Sometimes my computer clock jams. For the last hour or so I've thought it was 7:32. By the time I figured out that it wasn't changing, it was actually 10:22.
Anyways, a kid from my school rear ended me while I was driving down zuni to Luis' house. It is times like this when I am glad I have a truck. My bumper was slightly tilted, whereas his car was pretty much totalled. It was steaming, the headlights were gone and the hood was completely crunched. I noticed much later this evening that when I turn my head to the right, it stresses my neck. But that might just be a coincidence.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Monday, November 29, 2004
Silent Fall?
There is a movie that I suddenly remembered seeing when I was younger. It had this autistic boy who only spoke by repeating things that other people said and I remember he was climbing on the roof and people were trying to get him down. Then I remembered that he also witnessed some type of murder and the police or somebody was trying to get information out of him. I did some "research" and I think the movie is called "Silent Fall" (which would mean that it isn't a sequel to "Silent Spring"), but I don't know. It's nostalgia just because I remember seeing it when I was really little and I kind of want to see it just to see how well I rememered it. Has anybody seen this movie?
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Keller's Book
Damn. I wanted to read Helen Keller's book on socialism, "Out of the Dark", but it is out of print. As fellow socialist Zach de la Rocha said, "no need to burn the books, they just remove em." Hopefully I can find it at a library or something.
A Conversation of Epic Proportion
(1:24) Grayson: deadmilkmen bassist killed himself recently
(1:24) the fighting 303: liek, last year
(1:24) Grayson: dave blood
yeah
(1:24) the fighting 303: where wer you?
haha
(1:25) Grayson: i just found out the other day
i think he od'd on bleach
(1:25) the fighting 303: hahaha
actually, he was riding the tilt-a-whirl
and he was a daredevil
(1:26) Grayson: no, the mixer
the mixer goddamn it!
(1:26) the fighting 303: don't hit me!
(1:26) Grayson: the man said keep your hands and arms inside the mixer at all times!
but bill jr, he was a daredevil!
just like his old man
he was leaning over saying look at me look at me
POW!
he was decapitated
they found his head over by the snowcone concession
tilt a whirl? psh
nobody dies on a tilt awhirl
not even bill jr
(1:24) the fighting 303: liek, last year
(1:24) Grayson: dave blood
yeah
(1:24) the fighting 303: where wer you?
haha
(1:25) Grayson: i just found out the other day
i think he od'd on bleach
(1:25) the fighting 303: hahaha
actually, he was riding the tilt-a-whirl
and he was a daredevil
(1:26) Grayson: no, the mixer
the mixer goddamn it!
(1:26) the fighting 303: don't hit me!
(1:26) Grayson: the man said keep your hands and arms inside the mixer at all times!
but bill jr, he was a daredevil!
just like his old man
he was leaning over saying look at me look at me
POW!
he was decapitated
they found his head over by the snowcone concession
tilt a whirl? psh
nobody dies on a tilt awhirl
not even bill jr
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Movie Review: Saw (new)
Saw is very reminscent of the movie Seven. In Seven, the bad guy killed people or put them in a situation where they would die because the killer believed that they had sinned. In Saw, the bad guy has some life threatening disease so he goes out and puts people in situations in which they will most likely kill themselves, that way they will appreatiate life more. Yeah, it doesn't make all that much sense, but hey, it's a horror movie. You pretty much have to expect a lot of randomness and plot holes in horror movies and just take them as they are. Otherwise, you will end up always being annoyed. It took me awhile to finally get to the point where I could accept "The Ring" as it is and not think about my mental list of problems the movie had with it's plot and random happenings.
Mainly, Saw is worth watching because it has some pretty cool scenes in it and is entertaining. It isn't really "scary" or anything (although one part did scare me), so don't expect to get scared. Like I said, it is kind of like Seven.
3 1/2 stars out of 5 (or 4 stars if you were to judge only within the horror movie genre)
Mainly, Saw is worth watching because it has some pretty cool scenes in it and is entertaining. It isn't really "scary" or anything (although one part did scare me), so don't expect to get scared. Like I said, it is kind of like Seven.
3 1/2 stars out of 5 (or 4 stars if you were to judge only within the horror movie genre)
Friday, November 26, 2004
Grayson's Believe it or Not
Dr. Dre once rapped these lyrics:
"I still express, yo, I don't smoke weed or sess
Cause it's known to give a brother brain damage
And brain damage on the mic don't manage - NUTHIN
but makin a sucka and you equal
Don't be another sequel.. {Express yourself}"
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Evolution Pt. II
The college kid came and sat down at one of those green chairs we were all sitting on at hastings. He told us that he thinks that Christianity and science can work at the same time. It doesn't work when you take everything exactly word for word, though. One reason, he said, is that Jesus didn't speak the typical language of the time. He spoke something else -- the kid told us what it was called but I don't remember -- that was on par with the ebonics of our day. Jesus spoke what the poor spoke and not the exact language. Then the kid said, "imagine how much is lost in translating ebonics into, say, British english. They are the same language, but you can't know exactly what was said originally because of the great difference between the two."
We told the kid that the guy was a geologist and that it seemed that most of his case against evolution revolved around the absense of fossils of "transitionary" animals. The kid thought for a second and then looked at us and said "mudskippers". He was right, mudskippers are exactly a transitionary animal. Just look at the picture I've posted of one coming out of the water onto land, just as they did originally a long time ago when creatures were first coming onto land. Notice how it is half fish and half land crawler. Then the kid said something scientific sounding which I will make up something for because I don't remember exactly what he said: "And how about the north atlantic parabu porquipines? They lay eggs and yet they still give milk to their young." Then he told us about how a certain group of nomads once sailed and landed in Asia where they met some Pacific Islanders that they tried to breed with, but were never able to produce any kind of children. That is an example of a species breeding until they change enough to not even be able to breed with their original species, which is evolution in action. I told him that the creationist man told us that he believes in micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution, which means that he believes a species can evolve inside it's own species, but not have the ability to evolve into a whole different species. Then the kid started talking about the porqupines again and then he told us about how he is really interested in botony and talked about all kinds of different pine trees and their different needles. I don't really remember most of it, but he seemed to know a lot about trees and different animals and where they came from.
He also talked a lot about iceages. Apparently, humans have survived something like 8 ice ages, according to what he's read. And every time, all knowlege is wasted because everything is destroyed and small groups of survivors have to repopulate the world pretty much. Also, all major religions, aside from in Japan, people have a story of a great flood. He thinks that the people in Japan might have just been in a high area that the flood didn't get to and they might not have known about it or something. I think this is all I can remember from all the things he told us. Eventually me and Angelo had to leave Hastings.
We told the kid that the guy was a geologist and that it seemed that most of his case against evolution revolved around the absense of fossils of "transitionary" animals. The kid thought for a second and then looked at us and said "mudskippers". He was right, mudskippers are exactly a transitionary animal. Just look at the picture I've posted of one coming out of the water onto land, just as they did originally a long time ago when creatures were first coming onto land. Notice how it is half fish and half land crawler. Then the kid said something scientific sounding which I will make up something for because I don't remember exactly what he said: "And how about the north atlantic parabu porquipines? They lay eggs and yet they still give milk to their young." Then he told us about how a certain group of nomads once sailed and landed in Asia where they met some Pacific Islanders that they tried to breed with, but were never able to produce any kind of children. That is an example of a species breeding until they change enough to not even be able to breed with their original species, which is evolution in action. I told him that the creationist man told us that he believes in micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution, which means that he believes a species can evolve inside it's own species, but not have the ability to evolve into a whole different species. Then the kid started talking about the porqupines again and then he told us about how he is really interested in botony and talked about all kinds of different pine trees and their different needles. I don't really remember most of it, but he seemed to know a lot about trees and different animals and where they came from.
He also talked a lot about iceages. Apparently, humans have survived something like 8 ice ages, according to what he's read. And every time, all knowlege is wasted because everything is destroyed and small groups of survivors have to repopulate the world pretty much. Also, all major religions, aside from in Japan, people have a story of a great flood. He thinks that the people in Japan might have just been in a high area that the flood didn't get to and they might not have known about it or something. I think this is all I can remember from all the things he told us. Eventually me and Angelo had to leave Hastings.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Evolution
Battle: Is Evolution True?
Arena: Hastings
Angelo and I were talking at Hastings about Christianity and all of the things that have been proven wrong. We were talking about Noah's ark and how ridiculous the whole story is. Eventually the conversation evolved into evolution and fetuses and how they have tails and gills and are crazy animals. I was telling Angelo about the moths that lived on these light colored trees and they were colored lightly as well. When the factories came near by, the trees turned darker and the mothes were now visable on the trees. These were mothes that lived for a really short time and bred really rapidly, so they evolved quickly. Soon, more and more of the mothes were becoming dark colored to fit in with the tree. It was a really fast evolution that was completely noticed and documented.
So I was telling Angelo about this and I noticed this one guy smirking and I thought it was kind of weird. Soon enough, he came over and said "now you don't have all your facts right." I asked him how and he said "Those mothes started appearing brown during the industrial revolution due to NATURAL SELECTION, not evolution. The birds could see the mothes on the trees that weren't brown because they stood out on the brown tree, so those mothes were eaten.", "of course", I replied "natural selection IS evolution." Which is true, I mean, if somebody were to sum up Darwinism in one sentence, the sentence would most likely include the terms "natural selection" and "evolution" in it. But this guy kept saying that natural selection was different than evolution. So I tells em "evolution results from natural selection. That is how species evolve." and he says "no. Natural selection is when the stronger survive and the weaker die off." So I say something like, "Right, but in this case the mothes that were a different color than the tree were the weaker ones because they weren't apt for their environment, so they died off. Eventually the darker mothes will be more likely to have offspring because they live much longer than the other mothes. Those offspring will have the genes for being dark like the tree and they will blend in with the tree just like their parents. This goes on for so long until almost all the moths are dark." And I dont' know how he snaked his way out of this one, but he somehow changed the subject to something else.
He just kept on saying that there isn't any proof of evolution and told us that he was a scientist and how he used to believe in evolution also, until he "looked into it." Well, his whole arguement seemed to rest upon him saying that there aren't any "transitional fossils", by which he means that there haven't been any fossils found of a species in between the aquatic phase and the land phase of creatures. He also told us that evolutionists always contradict eachother and once he learned these things he figured out that creationism is the way to go because there isn't any proof of evolution. I asked him for proof of creationism and he said that there are fossils of all kinds of fish stuck together and there is no way this could happen without a huge flood and he looked at us and said "moses' flood." Then he started talking about a tree that grew through rock and how it couldn't have happened. He mentioned that tree twice, but neither me and Angelo understood what he was saying about it.
Angelo then told him "well creationists also believe that the earth is only 2 thousand years old." The guy then told us that there are "young earth" and "old earth" creationists. "Young earths" believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old, and that is what he believes, but sometimes other creationists say that it is a lot older. So I told him that creationists contridict eachother just like he said about evolutionists. To that he said something like "well, there are variances."
We ended up talking about animals and creatures again and the man told us that a lot of the time scientists don't even know how old fossils are. Angelo said "What about carbon dating" and then the man said "carbon dating only works for things with carbon in them"
"Doesn't everything have in it?" Angelo asked.
Then a college student behind Angelo said "only living things" and the man said "that's right." The college kid had only been nearby our conversation for a couple of minutes. He was looking at books with his girlfriend and I could tell that he was listening to our talk and eventually he turned completely towards the conversation when he interjected about carbon dating.
Throughout the talk, the creationist man kept on saying that it is hard to break out of the mold of being an evolutionist. "You have been taught nothing but evolution your whole lives, so it would be hard for kids like you to approach the subject unbiased and weigh the evidence equally."
"Actually", said Angelo "I've been taught creationism my whole life." Which is true because his mom is a right-wing christian fundamentalist. The man said "well, most people are taught nothing but evolution, so when they go out looking for answers, they will find the answers that they want to find and are taught to find. He kept bringing this up, so I had to keep reminding him that for thousands of years Christanity was the only thing ever taught and nobody even fathemed the idea of evolution. That would be a hard mold to break out of, so he can't talk about how people are always biased towards evolution and that is why people believe it, because the idea evolution completely a recent breakthrough and before then society was completely biased towards creationism.
The college kid starts talking again after awhile and told the man about how recently hebrew texts had been researched and the more correct statement in the bible is actually not "created" but "is creating", meaning that the Bible didn't necessarily mean to say that God straight up created everything, but that evolution works within what he did create. The kid started saying some more interesting things to the man. The college student looking kid obviously was a pretty smart guy and after talking to him for a long time I asked if he was a major in religion or history or anything and he just said "no, I just read everything I could get my hands on about the stuff." But that wasn't until later. Right about after he told the man about the hebrew scriptures and some other things, the man coincidentally had to leave right away. He said he needed to pick up his son, but his son actually called like ten minutes before he said he needed to leave. I guess it was a good moment for the guy to leave the conversation. I mean, it's one thing to argue with some highschool kids armed with nothing but sheer common sense, but it is another thing to argue with somebody who studies this stuff, as the college kid appeared to do in his own time. Tomorrow I will talk more about the college kid and what he told us.
Arena: Hastings
Angelo and I were talking at Hastings about Christianity and all of the things that have been proven wrong. We were talking about Noah's ark and how ridiculous the whole story is. Eventually the conversation evolved into evolution and fetuses and how they have tails and gills and are crazy animals. I was telling Angelo about the moths that lived on these light colored trees and they were colored lightly as well. When the factories came near by, the trees turned darker and the mothes were now visable on the trees. These were mothes that lived for a really short time and bred really rapidly, so they evolved quickly. Soon, more and more of the mothes were becoming dark colored to fit in with the tree. It was a really fast evolution that was completely noticed and documented.
So I was telling Angelo about this and I noticed this one guy smirking and I thought it was kind of weird. Soon enough, he came over and said "now you don't have all your facts right." I asked him how and he said "Those mothes started appearing brown during the industrial revolution due to NATURAL SELECTION, not evolution. The birds could see the mothes on the trees that weren't brown because they stood out on the brown tree, so those mothes were eaten.", "of course", I replied "natural selection IS evolution." Which is true, I mean, if somebody were to sum up Darwinism in one sentence, the sentence would most likely include the terms "natural selection" and "evolution" in it. But this guy kept saying that natural selection was different than evolution. So I tells em "evolution results from natural selection. That is how species evolve." and he says "no. Natural selection is when the stronger survive and the weaker die off." So I say something like, "Right, but in this case the mothes that were a different color than the tree were the weaker ones because they weren't apt for their environment, so they died off. Eventually the darker mothes will be more likely to have offspring because they live much longer than the other mothes. Those offspring will have the genes for being dark like the tree and they will blend in with the tree just like their parents. This goes on for so long until almost all the moths are dark." And I dont' know how he snaked his way out of this one, but he somehow changed the subject to something else.
He just kept on saying that there isn't any proof of evolution and told us that he was a scientist and how he used to believe in evolution also, until he "looked into it." Well, his whole arguement seemed to rest upon him saying that there aren't any "transitional fossils", by which he means that there haven't been any fossils found of a species in between the aquatic phase and the land phase of creatures. He also told us that evolutionists always contradict eachother and once he learned these things he figured out that creationism is the way to go because there isn't any proof of evolution. I asked him for proof of creationism and he said that there are fossils of all kinds of fish stuck together and there is no way this could happen without a huge flood and he looked at us and said "moses' flood." Then he started talking about a tree that grew through rock and how it couldn't have happened. He mentioned that tree twice, but neither me and Angelo understood what he was saying about it.
Angelo then told him "well creationists also believe that the earth is only 2 thousand years old." The guy then told us that there are "young earth" and "old earth" creationists. "Young earths" believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old, and that is what he believes, but sometimes other creationists say that it is a lot older. So I told him that creationists contridict eachother just like he said about evolutionists. To that he said something like "well, there are variances."
We ended up talking about animals and creatures again and the man told us that a lot of the time scientists don't even know how old fossils are. Angelo said "What about carbon dating" and then the man said "carbon dating only works for things with carbon in them"
"Doesn't everything have in it?" Angelo asked.
Then a college student behind Angelo said "only living things" and the man said "that's right." The college kid had only been nearby our conversation for a couple of minutes. He was looking at books with his girlfriend and I could tell that he was listening to our talk and eventually he turned completely towards the conversation when he interjected about carbon dating.
Throughout the talk, the creationist man kept on saying that it is hard to break out of the mold of being an evolutionist. "You have been taught nothing but evolution your whole lives, so it would be hard for kids like you to approach the subject unbiased and weigh the evidence equally."
"Actually", said Angelo "I've been taught creationism my whole life." Which is true because his mom is a right-wing christian fundamentalist. The man said "well, most people are taught nothing but evolution, so when they go out looking for answers, they will find the answers that they want to find and are taught to find. He kept bringing this up, so I had to keep reminding him that for thousands of years Christanity was the only thing ever taught and nobody even fathemed the idea of evolution. That would be a hard mold to break out of, so he can't talk about how people are always biased towards evolution and that is why people believe it, because the idea evolution completely a recent breakthrough and before then society was completely biased towards creationism.
The college kid starts talking again after awhile and told the man about how recently hebrew texts had been researched and the more correct statement in the bible is actually not "created" but "is creating", meaning that the Bible didn't necessarily mean to say that God straight up created everything, but that evolution works within what he did create. The kid started saying some more interesting things to the man. The college student looking kid obviously was a pretty smart guy and after talking to him for a long time I asked if he was a major in religion or history or anything and he just said "no, I just read everything I could get my hands on about the stuff." But that wasn't until later. Right about after he told the man about the hebrew scriptures and some other things, the man coincidentally had to leave right away. He said he needed to pick up his son, but his son actually called like ten minutes before he said he needed to leave. I guess it was a good moment for the guy to leave the conversation. I mean, it's one thing to argue with some highschool kids armed with nothing but sheer common sense, but it is another thing to argue with somebody who studies this stuff, as the college kid appeared to do in his own time. Tomorrow I will talk more about the college kid and what he told us.
I Against I
"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world with terrible depth perception" is my new quote that I hope will catch on. It is pretty deep and relates to a lot of life's problems.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Spoilers
20:11:34 punkorastropunk: dont john kerry and bush both take votes away from the "absense of votes" ticket?
20:11:39 punkorastropunk: they are total spoilers
20:12:00 stonepauper: what is absense of votes?
20:12:04 punkorastropunk: when you dont vote
20:12:18 stonepauper: oh
20:12:20 stonepauper: yeah dude
20:12:21 stonepauper: i agree
20:12:32 punkorastropunk: they both completely steal those votes because the absense of votes ticket has been around way longer than either party
20:12:47 stonepauper: yeah i know
20:12:49 punkorastropunk: and each american has been with that ticket for the first 18 years of their life at least
20:12:56 stonepauper: people have been not voting since the dawn of time
20:13:07 punkorastropunk: and then those two parties try to steal those votes
20:13:19 punkorastropunk: its sad that they have to resort to those tactics
20:13:35 stonepauper: sad indeed
20:11:39 punkorastropunk: they are total spoilers
20:12:00 stonepauper: what is absense of votes?
20:12:04 punkorastropunk: when you dont vote
20:12:18 stonepauper: oh
20:12:20 stonepauper: yeah dude
20:12:21 stonepauper: i agree
20:12:32 punkorastropunk: they both completely steal those votes because the absense of votes ticket has been around way longer than either party
20:12:47 stonepauper: yeah i know
20:12:49 punkorastropunk: and each american has been with that ticket for the first 18 years of their life at least
20:12:56 stonepauper: people have been not voting since the dawn of time
20:13:07 punkorastropunk: and then those two parties try to steal those votes
20:13:19 punkorastropunk: its sad that they have to resort to those tactics
20:13:35 stonepauper: sad indeed
Election 2000
Day 1
Today is election day, which means we will soon find out who won the most votes and who will become the new president (which are not necessarily the same person). I have my money riding on the same ticket that wins every election, the "none of the above" ticket. Although this mysterious candidate is not a real person and he wins by the absense of votes, I still have faith in him. But back to the real election. This year I am trying to see how long I can go without finding out who is president, which doesn't seem like it will be that hard given the amount of complexity and time it will take counting and recounting and arguing that will surely insue in the days to come. Nevertheless, I am going to try and stay away from the day to day media and tell friends, teachers and parents not to talk about the election near me.
Maybe I should care more about who wins, but then again, I have no say in it either way, so it really doesn't matter if I know who won. Also, I have a hunch that it will be either Bush or Kerry that wins, so either way we will end up having a conservative businessman in office.
Today is election day, which means we will soon find out who won the most votes and who will become the new president (which are not necessarily the same person). I have my money riding on the same ticket that wins every election, the "none of the above" ticket. Although this mysterious candidate is not a real person and he wins by the absense of votes, I still have faith in him. But back to the real election. This year I am trying to see how long I can go without finding out who is president, which doesn't seem like it will be that hard given the amount of complexity and time it will take counting and recounting and arguing that will surely insue in the days to come. Nevertheless, I am going to try and stay away from the day to day media and tell friends, teachers and parents not to talk about the election near me.
Maybe I should care more about who wins, but then again, I have no say in it either way, so it really doesn't matter if I know who won. Also, I have a hunch that it will be either Bush or Kerry that wins, so either way we will end up having a conservative businessman in office.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)