Good Bye Pluto

So, today, they decided that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Man, that is rough. I mean, you show up for work every day for 800 billion years and then one day bam! You're out on your ass.

I heard he got a great severance package though.

Crom!!!

This is not exactly new news, but, they are going to "re-boot" Conan the Barbarian.

Why?

WHY?????

What is wrong with the first?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Hey, you want to redo the sound so I hear sword noises coming from the left speaker and then the right speaker when Conan chops off Thulsa Doom's head? Go for it. Other than that, leave it alone. Seriously, are they that full of themselves that they think they can match that soundtrack? It can't happen. Nothing beats that soundtrack. So, you, ask, can't they just use it again? Of course not. Then, the movie would not be a stand alone film and would always be contrasted to the original.

I bet, when Thulsa Doom turns into a snake, Samuel L. Jackson is going to do a cameo and say "We got muthafuckin' snakes in this muthafuckin' temple!"

ARRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Anyway, this leads me to another topic I would like to discuss. Why Valeria, Conan's love interest in the movie, is the best girlfriend from any movie of all time.

Valeria

At the outset, I want to make it clear that am not going the “she looks hot when swinging a sword” route (even though that could be enough). This woman was love personified. Let me explain.

Conan leaves Valeria flat to go on what was a suicide mission to kill Thulsa Doom. He does not even bother to say "see ya!" Shortly thereafter, Conan is crucified. Despite the fact that he left her in such a manner, she still loves him and tracks him down. Why? She knows the golden rule about real men: “sometimes, a man’s got to do what a man’s go to do.”

O.K., she tracks him down, and, if that were not enough, she gives up her own life so that Conan may live. Let me restate that: she pays for Conan’s life with her own. But, does she rub it in his face? No. She only says the following: “All the gods, they cannot sever us. If I were dead and you were still fighting for life, I'd come back from the darkness. Back from the pit of hell to fight at your side.”

You might dismiss this as pillow talk, but, she really did. She came back from the dead, (maybe not back the pit of hell), looking all hot in that Valkyrie garb, to fight by Conan’s side when he needed it. Let that sink in for a minute: She came back from the dead to fight by Conan’s side when he needed it. But, then, as if that were not enough, she doesn’t get all sappy. No, because she knows her man, she simply asks Conan “Do you want to live forever?” And, just like that, vanishes.

That is the woman for me, the kind of woman who would come back from the dead for you (but not in a creepy zombie way) and fight by your side. But, you might ask, isn’t she damaged goods? I mean, a single girl, living in Zamora, working as a thief is probably not the most savory of types. Oh contraire, and I quote: “All my life I've been alone. Many times I've faced death with no one to know. I would look into the huts and the tents of others in the coldest dark and I would see figures holding each other in the night. But I always passed by.”

Valeria is the Number One girlfriend from any movie ever because she is real love and real dedication personified and, well, she looks really hot when she swings a sword.

P.S. January 5, 2006 - As per the suggestion of a friend of mine, the scene where the the demons attempt to take Conan away while he is being defended by Valeria could be re-done. I agree with this.

In a real double bind...

So, there I am, at the Monmouth Beach fair with my loving daughter who is really excited about just about everything we are doing. She sees a stuffed animal she wants. It is a prize at the "water gun" game where, for those of you who have recently come out from under a rock, you shoot a little stream of water, from a water pistol, into a target area while other contestants attempt to do the same. The contestant who shoots the target with the most efficiency, in an allotted time period, wins a prize.

I figure I have this stuffed animal locked. I mean, I qualified as an expert marksman, still keep up my shooting skills, and, well, am going up against a bunch of kids and a house frau. Might as well give me the Elvis-monkey (the stuffed animal in question) before we even start!

My daughter, who is not even two, is saying "monkey...monkey" and I am going to get it for her dammit.

Then, with my peripheral vision, I see a final contestant take the slot next to me. I leer over like Clint Eastwood... and there she is, the final contestant who will pay their two bucks to be beat by me....

and... she is a little girl, maybe about ten...

and she is in a wheelchair.

From my left ear: "monkey! monkey"

From my right eye: ten year-old girl in a wheelchair.

Seeing me leering over, the little girl asks: "Hi, how are you today?"

"Fine." I reply, not asking how she is doing because her reply might rightly be: "considering I am a little girl in a wheelchair and you are going to prevent me from winning this game, not so peachy."

one breath

"monkey"

one breath

little girl in a wheelchair

half a breath

"EVERYBODY ON THEIR MARKS!"

Time stands still.

Some would say that I am in a real "Catch-22". However, I think that would be something of a misuse of the term as a "Catch-22" describes a situation in which an individual has to accomplish two actions which are mutually dependent on the other action being completed first. (e.g. to get a job, you need job experience, but, to get job experience, you need a job). Others might say I have a "Hobson's choice", however, that is incorrect as well because a "Hobson's choice" is a false choice (e.g. you can have a Model T in any color you want, so long as it is black.") The best way to describe this situation is a "double bind."

Loosely speaking, a double bind occurs when the following hold true:

Because of the nature of my situation:
I must (or cannot) do X.
I must (or cannot) do Y, which conflicts with X.
Any commentary on the absurdity or untenability of the situation being forbidden.

Thus, the essence of a double-bind is two irreconcilable and conflicting demands, neither of which can be ignored, which leave me torn both ways in such a way that whichever demand they try to meet, the other demand cannot be met.

That was me. Do I satisfy the "monkey" or let the girl in a wheelchair win?

Weighing the options, a little voice in my head wanted to exclaim "mu!" and walk away from the contest.

GO!!!!

Since my finger was already on the trigger, the water started hitting the target from the get go, the little girl mistakenly thought you should pull the trigger after the start. I was going to win.

"monkey!"

I watched as the indicators of who was winning raised vertically along the board in front of me. I was beating everyone.

Then, without even knowing why, my finger went off the trigger.

I threw it and I sighed in relief.

However, when the final bell sounded, the little girl did not win, it was some brat who started pounding his chest like he was some WWE star and calling his friends, and by association the rest of us who lost, losers.

The girl did not seem upset at all. Rather, she seemed to accept the loss with more grace than I would have... "Oh well" she said, and gave me a smile. Not a fake smile performed out of courtesy, but a real smile that conveyed a sense of wishing me real well being. I smiled back, a real smile, that I hoped conveyed an appreciation for someone actually conveying real emotion with a facial gesture rather than merely pretending to have it.

"monkey?"

My heart sinks. "No, honey, no monkey." How about we go on the choo-choo?

Dropping the idea of the monkey like a hot potato, my daughter exclaims: "CHOO-CHOO!!!" and off we go.

On the way to the train, I was trying to contemplate what the life lesson was here.

Then I thought about the little girl, unfazed by the loss at the contest, who managed to convey a real feeling of kindness in her smile.

Then it came to me, the lesson to be learned is that life is not as serious as I sometimes make it out to be.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

First and foremost, I would like to extend a hearty "job well done" to the fine members of MI-5, and all other agencies, foreign and domestic, working in conjunction with MI-5's efforts, for their thwarting of a very serious and very real terrorist plot.

Seriously. No sarcasm. Job well done.

However, their fine efforts are not the subject of this entry.

While the handcuffs that bound the suspects are not even cooled to room temperature, out come the conspiracy theorists claiming that the entire thing was some sort of "plot" to make people scared into voting for certain parties.

What is wrong with these people?

Seriously, if one of you conspiracy theorists is reading this, please, e-mail me and explain to me why it makes for sense to believe an elaborately intricate plot to somehow "scare" voters into thinking one way makes more sense over a simpler, more logical, explanation that there were actually people who wanted to blow up airlines in mid-air for the sake of their cause. Please, let me know how this thought process plays out.

But, before you do, let me key you in on the meaning of the this blog entry's title.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem translates into "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity."

This phrase was coined by English logician, and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. You might even remember that he was the protagonist in the story The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. In modernity, this phrase is most often used a heuristic maxim that advises economy, i.e., parsimony, or simplicity in scientific theories. Occam's razor stands for the premise that any explanation of a phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible. In this regard, the person formulating a theory should eliminate those assumptions that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory like a razor would "shave off" unnecessary hair. The principle is often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae.

Keeping this in mind, please, any conspiracy theorists out there, explain to me why it makes for sense to believe an elaborately intricate plot to somehow "scare" voters into thinking one way over a simpler, more logical, explanation that there were actually people who wanted to blow up airlines in mid air for the sake of their cause.

Please... I really want to know.

Can I hypothesize?

My hypothesis is as follows:

Thesis: Conspiracy theorists consider themselves aligned with a political party and/or cause.

Thesis: Conspiracy theorists do not choose a political party and/or cause without believing in the tenets that the political party espouses.

Thesis: Conspiracy theorists consider themselves to be "smarter" than the other members of their population.

Hypothesis: Morbidly exacerbated senses of partisanship and hubris in conspiracy theorists have led those conspiracy theorists to the conclusion that any fact which is not concomitant with the well being of the political party which they consider to be the "correct" party, must not be true. Rather, any such fact must be the result of a "plot" on the part of political party not deemed to be "correct" in an attempt to undermine the "correct" political party.

In other words, since the conspiracy theorist, who can not be wrong, considers themselves a member of party X, any fact that inures to the benefit of party Y must not be true because that would threaten the factual underpin which makes the conspiracy theorist consider him/herself a member of party X.

See how that worked? Simple, rational, logically sound.

Try it sometime.. its fun!!!

P.S. Things like this happen during an election year because, in most democracies, every year is an election year on some level of government.

Political correctness has, officially, gone too far.

This is a real excerpt from the Yankee calendar for this year.

Political correctness has, officially, gone too far.

I try not to curse but....

...to the people sitting in my train car on the 6:09 southbound NJ Coastline on August 2, 2006:

Fuck you, all of you, every single one of you. Yes, fuck you too.

You all saw the pregnant woman, with sweat running down her face and soaking her shirt, get on the train after you all sat down. You all managed to raise your paper a little higher, pull out your blackberries, look deeper into your book and close your eyes so as to pretend not to notice her looking for a seat as she walked down the aisle.

I was sitting on the end of the car she did not enter from and she walked past ALL of you sorry excuses for human beings until she got to me.

Yes, I was the guy who offered her my seat and shot all of you a look.

There was one reason, and one reason only, why I got up for her:

I got up for her because it is the human thing to do you worthless pieces of shit.

In parting, I would, once again, like to extend a hearty "fuck you" to all off you.

I hope your ass felt really good in that seat, you paid for with your humanity.

What the Hell?

I just took a glance at my pay-report, you know, the thing you get instead of a check when you have direct deposit.

As of August 1st, I have paid over $11,000 in Federal taxes alone. This does not include Social Security tax, Medicare tax or any of my State taxes.

I remember years when I made less than I pay in taxes now.

I am not one of those people clamoring ffor the good-old days under the Articles of Confederation, but, jumpin' Jehosephat, how can this be??????