You know, whenever I have a really bad day, it's nice just to watch a video of someone doing something so stupid or screwing up so badly. It's not out of sadism or anything like that, I just think things like that are hilariously funny so it cheers me up.
I hope this video does that for someone:
15 Minutes of Shame
You guys, in your comments, should post videos that have done this for you.
But no stuff from failblog, because I have viewed every single page on that site. Literally.
12.28.2008
12.25.2008
The Familiar
Ha, that title totally sounds like a band name.
I have lived in the same house in Dallas, TX for 21 full years as of sometime next month, or at least my mom has. I have intermittently moved out because of college or stuff like that, but never for more than a few months. It's still my "home," if you know what I mean. Anyways, I was driving today and I realized something funny.
There's a stretch of highway about a half a mile from my house, one of the most important highways in the city. I am obviously very well-versed in this city, so you'd think that I drive over this stretch of highway all the time, especially since it's by my house. I often use this particular highway to get back to my house or go from my house, because it's just that close and is a major transit point.
Typically, though, I get off the highway to go to my house before I get to the part of the highway which is closest to my house. I exit right before this stretch coming from either direction, so I never drive over it.
Well, this week I'm staying at someone else's house nearby, but not close enough to take the same exit. So, tonight, driving back from Kristen's house, I had to drive over this one stretch of highway that I never see to get home.
It was like I had never been here before. Here was this major transit within walking distance of my house I had hardly ever seen before on a road I used almost daily for 21 years that was practically foreign soil.
It's amazing how something so close can be so unknown.
It reminds me that it is impossible to know everything about anything at all.
I could spend my entire life studying a speck of dust and never know every atom or what it was going to do next, much less an entire city.
It makes me excited.
I tend to get bored with things easily.
But there is such a possibility that the pursuit of knowledge is an infinite, endless pursuit. If you're actually a living breathing being, and not just an apathetic machine, every year and every holiday season and every visit to the town you thought you had pegged should change you and make you see something new.
You don't have to believe that Disney-esque crap about enjoying the small things or finding your own special personal peace. Stopping to smell the flowers is overrated, because flowers are far from the mot interesting things there are.
There are things within your range of sight this very second that are fascinating, and you haven't even considered it.
Don't ever call yourself my friend and say you're bored with life. I'm excited enough about little stretches of highway and wondering how scientists discovered that dogs enjoy the taste of dog food.
Being baffled and confused and lacking knowledge is fun.
I have lived in the same house in Dallas, TX for 21 full years as of sometime next month, or at least my mom has. I have intermittently moved out because of college or stuff like that, but never for more than a few months. It's still my "home," if you know what I mean. Anyways, I was driving today and I realized something funny.
There's a stretch of highway about a half a mile from my house, one of the most important highways in the city. I am obviously very well-versed in this city, so you'd think that I drive over this stretch of highway all the time, especially since it's by my house. I often use this particular highway to get back to my house or go from my house, because it's just that close and is a major transit point.
Typically, though, I get off the highway to go to my house before I get to the part of the highway which is closest to my house. I exit right before this stretch coming from either direction, so I never drive over it.
Well, this week I'm staying at someone else's house nearby, but not close enough to take the same exit. So, tonight, driving back from Kristen's house, I had to drive over this one stretch of highway that I never see to get home.
It was like I had never been here before. Here was this major transit within walking distance of my house I had hardly ever seen before on a road I used almost daily for 21 years that was practically foreign soil.
It's amazing how something so close can be so unknown.
It reminds me that it is impossible to know everything about anything at all.
I could spend my entire life studying a speck of dust and never know every atom or what it was going to do next, much less an entire city.
It makes me excited.
I tend to get bored with things easily.
But there is such a possibility that the pursuit of knowledge is an infinite, endless pursuit. If you're actually a living breathing being, and not just an apathetic machine, every year and every holiday season and every visit to the town you thought you had pegged should change you and make you see something new.
You don't have to believe that Disney-esque crap about enjoying the small things or finding your own special personal peace. Stopping to smell the flowers is overrated, because flowers are far from the mot interesting things there are.
There are things within your range of sight this very second that are fascinating, and you haven't even considered it.
Don't ever call yourself my friend and say you're bored with life. I'm excited enough about little stretches of highway and wondering how scientists discovered that dogs enjoy the taste of dog food.
Being baffled and confused and lacking knowledge is fun.
12.21.2008
Deep and Weird
Well, I hope all of you are enjoying your Winter Breaks.
I haven't blogged much lately, partially because of icky finals and mostly because my internet has been broken.
Stupid 'puter.
But, it is now fixed.
Also, check out my most recent link.
36 is thinking of doing "Worst Christmas Traditions" next year for the J. Alvin Christmas party, and fruitcake has a very strong chance of making the cut.
So, obviously, things are easier to destroy than they are to create.
It took me four hours to build my big, fancy LEGO house and ten seconds to smash it with my baseball bat.
So, in that sense, creation is more important and meaningful than destruction.
I think that creation is associated with goodness responsibility and destruction with badness and disorder.
But, at the same time, destruction is necessary because things decay.
Think about it this way:
If I built a house one day, and I made it entirely out of wood, then after 60 years or so, the wood would rot. I would then have to either remove the bad parts of the house, thus destroying, and add new ones, thus creating again or I would simply tear down the house and build a better one.
In that case, and in many cases, it seems that the purpose of creation is not only to make, but to make new and to make better.
So, think about it this way, God created our world with the intention for it to be good and to last forever, but he knew that sin would enter the world and corrupt all of these good things.
This made it possible for God to remake the world, thus keeping only the good things, which would be the parts of the house that stayed good after 60 years, and improve it.
So, destruction is only necessary because of the fall, but it also makes a greater and more powerful creation possible.
So, sin itself isn't a good thing, but God is so powerful that, by overcoming sin, he makes what is good even better.
The world is going to be remade.
There are things that suck.
But we have a lot to look forward to.
Isn't that neat?
I haven't blogged much lately, partially because of icky finals and mostly because my internet has been broken.
Stupid 'puter.
But, it is now fixed.
Also, check out my most recent link.
36 is thinking of doing "Worst Christmas Traditions" next year for the J. Alvin Christmas party, and fruitcake has a very strong chance of making the cut.
So, obviously, things are easier to destroy than they are to create.
It took me four hours to build my big, fancy LEGO house and ten seconds to smash it with my baseball bat.
So, in that sense, creation is more important and meaningful than destruction.
I think that creation is associated with goodness responsibility and destruction with badness and disorder.
But, at the same time, destruction is necessary because things decay.
Think about it this way:
If I built a house one day, and I made it entirely out of wood, then after 60 years or so, the wood would rot. I would then have to either remove the bad parts of the house, thus destroying, and add new ones, thus creating again or I would simply tear down the house and build a better one.
In that case, and in many cases, it seems that the purpose of creation is not only to make, but to make new and to make better.
So, think about it this way, God created our world with the intention for it to be good and to last forever, but he knew that sin would enter the world and corrupt all of these good things.
This made it possible for God to remake the world, thus keeping only the good things, which would be the parts of the house that stayed good after 60 years, and improve it.
So, destruction is only necessary because of the fall, but it also makes a greater and more powerful creation possible.
So, sin itself isn't a good thing, but God is so powerful that, by overcoming sin, he makes what is good even better.
The world is going to be remade.
There are things that suck.
But we have a lot to look forward to.
Isn't that neat?
12.12.2008
*Ahem* It's been a while
Yeah, I took some down time from blogs because life was crazy.
Plus there's something about studying that makes me think less deeply.
Maybe that's bad.
Paper writing is very thought provoking, though, as it should be.
So, today I wonder about gambling.
I can't decide if I think it's a sin or not.
I went to Las Vegas once, and I think the most depressing thing I have ever seen was a woman in a wheelchair and on a respirator gambling what was probably insurance money for her healthcare at a slot machine. Gambling in this sense is very sinful because you are wasting your resources on an addictive and completely non-productive habit.
On the other hand, people do gamble for a living, and do so productively. Especially in like World Poker Tour and stuff like that, because those do, to an extent, require skill and hard work.
Obviously, things like this are not the most admirable jobs in the world, but being uninspiring is hardly a sin.
Gambling as a whole though is very destructive.
It results from a corrupted desire for money, and money that you "earn" from gambling is not exactly something you worked for.
The problem with this is that it gives money a value that it just doesn't deserve.
Money was originally created in order for people to specialize in certain things like making shoes or sewing and still have necessities such as food. One person provides something valuable at an efficient rate because they specialize in making that thing, then they supply that one thing for a large group of people. Therefore more things total are produced and produced better.
Money is used as a way to establish how much they deserve in return for their specialized contribution; in other words, money is a representation of the value of one person's contribution to society.
So, when gambling, either the casino or the gambler acquires more money.
Did either of them contribute something valuable to society?
No.
I mean, maybe entertainment. I certainly don't find gambling that entertaining, though.
So, it is a sin?
Ummm.... sort of.
People who gamble do so either because it's fun, or because they want to acquire money that they have not earned. In either case, it's selfish and destructive.
The greed and desire for money that must come before gambling is absolutely a sin.
Gambling itself might not be.
Sort of in the same way that sex can be good or sinful, depending on the context - marriage or not.
It's just that there are far less instances in which gambling is good and entertaining in a pure way.
BIG P.S. - Go check out the random link for this week. It's absolutely amazing.
Plus there's something about studying that makes me think less deeply.
Maybe that's bad.
Paper writing is very thought provoking, though, as it should be.
So, today I wonder about gambling.
I can't decide if I think it's a sin or not.
I went to Las Vegas once, and I think the most depressing thing I have ever seen was a woman in a wheelchair and on a respirator gambling what was probably insurance money for her healthcare at a slot machine. Gambling in this sense is very sinful because you are wasting your resources on an addictive and completely non-productive habit.
On the other hand, people do gamble for a living, and do so productively. Especially in like World Poker Tour and stuff like that, because those do, to an extent, require skill and hard work.
Obviously, things like this are not the most admirable jobs in the world, but being uninspiring is hardly a sin.
Gambling as a whole though is very destructive.
It results from a corrupted desire for money, and money that you "earn" from gambling is not exactly something you worked for.
The problem with this is that it gives money a value that it just doesn't deserve.
Money was originally created in order for people to specialize in certain things like making shoes or sewing and still have necessities such as food. One person provides something valuable at an efficient rate because they specialize in making that thing, then they supply that one thing for a large group of people. Therefore more things total are produced and produced better.
Money is used as a way to establish how much they deserve in return for their specialized contribution; in other words, money is a representation of the value of one person's contribution to society.
So, when gambling, either the casino or the gambler acquires more money.
Did either of them contribute something valuable to society?
No.
I mean, maybe entertainment. I certainly don't find gambling that entertaining, though.
So, it is a sin?
Ummm.... sort of.
People who gamble do so either because it's fun, or because they want to acquire money that they have not earned. In either case, it's selfish and destructive.
The greed and desire for money that must come before gambling is absolutely a sin.
Gambling itself might not be.
Sort of in the same way that sex can be good or sinful, depending on the context - marriage or not.
It's just that there are far less instances in which gambling is good and entertaining in a pure way.
BIG P.S. - Go check out the random link for this week. It's absolutely amazing.
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