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Retired assassin, master of the five finger death punch, part-time movie critic, full-time meanie.

My god is better than your god

I hate proselytizing. Growing up Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Christians, and other religious fanatics would come, door to door, in our neighborhood preaching the gospel according to their God. I would practice a variety of debate techniques on these poor hapless misguided idiots. In many cases these people were ill-equipped to debate the relative merits of their belief systems. Mostly because as a believer, you only need to learn the talking points and not necessarily understand their meaning or their origin.

As I have explained, I read a lot. At various times I have been bored enough to read religious tracts from the entire King James Bible to the Koran. I know what is in there and I know what the intent of the scriptures are. Some of the door-to-door types really have no understanding of what they are reading so it is relatively simple to really fuck them up with just a bit of literal interpretation. The door-to-door missionaries eventually avoided our house.

These days though, the fanatics are embracing the electronic age and posting their drivel on Facebook. It’s very difficult for me to avoid engaging these people. I know that many people need religion to avoid confronting the reality of death, pain, suffering, or calamity, but I don’t need them to write shit on my wall about their god. I honestly don’t care and not because I am atheist (I’m not… truth be told, I’m actually agnostic). Their belief system brings them comfort when something happens, great.. good for them. But I don’t want you to saddle me with your childish belief in fairies, leprechauns, angels or other supernatural beings that bestow good favor on those who believe.

More and more of my friends are falling into the whole “daily affirmation” thing where they post messages about god and good works in relation to their day to day. Many of these cocksuckers are no longer my friends if they keep it up more often than holidays or special occasions. When they do it on some random wednesday morning, I defriend them without a backward glance. I don’t want to have people attempt to convert me and I especially don’t want to see that folk lore inspired rhetoric appearing in my friend feeds.

Post about your drinking binge, your vegetable garden, or the heiffer you pulled at the bar last night so i can laugh with you or at you… the rest you can keep to yourself.

9-13

I can remember that 10 years ago today, though I had spent two days watching the news reports and seeing the video of the twin towers collapsing over and over, it dawned on me what I had witnessed on 9-11. Beyond the terrorism, beyond the grief, shock, and incomprehensible violence, I witnessed a total collapse of the American belief of invincibility. In just 102 minutes (the time it took from the first plane to the second tower collapse) everything every American believed to be true about their safety went out the window.

10 years later and I still think people are expecting the other shoe to drop. Just about everyone I know believes that something worse will happen in the coming years… and the sick part is, they’re probably right.

uber nerd incoming

I read a great deal. I enjoy all different types of books, from historical fiction to instructional manuals to science fiction to children’s literature, I don’t discriminate. One of my all time favorite authors though is Stephen King. I really enjoy the way all his stories, no matter the subject, are all part of a mythos he created from whole cloth.

My all time favorite Stephen King story though is the Dark Tower, which is composed of 7 books (an eighth is on its way), detailing the quest of Roland Deschain to reach the Dark Tower, a fabled building thought to be the nexus of all universes.

Recently Ron Howard announced the was making the Dark Tower into a movie and television show… he also said that Javier Bardem was in talks to play the lead character, Roland Deschain. I was not amused.

I don’t know about anyone else, but for my money, only Timothy Olyphant would fit the role of Roland Deschain as I pictured him in my mind’s eye.

stripper poles are not athletic equipment

I have a friend. Well, not actually a friend as much as an ex-manager from when I worked at a computer company. Recently we connected via Facebook (best idea ever used for the worst possible reasons) and I found out she’s a stripper. Ok, not really a stripper, but she teaches a class called “pole fitness.”

I kid you not. There are classes that teach women to pole dance as a form of fitness or exercise program. I would imagine, that 99% of the women who gravitate toward that nonsense would probably turn their noses down at a real stripper. Hypocrisy isn’t sexy… come to think of it, watching a woman swinging around on a pole isn’t sexy either.. never understood where that came from.

Insert joke about “the only pole i want to see a woman on” here… save me the effort. Told you I was lazy.

SF Summer

San Francisco Skyline

Moneyball

I love baseball. Always have. Probably always will. A decade or so ago, the game changed. Not in an obvious way like Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, but it was just as impactful. Stats that used to mean something, went out the window. Stats no one believed were worthwhile, became all important. Sabermetrics were born. Moneyball was a book written about that evolution of player value based on tangible stats that translated into success.

The central premise of Moneyball is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts, and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed. Statistics such as stolen bases, runs batted in, and batting average, typically used to gauge players, are relics of a 19th century view of the game and the statistics that were available at the time. The book argues that the Oakland A’s’ front office took advantage of more empirical gauges of player performance to field a team that could compete successfully against richer competitors in Major League Baseball.

Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are better indicators of offensive success, and the A’s became convinced that these qualities were cheaper to get on the open market than more historically valued qualities such as speed and contact.

A new movie based on Billy Beane’s early experiences with moneyball as the GM of the Oakland A’s is coming out and while it showcases just how nerdy I am, I’m really excited about the movie.

 

Point Reyes National Forest, Point Reyes, CA

TRON Legacy

Songs I am listening to this week:

Monday, June 27 , 2011

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Six Underground

Songs I am listening to this week:

Monday, June 20 , 2011

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Bright Lights, Big City

Songs I am listening to this week:

Monday, June 13, 2011

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monkey see

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