FUN TIMES FORCIBLY OUTDOORS...

      I feel like I should've written about this very soon after it had happened if only for clarity of memory but alas, I did not (also, I seem to be WAY behind posting the very few things I still do write for this blog!)

     Some weeks back, I was asked to come over early on a Friday to babysit Best Friend's daughter and I did, because I love that child dearly. The day looked to be nice weather-wise as well as humidity-wise (and finally too...this Summer had been so brutal!) so we filled up the kiddie pool outside in case the child wanted to play in it (SPOILER ALERT: she totally did want to).

      I was given a list of things to do with her to keep her occupied and told what foods to offer her for lunch when the time came. All was well. The Child wanted to go outside before mommy left and so out we went and naturally, she wanted immediately in the pool so mommy got her bathing suit and into the pool she went!

      Shortly thereafter, mommy had to go and she left me in charge. I kept an eye on her in the pool and when she was done with that, she wanted to play on her swing set/slide. After clearing some ambitious cobwebs and changing her back into her dry clothes (which thankfully she also had outside), I pushed her on the swing for a long time because she just loves chilling on that thing. Not a care in the world, I suppose (although she does demand I push her higher and giggles every time she gets high enough for the chain to go slack and I say, "CHONK!!!" along with the noise that immediately follows)

      Eventually, though, the Child tells me she's hungry and I say, "Okay, let's go inside and get something to eat!" I try the sliding glass door...and it's locked. Mommy absent-mindedly locked the door on us! Undeterred, I took the Child with me around to the front door hoping against hope and, of course, it too had been locked.

     My phone was inside so I wouldn't be able to reach mommy but since this wasn't an emergency, I didn't immediately start going to neighbors' houses in an effort to get them to help us (thank goodness I got my best friend's phone number before I got a cellphone: I still know it by heart!). I leveled with the Child and told her that mommy had locked us out; that we couldn't go inside so we would have to wait for mommy to come home before we could eat.

      She seemed okay with this and I then took it upon myself to let the Child do whatever the fuck she wanted for however long she wanted (obviously nothing that would endanger her!) to keep her mind off the fact we weren't going to be going inside any time soon.

      Some of those things involved (because I'll never understand how a three year old thinks) gathering up the loose asphalt pebbles from her driveway and carrying them over to a planter to deposit them over and over again (repetition, thy name is every fucking child who has ever been :-) ). There's little shade in the front yard and neither of us were wearing sunscreen but whenever I suggested we go back into the backyard to be in shade, she would say flatly in that darling little voice of hers, "No." :-)

     It made me laugh when I'd go to sit on the porch in the shade and she'd get up from her place in the sun to walk over to me, holding out her hand and repeating to me something she probably saw happen in her daycare, "Smile! Don't be upset. Tell me what's wrong! It's going to be alright," like she was a therapist. It was so cute.

     Another was picking leaves off trees so that she could give one to each of her stuffed animal friends. I at least got to show her how to pluck leaves without tearing them (grab the leaf by its stem: the way she repeated "stem" makes me think I had taught her a new word). I also got to carry her for long lengths of time and every time I asked to put her down because my arm was getting tired she would say flatly in that darling little voice of hers, "No." :-)

     I showed her what it looked like over all the tall fences bordering her yard. We chased each other around. We did Spins (where I hold her sideways facing outwards and spin 720 degrees in one direction and then 720 degrees in the other direction so I don't get dizzy) until she tired of it. Then we did "Whee!" whereby I gently toss her up and catch her until I couldn't toss her anymore. We even managed to do a piggyback ride after I figured out how to get her on my shoulders without someone else's help. We chased after a ball together and "somehow" she would always beat me to it at the last dramatic moment. And sometimes she'd give me a break by playing in the pool again.

     Unfortunately I also didn't have my wallet so we couldn't go on an adventure to a local store to buy some food so we were stuck getting hungry together. But when she asked for milk, I had the idea to teach her the age-old rite of passage that is drinking from a garden hose and, to my joy, she loved it and then she played with the garden hose for a while watering various things and whenever I suggested we should turn off the hose so as not to waste water, she would say flatly in the darling little voice of hers, "No." because damn it, this girl was on a mission! What that mission was is anyone's guess and that guess would surely be wrong because who the hell understands the particular curiosities of a three year old? Not me, that's for sure. But it kept her occupied and distracted which was the point :-)

     Periodically she would whimper that she wanted her mommy to come home and one time when I said back, "I know, I wish mommy would come home too," meaning her mother obviously but the child misinterpreted me. She thought I was talking about my mother and incredulously replied, "Your mommy doesn't live here!"

     Some of the neighbor's kids were playing in their backyard. The Child wanted to see them so I held her up high and she shouted to them, "Hi neighbors!" and they didn't reply which, I admit, annoyed me. Who doesn't say hello to a three year old?!

      But after some more leaf gathering and her wanting her mommy, I noticed her yawning and asked if she wanted to lie down. To my surprise, the kid who never wants to nap anymore said yes. Thankfully, her parents have lawn furniture and one of those pieces was a love seat I then cleared leaf debris from and lay on with the child on my chest. I had to drape my legs over the arm rests and they immediately lost circulation. I asked the Child if she was okay and ever-so-cutely told me, "I'm comfortable," and then like a goddamned cat, fell immediately asleep. I am so jealous of her ability to do that!

      I don't know how long we laid there. I almost fell asleep myself before realizing I was supposed to be keeping watch! My neck wasn't doing so great but I was able to move it without waking her. I spent that 30-60 minutes watching the sun dapple through the leaves above and those same leaves sway in the breezes. I listened to bird calls and squirrel noises and the next door neighbor kids playing and then suddenly I felt my chest get very warm, then wet. The Child peed on me in her sleep!

     I woke her up and she did not like that. She wailed for several minutes before I was able to soothe her and then, by dumb luck, I saw movement in her house. Mommy had (finally) come home...and she had brought grandma with her too. The Child and I were both happy to finally get the fuck inside. I told mommy that she had locked us out; that we haven't eaten; and to give the Child whatever she wants (and she got her ravioli and crackers and juice and even cookies to eat for her late lunch) while I cleaned up.

     But I was proud of the Child. She handled this unexpected circumstance with a surprising maturity and poise. For my part, I got only mildly sunburned (somehow: I was expecting way worse) and the most mosquito bites I've gotten in many years. I'm sure I was a veritable buffet holding the child still on my chest in the shade :-)

     Needless to say, I will always be carrying my keys with me henceforth!

ODE TO STAPLES...

     My body doesn't make any goddamned sense.

     Sometimes when I take a week off from work, after resting for a few days, I'll go for a long walk around my area to take a look around...sight-see if you will. It'll be a long walk, maybe twelve or so miles, and I'll come home with my legs hurting. I'll sleep extra long that night and be sore the following day.

     Yesterday, after eight hours of sleep I walked two miles to work. I then spent eight hours on my feet, cleaning, and walking around throughout the store on various tasks. I had intended that day, after work, to go to Staples to pick up some CD-Rs and jewel cases (I'm old...shut up) in an effort not to do all of my shopping on Amazon. It would be, at most, a doubling of my usual two mile walk home.


     However, to my surprise, that Staples store had shuttered since I was last there (curiously for the same purchase...I was old then too so shut up). Since I had already made up my mind to do this, I walked a few extra miles to another Staples location that I had remembered only to find that it too had been shuttered.
     Luck was not on my side nor was the weather as it had grown suddenly cold overnight and while my coats and shoes were up to the task, my pants were not.

     Undaunted, but starting to wonder if Staples had gone out of business and I had somehow overlooked that fact in my internetting, and stubbornly I continued to one last place I knew a Staples to be. Thankfully that location was still there and they were not in the midst of a Going Out of Business Sale so I was more a well-intentioned victim of downsizing I'd say as well as about six miles from home and now in the middle of a snow squall.
     Yeah, the weather was all kinds of cold and crazy that day.

     But I made my purchases which seemed a lot more expensive than they ought to have been (Amazon may yet win this war...) and set off for home. Boston Chicken would prove the beneficiary of my hunger as McDonald's, while it will offer all-day-breakfast, still does not sell hamburgers and McNuggets in the morning. I work overnights: morning is dinnertime for me! No respect for the graveyard shift...

     Unlike my vacation walks, I made this unexpected journey laden for half of it. Based on my walking speed and the amount of time I was out there, I estimate I walked about twelve miles not including the two I did to get to work and the unknown amount of distance I covered on the clock doing returns so maybe fifteen miles total for the day. I then ended up staying awake for thirty hours before finally crashing, sleeping for less than eight.

      And yet now, despite all that, not only did I not arrive home sore, I feel fine now and like I could do it all again today.

     I don't get it either...

LINE OF THE DAY, part XLI

(from wendigo, a commenter on Cracked.com)

The spiders had been acting odd.

As far as I was concerned, everything about the damned pests was strange. This was different, though. On the first morning, day one, they started emerging from their hiding spots and abandoned their webs.

Black Widows, Orb Weavers, they all exposed themselves to any number of would-be predators.

You could barely walk through your yard without entangling yourself in the near-invisible threads they'd cast out into the breeze. It was as if a thousand tiny, inverted fishermen had dropped their hooks into the sky.

The web (of course) lit up with chatter. It was happening anywhere you'd expect to find arachnids. Within minutes, all the "Ask" sites and insect expert message boards filled up with annoyed queries.

"What are they doing?"

"Is this happening to anyone else?"

"Is this happening everywhere?!"

The true shock was still to come, as the creatures simultaneously reeled themselves UP those threads. It was an Indian Rope Trick to stupefy entomologists the world over.

The consensus at that point? Well, at least they're gone.

Then the sky began to cloud over.

Some caught on quicker than others. A few folks in my neighborhood, not necessarily ignorant folks, looked upward and determined a storm had set in. Myself, I immediately recognized the wrongness of it all.

The sunlight was being blotted out, ever so slightly, by one tremendous dome of webbing.

A plane came down over the hills near my house, its engines clogged with soft gauze and mashed spiders.

Five days in, birds started disappearing. Their songs all but ceased, and the only sign of their existence was the stray tiny, hollow bone that would drop from high above.

Dark spots could be observed with the naked eye. Using powerful binoculars or a telescope showed the viewer a myriad of small, cocooned bodies floating motionless in a lofty, darkening haze. Sparrows, Crows, Hawks, and even Bats became entangled in the grim construction.

Flights were cancelled soon after the original rash of crashes. Pilots thought they could simply break through the paltry web-work of such insignificant beings. Nearly ten thousand dead passengers and crew said otherwise.

The last plane to be cleared for take-off was the rare exception. There was a roar, a violent shrieking of engine blades, and then it just stopped.

It hung there, diagonally, until the entire thing was cocooned above our heads.

The bones that fell to the ground after that did not belong to birds.

It was after a week that "Arachnocalypse", as a term, had been officially coined. Newspapers and television networks spat the phrase out at every opportunity, and it took its rightful place alongside "Snowmageddon", and the rest.

For what it's worth, I think we could've made do, as a species, without use of the sky. Even though the haze grew thicker and our world grew darker every day, there were rain storms and natural collapses to give us small breaks in construction.

The rain, by the way, would come through cloudy and slick. I didn't want to know why.

The real problem, the one we couldn't work around as easily, was the spiders that remained on land. The jumping spiders, the hunting spiders, the tarantulas, all of those who seemed to have evolved past web-weaving.

They could produce some silk, but beyond that they were at a loss. You could almost feel sorry for them, standing tall on leaves and branches, preparing for an ascent that was never coming.

I heard stories about scorpions doing the same thing, but I never saw any proof for myself.

It was almost as if they knew. It seemed to drive them mad. When they weren't stoically waiting for their strands to take root above, they attacked and bit without any sense of reason.

I lost my pet, a loyal and loving Bulldog. She came in one night covered in clinging spiders, bites all over her body. Within moments, before I could even think of who to call (Vet? Poison hotline?) she collapsed and stopped breathing.

Daddy Longlegs... I don't even know if they were in on the plan, whatever it was. They seemed to cluster in homes, crawling over people as they slept, creating vast hordes of staring, though seemingly eyeless little horrors positioned on faces and chests.

When the things weren't engaged in frightening us to death, they would simply gather on ceilings and randomly "squat" upward as if it were some elaborate spectacle the human brain couldn't comprehend.

On the thirty-second day, when the Governments finally began working on possible solutions, everything changed yet again.

The Widowers crawled out from places unseen.

A Widower, about the size and shape of a man, seemed to have no interest in joining the growing, breeding masses in the skies. The black, armor-plated arachnid creatures only displayed one common goal.

Ensnaring us.

Daytime, as dark as it had become, was the only time it was relatively safe to go out. At night, Widowers could be all around you... in the trees, in crevices... and you'd never suspect. The last thing you'd see was the red hourglass on their abdomens.

That, and not-quite-human hands scrambling for your hair, your loose clothing, anything within reach.

Abandoned buildings were just as bad as the outdoors. I was with a group... I want to say this was about two months along... and we all took shelter in an old doll factory when it grew dark and we couldn't walk any longer.

The dismembered baby dolls, with their dark streaks of venom and plastic flesh wounds should've turned us away. Still, the webs they levitated in seemed old and abandoned. We figured the Widowers had their run of the place and long since moved on.

I didn't wake up to screaming.

It's weird to say that.

I wish I had woken up to screaming.

Instead, I lazily opened my eyes around what I assume to be Midnight. I reached out for a bottle of water, only to draw back a hand covered in burning, dark yellow venom.

I don't know if you've ever seen a bug trapped in a spider's cocoon. All they can do is silently rock. Back and forth, back and forth, bending at the middle. Sometimes there'll be a single free limb or antenna that waves around, trying to feel out any sign of help.

It's the same with people.

I'll have to live out the rest of my days remembering that sight. I'll have to live with the fact I ran away and left them there. People who had pulled me out of a burning truck. People who fed and clothed me when I had nothing.

There was nothing I could do. Logically, I know that.

The red hourglasses were already descending around me, and no matter what form it takes, an hourglass means time is running out.

My time.

Everyone's time.

LITHIUM: THE SEEDS OF GALAXY FORMATION?

     There's a weird property of metals called "cold welding" whereby, in a vacuum, two pieces of the same metal will join together when they come into contact with each other. The description goes as follows:

The reason for this unexpected behavior is that when the atoms in contact are all of the same kind, there is no way for the atoms to “know” that they are in different pieces of copper. When there are other atoms, in the oxides and greases and more complicated thin surface layers of contaminants in between, the atoms “know” when they are not on the same part. (Richard Feynman)

    This got me wondering, one of the mysteries of the universe is how large-scale structures like galaxies came to be in the nearly uniform densities of matter produced in the Big Bang. Randomness surely played a role but I get the impression from my readings that such randomness would've been too slow for protogalactic cores to develop into the enormous superclusters of galaxies and voids present in the universe today over a mere 14 billion years.

     Dark matter is called into question as a possible attractor as the hypothesized material, while it has gravity, is only affected by gravity allowing the newly formed matter to gather around its mass whereas ordinary matter is affected by electricity, magnetism, radiation, and subject to gas properties like pressure, temperature, etc.
    The trouble is, while scientists are certain dark matter exists, no one knows what exactly it is making it kind of impossible to test this hypothesis.

     Now I have to believe something like this has been thought of before and discredited but nevertheless I'm putting it forth: what if something more mundane could've led to the creation of galaxies?

     In the first few minutes of the Big Bang, the temperatures and pressures were still sufficient to convert the newly created electrons, protons, and neutrons into the heavier nuclei of deuterium, helium, and a smidge of lithium.
     Of those three elements, lithium is a metal and when the universe became cool enough to allow the formation of atoms after 300,000 years, there would be lithium floating around amidst this ever decreasingly dense gas which I imagine would have formed vacuum-like conditions quite quickly.

     Now if like atoms of metal cold weld for the reason stated above, does it not stand to reason that even the tiny, tiny amount of lithium theorized to have formed during the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis would have, through random interactions, found one and other and welded together forming ever larger seeds to acts as attractants to the far more enormous amounts of hydrogen, deuterium, and helium out there?

     I would like to believe that over the millions of years between recombination and the first stars, there was plenty of time for atoms of lithium to make clumps of anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of atoms which would have collectively more concentrated gravity than the surrounding material which doesn't particularly enjoying interacting with one and other.
     Helium is famously unreactive and hydrogen is content once it finds a partner to bond with. Neither will naturally clump...but lithium would...and might that be enough to begin the slow process of gathering ever larger clouds of gas together to form the first stars and protogalaxies?

     I honestly don't know...but I like the idea.

NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO DO...NOT EVEN ME

     I hate that I have to state this outright because people can be fucking idiots but I'm not suicidal, not even when I'm low. I don't actually want to die no matter how annoyed I get at circumstances. I'd be perfectly content with immortality coupled with invincibility (and then making damn sure I keep out of cities and caves): I sincerely believe I have the kind of mindset one would need to tolerate immortality.

    However, I know I'm going to die and in those moments of moriturism, I get frustrated. There's no joy in ellipsism nor is there in coming to terms with all of my being coming to naught. While some may escape into religious promises of an eternal afterlife, for a long time I've not been able to justify my fear of not existing in that manner and yet, despite that indescribable sadness that my borrowed time must some day be repaid, I'm reminded that I really do hate being told what to do and dying really seems like the ultimate form of that...at least when it's allowed to play out on its own.

     Because some day my body WILL betray me and I will die. It could be sudden or it could be a long-term thing like cancer, but regardless of the form it shall take, death will become me and I will have no say in the matter.

     Unless...

     And then I thought how suicide is a curious solution to this dilemma absent me actually having been born a god and not having realized that yet. Suicide is the both the ultimate expression of wrath as well as a personal statement to the universe itself saying that, while I must die, I will not do so on your terms!

    And I admit...I kinda like that.

    Now if only I had a clue as to when my body planned on making its exit...

AVATAR: THE LEFT-HANDED AIRBENDER...

     I wonder if the Air Nomads in the Avatar universe had a handedness to their airbending power?

source

     For instance, when I imagine generating a vortex of wind around me, it always develops in a counterclockwise motion. If I imagine shooting a blast of wind from my dominant hand, it also spins in a counterclockwise corkscrewing fashion (from my perspective...it would be clockwise from your viewpoint) and again, if I imagine shooting a blast of wind from my left hand, it is only a straight-up gust with no spin whatsoever.
     I asked Roommate about this, who is left-handed, and without leading on my part, he told me he imagined such vortices spinning clockwise when he thought of how they might spin.

     Makes me wonder if I might be on to something...

     In-Universe, the Air Nomads had all been killed prior to the start of the series and precious few glimpses are ever given to their way of life before the start of the Hundred Years War allowing for little exploration into the quirks of their culture.
     Still, might it possible that handedness determined the natural spin of one's vortices. It's not like it would be impossible to spin them the other way: it just wouldn't be your instinctual motion. After all, you can teach yourself to write and other tasks with your non-dominant hand. I can eat almost as comfortably left-handed as I do right-handed though with the latter I retain better control over the utensil.

     I wonder how clockwise benders might be viewed by counterclockwise benders? I choose clockwise as the minority because the emblem of the Air Nomads shows three swirls all moving in a counterclockwise rotation.

Emblem of the Air Nomads (source)

     Would their powers effectively cancel each other out when used against one and other (or at least lessen the severity of the attack or effectiveness of the defense)? Would they be embraced as an enhancing diversity or viewed with skepticism since they'd likely be a minority? Because they have the "opposite flow", would it affect the way they see the universe? Do they eat meat?
     If the latter, might they have been complicit in betraying the majority Air Nomads to the Fire Nation because they had wanted to rule only to have it backfire on them when Firelord Sozin chose to wipe all Air Nomads out?
     The non-canonical character Afiko was said to have hailed from the Southern Air Temple and betrayed his fellow Air Nomads. According to the card game where his character exists, he was said to have been envious of Aang, the new Avatar, and so revealed the secret location of the temple to the Fire Nation, allowing its soldiers to wipe out the monks who lived there. How did his vortices manifest?

Afiko: clockwise airbender?

     Stuff we'll never know...

HUMOR IS SUCH A SUBJECTIVE THING, DON'T YOU THINK, MOLLARI?

     Is there a name for the kind of humor where increasing the perspective progressively in steps keeps flipping the opinion of the observer back-and-forth from ire to empathy?

     I saw this post about a woman allegedly abusing her dog. You've likely seen the viral photo of the dog whose mouth has been muzzled with duct tape:

pictured: internet rage

    Now, because I'm me and am not in a hurry to rush to judgement, I found myself thinking strange things about the picture like, what if the rage the internet is showing with regard to this image was wrong...but also right...and then wrong again...and so forth?

    Like, what if everyone's mad because they see what appears to be an open-and-shut-case of animal abuse?

   But then you find out the reason the dog's mouth is muzzled shut is because the animal's jaw was broken and its owners couldn't afford the veterinarian's bill? Now you feel bad for misjudging. Maybe you even want to create a Kickstarter for the owner's vet bills.

   But then you find out the reason the dog's jaw is broken is because the owner kicked the dog in the face. Now you're angry again. How could she?! Arrest her!!!

   But then it's revealed the owner kicked the dog in the jaw, breaking it, in order to stop the dog from mauling the owner's small child. Now we feel bad again. She was only protecting her family and still wants to see the dog healed. Again, how we've misjudged...

   But it turns out the child was being mauled because it killed one of the dog's puppies. Now we're angry again. What kind of family teaches their kid to do these things?! Arrest her! Call the Child Protection Service!!!

   And I have to stop here because I can't think of anything absurd the puppy could have done to "deserve" being killed by the small child (which would, in turn, require another pullback of perspective to villainize that and so on and so forth)...

   But what is that kind of humor called? Surely it has a name...or at least a TVtrope associated with it.

    I wonder...

MOVIE RIDICULOUSNESS...

     I've been watching a few of the Friday the 13th movies on AMC this morning because, "Why not?" and aside from my usual complaints about cable television censorship, I'm continually amazed at how dumb these movies are.

     Right now, it's up to Part VIII "Jason Takes Manhattan". It starts off with two teens, Jim and Suzy, sexing it up on a houseboat. The guy throws an anchor in the water which ends up dragging an electrical cable into the resting place of the hibernating (?) revenant, Jason Voorhees, resurrecting him for another round of mayhem.

     But before he bags his first two kills, Jim mentions that he doesn't like being so close to the campground where all those murders took place to which Suzy replies, "What murders?"

     I'm already taken out of the film. What do you mean, what murders? Like 70 people have died there in the first seven parts? And it's not like those murders happened over a hundred years ago and had fallen into local legend. No, they took place over the past ten years. There's no way you haven't heard of them.
     That's like when Han Solo from Star Wars says he'd never heard of the Jedi when they were keepers of the peace in the galaxy for over a thousand generations. They had only been made virtually extinct by the Galactic Empire and Darth Vader about thirty years ago but that wouldn't wipe out people's memories of them, even if it were just their name. Hitler's only been dead for seventy years and people have still heard of him.
     My point being that it's ridiculous for this girl to have never heard of the murder sprees that have taken place on Crystal Lake's campgrounds.

     The next thing that caught my attention was the cruise ship everyone was on to Manhattan is called "The Lazarus", AFTER Jason had already been resurrected. That should've been the name of the houseboat those doomed teens were on in the beginning. Instead it looks like it was called Lady Drifter.

     Movie, you're doing in-your-face symbolism wrong...

     I'm sure more awaits as this film goes on, but I'll post now instead of adding to this live...

TEMPORAL PAULI EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE...

     I wonder if the reason we've seen no evidence of time travel is because a variation on the Pauli Exclusion Principle would forbid it?

     The principle states, to the best of my understanding of it, that two identical fermions (things like electrons and quarks) cannot occupy the same quantum state. In other words, you can't have two electrons occupying the same point in space.

     It makes me wonder (with no ability to prove it of course...what do I look like, a mathematical genius?) if the same concept applies temporally. In other words, the same particle from different times (effectively two particles now, but still otherwise identical, from this point of view) not being able to occupy identical moments.
     From a 4th dimensional (time) point of view, the particles you're comprised of would look not like points, but lines stretching from their creation to their annihilation. I'm thinking time-travel would force those lines to intersect, effectively overlapping moments. If two of the same kind of particles in the same moment cannot occupy the same volume, then perhaps two identical particles from different times cannot occupy the same moment.

     I'm repeating myself. I know. I'm just struggling with a way to describe what I'm thinking so that it's consistent.

     Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. All energy (of which matter is) has been with us since the beginning of time and will continue until its end (should that ever come) so just because you have not always existed does not mean the electrons and quarks (represented as protons and neutrons) have not always existed. And they will continue to exist long after you no longer have a need for them.
     You can't go back (or forward) because it would require your fermions to occupy the same moment and that's just not allowed...

    Maybe that's why. I don't know. I was bored at work...

THE SECRET TO PERFECT POPCORN (who knew there actually was one?)

     Years ago I gave up microwave popcorn, not because of some bullshit health concern but because companies like Orville Redenbacher, Pop Secret, and Act II shrank the size of their packages. Microwaves have preset popcorn settings designed for 3½ oz. bags. Yes, I could take the time to figure out the time difference but I'm lazy and absolutely HATE when companies shrink product sizes to raise prices rather than hold the size and be honest that inflation is an insidious thing eating away at the value of everyone's dollar like the tax on the poor it is.

Don't think I forgot about you, supposed-to-be-half-gallon-sized ice-cream

You used to be 1 lb. bags when I was young before becoming 14.8 oz., 12.6 oz., and now 11.4 oz.

 Bastards...

      So I went back to making popcorn in a pot over the stove. The thing is, no matter what I did, the kernels always came out chewy. They could never match the awesomeness of microwave popcorn. Just what does that electromagnetic radiation do to those kernels that makes them come out so fluffy and crunchy anyway*?

     It made eating popcorn a decidedly less satisfactory experience. I tried looking online for solutions. Nothing worked. Whether I kept the lid closed or slightly ajar...chewy. Whether I heated the pot first and then added the kernel or heated the pot and kernels simultaneously...chewy. The solution continued to elude me until one day I noticed the bag of popcorn seeds actually had cooking instructions on them. Here I thought making popcorn was about as simple as making cereal, who the heck would need instructions?

     Curious, I read them. Unlike the Orville Redenbacher seeds, the store-brand variety had an extra step and this step has proven to be the secret that apparently no one else online has figured out when it comes to making perfect stovetop popcorn.

     Roasting.

     Yep, that's right...roasting. The instructions were as follows:

• STEP 1: Place a small amount of oil in the pot (a few tablespoons)
• STEP 2: Add a half-cup of popcorn seeds and cover.
• STEP 3: Over medium heat (not full blast!), heat the pot, shaking occasionally to distribute both the oil and seeds.
• STEP 4: When the first kernels start popping, remove the pot from heat to a cool burner (i.e. one that hasn't been used) and let the pot sit for a minute. Do not remove the lid (though you can add butter at this step if you wish)
• STEP 5: After a minute, return the pot (with the lid still on) to the original burner and continue heating over medium heat (again, not full blast)
• STEP 6: When the kernels begin popping, shake the pot to stir up and redistribute the remaining kernels. Popcorn is done, like with microwave popcorn, when it goes 1-2 seconds without another pop.
• STEP 7: Empty into a bag/bowl and enjoy.

     Step 4 was the secret. Who knew? Sure, it takes a little longer to make, but it comes out fantastically. Leaving the lid ajar (to let steam escape) is unnecessary. Nope, it's letting these kernels stew in hot oil for a bit.

     So if your stovetop popcorn's been lackluster, give it shot like I've outlined above. I'm going to make some right after I post!**

_________________________________________________________________________

* Now I wonder if microwave popcorn has been pre-roasted...

** Yes, I'm secretly hoping this post becomes popular...

THE RADIOACTIVE LOTTERY...

     Radioactive elements have half-lives. That is, over a period of time specific to the radioactive isotope, half of the original sample will have decayed. Repeat that period and half of the remaining half will have decayed and so on.

     Now, I know I have to be wrong about this but nevertheless it remains a thought I've had because I don't know how to go about finding the answer to my question nor do I know if the answer would require knowledge of the kinds of mathematics that go WAY beyond my capacity to understand.

     The thing is, take a sample of the standard element for dating old organics: Carbon-14. 14C is radioactive and decays into stable nitrogen-14 via beta decay (that is, a neutron emits an electron and antineutrino, becoming a proton and upping the element by one). The half life of this isotope is approximately 5,730 years.

     Now here's the thing...

     After 5,730 years a sample of carbon-14, say ten pounds worth, will have gone through the first of its half-lives leaving five pounds of carbon-14 and five pounds of nitrogen-14. Now I'm guessing this might violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle but if you could (somehow) isolate the half of the carbon-14 from the original ten pound sample that did not decay, would you now be in possession of a five pound sample of carbon-14 that is not radioactive? Or at least not radioactive for 5,730 years?

     I know the answer has to be no...but why is it no? I can't help but feel that if one could somehow be intuitive enough to separate such a sample that it could be done. I also think about stuff like Uranium-238 which has a half-life of almost 4½ billion years. I don't know when the first atoms of uranium were forged but I would have to assume with a half-life of that long, that atoms of uranium-238 from the first supernova that produced them way back when still exist.

     What makes certain radioactive atoms more stable than others? What about extremely radioactive elements like astatine which has no stable isotopes and the longest lived one is measured in hours? Are some of astatine-210's atoms (and I am probably using the wrong word) meta-stable and could conceivably last the lifetime of the universe?

      The nature of the basic math behind half-lives suggests that it is impossible to get rid of all the original sample. Atoms are small so if you have a mole of astatine-210 (which has never been witnessed by the way...I hear such a sample if it could somehow be synthesized would explode from the heat of its radioactivity), with a mole being some 6 x 10²³ atoms (a HUGE number), how many times could you divide such a sample in half and still be left with a number greater than 1? Maybe not as many times as I suspect (I don't feel like doing the algebra right now), but it would still be quite a number of divisions meaning some of those atoms will last a lot longer than 8.1 hours. Some potentially for years.

      I wonder why that is so? Why are some radioactive atoms more (temporarily) stable than others?

VIDEOGAME MUSIC

     A project I've been enjoying as of late has been making a mix-tape of videogame music, or whatever it is mix-tapes are called today since they're digital files organized on a flash drive.

     Videogame music is like the classical music of my generation and thanks to sites like YouTube, Zophar's Domain, NES-SNES-SPRITES, and a few others, it's been possible to compile a collection of soundtracks from the game systems I've owned over the years and even the music from some old arcade games that took many of my quarters years ago.

     I've learned that I've played a lot of games over the years. So far I have almost 600 songs from the Atari2600, Atari5200, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, PC-DOS, and arcade systems. I didn't think there would be so many and some, like end-of-game boss rushes were made into medleys. I've almost got everything I can remember. It just can be tedious editing the music for two cycles and a proper fade-out.

     But like I said, it's been fun and the resulting USB drive of 8 and 16-bit soundtracks is fun to listen to.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS (play-at-home version)

(click to enlarge)

     I saw this image floating around online and thought it interesting enough to give it a try. Which one would you choose? They each have ups and downs. The only trouble I have is that what is promised is light on details, making me wonder if participation in this game would find you the victim of a Jerk Genie. But let's consider, shall we?

ENVY, option A: I'm not entirely sure what is meant by "aspect of your life" and while it certainly could be used for good, trading a good quality of one's own for a bad quality in another to give that person a shot at a better life, the evil implication is that you're basically fucking over one of your friends with something about yourself you don't like, trading it for something desirable in the other friend. Is this limited to mental aspects or conceptual things like "luck", or are you able to trade for, say, a full head of hair if you were balding or increased height if you felt yourself too short? It doesn't say and it would certainly suck to find out it had to be nonphysical when you wanted something physical, wouldn't it?
     Definitely wouldn't take this option.

ENVY, option B: Trading lives. Does this mean I continue having my own body but people react to me like I were the other person or does it mean body-swapping? Either way, what is to stop the forcibly traded person from coming after me for having stolen his/her life? Sounds dangerous to accept, no?
     I'm gonna have to say no to this one as well.

SLOTH, option A: This is most certainly the safest option I would think. By far the best default in the event you find you cannot forfeit choosing one of these options. Median household income for the year 2012, according to the OECD, was $30,932. Another chart shows the median 2011 income from the U.S. Census Bureau at $50,054, a considerable difference. The former isn't much more than I make now while the latter would make me feel solidly Middle Class.
     Of course, the country whose median income your sloth check would be based on is never stated nor whether the amount would be indexed for inflation or fixed at the present year's value making this option potentially risky, especially given that you would never work a day (which could also mean you're in a coma). I want to take this one, but what if I end up receiving Mexico's median annual income ($4,493 in U.S. dollars)? That would certainly suck and you know there are worse countries than that...
     Now I'm thinking this wouldn't be such a safe bet after all.

SLOTH, option B: Same shitty life I have now except that I always feel rested after I sleep. Again, I'm assuming this reduced sleep is still enough to keep healthy and not like a drug. Assuming this genie isn't totally a jerkass, this option could prove a bit ironic to the sin as you could now being WAY more productive than would otherwise be possible for a human being. If a five minute nap counts as a full day's rest, what's to stop you from always pulling all-nighters, tinkering with all sorts of hobbies, partying 'til dawn on worknights, having your cake and eating it too when it comes to business and pleasure, etc.?
     Even though I'd still have to work, this one could be a good "if I have to" option even if the health risks do exist. It would mean simply be careful not to abuse your power, like one must be careful not to abuse pain medications lest their effectiveness dwindle. I mean I hope it would be that simple and not some other horrible side-effect...

WRATH, option A: Certainly a very tempting option. Both options come with the same potential drawback: are you able to get away with these crimes? I would like to believe proving it in court would be impossible but then being tied up in court having to defend oneself could prove costly and as the O.J. Simpson civil trial showed, being acquitted of murder doesn't mean one cannot still be found liable financially.
     Also, must you inflict this annual fate or can you be merciful and skip a year? Can you bank fates (I'll assume not). Must the fates be terrible or can they be used to slowly grant lottery victories or spontaneous remissions of cancer?
     Of course the wording states that the target must be "of my wrath" making me presumably less likely to wish to be civil about it...

WRATH, option B: You get a monthly option provided the fate be non-lethal - though it can be delayed - but like the above, it must be visited upon an object of rage making this power decidedly useless to pervert in order to help family and friends out.
     Still...I can be pretty creative in my non-lethal horrors but again I wonder, do I have to do this once-a-month or just once-a-month maximum? It makes a difference because I'm just not that angry of a man. I'd run out of justifiable (to myself anyway) targets pretty quickly and my remaining lifetime could still be quite long...

LUST, option A: This really sounds like a roundabout description of rape, doesn't it? Speaking as someone unlucky in both love and hooking up, this is a very tempting option as it would allow me to fulfill a number of fantasies...from my perspective at least. As the nightmare of my prowess is visited upon my targets, what becomes of them afterward? Do they remember hooking up with me but unsure why they weren't able to resist? Are they happy for having done so? Do they regret it? How much time afterward do I have before their free will kicks back in? Like it has been said allegedly of the Devil, would I have no power over true love, meaning I could only hook up with single girls (which would more than suck as I've lusted after a few boyfriended/married girls in my life)? Will it be reported as a rape, tying up my time in courtrooms like with the wrath options?
     Lots of questions with no help offered from the option's description. Still...a tempting option regardless of the potential problems. Yeah, I'm a terrible human being...

LUST, option B: While this sounds like a safer option, I need reality for my fantasies to work. It's like asking for a hug. It's not the same as a hug given freely. Having a shapeshifter who could turn into a crush I could then fuck is not the same as being able to fuck the crush herself.

PRIDE, option A: Fame and popularity. Again, for what is not made clear nor is it in any way certain that I would have a choice over as to why I'm famous and popular. Serial killers tend to be both (except with their victims' families I would imagine). Not exactly something I would like to be prideful of, especially since it would likely mean a lifetime of imprisonment...or pending execution depending on the state. One might also be famous and popular for having exposed national secrets à la Snowden but then stuck in a life of exile for it, always looking over one's shoulder. Many good results and many bad results can come from this...

PRIDE, option B: I like this option, a powerful and commanding aura. I get to be automatically respected and feared by those around me. However, is this a power I have control over or am I always that way? While it could be useful, even when always on, it would make it hard to have friends and those friends you already do have would treat you differently, denying you their honesty.
     If I could turn this power on and off at will or if I could grant exceptions to certain people (even if such exceptions were irreversible), that might be better but still...without clarification, I think this option too risky to assume...

GREED, option A: Actually this seems like the safest option now, unless this hundredfold increase in salary is the result of a bank robbery (I think that's how a genie got wished-for money in a Woody Woodpecker cartoon once: I watched too many cartoons as a kid). Also, is this an annual - but now fixed - 100x salary or just a one-time thing and future years are my present salary with no possibility of a raise and/or promotion ever after? Something perhaps that should've been cleared up in the text. I'm assuming it's a one-time thing since there are no restrictions on how I may spend my new found wealth. 100x my present salary would be plenty for the rest of my life barring a serious illness.
     Maybe I shouldn't give this genie ideas...

GREED, option B: This is actually an interesting option but what would I so covet that I would wish simply to have it with no ability to do anything with it except possess or sell it at a loss/give away freely since I cannot make money off it?
     A double-edged sword indeed...

GLUTTONY, option A: Sounds nice though I would suspect hedonic adaptation would ultimately apply, ruining the joy of this choice...

GLUTTONY, option B: None of the negative side-effects of eating? Does this mean I could eat poisons and be unaffected by them? Are all my poops now perfect, no-wipe-needed wonders? This power could be an interesting way to make money from bets...

     Overall, I'm not sure which one I would take. If I could forfeit the game, I would to play it safe. As mentioned, I've seen too many cartoons and TV shows with jerk genies, literal genies, etc. I don't think any of them ever got the job by choice which might explain why they delight in creating misfortune with their power.
      But if I had to choose, despite the unclear wording, the life of leisure that would (presumably) be afforded me with an annual median income and not having to work for a living. Option A Lust would certainly have its uses but I can't see how I wouldn't feel guilty, at least eventually, for having exercised it. Same with either Wrath option...


"Seven Deadly Sins" by The Traveling Wilburys
     Perhaps a differently worded version might be composed by someone more lawyerly? Internet, I'm waiting...

ABOUT AS MUCH A PROTEST AS BISMUTH-209 IS RADIOACTIVE...

     I decided since neither my store nor my union supported me with my latest run-in with management that I would no longer shop at my store. I figure, I will take their money but I will not give any of it back.

     I was placed on cash control at the end of September. This is one of the drawbacks of lane accountability. While the upside is that I get to go through a hell of a lot more change (my take of 1978-dated coins, especially quarters, has been WAY higher since my store switched over to this new system), the downside is that the screw-ups of those who worked the lane before (and after) me affect us all.

     Anywho, when placed on cash control, I was given a sheet to sign with several rules regarding how I am supposed to conduct myself and control my cash while under this observation period.
     This was also my first time on cash control ever. Nearly fourteen years I've been there and it's never happened. Yes, I've gotten the occasional write-up for being over/short (almost always over...I seem to be good at convincing customers to walk out without their money) warning me that if it happened again within a certain period I would be placed on cash control. I never was. I'd get a write-up once, sometimes twice, a year.
     Three months into lane accountability and I've been written up three times for shortages. Like the other warnings there is a rollover period where if nothing else happens (I think it's ten days), your reputation is restored...until the next time. The trouble is, this third write-up mentioned that the shortage was excessive so I was placed on CC immediately...

     Right away I got into conflict with my manager. He would refuse to prove my till either having me do it myself or not at all despite the CC guidelines specifically stating the manager has to do it. I had also been directed to not leave my register unattended (the till would have to be placed in a cash control bag, sealed, and locked away before I could leave).
     The second night he insisted I leave my register without securing it first. And when I protested and finally refused, he sent me home for insubordination. Was it insubordination? Yes. Technically.

     It bugged me that he refused to take the thirty or so seconds it would take to lock away my till as directed or that he refused to use another employee who wasn't on cash control...no, it had to be me for some reason. It bothered me that he reprimanded me publicly and in front of other employees (both union no-no's). I was also annoyed that I got sent home for refusing to violate cash control policy and another cashier that same night also refused to do what he told her for the exact same reason and did NOT get sent home. And it irked me that when I returned, he took me aside immediately and insisted I pledge to do whatever he tells me.
     I told him I would do what he said provided it does not violate CC policy. For him, this was a yes or no question. He would not accept my modification and sent me home again, pending a union meeting...also my first in all my years there.
     I made my detailed statement, gave it to the shop steward, and when I finally got my callback, I was told basically "do the crime, snitch later." My union did not side with me at all. My union would not fight to get my lost pay restored for refusing to follow what I felt was an illegal order. And my store felt the same. Insubordination, period. Completely risking my job now if it happens again.

     Now understand, yes...I would've like to have won that battle but that's not really the point as far as I'm concerned. All I needed to hear was the gist of President Luchenko's speech to Sheridan (from Babylon 5) and I would've been fine.
     In Rising Star she told Sheridan that his insurrection against President Clark's dictatorship was probably the right thing to do but that he did it the wrong way, the inconvenient way and thus, even though we viewers saw Sheridan as a hero, he still legitimately faced execution for taking up arms against his own government.
     Now obviously I didn't go THAT far, but it would've been nice to hear from either side that at least someone believed that I was trying to do the right thing but that I was doing it the wrong way...the inconvenient way and thus I still had to be punished. But I would never get such satisfaction.

     Thoroughly demoralized, I knew I couldn't quit my job (I was really, really tempted to). I meant to take a "mental health" day too after that phone call but I ultimately decided not to. The bitch of that decision was when I got into work, I was the only one on my shift who DIDN'T call out. What luck!
     I went into a severe depression that got interrupted, but not aborted. When I get very sad I lose my appetite. This was the first time since 2008 that I had gone the no-eating route. I forgot I had agreed to go to a charity dinner that Friday so I had to eat before I was ready to again. By that point, I had gone thirty hours without a calorie. I gorged at the dinner thus refueling my sadness. After that dinner I went another forty hours without food...a new record. My previous record was thirty-six hours (which is also the longest I've ever gone without sleep) so, uh...yay?
     I've been fine since but I decided I would no longer shop at my store. I imagine this will become difficult after Christmas when I'm staring at all those discounted M&Ms. I'll have to hope my alternate store will have had the same difficulty off-loading their supply as mine always does.

     My alternate store is smaller than my own so its product diversity is not as high. One thing it definitely does not have is my high-fiber Fiber One bread so I've been eating a different brand of ordinary whole-wheat bread.
     Here's the thing. I've had hemorrhoids for a good five years now. My asshole still bleeds occasionally (story's taken a turn now, hasn't it?) but since I've stopped eating the Fiber One bread, my asshole's been getting, well...better. So far, it's the only thing I'm doing differently in my diet. Everything else is the same. My poops are smaller too...easier to pass. Is it possible there is such a thing as "too much fiber"? Perhaps.
      I've had some hints of blood on my wipes, but not as much and many times now, none at all. It's weird those unintended consequences, right? I inconvenience myself to make purchases at another supermarket, a protest which the accountants will never even notice in their weekly sales reports and it results in me discovering that maybe I've been overdoing it with my fiber intake.

     Weird...

IF YOU COULD ONLY HAVE ONE IMPRACTICAL SUPERPOWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

      Hmm... I like this question because while the power manifested could still be awesome to have, it must ultimately have little value and/or application.

      I guess I'd go with the ability - I don't even know how to put it - to project a terrifying image and sense of dread into a person...but only if we accidentally touch one and other. In other words, neither of us can be expecting to touch one and other. Generally I see this happening when someone bumps into you or maybe lightly grazes your hand when giving them change or something to that effect.

     As for what image to project? I'd want something with the visual impact of the Eye of Sauron and since I lack creativity, let's just say I want the power to project the Eye of Sauron and a deep sense of dread into anyone who accidentally touches me.

I see you

     The best part is. A person, after having touched me so and in their fear, might wish to touch me again to see if it were true. Only this time they will get nothing. A look of bewilderment on us both perhaps? Even if they tried sneaking up on me later to touch me, it wouldn't work because the toucher knew they would touch me...it only works when it's accidental for both. Likewise, if I felt inside the possibility that I might touch the person I'm looking at, it also wouldn't work. Only if it is genuine...

     And seriously, what other purpose would that serve? What benefit would it convey? What practical use could such a power ever have?

AN UNPUBLISHED DRAFT NOW BEING PUBLISHED...

ADDENDUM: I wrote the following thoughts on December 17, 2013. I'm in no mood to make these drafts into coherent posts. These were just some free-form thoughts that I had intended to go back to no more than a few days later but never got back to. The momentum is gone, not only from this post but perhaps this blog itself. I don't know how it would've turned out otherwise, but here's a sample of how I think...

~~~~~~~~~

The wall separating our working lives from our private lives has become anywhere from translucent to transparent thanks to the internet. I find it strange that there has been no mass protest in this country to oppose the thinning of this separation. It has allowed employers to keep an unreasonable amount of tabs on their employees through direct spying and snitching.

We are told to live in a state of constant fear as a result. Do not post what you would not want your boss to find out they say. People, especially teachers, have been fired for behavior done prior to their professional lives and during their professional lives even though it was all engaged in during their free time.

The concept of free time seems to be fast becoming a "thing of the past" and this terrifies me. Imagine if the wall separating church and state were again made transparent and you had to join the state religion. To stand up for your beliefs would cost you your livelihood (at best) or even your life (at worst). Your only alternative choice is to defy yourself and what you feel is right. No one would stand for that anymore knowing their beliefs could one day become the "wrong" beliefs. It's why the government in the Constitution is forbidden from sponsoring a state church...but we allow employers to effectively sponsor employer-based churches (example related to ACA-Obamacare) whereby the employer's beliefs are imposed upon their (usually female) employees. This is decried, but the loss of Freedom of Speech ("controversial" opinion posts) and Right to Peaceably Assemble (photos from a bachelorette party let's say) is not.

We are told we are now always on the clock. Everything we say represents our company. No longer are we free citizens. Accepting a paycheck is tantamount to checking your U.S. citizen rights at the door. Accepting a paycheck also means being on the clock for 24 hours while only getting paid for 8.

Related things: why is e-mail considered a separate thing from mail? Does no one who is not a legislator or HR director think that e-mail is not deserving of the same privacy protection as paper envelopes? The same applies to calls made by cellphone versus those made by landline. Does anyone besides those two groups actually feel cellphone calls are okay to tap without a warrant. GPS also applies, as does EZ-Pass. Why have we tolerated the thinning of these walls?

Rage began from #12 unpodcast "Your Tweets Are Not Your Own"

Controversial speech and ideas are the ones which need the most protection but they are the first to get you fired...

Link back to prior posts about teachers/students getting in trouble and NRA-type group for 1st Amendment.

It opens up the possibility of a world whereby employees must belong to the same political party as their boss and vote their boss's way too. Employees should have the same religion and tastes as their employer. I'm curious, if a man working for Coca-Cola was spotted drinking a Pepsi at a party, is that grounds for his termination...or even being associated with Pepsi (assuming he's not drinking any)? An employee who is on the clock is a worker, but off the clock is a potential customer. An employer should want his employees to also be customers, but should that not be earned rather than assumed? Is an employee allowed to consume the products and services of a rival? Why is employee behavior both on and off the clock subject to the morality of his employer, or more generally (when snitching is involved) why is employee behavior subject to the capricious whims of the most conservative person in the room? Why are the most conservative people (or financially well off) the sole arbiters of what is right and wrong?

Yet strangely, none of this has provoked rioting.  The solution seems to be unionization and guilds (for professionals). Protection via a union and tenure may be the only way to protect the rights of U.S. citizens from being taken away by their unelected, non-governmental bosses. Because after all, one day your boss might be liberal and accepting and your next boss could be a stick-in-the-mud conservative. Is that any different than having a laissez-faire king who is tolerant of any religious expression being replaced upon his death by a new king demanding the citizenry now all be say Protestant? Is it fair? I don't know. But so long as earning money to make a living is not optional I don't see how threatening a person's livelihood for expressing their 1st Amendment rights (or any Constitutional rights) is any more fair or in any way American. Job retention should be determined solely by competence.

MEMENTO MORI...

It was still there when I had returned. We first met in passing that morning on the way home. It was alive then, if only barely, shivering in the snow. Had it been injured? Had it lost its way in the dark, waiting for the morning light to fly away? Had it become ill? Had the past week's heavy snowfalls made it too difficult to find enough food to survive?

I'll never know...

I felt bad for it. The bird was no longer afraid of humans. I could've brought it home with me. Let it warm up some. But I couldn't. I have nothing here to care, even temporarily, for an ailing animal. I left it where I had found it, hoping that nature would take a positive course for once.

But that did not happen...

The bird had frozen to death and was now being buried in the falling snows of that morning. I decided rather than let it lie there, to give it a "burial at sea". I returned its body to the food chain via the local river rather than let it rot out in the open. I can't say that was necessarily more dignified, but that's how it went down.

It died cold and alone and probably scared.

How sad...

UPDATE...

     I know I have not been writing for some time. It's not for a want of ideas either. I have over a dozen drafts to be fleshed out saved in my posts list. I just haven't gotten to them. It's not even for a lack of time. I don't know why I have not been writing. I just haven't been.

     Hopefully I'll pick it up soon.

SOMETHING OVERLOOKED BY EVOLUTION...

     There are certain kinds of pains I just don't understand and by not understanding I mean, why do they hurt so much when nothing can be done about them?

     Take tooth pain for example. Pretty much any pain involving the mouth, like abscesses, is dreadfully bad. We've only had anything resembling modern dentistry for, at best, a few hundred years. But we've been anatomically human for almost 200,000 years. Why should tooth pain be quite so exquisite? What's the purpose of it? Sure, something could be done about it now...but what about then?

     And then you have other types of pain that seem to serve no purpose as nothing can be done about it like kidney stones, splinters, broken bones, and giving birth.

     Pain should have a purpose. It should be there to remind you that what you're doing is damaging or potentially so. It's good that fire feels hot because you don't want to be exposed to it. It's good that ice feels cold for the same reason. The initial pain of a splinter is fine. It teaches you to be careful but the continued pain that is felt until you or your body can push it out is just overkill.
      Broken bone pain seems unnecessary too. Yes, nowadays we have casts and splints but what about when you broke your leg back in prehistoric times? You were tiger food now and all the while you're waiting to become a meal, it hurts like fuck. Your body and mind get to have one final, totally unnecessary conversation about how you shouldn't've done what you did à la Scrambles to Chopper: (body) "I told ya! I told ya!" (mind) "I know! I KNOW!!!"...but with pain instead of words.
      And like tooth pain, I don't even know the point of the pain associated with kidney stones. Whatever causes them to form in the first place certainly doesn't happen overnight so their being painful just seems so spiteful on the part of your body, doesn't it?
      Why is childbirth painful? One would think that giving birth, being vital for the continuation of a species, would be a most pleasant experience in order to encourage females to want to do it again. But nope, dorko body here has decided to trip all its pain sensors instead.

       I guess I'm referring to two major types of stupid pain here: inexplicable and fatal. Both are senseless but the latter is especially cruel. Unfortunately evolution could never set up a system to deal with fatal pain because, well...you need survivors to pass along traits. Still, you'd think some sort of mercy would exist for cases like this. At the very minimum such a system could be present in the bones and/or the nervous system.
      Breaking a leg in prehistory pretty much meant death. It means death for any animal today to lose its primary means for locomotion. The same is true for severing an artery. Wouldn't it be much more merciful to the animal (or human) if opiates or some other feel-good chemicals could be released from bone marrow if a bone broke or from the brain if reports of pain went above a certain threshold or if blood pressure dropped below a critical point?

      Let the inevitable end for the animal feel euphoric instead of horrifying. Why shouldn't being mauled by a tiger feel fantastic?

LIFE CAN BE FICKLE...

     While walking to work last night, I thought I had seen something dart across the sidewalk at amazing speed. At first I thought it was one of those eye squigglies, albeit darker than usual or a dark spot from having glanced a bright headlight but no, I saw it had moved into the street. It was a field mouse but a car already on fast approach would prevent the little animal from completing its journey to wherever it was going for whatever it was going to do.

      It was completely a bad luck moment for the mouse. The mouse never wavered in its run. It moved in a quick, straight line to cross the street but it mistimed by all of a second bringing it to an encounter with an object evolution could have never prepared it for and for that, it cost the field mouse his/her life.

      The line between life and death is a thin one indeed...

Its broken body brought forth a tear of blood