Archive for November, 2005
November 30, 2005 at 8:34 am · Filed under Blogging
Procrasto tagged me, so here goes. I have to type “(your name) needs” into Google to see what I need. Here’s what I need:
- M needs a chick. Think I already have one.
- M needs help
- M needs part-time and backup nurses
- M needs Amanda Buttram, Gotta love that surname.
- M needs to change course or he will plunge into hell at Mach 666. Yep, I’m an evil sinner.
- M needs simple tools. Complicated tools confuse me.
- M needs help to avoid another 2nd-place points finish. Story of my life.
- M needs a bra. Oh now come on…
- M needs to articulate what he wants. I WANT CANDY!
- M needs more room. More. Always More
Who do I tag? I tag Zach Braff. I’ll keep tagging Zach Braff until he acknowledges me.
November 29, 2005 at 11:58 am · Filed under Skepticism
Fundies Say the Darndest Things is a website devoted to finding some of the more interesting quotes from Christian web boards. Here are a few of my favourites:
“Abiogenesis is proven to be impossible. Therefore, intelligent design exists in nature. Therefore, neo-Darwinism is demolished as a tenable theory because its fundamental assumption of atheism is proven false.”
QED, obviously.
“I have to consult my brother but I believe I remember him telling me fossils can be manufactured in laboratories in a matter of hours.”
I knew a guy whose friend’s cousin’s girlfriend’s dad said the bible was full of crap!
“the theory of deevolution, si that the lunatics that run around a devoling and are turning into monkeys again. But then there are a few how think that the luneys that run around and kill people are acuttally smarter than us, and are evoluiong.”
Uhh, what?
“Well, I don’t think a woman will win the presidency in the near future. I just don’t think that it would be a good idea at the moment or possibly ever, I agree with Skynes, SOME women are unpredictible, and that would be really bad. Or you could get a femi-nazi for president and they pass a bunch of stupid laws against men, which would be obsured”
Totally obsured. Men are never unpredictible.
“What strikes me as odd that is, given the current state of genetics, no one has compared simian dna to homo sapien. The differences should be obvious and radical.”
What a good idea! Someone should do that!
“Evolutionism has not been proven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT is a theory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Look at all those exclamations, it must be true.
“Planned Parenthood has a morbid interest in the sexuality activity of other people’s children.”
Yes helping children understand the changes happening to them is a BAD thing. BAD Planned Parenthood. BAD!
“Unlike you, we believe Jesus should be sought before inquiring about a medical doctor.”
Pains in your chest? Difficulty breathing? Call 1-800-JESUS-SAVES.
“The evolution theory is falsiable because there is biblical evidence against it and i dont look foolish when i have biblical evidence”
No, no. Not foolish at all.
“Gays want to ascribe their guilt and shame to repression of society, but I don’t really know of many places where anyone is shamed for being gay in this day and age.”
Yeah, Matthew Shepard wasn’t shamed or repressed at all.
“It seems that religion should be defined as only those that believe in [the Christian] God. Other types should not even be recognized. That is what logical, God-fearing people would do. ”
Gotta love those logical, god-fearing people.
November 28, 2005 at 2:47 pm · Filed under Food
Did a bit of baking yesterday so Tyler and Cara would have something to eat when they came over to play euchre. I had some pumpkin mix leftover from last time I made pumpkin pie, so I defrosted it and used it in:
Chocolate chip cookies: Flour, butter, pumpkin mix, an egg, chocolate chips, vanilla, brown sugar. Mixed together, loosened up with some milk, dropped by the tablespoonful onto a baking sheet and baked for 15 minutes.
Pumpkin bread/cake/thing: Flour, pumpkin mix, egg, raisins, butter, milk, grated ginger, grated lemon rind poured into a pie plate and baked for 45 minutes.
Lemon frosting: lemon juice, grated lemon rind, water and sugar heated gently and poured over the cakey thing.
All three were inspired by online recipes but I deviated significantly.
November 25, 2005 at 11:14 am · Filed under Family+Friends, Food
Sitting on the train home from work last night I suddenly had a craving for pizza. Pizza, I thought, I could just go for a nice pizza. I just want to get home and have a tasty pizza. Pizza. Yes. That’s what I want. Pizza.
I got home and started preparing the usual cup of tea when Jen asked “Got any money?”. This usually only means one thing, so I said “Did you have the same craving as me?”. “Well what craving did you have?” she replied. “Pizza?”. “Yes!!!!!”.
So we had pizza for supper last night. And it was good. Mmmmm. Pizza.
November 24, 2005 at 10:32 am · Filed under Family+Friends
The Book Goddess is now a celebrity. She won’t want to hang out with us any more.
Today the McGill Reporter, tomorrow CBC, next year The Oscars?
November 24, 2005 at 8:41 am · Filed under General
Happy Thanksgiving all you American folk. It’s too close to Xmas for us, we had our thanksgiving last month.
On this day of giving thanks, Americans should be most thankful for one thing:
The 22nd Amendment to the American Constitution.
November 23, 2005 at 2:42 pm · Filed under Movies + TV
The Weavers came last in the Amazing Race last night. Yes!
It was a non-elimination round. No!!!!!!!
Choice Weaver quotes:
“Anyone who things the world is over populated should come to Utah.”
(while looking at beautiful scenery) “Wow, that’s ugly.”
“We’re already the last nice family, and we’re gone. The people who win will probably spend it on a new nose and bigger boobs.”
November 22, 2005 at 10:44 am · Filed under Home
The Xmas lights started going up around town the day after Halloween. McGill College is now decked out in all it’s Xmas finery and the campus is looking just as pretty.
Sadly my camera doesn’t do a good job in twilight conditions, but it still looks quite festive.
I tried to put our outdoor Xmas lights up last week, but sadly every single string of lights has stopped working. How does this happen? They were working fine when I took them off the trees last year and carefully stored them away. A few months later I get them out again and plug them in. Nothing. Not even a glimmer. After spending an hour or more wiggling and testing bulbs I threw in the towel. We may not have festive Xmas lights this year, unless we go out and buy more.
November 21, 2005 at 9:22 am · Filed under Family+Friends, Food
On Saturday night, him, her, him and her came over for dinner. As three of us have lived in Britain for at least part of our lives, I decided to prepare a traditional British meal. That means curry.
Starter was curried sweet potato soup. Onions, celery, red chilis, grated ginger, squished garlic, turmeric, coriander, mustard seeds, fenugreek, sweet potatoes, chicken broth. Cooked and whizzed up in the food processor. A can of coconut milk added at the end. I’ve made this soup quite a few times before, but this time I think I got the spice mix just right; spicy without being overpowering.
Main course was butter chicken. Onions, turmeric, cumin, coriandor, cardomon, grated ginger, squished garlic, cinnamon, chicken, canned tomatoes, ground almonds. Cooked for a while and yoghurt added near the end. Served with basmati rice tossed in a mustard seed and lemon infused oil. Oh and some slaw on the side, courtesy of the McGill Organic Food Co-op. There was also a loaf of spinach bread on the table during the meal, purely for decorative effect.
For dessert I departed from the Indian theme but stayed with the traditional British fare. Apple and blueberry crumble (ok, the blueberries aren’t so traditional, those were my concession to Canadiana). Apples and blueberries briefly cooked with sugar, ginger and cinnamon, topped with a mixture of flour, butter, sugar and maple syrup. Baked in the oven until tinged with brown.
The original plan was to follow dinner with either a movie or some silly games, but for some reason it turned into schlocky TV night. We watched Little Britain, Craft Corner Deathmatch (yes, it is as strange as it sounds), and Holiday Showdown. Oh and a little bit of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to demonstrate high-definitionness.
I think everyone enjoyed themselves, even John, who was still hung over from the night before.
November 18, 2005 at 10:56 am · Filed under Movies + TV
The third season of Little Britain premiered on BBC One last night.
Pictures of some of the new characters are here. I can’t wait to see what they do to Orville.
I think they should’ve retired Vicky Pollard but apparently she’s still around, as are most of the other old favourites, including Tom Baker’s masterful voice overs.
This is a perfect opportunity for BBC Canada to give us an early Xmas present. Are you listening BBC Canada?
I have to go now, my panties are twisted. Goodbige.
November 17, 2005 at 10:46 am · Filed under Movies + TV
I watched The House of Flying Daggers on Tuesday night. Yet another in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon genre of martial arts movies.
They are always beautifully shot, in stunning locations with amazing choreographed fight sequences. This was no exception. I enjoy watching them because of the eye candy. They just look gorgeous.
The flying thing has to stop though. People do not fly. It doesn’t matter how well trained you are in the art of ninjaness, you will not be able to leap from the ground to a rooftop in one bound. You will also not be able to have a sword fight while balanced high in the forest canopy on a willowy branch. We cannot run on water, we cannot throw daggers at tiny targets with pinpoint accuracy while blindfolded. We cannot fire four arrows in rapid succession and kill four fast moving ninjas from 300 yards.
At least in The Matrix there was a reason why people had these superhuman abilities.
I know, I know, it’s just a movie.
November 15, 2005 at 12:38 pm · Filed under Skepticism
The proponents of “intelligent design” creationism have always been stuck with two questions which they are unable to satisfactorily answer. These thorns in IDs side cast doubt on the whole “theory”. I hope to answer them today.
The first is “Who is this designer?”. Creationists didn’t have a problem with this because the answer was god, but the ID crowd try as hard as they can to avoid that answer even though everyone knows they’re talking about god and they don’t have any alternative explanation. Mentioning a god has a serious effect on their claim that ID is scientific so now they just avoid the question.
The second difficult question for the IDers is “If we are designed, who designed the designer?”. I’ve yet to see any reasonable answer offered to this one, certainly nothing scientific. The best answer the IDiots can come up with is:
One need not fully understand the origin or identity of the designer to determine that an object was designed. Thus, this question is essentially irrelevant to intelligent design theory, which merely seeks to detect if an object was designed.
Which amounts to sticking their fingers in their ears and singing “LA LA LA LA I CANT HEAR YOU”. If you found a beautiful piece of sculpture, or an exquisite painting wouldn’t you be interested in who made it? Do these people have no curiosity?
I would like to offer my very own creation myth, which I call the Egocentric Intelligent Design Theory. I believe that in, oooh, let’s say 4000 years time, humanity will be so technologically advanced that they finally develop the ability to travel in time. A mad scientist will get the idea of travelling back in time to give humanity a kick start and make our species even better than it is. He travels back to the beginning of time and fiddles with the building blocks of life. He jumps around in time throughout Earth’s history, tweaking bits of DNA here and there and intelligently designing a better world. What he doesn’t know is that he’s creating exactly the same human species as he himself is and he is in fact the pinnacle of his own design.
My theory has all of the same “scientific evidence” behind it as ID does, but it answers those two tricky questions:
Who was the designer? One of us.
Who designed the designer? He did.
It also answers another tricky question:
Why aren’t the designs perfect? Because the designer was only human.
So now that I’ve gone beyond what ID was able to tell us about the origins of life, I think EID should be taught instead of or at least alongside ID in any science classroom where ID is taught. I’m off to Kansas with my petition.
November 14, 2005 at 12:39 pm · Filed under Movies + TV
Yesterday I was watching an old episode of Doctor Who from the Colin Baker years (1984-1986) and the annoying Bonnie Langford year (1986-1987). The doctor is on trial back on Gallifrey with his evil alter-ego as prosecutor.
In this particular episode, the Doctor must enter the Matrix, a place where nothing is real and everything is an illusion. Sound familiar at all?
November 9, 2005 at 11:00 am · Filed under Skepticism
The people out in woo woo land have what they consider an excellent weapon against us skeptics. It starts with the question “Have you tried it?” and ends with the question “Well if you’ve never tried it, how can you know it doesn’t work?”. They don’t seem to see the obvious fallacy in this argument. This weapon is a dud.
The most common examples I’ve seen of this argument are:
“Scientology worked for me. You won’t know if it works for you unless you try it!”
“If you’ve never been treated with [insert alternative therapy of your choice], how can you know it doesn’t work?”
“You’re just not attuned to people’s auras, you won’t really understand them unless you experience them.”
This is nonsense, and I’m going to use this argument in some different ways to illustrate why it’s nonsense:
“If you’ve never responded to a Nigerian email offering you millions of dollars, how do you know you won’t get paid?”
“If you’ve never slit your wrists, how do you know you would die?”
“Vioxx worked for me, you won’t know if it works for you unless you try it!”
“You weren’t at the Battle of Hastings. How do you know it happened?”
These arguments obviously make no sense, and for the same reasons neither do the first examples I gave. We “know” that things don’t work because we are able to think; to use our brains to evaluate the available evidence and make an informed opinion.
I don’t have to join Scientology to find out that it is a money grabbing cult because I’ve read all the literature; I’ve heard the victim testimonials; I know about the cult’s crimes.
I don’t have to take homeopathic medicine to know that they don’t work. I’ve read about the “science” involved and know that it makes no sense. I understand how placebos work.
So next time someone tries to use this argument on you, tell them that if they give you all their money they’ll experience eternal happiness. They won’t know it’s not true unless they try, will they?
November 8, 2005 at 10:34 am · Filed under Family+Friends
This should probably be a Father’s Day post, but I got inspired today so this year Father’s Day is November 8th.
My Dad started his adult life as a professional racing jockey. Since then he’s managed a tool hire store, travelled Africa and the Middle East selling cranes (the big machines, not the birds), run three pubs, managed a DIY store and started a bed and breakfast in France. He has renovated many houses (including one that started out with no roof), worked hard as a gardener and even a smallholder. Although my parents separated when I was young, he’s always been a big part of my life. I’m proud of all he’s done, and I’m glad I’ve had his love and support through everything I’ve done.
My Step-Dad is a carpenter. I’m still not sure what his original speciality was, but now he can put his hand to just about any kind of construction work. I’m sure he could build a house from scratch single-handedly. We don’t see eye to eye on all things, but he’s always accepted the choices I’ve made and helped me when I’ve needed it.
My Dad-in-Law escaped from Hungary in secrecy in the middle of the night during the Hungarian revolution. He is a renowned psychologist and a gifted and published poet well known in his home country. He is exuberant and eccentric to the point of constantly embarassing his daughter, my wife, who he calls Nifi the Extraordinary Boufi. He has accepted me into his family unreservedly, even though I never actually asked him if it was ok to marry his daughter.
My Step-Dad-in-Law was raised in wartime and post-war Ireland and he still has the accent to prove it. He spent many years of his life travelling the world as a marine engineer and met Jen’s mum while docked at Montreal. Now he’s settling down to a retirement in their country house. There he makes wonderful knives, cooks delicious food, makes his own booze, smokes his own meat and fish, taps his own maple trees, raises rabbits and collects his own firewood. He knows all the most disgusting poems and the best off-colour jokes. He’s a thorougly good man and I have the utmost respect for him.
Those are all my Dads. They are all amazing characters in their own ways. They are all so very different. They’ve all been and continue to be a big part of my life. I’m proud of all their accomplishments and honoured to call them my Dads.
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