Honey, I Shrunk the Kids But They're Dead!

Have you ever seen the movie, Honey I Shrunk the Kids? If you have, you know I'm about to ruin the magic for you!

I was thinking on it some time ago and the thought of how terrifying that experience really would be. Imagine being that size and confronting the terrors that are microbes and parasites! The reality to which you would be subjected would render you catatonic.

Imagine wrestling with a mite or some such! You, a fleshy, soft bag of water, fighting for your life against multitudes of arthropods with their missing spines and spiky, sharp exoskeletons!

I think maybe I should write a short story on it, but Miyazaki adapted the Borrowers in The Secret World of Arietty and beat me to the punch.

Is nothing original anymore?

 

P.S. Happy over-a-decade-since-my-last-post!

Close Finish

Read this first:

http://allthingsd.com/20130102/court-says-negative-yelp-reviews-shouldnt-be-censored/

Here's the problem that this article presents: people are stupid. Not necessarily the one in this article, but the general populous. If that makes me sound pompous and arrogant, then I'll take it.

For your consideration: the worker stuck in a rut. Their boss sucks, they don't feel motivated to work, blah blah, whine, etc. This person has probably never considered to look inside at themselves and consider for one moment that the problems in their work life could be self-induced. The same goes for some negative reviewers of businesses online. Sometimes these people aren't looking outside themselves. Sure they're paying their hard-earned money (and I've heard enough bitching from many anonymous sources for how many people barely lift a finger for their "hard earned money") for some service, but that doesn't mean that they can't have an empathetic ear to what's going on at the business. Maybe the business is swamped, maybe short staffed. These problems may not be under their control. I've read reviews that give one star to a restaurant because they had to wait a little bit for their food. That's it! Now maybe you're opinion about various services from a business are weighted differently than me, I can understand that, I can accept that, but a one star rating based on one aspect of service does not a complete review make.

I'll leave you with this one, from my days in the serving industry:

Me: Thank you for calling Simulated Italian Cuisine Dough Disk with Tomato Sauce & Various Toppings Shanty, how may I help you?
Customer: I'd like to order a pizza for delivery, how long is your wait?
Me: Delivery time is about an hour.
Customer: Ok, well, I have a flight (emphasis added) that leaves in an hour and a half and I want some pizza.
Me: Well, I would highly suggest you find someplace else to go, we cannot guarantee you that the pizza will get there in an hour and you don't want to be late for your flight.

At this point, the customer orders a pizza anyways, calls back 30 minutes later and starts screaming. I tell them they should have taken my suggestion, and that the pizza wasn't guaranteed free because it hadn't even been an hour yet.

In this situation, this idiot would probably have left a scathing review about our business. Was it our fault? No? Will they skew their review in a way that makes them the victim, assuming they could manage to use a computer? Most likely. Who's the real loser here?

I'm not advocating censorship, I'm merely stating that most reviews will be heavily biased, even the good ones, so I'm simply going to ignore the damned things.

Ugh, the masses.

P.S. One sentence reviews are terrible too. "I love this!" <5 rating="" star=""> adds absolutely no value to the rating system. So much of reviews are watered down by these abominations too!

Teh Life

Since I only manage a post a year, something I hopefully will change at some point in my life, I figure I could at least list all the things going on that's kept me from blogging. Isn't that half this blog anyways - posts about why I don't post?

I'm getting married this year, so that's a big time killer in most aspects of my life. It's not a bad thing, but I'm hoping I can get a little more time in doing other things after the wedding's over. Some of you may know her as the non-g/f. It's going on 13 years - time to knot it up.

My fiancée and I have been practicing yoga for about 6 months now. We love it! We were going almost every day for many months, but now it's more of a weekend thing with workload and wedding planning getting in the way.

I've been pushing closer to my dream of becoming a musician as well. Mil (guitar player/coworker/friend) and I have been rehearsing much more. We have some pretty good music making chemistry, with probably about 20 songs in various stages of completion under our belt. I feel as soon as we get some lyrics down, we can maybe start performing them to actual people!

I have lost my two girl piggies as of now, Libby and Linny. They are very much missed.

I have gained 3 fur sons, all guinea pigs, each with his own distinct personality. Henry, the big cantaloupe of a pig, a.k.a. Mr. Butterscotch Ripple, or King Pig is the friendliest. He comes up to you in his cage, which is extremely rare in guinea pigs. He's a cuddler.

Kip, who I truly love as a guinea pig, would be someone I would hate were he a human being. He sets up situations with the other pigs like he's defenseless and pathetic, but then tries to bully them and snap at them when they're least expecting it. I'm pretty sure he's on the bottom rung of the pecking order, but he strives to be first. It will never happen. Ever. Henry is about twice his size, and even though Kip has fattened himself up enough to almost weigh as much as Henry, he just doesn't have what it takes for alpha pig.

Emile is our youngest. He's cute/ridiculous/energetic/punk all rolled into one. He's very squirrel-like, zipping about the cage, always curious to explore new areas. I call him punk and ridiculous because of his fur. All the boys are some part Abyssian, but Emile has some long haired pig in him. It's on his back end and makes him look like he's wearing a grass skirt. This fluffy spiked out hair also gives him a punk rock look from the front.

Definitely an anomalous group. We've had Henry and Kip for about a year, and Emile for couple of months and they've kept us busy.

So besides working my 40+ hours a week, this is what I've been up to.

Sensibility In the Time of the Internet

What is real and what is worth it in this age of the internet? Most articles I see (and admittedly, I don't always go far out of my range to read good articles) are so completely polarized or garner such polarizing viewpoints, it's a waste of time and breath to grace them with opinion. Worse, is that many people actually waste their time spouting uninformed garbage in the comments just to rile each other up.

As we move forward in this age, I'm becoming more withdrawn of my opinion; holding my cards close. Why should I even put my thoughts out there when someone is most likely going to attack me? How many of these conversations are repeated in different areas only to find the same types of people talking about it? How does one do anything about this? I'd like to think people put their opinions out there to be heard, however none of them seem to take any action on the matter and just opinionate. The hard truth is that there's probably sensibility in the middle. Both sides of the argument must be examined and the best parts must be ferreted out. At any rate, any change seen to a particular area will most likely result from collaboration or ceding lines from both sides.

Delta

How does one encourage true change in America? Lately, I've been sending many petitions via facebook/twitter for people to sign for various causes to affect change. I read about environmentalism, or lack thereof, I read about the corporate stranglehold on our country, I read about human rights, internet rights, and agriculture. But mostly, I read about many people's disappointment with the state of things, whether informed or not. I was reading an article about additives in our food supply. Many people make snide or sarcastic comments, some make encouraging ones, but the fact is nothing is getting done. We can all sit around and sign petitions all day day "pressuring" governing bodies and representatives, but if they don't do what we ask, there are no consequences. We simply just shrug and blame the other and joke of our plight. These are our lives that are affected. If we cannot stand up and fight for this, our life, what are we doing? I feel like many members of this country are simply complacent. I think the turning point will be revolution. The situation in America is going to get much worse before it gets better, and to change things in this country, lives will probably be lost. And that's why I think there's no real action right now. There are no consequences for those who turn a blind eye on the overall good and instead opt for personal gain. I'm not one for violent conflict, but these "pressures" we put on the governing bodies aren't working. They just keep getting paid by a corporation and do its bidding rather than listen to the common man. I realize the United States government was designed specifically such that change would be slow, but the most glaring fact is that change is occurring in the opposite direction - it's changing to the benefit of the corporation, the money. Greed in America has been covertly hiding here, overtly showing there, but it's the lifeblood of the current state of things. I'm truly at a loss for what to do, since I feel the complacency is abound here. Even I don't have time to truly affect change, I feel, at least not in every way I want to. That's the other issue. Many of us are so incapacitated by our choices in life that we lose the time and ability to make evolutionary change for our species. But to do that takes great sacrifice. Would you rather free yourself from what holds you and do what you want, or sacrifice your life in service to humanity? I guess that's a question every person must ask him or her self. I've been considering blogging about steps I think will "fix" America, which I think would be fun. Let's do this. Let's try to really make a difference. I'll stand by you. For those interested, here was the article I was reading. Take a gander through the comments section.

Lost and Amusing

The saying, "It's always the last place you look," is amusing. Of course it's the last place you look, because you find it. Although it implies that the search was long and difficult, but fruitful. Let's hope I wonder back here this year more than I have in the past.

May luck shine on you all.

Meditation

How long has it been that you've gone without a distraction? When was the last time you sat in silence with a blank mind or just with your own mind? I find myself asking this question more and more often these days.

Years ago, I bought a book called, "Awakening Your Psychic Powers". Usually, I regard psychics with a mixed opinion. Some of them are hokey, some are credible, and some of what they do can be described similarly. I've always had a fascination with psychics, so I bought this book knowing I would pick it up and read it eventually. The author bases his teachings (I may be saying this wrong, the teachings may be Edgar Cayce's reiterated) on those of famous psychic Edgar Cayce.

It's completely not how I imagined it would be in terms of writing and what it teaches. I guess I expected something that would have a mix of outright incredulous promises with some realistic practices, but surprisingly, it had been most of the latter. Some of the conclusions the author drew seemed abrupt and not well reasoned, but he always sighted studies. However, the guidelines it gave for building basic intuition (i.e. psychic powers) are great. It's been a few years now since I've read the book, and unfortunately, haven't given the time to develop anything. It is at the forefront of things I want to do, but I have difficulty in unplugging myself from technology, though you wouldn't be able to tell with how often I post on this blog.

Others who know me well, may be somewhat shocked that a scientific mind, if I may be so bold to call myself such, would consider something like this credible at all. If I can say nothing else, it's that I have an open mind and I think you should to, whether or not it's for psychics or for trying a new food. Though I haven't developed my intuitive powers, I have delved further in the world of spirituality and other new age practices since reading this book and I'll probably share things as they come up.

At any rate, give yourself some time in the next few days to just turn off every distraction around you and tune into the world around you, even if it's just sitting on your couch. If you have family, try it with them. Truly try to feel yourself in the present when you do. Maybe nothing will happen, maybe something will. Talk with someone about your experience. You could even post about it in the comments if you please. You may be surprised.

My Mind is Open Spaces

This is some serious shit right here. I mean, as soon as you read this, spread the word immediately - no hesitating! Family, friends, work-related acquaintances, perhaps even enemies, depending on their ability to spread the good word.

I learned late last year, or maybe it was earlier this year that one should only use one space after a sentence. I thought it was fallacy, but I learned otherwise. It took some time to correct the anomaly, but I was vigilant about the change and was eventually successful, and it was far less painful than I anticipated.

I was enlightened at a friend's party about this corrupt aberration of the typing process. What's more, it's persisted for so long and it's still being taught in schools - after all, yours truly was learned in this manner.

This disgusting crime against the typed word can be researched here. I feel it my duty to inform you, the reader of this, but do not hesitate! Think of all the extra space on the web you can conserve without all of those extra spaces! Conserve people, conserve! Leave room for our children, and our childrens' children. Please, won't somebody think of the kids!