whole situation. At least I was only without power for a day, my friends were out for three days and were living with me till wednesday night. Other friends and co-workers that live further out are expecting to be out of power for one to two weeks.

I feel myself slipping into this depression, trying to sleep in later, listing task after task in my head to make them more daunting. I wish i wasn't single right now and had someone to lean one and encourage me. But at least i have friends doing it and that helps some.

Cthulu is my homeboy

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange æons even death may die

I've long had a fascination with elder civilizations, and scoured the archeology books every time a "new" civilization is found. It might be interesting to plumb these feelings with a psychiatric eye one of these days. Any ideas? Anyone else wonder if we are the bastard scions of an ancient global civilization? Anyone have any ideas how cocaine ended up in the noses of mummies?

Not going to go there

click to enlarge

Honestly, I was like this close to doing a post bitching about the dating scene here! whew that was a close one.

the flaw in the skein

Hmm I know this is a blog devoted to context and in that light I suppose I shall chalk this up to a small peek at my religious views since these comments sprang from them. Still I apologize for those expecting more baby sloth pictures. so adorable!! Also as a note to Andy and DJraindog, I attempt this only as a outsider trying to use your reason to justify your own beliefs and I think you are both fine men, whose blogs i have long bookmarked. Andy's more than DJ's.

Okay context, it started with Dagon posting pictures from the creationist museum and led to a comment by Andy and DJRaindog both nice enough fellows who are as I later term "philosophical christians" Their logic is thus, Each realizes that the bible if read literally or as direct divine transcription can lead to a host of issues not the least of which several apostles condemning homosexuality, and the old testaments instructions to stone them, right after admonishing people not to eat shellfish. Thus they each create a mental framework in an attempt to justify their faith regardless of the inconsistency of their belief in the book that spawned the religion. To cruelly paraphrase, neither is willing to stake their lives to the truth of the written word, but both of them are willing to risk their eternal souls to it's murky guidance.
Andy begins his logical shenanigans by declaring the bible, "false but accurate" both inherently true and yet not to be taken literally. He declares, "There are limitless riches in the text of Genesis, all of which are cheapened and reduced to complete rubbish by this discussion of whether they are "true" in a scientific sense" . I take it they are cheapened because they are examined and tested? What moral code shouldn't be? To him these lessons are true in a moral way. So when faced with a flood that will wipe out your species except for your family, it is important to stick to your religious convictions and let your fellow man drown. This is a moral lesson? When man attempts to reach for divinity such as in the story of the Tower of Babel, it is God's duty to confuses them and keep them from reaching by inflicting them with broken languages that lead to war and conflict. This is a moral lesson? When dealing with your older brother whom you loathe you should trick him into giving you his birthrights. This is a moral lesson? I'm sorry but if this is the moral lesson than I can do the same on my own without tying myself to an ancient and confused moral code that doesn't accept me.
DJraindog starts a similar thought by also declaring the followers of Jesus that don't see the Word as he does, false Christians, thereby trying to wash his hands of their attempts at religious understand, and defiantly NOT accepting that the Word might be the problem and easily given to any number of definitions. DJ claims that his higher education allows him to properly understand the word unlike the billions of others who might have read it and got a different idea. He admonishes these others , "I'm doing the same, but I actually have a substantial education. I would suggest that if they want to make sense of these fractured disciplines, they should get their facts from well-established and well-respected scientists, historians, and theologians". Like perhaps the Pope? Ahh but these are Anglicans! to hell with the Pope he can't be right (haha just a little joke guys). They will attempt to explain the stories as moral parables that teach us lessons, but as I mentioned earlier these are sad sad moral lessons.
I believe that if you want to live by a moral code you need to think it out in your own mind, you need to weigh your choices out by what you believe not what a book teaches you is right or wrong. Billions of people thru out the word each give up their personal responsibility of moral questioning to follow their perceived religious duty's. Muslims kill apostates and unbelievers because it is better to be dead than to wrong or unpure to them. Hindus and Buddhist developed the caste systems that lock millions into poverty and despair because they believe that former sins call for them to be punished in this life. These poor people are spit upon and beaten down because of who they were born to. Christians believe that a better world will come from a stricter following of the Bible, after all if everyone followed Jesus than it would truly be a better world, right? At least in their defense most Christians have accepted the plurality of belief that springs from having a confusing book to follow. and their religious wars are now a point of history not current conflict. The facts remain, however, that by trying to follow a book instead of figuring out right from wrong in their own lives and practices, they stunt their mental growth by never developing a strong personal view of the world and their place....And this my friends is my problem with all religions.

now as for my beliefs, I do believe in souls, and I do believe in the transcendence after death. Beyond that I have little faith or belief in the gods of today and think that the afterlife will take care of itself. I believe in souls because I think consciousness has developed to the point that it can exist without a body (after all it seems reasonable to suppose that if our consciousness's were downloaded into a computer they would still exist and have free thought) and if that is the case it seems likely that quantum space will somewhere keep a copy of that state in which it can interact with it's environment.