These people are nuts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mozYoPICQJE 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fs0hkdJzk8 

 Holy shit.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Orange-Candle/?ALLSTEPS http://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/2013/11/heat-your-room-for-15-cents-day.html ???

Deli-cious tears

A homely midwestern couple approached, she a confused regard attached to a tear shaped body, him a taciturn lump. From behind the deli counter I exclaim my usual "Hello!"

"So here's the thing," she says, mercifully disposing with any pleasantries, "we went to Italy not long ago..."

"Oh that's wonderful!" I say.

"Yeah, well, when we were about to leave, everybody else was stuffing their bags full of Eye-talian food... sausages and cheese, you know... but I said to myself, why should I waste all that space in my baggage when I can get good Eye-talian food at Russo's?"

"Uh, ahem, well, yes..." I'm afraid I did a poor job of masking my shock/incredulity.

"So I'm lookin' to get some Eye-talian salami from Idilly that I can give to my daughter."

"That's going to be a problem." I'm not going to lie for what they pay me. Russo's carries no imported salami, only the American, nitrate-filled kind. Probably because of regulations. Also, no one in Grand Rapids is going to care.

Honestly the closest thing we have to European-style dried sausage comes from San Fransisco. It's pretty good, but for the sake of fuck, it has nothing to do with what you could get in Italy, you dumb cow!

It was painful. Russo's has a few good Italian cheeses albeit, and the imported prosciutto di Parma is nothing to sneeze at, but... how can you... what the... ugh!

"I guess we should've stuffed our bags with food too," she summarized, after my pained explanations.

"Well," I said, "what's done is done. Next time."

Heart

I feel sick

Shortly after getting up I told my Mom, "Ugh, I feel sick." She responded, "Oh, well I AM sick, I don't just 'feel sick.'" I think I quickly muttered something like, "Well usually being sick is the root cause of feeling sick," and slinked back upstairs. Ten minutes later I realized how fucked it is that she would respond to me saying "I feel sick," like that. Is it lack of empathy, one-upsmanship, or distrust of my word? Or a combination?

I think Allia is a good name. I love onions. They're sweet, they're strong, they give great flavor to everything. And they are multilayered....

Dumb dumb

I just saw this image on the blog I love to hate, Boing Boing.

It reminded me of how putting things in to rubrics does not guarantee a refining of understanding, nor does it necessarily add any value. While it's possible that this simple double-dichotomy reflects the way people think about themselves, it does not describe any deep epistemological divide, or explain anything really.

But most irritatingly, on the face of it this cartoon seems to be criticizing 'gnostic' versions of theism or atheism, making them equally ridiculous. But what is more absurd, asserting that something that has no evidence exists, or that it doesn't exist? The standard argumentum ad absurdum (sorry to bore you) says that I know that God does not exist the same way I know that Leprechauns don't exist, or that a magical tea-pot is not orbiting the Sun near Jupiter, or that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not real. I know that all these are not real for the same reason - not a single shred of evidence has been given to even marginally imply that they do.

But this is the way all human knowledge is based. I know that the sun will rise in the east and not the west. This is a gnostic belief. A scientific assertion. But like all scientific assertions, it will be quickly repealed or ammended in the face of new facts. The sun rising analogy is a proper one. Just as there has never, ever, ever, been any reason to think that the Sun will not appear to rise in the east, there has never, ever, ever, been any reason to think that a supernatural deity is governing the affairs of the universe.

What does it really matter if you say "I believe that that sun will rise in the east, but it could end up rising in the west for all I know." Of course, in any understanding of the world, new information could upset the status quo. You "know" what you think you know right now, and of course it could (and most certainly will) change, sooner than you think. That's what's important to realise.