I'm Poeming It Up Again

So I wrote a poem last night. This is good, because before then the last poem I wrote was months and months ago and I really wasn't satisfied with it or any of the other poems I'd written around that time. I made a blog post about it. But it's back; the writing spirit. Of course, this is just one poem, but I like it. It's good. I'm hoping this'll lead to a fast and furious cranking out of poetry from me. As for the poem itself, it's a love poem, in that it deals with love. And I had an interesting revelation after completing it: I cannot write a love poem that does not contain sadness. I'm sure a psychiatrist would have tonnes of things to tell me, but when I write about love it always is tainted with sadness. Just an interesting observation I've had, but I just can't write a straightforward, happy poem about love. Probably because I believe love doesn't happen in a straightforward, happy way. That's not it's nature. Anyways, point is: I'm writing again. Huzzah.

Musings #5: Science Books

Yesterday I stopped by a small thrift store and inside I found a book called "The Story of Science". It was very cheap, so I happily bought it. I was content with the purchase until my drive home, because it crossed my mind that perhaps I could have left the book in there for another kind of person. Because I can't help but feel like the book would be better used if given to a creationist. So they can learn things. Until they burn it.

A Short Update, No More Top 100 List

It has been a while since I’ve written a blog. Whenever I write a blog it feels like I’m writing to the webpage itself. It feels like my only audience. Which is part of the reason why I’ve slowed down on my blog production lately. Another big part of the reason is that I’m working. It’s hard to find time to write when you’re out all day doing a tedious job. And it’s hard to find inspiration when all you seem to do is work and sleep. I have had a few ideas for writing topics but I just lack the ambition to execute them the way I want. So I just end up forgetting about them. Another thing  I should point out is that I probably won’t be continuing with the top 100 songs list. I know, it sucks. But I lost the rest of the list. It got deleted from my computer with no backup, that I’m aware of. Hmmm, perhaps I did save a copy somewhere. But as it stands, that list will remain incomplete. Sorry. There were some good songs coming up. But, hopefully I will find the time to write some more blogs. And perhaps I’ll post more than one a month. We’ll see. Goodbye, webpage.

You're Right; I Don't Know Everything

This should just be a quick little note. I’ve heard quite often, especially as of late, an argument that some creationists like to throw at us non-believers. The argument is, essentially, as such: “If you are an open-minded atheist then you have to admit that you do not know everything. In fact, you would have to admit that in the entirety of knowledge you would know next to nothing. But let’s say that you had an equivalent of 1% of all the knowledge that was ever to be. If you are truly open-minded wouldn’t you have to admit that it’s possible that there is ample evidence for the existence of god in the other 99% outside of your knowledge?”  And creationists ask this as a serious question. They think this is deal breaker for atheism. But my response is simple: if you are an open-minded creationist then you have to admit that you don’t know everything. And even if you did have 1% of all knowledge that was to ever be you would still have to admit that in the other 99% there could be ample evidence proving god’s non-existence. It’s an unfair argument, isn’t it? Saying somebody’s belief about anything is questionable because one doesn’t have all the knowledge that was to ever be is absolutely ludicrous. Otherwise everyone would have to be agnostic about absolutely everything. I saw a fox the other day, but perhaps in the knowledge outside of my own knowledge there’s proof that foxes don’t actually exist… and I don’t believe leprechauns exist, but according to creationist logic I have to admit that in the knowledge outside of my own there could be mountains of evidence proving leprechauns exist. What a way to go about living life with that kinda thought process. I swear, some of these creationists don’t truly think about the arguments they put forth, they just heard it from someone else and thought it sounded deep.

A Little Lightning

The following is just a short compilation video of a lightning storm that passed by the other day. This 30 second clip was culminated from about 3 minutes of footage, mostly black, empty sky. Twas filmed at about 4 in the morning. Just throwing this on here to have at least one blog entry during June.

The Move

So there I was, living in Toronto. It sucked. So I decided to move on back to my old stomping grounds, about 2 hours away. It was the week of April 11^th and I had just finished getting the details of the move all set out. My mom and dad were gonna come down on May 1^st and help bring my stuff back. This worked well into my plan since there was a record show in Mississauga on April 17^th that I was excited to go to since I’d never been to a record show before. A convention hall full of vinyl records seemed quite awesome to me.

So ok, 2 weeks and I’ll move back home. Then a couple days later my mom emails me; ‘your dad’s truck may not be ready for the move. Also, his knee hurts and he can’t use the stairs much.’ Well… ok then, I guess my parents aren’t gonna help me move after all. But my mom asks me for my resume so that once I move back I could possibly get hired at her work rather quickly. So I send her my resume and then go about roping one of my friends into helping me move. He agrees, and luckily May 1^st works well for him so I’ll still be around to go see this record show. Then it is the 15^th of April, a Friday. I get a text from my mom saying that she handed in my resume to her work early and they expected me to be in for orientation on the following Monday. I call her and ask a few questions. She offers to come down Saturday to help me move back so that I’d be back home in time for this orientation. I explained to her that I wanted to go to a record show that Sunday. So we agreed that after the record show on Sunday I would take a bus back home and stay there for 2 weeks and then I’d come back on May 1^st with my friend and we’d move all my stuff. Alright.

So I woke up early that Sunday and went to the record show. I’ll leave that tangential story for another time. Suffice to say it was an alright time. But I wanted to just get home so I left early, got my bag of clothes and left for the bus station. I get off the streetcar to walk down to the station and I hear something drop. I look down and sure enough I see my cell phone lying in a puddle. I picked it up, wiped it off and hoped for the best. When I got to the station I went to get a ticket at the booth. I asked when the next bus was leaving for my particular destination and the woman said only one bus was going there that day and it left at 7:00pm. It was 3:00pm when she told me.  I took the ticket and sat down in the lobby-esque place there… for four hours. I tried to text my mom, but the phone was going haywire. So I had to pay $5 to make a call to let her know what was going on. So then I waited. And while I waited I decided I could at least enjoy some music from my iPod. So I turned my iPod on and it was at this moment that my headphones, which I’d had for at least 4 years, decided to start dying on me. The wire was loose and every time I turned my head to the left the music would cut out. Great. So I sat for 4 hours with no music, a water-drenched cell phone that wouldn’t properly work and a crappy selection of reading materials. Bleh. So the bus comes, finally. I get on and sit down in the very back, away from everybody. Thankfully, nobody sat near me. I hate sitting close to people on public transit. But on the way home I still had no music. So it was a massively boring ride. But eventually, after being dried out, my cell phone agreed to work again, which was a nice win for the day, if only slightly.

So I get home late Sunday night, go to sleep, wake up Monday and go for orientation at this place and then start my job. I work for the next 2 weeks. I spent those 2 weeks sleeping in a very cold room on a very small, kinda uncomfortable cot with very little of my own belongings. But then we went and got my stuff and now here I am telling you this story for no reason at all.

StumbleUponings

This is an idea I saw online recently that I am completely and blatantly ripping off because it’s neat. Kinda. Anyways, the idea in question is that in someone’s blog they had posted links to their 25 favourite websites that they had seen while using StumbleUpon. A quick summary of StumbleUpon: you fill out a survey type thing and then this website leads you to other websites that you may find interesting where you then have the option to ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ the website to help StumbleUpon narrow down its criteria for sites you might like. I have about 150 pages favourited through StumbleUpon and so I thought I might share some of my favourites as well. Though I’m not gonna make a list of 25, that’s too much. I’ll just do 5 for now.

http://dvice.com/archives/2010/12/11-cheap-gifts.php: The first is a page of neat gift ideas that they say “science geeks” will be impressed by. I guess I must be a science geek then ‘cause these things are wicked cool. They have 11 items listed there, all varying in what they are, what they do and how awesome they are. My personal favourites would be the EcoSphere and the Gallium.

http://hstbooks.org/2008/08/03/hunter-s-thompson-essay-open-letter-to-the-youth-of-our-nation-1955/: This is an essay written by a then 18 year old Hunter S. Thompson called “Open Letter to the Youth of Our Nation”. It was written in 1955 and is a great little piece of writing. But then again, Hunter’s entire body of work could be considered great pieces of writing.

http://postimage.org/image/5xhh7ozes/: Dispiriting in the best of possible ways. It shows the scale of objects in our galaxy; from our planet to the most massive stars we have found so far. It’s mind boggling.

http://thetripatorium.com/videos/detail/the_saga_of_biorn: The Saga of Biôrn, a short animated film about a Viking’s struggle to die honourably in battle so that he may get into Valhalla. It’s beautifully made and funny and interesting and just overall really, really well done.

http://www.ted.com/talks/elaine_morgan_says_we_evolved_from_aquatic_apes.html: I actually saw this video a long time ago but had forgotten about until StumbleUpon brought it back to my attention. This is a video from TED and it has Elaine Morgan explaining the theory that humans may have an aquatic ancestry. She makes some neat and valid points and offers evidence that really makes you stop and think. And most of it seems to make a lot of sense, but some of it not so much. Still very interesting stuff.

Anywho, that’s all for now. If you liked this kinda blog and want to maybe see another in the future leave a comment and let me know.