No Use For A Title

RIP Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II. (I know the Pope isn't dead yet; I'll get to that. Stupid humans and your linear reading methods.)

I can't understand the fixation much of the religious world (read: Christianity) has with keeping bodies alive even when the mind is gone and the brain is close behind. It really is a soul trap, like the last South Park said. (Dogma did it better, though.)

They do have one thing right, though: Their last rites. They have alternate explanations and methods that imply that it isn't *only* meant for the dying, but let's not kid ourselves here. It's understandable to want to do something like the last rites before someone dies; it's easier to say goodbye while someone is still there, before you actually have to.

...or so I've heard.

And on this day, the cereal tower hath fallen; and the cat people rejoice.

Before the dawning of the sun on that day, Lord Bater looked out over the world, and saw it reborn again, as if some cosmic author had restored it from a backup: a backup created before the rise and fall of the second scion.

I saw a vision of Albert Einstein in a crease in my pants...nay, it did not impart any wisdom.

But all is not lost; the ghosts of the upper level are finally placated, with living souls inhabiting the area once more.

Yea, the bearer of pizza and even of breadsticks hath left an offering at the holy altar, and it was good.

Before the end, all will fall silent and the goals of the last Baterian will be reached (though not at the same time, due to the nature of things).

It is finished. (Exactly what "it" is, I leave to the ages.)

When they left me here, they turned on the furnace for some dumb reason. It is set to 70 F, which is way too high. I prefer temperatures between 30 and 40.

When the furnace comes on, I feel...sleepy. I wonder if it's carbon monoxide.

Oh well, I don't need...anything, really. hmm.

"She managed to articulate the first two vowel sounds, first articulating AHHHHHHH and then virtually screaming WAAAAAAAA," the motion said.

Oh my God.

There's so much more I could say, but why bother?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/25/schiavo/index.html

I gave myself a pretty mean papercut today* and, to my chagrin, my blood was red.**

*For anyone who may be wondering why it was able to affect me, I offer this explanation. My "Plot Immunity", while 7th-rank (out of 6), only protects me from life-threatening situations. Since I've regained the ability to clot since Florida, a papercut is hardly a threat.

**Yes, that's it.

"In cases like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life."

A quote from CNN.com made by President Bush - no more quotation marks, unfortunately - regarding Terri "I'm-A-Vegetable-With-A-Liquefied-Brain" Schiavo.

Oh, sweet irony, how I have missed thee.

I could go into a spiel about how a life like that really isn't living, but then I'd be a hypocrite too.

If I still had Hatred.doc, this would probably go there.

Lately when I look in the mirror, I sometimes don't recognize myself. I'm not sure what it is; the color of my face, the way I carry myself, the look in my eyes...I don't know. If I look long enough, I can begin to recognize that it's me, but it's still a situation I'm unaccustomed to.

It's possible that the two main parts of my being are still in conflict: I often reflect on how much better off each would be without the other. It's always been that way, but the conflict used to be more cooperative than competitive.

Once in a while I have wondered what death would be like. Sometimes I can't imagine anything after death other than nothingness. Sometimes I can't imagine dying at all...I guess that's the Baterian talking.

I wonder where it will go when I die. I probably won't be reincarnated with it, if I am at all. These days there are too many born with the requirements for that to happen.

I wonder if I'll remember anything about this life if I am given another one. Considering the fact that most memories are stored in the brain, which is part of the mutable body, that isn't likely either. [Mention the parallel memories later.] I can't remember anything from any other past lives I may or may not have had, but I don't try to look back quite that far.

Until recently I was trying to understand...things. [Staying true to the tradition of Hatred.doc, undefined nouns and verbs will remain so, as I will not forget what they mean as long as the document is of any use to me. As horrible as my memory is, it is one of the things - if not the thing - that I treasure most.] The problem with my understanding was that I was trying to have a complete explanation; given the limited nature of human understanding, no one can be sure he or she understands anything completely. Once I took that into account, along with a couple of other theorems and/or postulates, I had a suitable understanding of things.

It wasn't that I'd already figured it out, it was that there was nothing to figure out. Actually, I'm not sure if that's the right way to word it; it may be backwards again. I'm still not sure if the explanation I have is sufficient, or even if it would bother me if it wasn't. But, I'm already halfway through applying the DGAF Principle, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

If only everything was so easy.

"That was the last and greatest demand that Heisenberg made on his friendship with you. To be understood when he couldn't understand himself. And that was the last and greatest act of friendship for Heisenberg that you performed in return. To leave him misunderstood."

...

*performs a bastardized snort/hmph*

Got my second Entrepreneurship exam back today. I did "better" on this one, getting an A. Why the "quotation marks"? Because I "like" them. And because I got 69 points out of 100.

That's good, though; the average was 59.

ah, the power of curves. [To be fair, a few of the big 12-point questions were crappy.]

Now, I have to get to work on revising a paper I should have revised over the last 2 weeks, as it is due before the end of the day today.

Good thing I have no distractions.

Except for dinner.

And maybe TV.

That's about it.

...yeah, about it.

Spring break is over, even though spring hasn't actually begun, date-wise or weather-wise. Somehow, that is only appropriate. I'm back at school, in the computer lab again. They changed the way the lab works now; instead of getting unlimited black-and-white printing and paying for color, each person gets a "quota" amount that they can print (of any type) without having to buy a higher quota. This is no doubt thanks to the idiots and assholes who print more than one copy of a 100+ page powerpoint on a weekly basis. No, that's not an exaggeration, for once. I think I'll print at exactly the quota (even though it's higher than I would ever need to use) just because.

Nothing else to report as of now; maybe later in the week.

When I decided to go back and use the spell check thing, Firefox usefully blocked the popup from appearing. *victory pose*

As you probably didn't know, I have begun buying parts for my next computer. It'll be one fast mother fucker, except for its connection speed...I'll probably take care of that later too. I've only bought about...oh...$500 in parts so far (not really looking for the "best deals" but any help [unlikely] in finding them would be appreciated) and I have $150 in rebate forms to fill out. It's not so much the time but the attention to detail that throws most people off. I am exceptional at paying attention to details (if they are present in some direct form) so that's not a problem. I had something else to say, but I lost it just now. Oh well.

In other news, my overall body transformation is about 20% complete. I'm already strong enough to defeat all the anti-scions (major and minor, probably all at once too - though that'd never happen) but I know if I stop now I'll lose power rather than staying at an equilibrium.

If that means anything to you, *thumb up*

Got my first ever credit card today. The interest rate is horrible of course, but I don't plan on ever letting it have a balance...which means not letting anyone in a position to ask to use it know that I have it. If there's a parallelism issue there, I don't give a shit.

In other news, I'm going to watch Fight Club for the first time today. I don't know if the impact of the movie will be lessened by my already knowing that Ed Norton is just a manifestation of some part of Brad Pitt's mind or not. I think that's the way it is, maybe backwards...either way, it's not quite as shocking to me as it may be to some people.

For fairly obvious reasons.

I was told recently that I've begun talking in my sleep again. When I asked what I was saying, I was told that the listeners couldn't understand me. The next time this happens, I'll make it a point to ask if they don't understand because it's non-English (which would be weird, as English is the only audible human language in which I am entirely fluent) or just weird, inane babbling, or maybe even just a cryptic subconscious reference to some stressful event that I've suppressed to the point that it no longer affects my conscious mind.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Or the second, even.

Hmm.

"If you or anyone you know has suffered a medical condition resulting from the use of Vioxx, such as heart attack, stroke, or death, contact our law firm at..."

That is the paraphrased form of a commercial that has been playing for a while now. I feel like calling them and making a claim: "Hello, [law firm]? Yes, I died yesterday as a result of my Vioxx use and I'd like to file a claim."

Of course, we all know that's ridiculous...I don't even use Vioxx. I actually died in a car accident.

It's a shame that people are so desperate to take advantage of a tragedy that they don't bring anything even remotely resembling common sense to the table. It's a good thing this is the only time that's happened.

More recent versions of the commercial qualify that the caller should not have suffered death...it's good to know that revising the reasons for one's actions is alive and well in today's world.

hmm. Relatives visiting as of yesterday left as of today, with an additional bladed weapon. I anticipate it being used for part two of my cousin's losing fight with a tree. It's not even one of those sentient trees.

My other cousin used almost two full cans of this dust remover crap - and part of a third, I think. It says "Contains 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane". I guess that's the thing that makes his voice deep when he uses it. In that aspect it's like reverse helium. If I didn't value my brain cells - most of them, at least - I'd try it for myself. I suppose I did get a decent amount of the polymer mixed with my standard carbon dioxide when four of us got into a can-based spray fight...they may have other kinds, but they can do that on their own time.

In other news, today was my last day of school before spring break. 3 of my four classes were cancelled...the other had an exam. I think I used enough buzzwords this time.

...I suppose that's it.

I'd hate - in addition to a lot of other things - to break my current average of 1 post/day, especially on a Wednesday.

We had a surprise exam in Psychology today...at least, it was a surprise to me. Who knew that emails about what to study and what types of questions would appear indicate an impending exam? Not me, that's for sure. I probably got a B. *crosses talons*

Today I worked out what I want my schedule to be for the first semester of my Junior year. Only one class on Monday and Friday, two on Wednesday, and three on Tuesday/Thursday. The earliest beginning is Tuesday/Thursday, at 10:00. Not too bad compared to my current schedule. The closest gap between two classes is 15 minutes, and instead of being across campus, they're in adjacent rooms. *unenthusiastic jubilation*

Oh my God, I used the spell checker built into blogger on the above crap and it had one button, saying there were no errors...of course, when I added this part, it flagged the word "blogger."

I hate to send anyone to Yahoo, and this link will probably be dead in under a week, but if we wanted longevity we wouldn't use the Internet.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=1&u=/ap/20050301/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_death_penalty

Now it's illegal to execute people in the United States who were under 18 when they did the crimes that warrant such punishment.

All "What a time to be 19" rambling aside, this is a pretty stupid thing to do, and it's being done for the wrong reasons, with the wrong conception, at the wrong time. [Repeat ad infinitum.] But seriously, one of the main reasons cited for this was "international pressure." Since when do we let international pressure affect anything that we do? I mean, come on now. Isn't preventing such pressures from affecting our major Judicial body the reason we give those withered bastards lifetime terms?

"The executions, the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment."

Meanwhile, we can sodomize Iraqi prisoners with broken-off broomsticks and shove golf balls in their urethras because they're unlawful combatants. gj moral high ground.

Speaking of moral high ground, also from the article:

"Today, the court repudiated the misguided idea that the United States can pledge to leave no child behind while simultaneously exiling children to the death chamber," said William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA.


"Now the U.S. can proudly remove its name from the embarrassing list of human rights violators that includes China, Iran, and Pakistan that still execute juvenile offenders," he said.

Well now. That second line just speaks for itself. Taking it as a whole, I'd have to say that this guy is one of those liberal idiots who is more responsible for Bush's reelection than even Jesus was. I wonder if I could slap him in the face if I encountered him, counting on the fact that he wouldn't be able to hit me back.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas (news - web sites) joined Scalia to uphold the executions.

Of course they did.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites) filed a separate dissent, arguing that a blanket rule against juvenile executions was misguided. Case-by-case determinations of a young offenders' maturity is the better approach, she wrote.

Wa-wait a minute. Judging people by their actions and maturity, as opposed to some arbitrary developmental marker?! That's racist and bigoted, in a way that manages to be unAmerican!

You'll be hearing from me as soon as I dodge this hail of gunfire brought on by schoolyard bullying, Ms. O'Connor.


*sigh*

In more me-related news, I'm starting to even out. Take that, proponents of mood-altering drugs. My void has resumed its central purpose and I am beginning to regain my senses. *claps slowly*