Break

So I have taken a break from writing on this blog. This has happened for three reasons:

1: I think I am suffering from malaise and apathy about what is happening in the world. In a word I feel: detached.

2: I have not been travelling much so I do not have many fun and interesting stories to tell about my travels.

3: I have been really busy with work, and I am also participating in NANO again this year, so what little time I have between work and hanging out at the pub has been spent working on that.

I hope to start writing here on a more regular basis, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon.

Shotguns: Not the best for Zombie killing

Shotguns are great guns. They allow for a lot of damage to be dealt in a single shot. They cripple, maim and kill, but they are not the best weapon for fighting Zombies. The reason is simple: the only way to kill a zombie is to destroy its head. Now, there  is no doubt, that a shotgun will make a zombie’s brain pan explode like a melon, but there is a problem. Shots fired from them scatter, and they do not have much of a range. This means, that for the shotgun to be effective against zombies, the undead cannibals have to be close, and if that is the case you are already dead. And if they are not close enough for a guaranteed head shot, you are going to hurt your cause more than help it.

A zombie can still function with its limbs and torso destroyed. Its jaw will continue to work and it will never stop trying to close with you so that it can bite you. If there is only one zombie, this is not much of an issue as you can blow its legs and arms off and then safely approach to deal the killing blow to its head. The thing is, though, zombies are rarely found in isolation. They roam in packs, and the only thing you accomplish by blasting their legs then is to make it more difficult for you to escape. Sure, you can fill them full of shot, maybe even taking one or two down as you do so, but the beasts will still be moving, functional, and dangerous.

No, for killing zombies, single shot or semi-automatic weapons are the best, especially pistols since they do not require much room to wield, and can be used in one hand without compromising too much. See, when fighting zombies, quickness and mobility are essential. Shotguns, while cool, require two hands, and often need pumping. This means that the time between shots is too great. A pistol on the other hand, whether a revolver or a magazine equipped one had a rate of fire equal to how fast you can pull the trigger. Also, they generally hold more ammunition, are lighter, and easier to wield.

The point is that while shotguns are cool, they are not the most effective tool to take out a zombie, no matter what movies and video games tell us.

Thoughts?

Just one more reason why health care reform is needed

I stumbled across this article and the only word I have to describe how I felt after reading it is stunned. I wish I could say that I was shocked or appalled or angry, but I wasn’t I was simply stunned. The anger came later, not much later mind you, but it was not my first reaction.

Denying health insurance to a four month old because he is too fat? Seriously? This is just ridiculous. Sure, he’s chubby, but you know what, it’s not like he has a lot of chances for exercise, and it’s not like he’s pounding happy meals and big gulps. He’s a freaking baby. He feeds off of his mother’s breast milk, sleeps and shits. That’s what babies do. And they gain weight. This is an infant we are talking about here, not someone who can make their own decisions as to what they should or should not eat. He can’t just decide to run over to the gym and work off those extra pounds. Hell, he can’t even walk yet.

This whole business of pre-existing conditions is out of control. People who have these conditions are most likely to be the ones to need to visit doctors. They are the ones who need the most help, and yet they are denied that help because of the very condition they need help with. Sure, sometimes they can still get insurance, but it is generally much more expensive, and it does not always cover what needs to be covered. Also, it is not necessarily someone’s fault if they have a pre-existing condition. For example: I have a heart murmur. I was born with it; it is not something that stems from my mistreatment of my body. It is a small one and not a serious health concern, but I have one. I wonder if I would be denied health insurance because of it. I don’t know, and I hope that I never have to find out because right now I live in a country where health care is provided to all residents and people legally working here (I belong to the latter group), and I hope that by the time I return to the U.S. and start looking into health insurance that this whole business of denying care because of pre-existing conditions will be nothing more than a bad memory.

The other thing that gets me about this article and this whole pre-existing thins is the rationale for why this particular insurance company denies coverage to those with these health concerns:

“If health care reform occurs, underwriting will go away. We do it because everybody else in the industry does it,” said Dr. Doug Speedie, medical director at Rocky Mountain Health Plans, the company that turned down Alex.

That’s right, he actually said that they deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions because everybody else does it. How ludicrous is that? Is he a five year old? It makes no sense, and it results in people not getting the coverage and help they need, which of course could result in their pain and death. The man is a doctor for crying out loud (though I wonder if he is a medical doctor, or a doctor in the sense that he has his PhD), how can he be so callous, cruel, and stupid. To him I say he better hope that all the other companies don’t start jumping off bridges because, well, you know….

Random Word related things that irritate me

When people spell loose when they mean lose.

For example: I hope the Sharks don’t loose their game tonight; or, I am loosing my mind. The correct sentences should be I hope the Sharks don’t lose tonight. I am losing my mind.

This is  a trivial thing, to be sure, and something spell checking on the computer won’t catch, but it is a common and rampant error and it gets under my skin, especially since it is so easy to avoid.

Definitions of lose: to stop having something because it has been taken or destroyed He will lose his job next week if he doesn’t start working harder; to be unable to find someone or something If your head was not attached to your body you would lose it; to not win a competition I want the Red Wings to lose at least fifty games this season.

Definitions of loose: Not firmly fixed in position The floorboards are loose; Not kept together as part of a group or container The loose apples rolled around in the bed of the truck; Clothing that is too big and does not fit correctly The pants are so loose that they sag down below his butt.

Aside from spelling, these two words have nothing in common (at least in terms of their usage/meaning) and this rampant abuse/misuse of loose and lose needs to stop.

Something else that irks me: when people use irregardless. Why does this bother me? Well, because it is not, in fact, a word. It is  made up and nonsensical and needs to be purged from our collective consciousness. Just use regardless instead; it is a word and it is the correct word.

And the last thing I will talk about right now is the misuse of to and too.

To is a preposition that is used in a myriad of ways:

Showing purpose: I came to help

Going somewhere: I am going to the store. Do you need anything? There are many other examples that I don’t feel like getting into right now.

Too, on the other hand, is an adverb that places emphasis or indicates excess: I drank too much last night. The music is too loud.

It also indicates including additional people or things: I am going to the movies, would you like to come too. I am thirsty, are you thirsty too?

Like loose and lose, the difference in spelling between to and too is the matter of a single “o,” but that difference is a major one since to and too, much like lose and loose mean completely different things. So please, for my sake, and for the sake of intelligent people everywhere, pay attention to how you use these words, and make sure you use the correct one in the correct instance.

And never use irregardless, unless you are trying to be funny. Even then, though, it should not be used because it just makes you look like a moron, and nobody likes that feeling regardless of what they might tell you.

Rewriting the Word of God

Okay, we all know that man is fallible, and God (if he/she/it exists–and I am not saying he/she/it does) is not, but if we needed more proof of this than we already have, we need look no further than conservapedia.com, a conservative website based on the popular, user generated bastion of gray area between lies and truth wiki model.

Their mission: to get rid of liberal bias in the Bible. Yep, you read that right. These folks seem to think that there are some major misinterpretations/misrepresentations in the Bible that give the Good Book a too liberal leaning bias. Now this may seem just ridiculous (because it is) but it is more than that. It is an attempt by folks who say they believe in God and his Word to redefine what those two concepts are. In my mind it borders on blasphemy and speaking against God.

To be fair, there is a lot of bias in the Bible (I have not read it all, but the parts that I have read/heard are full of bias against women and unbelievers especially), but I am not so sure there is really a “liberal bias.” Sure, Jesus went into the temple and kicked the money lenders out, but I do not necessarily think that means he would have been against a free market system. He was against usury, that’s for sure, but that is not a “liberal” concept so much as it is a “human one.” No one should be put into so much debt that they can never pay it off, only to be punished more because they cannot make ends meet. That would be like calling the cry against slavery a “liberal” idea. Sure, it may have sprung from “liberal minded” people, but it is not a so called liberal idea in my mind. It is a humanist idea and issue. No one should be a slave, just as no one should drown in debt because of dishonest money lenders.

But even if the Bible does have a liberal slant (and with all that killing and raping and murder and power grabbing I don’t see how it could) those who believe, truly believe, should accept that–it is the Word of God after all. Now I know that this is not the first time the Bible has been changed or amended or added to (the Book of Mormon anyone?), but once you start having so called believers changing/reinterpreting the Word of God to justify their actions in the present day the whole Book kind of loses its value, and you just help reinforce the idea that God does not really exist. I mean, if his words can be changed just to suit any one group’s purpose, what credibility do they have? And if they somehow maintain their integrity and credibility, well then how much credibility will those that set out to change the Word of God have.

Religion–no matter which one–is a matter of faith, and to mess with the tenets of that faith, to change passages and words because they do not fit your life-view is a direct denouncement of your so called faith. It is akin to saying: I believe in God and I believe in the Bible, except for this passage and this passage, and instead of trying to reconcile those contradictory/uncomfortable making passages I am just going to change them so that they fit the beliefs that I want them to teach, and not the ones they actually are.

Again, in the interests of fairness, I am not a believer and I really do not care who wants to do what to the Bible. Or rather, I would like to say I don’t care, but there is a part of me that is repulsed by this. Why? I am repulsed because so many people base their faith and their lives around what is in that book, and if it gets changed to advocate a more blood-thirsty/free market social Darwinism approach to religion and life, it could have a profound affect on how people worship in the coming years. Of course, people would have to buy into this new “Conservative Bible” and I would hope that the chances of that happening are slim, but you never know, do you? At the very least we are looking at the possible creation of a new branch of Christianity “Ultra-Conservative” and they will have their own Good Book, written and edited by them to express their values and belief systems. And so what if it goes against other versions of the Word. After all, who is to say that those earlier translators weren’t off the mark and the “Conservative” take on the Bible isn’t the true word of the Almighty?

Week Two

It’s a new week here at TUL and I am excited. Well maybe not excited exactly as the sun is shining and the sky is blue (something rare for the autumn in Liberec) and I would rather be outside enjoying the final vestiges of warm weather, but I am ready. I am teaching some classes that I have not taught yet since we had a holiday last Monday which meant no classes.

I am not worried though as it means that I get to meet new students and they get to meet me. I just hope they bring their textbooks to class because if they don’t it will be hard to get any work done. Sure, I could bring some photocopies of the pages they need from my book (and I will) but that will only get us so far since a lot of the pages in the book that I use have been marked by previous teachers with the answers, which would not be a good way to encourage that students actually do the exercises since the answers would be there already, just staring them in the face.

I guess I will see, and I might have to improvise–admittedly not one of my stronger suits–but I have no real concern about things working out.

Absurdity

The other night I went out to a pub with some friends of mine, one of whom is a Czech girl who I have had a bit of a crush on since May, and for a time there (May and June) things were looking pretty good. It seemed that she reciprocated some kind of feelings for me, but then something happened and I could tell that I was just in the friend zone, which kind of sucks but it is better than nothing. Still, it is frustrating because she and I get along really well and we seem to be able to relate to one another on a deeper than surface level, and I must admit I was kind of getting my hopes up that something would happen between us and that we would be together.

So anyway, flash forward to the other night and the first time she and I have seen each other since June. For the purposes of this post I will call her Sally, that is not her name but there is some sensitive-esque information that will be covered and I want to protect the innocent blah blah blah . We met at the pub and caught up over a drink. She mentioned that she had been depressed most of the summer and when she wasn’t sleeping she had been just sitting on the couch watching television. Finally it had gotten so bad that she went to a psychiatrist who gave her some anti-depressants and things are going much better for her now.

I was not surprised when she told me that she had been depressed, not because I thought she was when we had been hanging out in May and June, but because I seem to attract/be attracted to those of the female persuasion that are not entirely emotionally stable. I do not know why this is, but generally speaking my relationship record speaks volumes in support of this. It is not a matter of I want to fix them (it is impossible for anyone to fix anyone else), but maybe it is a matter of just waning to help. To be there for them in their times of crisis. That makes me sound kind of pathetic and extremely altruistic, neither of which I really am.

She went home for the summer, and while there met a boy that she had gone to high school with, who was also suffering from some kind of depression. Sally then went on to further explain some of the other characteristics this guy has, and while I admit it could have been strange to sit there and listen to her talk about her new boy when I am still crushing on her a bit, it really wasn’t, or at least not until she dropped the big bomb about her new beau, but it is not time for that just yet.

She told me that he had problems, he was depressed, he had been drinking a lot, and he is bi-sexual. She does not really care about any of these things, and she said that she appreciated his openness and honesty. He tells her exactly what he is feeling, what he is thinking, and what he is going through. Sounds like every woman’s dream (except for the general instability that accompanies depression and possible alcoholism), right? A man who listens and shares. He’s like a woman with a penis or something. Then she said that he had even more problems:

He’s a pedophile.

That’s right, this smart and funny girl who I have a crush and was interested in me at least a little at some point is dating a depressed bi-sexual pedophile, and she says it really doesn’t bother her. Sure she was surprised at first–who wouldn’t be?–but after getting over the initial shock she decided that she did not really care. As she said, she is not planning on starting a family with this man, and she doesn’t like kids anyway. She is bitterly sarcastic and forthcoming–two of the things that I really like about her. Also, she said that she just had to make sure to keep him away from kids, so if they were to go to the park then they would not go to the playground, and if there were kids in other areas of the park then they would go someplace where there weren’t kids.

Her pederast boyfriend is in treatment for his horrendous desires, so there is that, but I must admit that I had a hard time not going ape-shit when she told me this. I wanted to ask her what the hell she was thinking dating a pedophile. I wanted to ask her how she could not have a problem with it, no matter how much she dislikes children. My skin started to crawl and I started to wonder how I could sit there and share a drink with someone who would not only date a pederast, but not really care that they are one. I took a deep breathe, though, and decided not to get all high and mighty and righteous on her. After all, she is not a pedophile, she is just dating one, and regardless she is a good (if messed up) friend.

This did get me to thinking though about how piss poor my potential as a mate must be. I mean here is this girl who denied a relationship with me and is now dating a depressed bi-sexual pedophile who is also, apparently, on the verge of becoming a full blown alcoholic. What does that say about me? Well, not much I guess, since she is the one with issues or whatever, but it still does nothing to help my confidence. Sure, I can hear some of you out there saying/thinking: be glad you aren’t with that psycho; or, would you really want to be with someone who would date a pedophile? These are valid points, and I will try to focus on them rather than the shame at being rejected for a pedophile.

This one’s for Phil aka insectcalm

Too Cute

First Week: Done

So the first week of teaching is over and I am quite glad about it. It wasn’t a terribly stressful or difficult week, but it seemed to take a lot longer than it should have, especially when you consider that we had Monday off, which means I didn’t teach like three or four classes that I am supposed to. Next week, and the rest of the semester, I think, is going to be hell because not only will I have more classes here at the university, but also because I start teaching a new class for the language school that employs me. Sure, the extra money will be nice, but I don’t know if it is really worth it as I am a lazy sod most of the time.

Oh well, you do what you gotta do, right?