It might be a sign when your friends tell you that you've become much more angry over the past year. It might be a hint when your friends tell you that they don't know anyone more cynical than you. And it might be a slight nudge when your friends tell you that you're more bitter than that delicacy of delights, bitter melon (blech).
So I'm going to take a moment from killing myself on problem sets and midterm studying and interview studying and project implementation to recall an amusing conversation I had with a friend of mine up here (who's pretty cynical and biting too).
In evaluating relationships with women, it occurs to me that there's not much that I really want from one. When's the last time I needed moral support? Or for someone to drop everything they were doing to pay attention to me me me? Or needed someone to otherwise do something to take care of me? I function perfectly fine on my own, so really there's no need for anyone else. So what do women offer that make them worth being with?
When you think about it, with a fair number of girls the costs of maintaining them grows steadily as the time goes on. You can do an eh job on the first anniversary, but you better be getting bigger and better as the years go on. There's food, gas, movies, flowers, more food, random things they never knew existed but now can't live without, some more food, alcohol, and even more food. What the hell are women doing eating so much anyways; they'll just bitch about being fat afterwards.
Which is why going to the gym is great. Plenty of women to see, all self-conscious and insecure about the way they look so they're running around and moving chunks of iron in an effort to slim down and look good (and they do a pretty good job of it for the most part) while my buddy Eric and I spend an hour or two whacking balls around at the ping pong tables.
There was supposed to be a point to this but somewhere along the way it got lost and couldn't find its trail of breadcrumbs so it starved in the woods...or got eaten by wolves, it's really a coin toss either way.
And speaking of coin tosses, it's time to return to my preparation for my probability and computing course's midterm in 8 hours. Bring on the pain!
It's not uncommon to see a textbook refer to the results in the exercises (which you, as a reader, are meant to solve) as if they were proven by the authors. What is apparently missing in this situation is the realization that, as an eager student, my goal is to absorb knowledge (which is why I'm reading the text) and not to misapply half-baked foggy principles in an effort to solve problems which I assume to be true (because they tell me it's true).
If I wanted to try my hand at proving unsuspecting theorems and corollaries false, then I would sit around on my ass and think about all the various equations floating around out there in the ether of math while masturbating to the dulcit sounds of "Green's Theorem on Tape."
Seeing how I took the time, the effort, and most importantly the money to buy the text, I would like to believe that I will be able to derive some sort of knowledge from it; and for the most part, I do. But texts where "we leave the proof as an exercise for the reader" or those that "apply the results of exercise 4.20" need to be stabbed (their authors do as well, of course).
But the calls of the starving student fall unheard to those residing high in the ivory tower, and so the status quo is maintained, and I will continue to pore over my textbooks in an effort to reach enlightenment, but really only finding myself reaching for a jar of vaseline.
Every week I keep myself busy with work, classes, research, teaching, taichi, and other geeky projects so I can let the cruft and scatterpieces of past lives settle down.
And somewhere along the way I came to realize that I haven't pissed off enough people lately. So, in an effort to maintain the definition of me that I've crafted over the years, it's time to piss people off again. And really, the only reason you're getting pissed off is because you take things way too seriously, and if you can't enjoy some outlandish humor from time to time then life is going to make you its bitch (because life is inherently outlandish and ridiculous).
I've already done a rant on retail pharmacists before. I still maintain my stance that retail pharmacy needs to die, thus freeing hundreds of thousands of capable (but lazy, because why else would you be a retail pharmacist) people to take part in useful work.
I've probably done a rant on religion somewhere in the past before, but I wonder if I've ever done a rant on the Bible. I'd imagine I have, given how much nonsense there is surrounding it, but better safe than sorry and so it's time to take a look at the Bible from a cynical, jaded, angry, and just plain unpleasant point of view.
So if you're religious, and you find what I write offensive, tough cookies.
The Bible's this peculiar book of sorts that a lot of people put their faith in. Christians will pound pulpits while preaching about how their God is just plain better than your God, the Catholics will tell you their Bible says you're all a bunch of sinners and pagans and you're all going to hell, and the other faiths all tell you that you're going to go to hell for believing in the wrong God (i.e. not *their* God).
And in the midst of all this we have the Bible, this peculiar volume written way back when men unquestionably ruled the world and who gave a damn what women thought all they're good for is breeding and housework anyways. The first silly thing about this is that you had a bunch of guys get together and write the Bible. If this isn't setting off alarms in your head, you haven't read an issue of Maxim lately; it's a prime example of what you can get when you have guys writing for guys.
Another curious note is that this particular document is something to the tune of 2000 years old. It could just be that the world I live in is messed up, but by last recollection the rules change pretty frequently around here. It used to be an evil deed to eat meat on Fridays, or work on Saturdays (before it was moved to Sunday, or the other way around, or some other bizarre combination because people keep changing it around). Women didn't get to vote before (and in a lot of places they still can't).
Doesn't it seem kind of funny that the rules wouldn't have changed in the last 2000 years? What if heaven had a revolution and Lucifer really did conquer it and the news just hasn't caught up to the rest of us? What if somewhere along the way God decided he'd like to see a little more procreation and made premarital sex an okay thing to do? How about the opposite? If you can go from an Old Testament to a New Testament, then there's no reason that everything else couldn't have changed too.
Of course, if you're a Christian, then none of this "logic" stuff means because you've "just gotta believe." And if it doesn't make sense to you, well, tough shit.
If God's got a divine plan and it's all set in motion, what if he changes his mind? Maybe God decides it's not such a great idea to have the meek inherit the earth, and it'd be better for the tyrants and rapists (because we love those gems of social engineering). Of course, none of this news is ever going to hit the rest of us because as soon as someone even begin to insinuate that they might have talked to God they're nuts and we excommunicate their sorry ass.
While we're on the note of nonsense, nobody ever believes the "I was fucked by the Holy Ghost and that's why I'm pregnant" story now. Even if you still had your hymen intact somebody would just claim you got surgery to have it done.
So here we are in the modern day reading and believing a text that dates back to a time when throwing people into a lion's den and watching them try to fight is fun, written by a bunch of guys who have no one to answer to other than themselves (and whatever hallucinations they might be having), and basing our lives around this text. If it can be wrong and revised once (e.g. the King James Version), it can be wrong again, and for all intents and purposes might be wrong all the way through.
But the gods forbid you tell anybody who's religious this, because they'll lynch you.
Basing your life and your beliefs around a document that predates your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents is nuts.
It's been a while since I've written anything so here are a few tidbits I've picked up over the past few weeks.
* Dating a girl who is an only child makes suicide by asphyxiation look like masturbation.
* Homework can actually be fun in some situations. It's scary.
* Can't get people to question your sexual orientation? Listen to 80's pop at loud volumes.
* Chris rock is 39. 39!? wtf.
* I haven't pissed enough people off lately. I should do another series on God and the various ways you can see him fitting in modern society (e.g. God the CEO, God the comedian, etc.)
* Life is better when busy; every moment counts.
* I'm beginning to remember how much fun martial arts was. Getting back in shape, back in combat readiness, and generally feeling good about life. Whoooo I'm so goth.