I don't know why it took me 30+ years to realize it, but "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and the "ABC" song have the same melody. I didn't know that. I was singing them to Audrey back-to-back, and the light went off in my head. I guess that's just something you never really realize until you sit down and think about it. Or, maybe everyone else in the world already did realize that, and I'm just slow when it comes to "Melodies of Famous Children's Songs".
Second, I just got a Friend Request on Facebook from my wife's grandmother. I knew Facebook was getting ready to "jump the shark", but i think this officially confirmed it for me. I don't know exactly what the new internetty-social friending-network thing is called nowadays, but I'm just dang sure that there's something newer and cooler out there now that middle school kids are connecting with. And I'm sure I'll find out about it just about the time it gets stale, and then my wife's grandmother will find out about it shortly after.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Itunes Trolls
I leave my Itunes on most of the day here at work, and just throw the thing on "shuffle" and let it ride. There's about 4,000 songs in there, so I'm usually good for a "No Repeat Workday". I've got a little bit of everthing in there, so sometimes it's Ben Folds, sometimes it's David Crowder, sometimes it's Steve Miller Band, sometimes it's whatever... you know? Brandi has a couple of CD's on the iPod as well, so every once in a while I have to sit through some Janet Jackson or something else that i really don't enjoy. But whatever, it's cool...
What i don't understand, though, is how the little trolls that live inside my Itunes decide what they are going to select next. I swear that today, they all got together and said, "Hey, flood today's playlist with Madonna and other crap that Ryan doesn't like." I didn't even know I had a Madonna song on my Itunes, much less twenty different ones that all sound the same and terrible. Okay, "Lucky Star" isn't bad, but I don't like much else. But, would it kill them to throw in some Killers or Radiohead or even some Journey now and again?
What i don't understand, though, is how the little trolls that live inside my Itunes decide what they are going to select next. I swear that today, they all got together and said, "Hey, flood today's playlist with Madonna and other crap that Ryan doesn't like." I didn't even know I had a Madonna song on my Itunes, much less twenty different ones that all sound the same and terrible. Okay, "Lucky Star" isn't bad, but I don't like much else. But, would it kill them to throw in some Killers or Radiohead or even some Journey now and again?
Monday, January 5, 2009
Top Gun was good, but I still don't care for you....
I really don't like Tom Cruise much. he seems a nice enough fellow, but all that scientology stuff really bothers me.... maybe i'm just overly skeptical, but i have a hard time buying into a religion that (1) was created/inspired/developed by a science-fiction writer, and (2) that costs $300,000. This is the potential cost to individual members to take all the church's courses and auditing sessions in order to climb the Bridge to Terabithia, I mean, the "Bridge to Total Freedom."
I didn't really know much about scientology until the last couple of days when I started digging into it a bit. here's what i found:
Once upon a time (75 million years ago to be more precise) there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu. Xenu was in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack. Now, Xenu had a problem. All of the 76 planets he controlled were overpopulated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation, so he had a plan. Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists, he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of propellers). These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes. When they had finished stacking them around then H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. Xenu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed.
The story doesn't end there though. Since everyone has a soul (called a "thetan" in this story) then you have to trick souls into not coming back again. So while the hundreds of billions of souls were being blown around by the nuclear winds he had special electronic traps that caught all the souls in electronic beams (the electronic beams were sticky like fly-paper). After he had captured all these souls he had them packed into boxes and taken to a few huge movie theaters. There all the souls had to spend days watching special 3D motion pictures that told them what life should be like and many confusing things. In this film they were shown false pictures and told they were God, The Devil and Christ. In the story this process is called "implanting". When the films ended and the souls left the cinema these souls started to stick together because since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people. They clustered in groups of a few thousand. Now because there were only a few living bodies left they stayed as clusters and inhabited these bodies.
As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery and Xenu is still alive today. I got some Rayovac batteries for Christmas, and those things were terrible, so it had to be some kind of mega-battery that is much better than Rayovac. Whatever.
And so today everyone is full of these clusters of souls called "body thetans". And if we are to be a free soul then we have to remove all these "body thetans" and pay lots of money to do so. And the only reason people believe in God and Christ was because it was in the film their body thetans saw 75 million years ago. I guess it's kind of like how I can never "unsee" the movie Coneheads...
That's the stuff you get as a Level III Scientologist, or whatever it's called. You're not supposed to get that until you've worked your way up the Scientology ladder. I just saved you each $300,000. I take checks.
I didn't really know much about scientology until the last couple of days when I started digging into it a bit. here's what i found:
Once upon a time (75 million years ago to be more precise) there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu. Xenu was in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack. Now, Xenu had a problem. All of the 76 planets he controlled were overpopulated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation, so he had a plan. Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists, he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of propellers). These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes. When they had finished stacking them around then H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. Xenu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed.
The story doesn't end there though. Since everyone has a soul (called a "thetan" in this story) then you have to trick souls into not coming back again. So while the hundreds of billions of souls were being blown around by the nuclear winds he had special electronic traps that caught all the souls in electronic beams (the electronic beams were sticky like fly-paper). After he had captured all these souls he had them packed into boxes and taken to a few huge movie theaters. There all the souls had to spend days watching special 3D motion pictures that told them what life should be like and many confusing things. In this film they were shown false pictures and told they were God, The Devil and Christ. In the story this process is called "implanting". When the films ended and the souls left the cinema these souls started to stick together because since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people. They clustered in groups of a few thousand. Now because there were only a few living bodies left they stayed as clusters and inhabited these bodies.
As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery and Xenu is still alive today. I got some Rayovac batteries for Christmas, and those things were terrible, so it had to be some kind of mega-battery that is much better than Rayovac. Whatever.
And so today everyone is full of these clusters of souls called "body thetans". And if we are to be a free soul then we have to remove all these "body thetans" and pay lots of money to do so. And the only reason people believe in God and Christ was because it was in the film their body thetans saw 75 million years ago. I guess it's kind of like how I can never "unsee" the movie Coneheads...
That's the stuff you get as a Level III Scientologist, or whatever it's called. You're not supposed to get that until you've worked your way up the Scientology ladder. I just saved you each $300,000. I take checks.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Revive, Focus, Power
Our office refrigerator is stocked with Vitamin Water. It’s great, because it’s free and relatively good for you. Plus, it’s not that far from my office. Anyway, the great thing about Vitamin Water is that their flavors aren’t named “Grape” or “Cherry” or anything, but by whatever the Vitamin Water people belive that specific drink concoction provides you. There’s one called “Energy” and one called “Revive” and one called “Focus” and a couple of other types, too. It’s great, because now I can make a decision about what I want to drink without being bogged down by such meaningless things like “flavor” or “taste.”
There is one flavor, though, that I never drink. Its name is “Essential”, and to me, that would imply that this drink would be extremely necessary or vital to my everyday life. However, I was getting along just fine before I even knew about “Essential”, so I just made an executive decision to stay away. I don’t drink things that are so clearly mis-named. That’s just not smart fluid intake.
There is one flavor, though, that I never drink. Its name is “Essential”, and to me, that would imply that this drink would be extremely necessary or vital to my everyday life. However, I was getting along just fine before I even knew about “Essential”, so I just made an executive decision to stay away. I don’t drink things that are so clearly mis-named. That’s just not smart fluid intake.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Crappy Guitar Mall
Hadn't written in awhile. Actually, I had forgotten my password, it's been so long. whatever...
I was in Opry Mills Mall the other day. You know, the big mall that is roughly shaped like a guitar. I don’t really know why they made the mall in that shape – I mean, obviously someone thought it would be cute and kinda folksy to make a guitar-shaped mall in Nashville, but come on. For one (1), you can’t really tell it’s shaped like a guitar when you are inside it. You can probably only tell this if you are in a helicopter or hot-air balloon or something. Two, (2) it’s not really that close to being shaped like a guitar – it’s just kind of a big circle at the one end and then, a buncha stores stick out the other end toward the movie theater And three (3), who cares. I doubt there has ever been a discussion as to which mall to go to that Person One said, “well, this mall has a Baby Gap,” and then Person Two was like, “Oh yeah, this mall is shaped like a guitar” and Person Two won the argument.
I was in Opry Mills Mall the other day. You know, the big mall that is roughly shaped like a guitar. I don’t really know why they made the mall in that shape – I mean, obviously someone thought it would be cute and kinda folksy to make a guitar-shaped mall in Nashville, but come on. For one (1), you can’t really tell it’s shaped like a guitar when you are inside it. You can probably only tell this if you are in a helicopter or hot-air balloon or something. Two, (2) it’s not really that close to being shaped like a guitar – it’s just kind of a big circle at the one end and then, a buncha stores stick out the other end toward the movie theater And three (3), who cares. I doubt there has ever been a discussion as to which mall to go to that Person One said, “well, this mall has a Baby Gap,” and then Person Two was like, “Oh yeah, this mall is shaped like a guitar” and Person Two won the argument.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Fake Photographic memory
I think one of the most overused terms is "photographic memory." I've heard all sorts of my friends and acquaintances and folks saying about themselves, "oh, I've got a photographic memory."
Well, that's garbage. I've never heard any of you recite pi to a hundred decimal places or recite the phone book or something. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen every one of you forget something or misremember it at some point in time. Hmm.. maybe the fact that I remember that you have forgotten something means that I have a photographic memory...
So you think you have a photographic memory, huh? What did Brandi and I wear on our wedding day, respectively?
Did you say a white dress for Brandi, and black tuxedo for me?
Lucky guess....
Well, that's garbage. I've never heard any of you recite pi to a hundred decimal places or recite the phone book or something. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen every one of you forget something or misremember it at some point in time. Hmm.. maybe the fact that I remember that you have forgotten something means that I have a photographic memory...
So you think you have a photographic memory, huh? What did Brandi and I wear on our wedding day, respectively?
Did you say a white dress for Brandi, and black tuxedo for me?
Lucky guess....
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Stupid things about October 31
I think the worst Halloween decoration ever is the garbage bag that looks like a pumpkin. You know, it’s just a regular trashbag, but it’s all orange and has a jack-o’-lantern face on the side. Big deal. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Man, look at that guy’s garbage. He really likes Halloween.”
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