Numbers

Sometimes we see numbers, and don’t really think about what they mean.  I’m not intending this post to be for or against John McCain or Barack Obama. 

I don’t think there are many Americans who would deny that the attack on 9/11/2001 was horrific, or that the death toll was catastrophic, or that the scope of it all traumatized our nation and changed us in a profound way. 

I looked up these numbers on the Internet, therefore they may not be entirely accurate, but I believe they’re close.

The number of American lives lost as a result of the terrorist attack on 9/11/2001:

2,740

The number of American lives lost in Iraq as a result of the American invasion:

4,124

Interestingly, I also found this number.  I have no idea of it’s validity.

The number of Iraqi lives lost as a result of the American invasion:

1,245,538

I suspect this number might be inflated in order to serve the anti-war movement’s point of view, however, according to an article I found on CNN, 5,800 Iraqis died in June 2006.  I’m sure many, if not most of these deaths were caused by insurgents, not by the American Military, but they happened because we were there. 

At this point, I feel the need to clarify that I am not disparaging the American Military.  Like any other cross section of society, the military will be made up of those who are good and those who are bad, if there really is any such thing.  I support the soldiers in Iraq.  They’re Americans, and they’re going through a kind of Hell I can’t imagine.  And they’re following orders.  I only question the orders, something they aren’t allowed to do.  And over 4,000 of them are dead.

I got to wondering, this is a lot of death.  How many people did Hitler murder?  I looked it up.  Six million.  That number, by the way, does not include military deaths. 

What’s hard to imagine, is exactly what these numbers mean.  We hear these numbers: 2900, 4000, 1.2 million, 6 million, and we think that’s horrible, but do you really think about what that means?  Imagine you come home and find a dead body in your kitchen.  Imagine the horror of finding a body shot to death violently in your kitchen.  Hollywood has made us a little desensitized to this kind of violence, but try to imagine what it would be like in real life? 

Now imagine it’s two bodies.  That adds a whole new dimension to the horror. 

Imagine ten.  This gets harder for a sane person to imagine.  Ten murdered bodies in your kitchen.  Given an average of 150 pounds per person, that 1500 pounds of dead human in your kitchen. 

We’re only up to 10, folks.  If you can imagine 10, try to imagine that 10 more times.  It takes a few minutes to really digest the horror there, doesn’t it.  That’s only 100 people, and yet we can barely fathom it.  100 people would not fit in your kitchen, we’ll have to move them to the back yard.  That’s 15,000 pounds of dead human.  The mind really can barely grasp this kind of horror anymore, and we’re only up to 100. 

Following our average of 150 pounds per person, the death toll in Iraq has resulted in 600,000 pounds of dead American bodies. 

At 600,000 pounds of dead American, I want a good explanation of why we’re there. 

“We believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of Mass Destruction”

We’ve [the American public] since found out that the only evidence to that effect known before invading a sovereign country in another part of the world was a single report that was out of date by years.  The Soviet Union had weapons of Mass Destruction for decades, and the remnants of the Soviet Union, to the best of my knowledge, still has them.  We’ve never invaded the Soviet Union, and they really didn’t like us.  Nor have we invaded North Korea, and I think we be pretty sure they have them too, and probably more likely to use them on us than Saddam ever was.

Saddam Hussein didn’t like or trust Osama Bin Laden (or so I heard on CNN). 

We basically had no evidence whatsoever that Iraq was linked with Al Queda and the terrorists that attacked us seven years ago.  Afghanistan, on the other hand, admitted they had him and wouldn’t give him up.

Saddam Hussein defied the U.N. weapons inspectors, but he had been doing that for over a decade since the original invasion of Kuwait.  Suddenly in 2003 it became a crisis that couldn’t wait for diplomacy. 

We’ve lost over 4,000 American Soldiers in a war that, as far as I can tell, had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack which resulted in 2,900 American casualties. 

“We have to finish the job in Iraq.”

What job?  What is it we have to finish there?  We declared hostilities ceased in 2005.  I watched it on the news.  Why are we still there?  What do we have to do in Iraq which is more important than finding the man who was responsible for killing 2,900 American Citizens?  Seriously, I want to know, this isn’t rhetoric. 

Think about this when deciding who to vote for this November.  And think about this too.  Watch these, then watch anything from John McCain and/or Barack Obama, and ask yourself, who would you rather have running our country? 

Henry ’08.

Netflix and XBox part II – It’s true!

Back in Feburary I caught wind of a possibility that XBox might be partnering with Netflix to allow streaming movies to the XBox.  Here’s an update: They are.  It was officially announced at E3 a couple of days ago, along with some other pretty cool XBox enhancements.  The official announcement to the world is on XBox.com. 

I’m seriously stoked about this.  I’ve complained before how expensive XBox movie rentals were, this totally alleviates it.  This would really be great if it were available now, instead of this fall, since I’m stuck in a studio apartment 500 miles from my family with nothing much to do.  As usual, the timing kindof sucks, but whatever.  Welcome to the future of movie rentals.

Stranger in a Strange Land

The voting on my last post was a bit sparse, but the one vote I did get was to not delete this blog.  Alrighty then.  (Thanks, Celes). 

This post runs the risk of being one of those sad, depressed entries I so despise.  I’m in my second week in Minnesota, and I’m starting to wonder if this is all worth it.  It’s true that earlier tonight I attended my first XNA user’s group meeting ever (KC doesn’t have one that I’m aware of), and sat next to one of the most well known people in the history of software development.  In fact, I was supposed to talk to him afterwards, but I bolted because I didn’t want to miss the nightly phone call I have with my kids.  I haven’t seen them in nearly two weeks. 

In short, this place is starting to wear on me. 

I’ve never been a consultant before.  It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but the lifestyle seems a bit lonely.  Especially when you come home to an empty apartment.  You get switched around to different projects alot.  So far I’ve been on two different projects in my two weeks there.  Tomorrow I go to interview for my third.  This is the part of consulting I didn’t expect.  You have to actually go interview for each gig.  It’s like constantly applying for a job.  And if you don’t get it, you’re not making your employers any money.  When you become overhead, you run the risk of unemployment.  E.g. you had probably better get that gig. 

I find interviewing depressing.  It’s probably why I stayed at my last job for two years, and the one before that for five.  I made lots of friends at both places, and I miss all of them.  Most of all I miss my family, especially my kids, and yes, my wife too.  I’m feeling a little bit socially deprived.

I had cable and Internet hooked up two days ago.  So far only Internet works.  That wouldn’t be such a big deal if I could figure out how to stream Dr. Who.  I need my Doctor Who.  BSG is on hiatus, and one can only watch The Matrix so many times.  Wow, yet again Neo is the “One”.  Shocker.  I can watch streaming news, but my laptop is pathetically old, and the video is choppy and difficult to watch.  Forget about full screen viewing.  It just ain’t happening. 

I do have my XBox.  That helps, but I’ve only got so many games, and they get old too.  I left my violin in Kansas City, because I thought I’d be traveling right off the bat. 

Add to all this the stress of realizing that I probably can’t sell my house, and I’ll have to give up on this whole endeavor and move back to KC, and I’m feeling just a little down at the moment. 

A thought occurred to me the other day.  Some of you may remember SaveToby.com.  I don’t know who did this, but he was a freaking genius.  Basically he put up a web site where he threatened to kill a cute bunny unless people sent him money.  He made a killing.  Finally some company came in and bought him out to put a stop to it.  Who knows if he really would have killed the bunny.  It doesn’t matter.  He made the money. 

I need money. 

I can make websites.

When you put those two facts together, it’s almost like there’s some kind of idea just out of reach that might save me from my impending financial ruin. 

Anyway, I wanted my legions of loyal fans to know that I hadn’t forgotten about them, and I’ll continue to blog here in the near future.  Expect some boring technical content as I try to establish myself as an expert in compooters along with the self aggrandizing political and general rants you’ve come to know and love me for.  Tootles.

Happy Birthday, Idiot with a blog!

Actually I’m a bit late.  My first entry in this incarnation of my blog was on May 6, 2007.  It’s interesting how it turned out, as in, not what I intended at all.  Sometimes if you just let things happen they way they’re meant to happen, you get a bit surprised by the result. 

I intended to do two things with this blog when I created it.  One was chronicle a spiritual journey as it happened.  The journey never really happened, or at least not the way I thought it would.  So there wasn’t much to chronicle there.  Occasionally I needed to re-center myself.  All I ever really did was remind myself of what I already knew. 

Two was to create some technical content.  I think I did one of those, and all it really did was point to a code project article I wrote.  That leads me to what I’m really thinking about here.

I’ve been pretty much absent for about a month and a half now.  I apologize to the 4 or 5 regular readers I have, and the smattering of casual readers.  This has been due to a couple of things.  In my last post I hinted that something big was going to happen, but I couldn’t talk about it yet.  I couldn’t talk about it because I couldn’t be sure that people at my job didn’t read my blog and that the information wouldn’t get to people who could make things hard for me.  Let me try that again…..

I was about to quit and I didn’t want management to know. 

There, that was much simpler.

An opportunity came up, and (for me, at least) it was big.  I try to avoid mentioning my employer’s names in my blog, mainly because I’d rather that the content here didn’t embarrass them.  That’s probably even more important now, because this is a consulting job, so public appearance is even more important that it was before.  So I’ll suffice it to say, that it’s a well known company, with a handful of Microsoft MVPs, some .NET rockstars, and, as of about 8:00 this morning, me.

Oh, and they’re in Minnesota.  That’s right, I moved for this job.  I moved a long frakin’ way away for this job.  I got the hell out of Kansas.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually kind of like Kansas, even if there isn’t much to do there.  That’s what the Internet is for, right?  So here I am in a little tiny studio apartment in Minneapolis trying to find a house to buy while my wife tries to sell the one back in Kansas.  We’re getting along pretty well lately.  Who knew all I needed to do was get us out of Dodge?

So I’m at a bit of a crossroads.  The vast majority of content here if various rants, followed by a bit of spiritual dogma, with a little bit of attempted humor thrown in.  Not really what I was trying to do.  As I left my old job, I saved a couple of blog posts I had written on their tech blog, and realized that I’m not all that bad of a technical blogger, I’ve just never done it here.  I’d like to focus on technical content more, but I don’t want to alienate the little bit of readership I’ve managed to acquire. So here are my options as I see them.

  1. Delete this blog.  I’ve put a bit of effort into the online presence known as The Cowboy, so that feels a little like shooting an old friend in the head.  I’ve never hidden my real identity from anybody who asked, but very few have.  In fact, if you look carefully you can actually figure out my name without even asking me.  I leave that one to the “Where’s Waldo” fans out there.  If I delete this blog I’m free to create another filled with purely technical content, and become the next Robert Scoble.  Shuh, right.
  2. Create a new blog, while maintaining this one.  That feels a bit like having a split personality.  But it works.  So far this seems like the most likely prospect.  I might even link from this blog to the other occasionally, but I doubt I would link the other way.  This seems like the best way to maintain the anonymity needed to not embarrass my employer and/or get me fired while still providing you, my loyal readers, with the incredible entertainment value known as Another Idiot with a Blog.  Eh?
  3. Come out of the closet.  No, not like that, dumbass.  I mean just start posting technical content here and use my real name.  Damn the consequences.  It worked for Rory Blyth, didn’t it?  He even ended up with the kickass job at Microsoft I’m so hot for.  I’m just not sure I’m that cool.  I’ve also given up a lot to get this job, it would really suck to blow it now.  I’ve also been wondering how I could use the words “suck” and “blow” in the same sentence without being crude.

Okay, loyal readers.  This is where you come in.  I need you to comment like you’ve never commented before.  If you want to save this blog, now is the time to speak up.  If you’re a lurker, time to come out of the shadows.  Let me know how you guys feel.

The Cowboy’s Guide to Life

I’ve been thinking about this for about a month now.  When I was in Jr. High or so I had a list of rules, Cowboy’s Rules.  I actually wrote them down.  They were based on (what seemed like but really wasn’t) my vast life experience at the time.  All fourteen years of it.  Most of them were pretty good, well, for teenagers anyway.  They were a lot of things like “Don’t date friend’s ex-girlfriends” and things like that.  I had friends violate that one, and later on I violated it myself, and it never led to good things.  Not once.  Shocker.

For about the last month or so, I’ve been thinking of redoing it.  Sortof a Cowboy’s Manifesto, if you will, just to see how it’s changed at this stage of my life.  It’s still a brainchild at this point, but then Rory Blyth posted Rory’s Code of LIfe.  Aside from the initial “Hey, I was gonna do that” reaction, I thought it was fucking awesome. 

So there’s a few problems now. 

  1. I haven’t really thought out the new rules.
  2. I’m not really sure I want any.  It doesn’t really fit with the whole epiphany thing that happened in New York.
  3. If I post it now, I look like I’m a lame ass who’s trying to copy everything Rory does in order emulate his massive coolness. 

While that last one might be true anyway, It wasn’t the case here.  Really.  But I think I’ll share with you some of the reasons there is this mass of coolness that we refer to as The Cowboy.

  1. Wu-Wei.  I’ve talked about this before.  It’s a Taoist concept.  The closest Western equivalent is “Go with the Flow”.  I always think of the Chang-tse parable where there’s an old man struggling in the river, then instead of fighting the river, he gives into it.  He works within the power of the river, and it saves his life.  That’s me.  I don’t wait for somebody to hand things to me, but I don’t fight the universe either.  It’s too big, It’ll win.  I’m awesome, but not that awesome.  Not even Rory is that awesome.  I threw a pebble in the lake last November and rode the waves it created.  It’s landed me somewhere interesting, but I’ll have to wait to expand on that.
  2. Be Cool.  For me, that’s easy.  For the rest of you, maybe not so much.  I’m just that awesome.  Women adore me, Men want to be me, and I secretly suspect that my entire life is being filmed in a real life version of The Truman Show.  Seriously, I’ve been catching myself on this lately, especially with my kids.  Big Bad Parental Rules that The Man (me) used to lay down, don’t seem quite so important now.  My son wants a second glass of milk at dinner, why the hell not?  Why am I saying no in the first place?  Giving him the second glass gets a scowl from my wife, but it gets a grin from my son.   Net score in the positive, if you ask me.  Small example, but that’s how The Cowboy rolls now.  We’ll see where he ends up….  Hm… Referring to myself in third person now, not so cool.  Kindof Bob Dole, actually…
  3. Do things that make you happy.  These are kind of in order of importance, but this one is pretty damn important.  I forgot it for a long time, and now, thanks to one of those damn Virgos, I’m aware of it again.  Of course, when 3 is in conflict with 2, 2 wins out.  For instance, if killing random people makes you happy, you need another hobby, because that’s not cool.  For me, it’s music.  For years now, I’ve limited my music to involvement with the local orchestra, Puccinifest (I’m in that picture BTW), and an occasional quartet gig.  There’s so much more to me, and I’ve been denying myself that.  Why?  Because I thought I was supposed to.  Because somebody told me I was supposed to.  Fuck that.  What the hell kind of example is that to set for my kids?  Do what makes you happy.  Don’t teach your kids to be miserable, because guess what?  From now on, I teach my kids how to be happy. 

I want to share where all of this is going, but I can’t yet.  It’s fascinating seeing Wu-Wei at work, and how everything is changing as a result.  Stay tuned….

American Idiot

We’re coming home again

Sometimes platonic love is easy to confuse with romantic love. I do it all the time. Sometimes being somewhere you don’t live can unbalance you just enough to make the mistake. Alcohol adds confusion to the mix. Being really far away from home and hopelessly hammered is a recipe for fucking your head up. Guess what I did this last week.

Somebody get me out of here

I’ve been known to get contemplative after “one of those evenings” where I once again showed incredibly poor judgement, and was surrounded by great people who served as my enablers (e.g. kept buying me alcohol). Throw in a drunk Russian with a knife who wants to fight your Serbian friend, a New York police officer, approximately four Long Island Iced Teas, and the apparently suicidal impulse of wandering off on your own morbidly hammered in a town you don’t know and which tends to be a bit crime ridden, and if you got nothing else you’ve got a great story for the ride home.

You taught me how to live

Then you think back on what happened before you crossed the threshold of good judgement: The part of the evening where you clearly remember what you said and what was said by others. The part where somebody who is absolutely amazing but doesn’t know it tells you things you’ve heard before. Not things about your self-destructive tendencies, but things about how you let others hurt you.

The innocent can never last

You realize that you’ve given up something crucial about yourself that you never needed to. You’re denying who you are because it’s inconvenient for someone else. And finally the words strike home because you’re hearing it from somebody who is living it. There’s no ulterior motive, just someone who can’t possibly imagine living the way you are.

The rage and love, the story of my life

Somewhere in this whole confusing mess you make a connection with someone who is a kindred spirit. Someone more like you than anyone else you know, but more than that. Someone who actually is the way you like to think you are, but you’re not. This connection confuses you at first. You think you’re having feelings you shouldn’t be, but then you realize that you’re wrong. Somebody just became your inspiration. Somebody who will never know of their importance to you just gave you a spiritual smack upside the head.

She’s an extraordinary girl in an ordinary world

So many little things begin to fall into place. Your destination suddenly becomes clear, like you’ve been walking a road for years and just suddenly realized where you’ve been heading all this time. Now that you know where you’re going, only one thing remains unclear: how to get there.

Wake me up when September ends

You had a source of pain, one nobody knows about but you and the source of your pain. That one dirty secret you’ve never told anybody. Suddenly it no longer matters. You think you might have even confessed it to your new guardian angel in a drunken stupor. It doesn’t matter because she doesn’t remember either (at least that’s what she told you).

Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, ’til then I’ll walk alone

Sometimes, in order to be true to yourself you have to face fears that can be paralyzing. Fears that have shaped your life until now. Fears that have brought you to a place you never wanted to be. Now you’re in a pit and need to find the exit. Maybe somebody out there will lend a helping hand, maybe you’ve got to go through this all by yourself. I’ll have to tell you how it played out when it does.

Nobody likes you everyone left you they’re all out without you having fun

Then you sit in an airport in New York with a few friends. You sit and trade drunk stories like high school kids. You’ve undergone something profound, and nobody here will understand it. You throw a bone their way and tell a drunk story or two, but slowly the realization dawns on you: You’re on your own. You can’t share what’s happening in your head with people who don’t have a common frame of reference, and you don’t know anybody who does. Suddenly that line from Star Trek IV makes more sense. You feel a bit more alone than you did before.

I don’t care if you don’t care

I’m a different person than I was at the beginning of the week. It wasn’t New York, it was this one amazing person who will never know what she did for me (or would it be to me?). A whole new adventure has opened up before me, I think I’m going to call it life.

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Restored Comments

314159 said:
Cowboy,
She is an extraordinary woman. She’s helped me more than anyone (even her) will ever know as well. I wish logic didn’t dictate that it would never work between her and I. Logic sucks. But, I think I will keep my delusion.

With the weight of the hell hole we work in, I didn’t know something else was troubling you so badly. You do know that if anyone at that place we toil is a brother it is you. Think of me as a brother who isn’t at family reunions to mock whatever is troubling you. If you ever need to talk, seriously talk, I am always available. But I will also understand if you choose to return your new guardian angel for advice.

The Cowboy said:

Dude, I appreciate that, but there’s a reason I never confided this in anybody. On the other hand, toss a few Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters down my throat and I’ll apparently spill my guts about fucking anything.

I remember my brain wandering off for a bit, probably running back off to the pub for a nightcap, when it got back, it found my mouth just running off about the whole fuckin’ mess. “WHAT… THE… FUCKIN’… HELL… ARE… YOU… DOING?!?!” it said to my mouth. “Oh, hey there,” said my mouth. “I was just talking about you know what. You don’t mind, do you?” My brain attempted to beat the living shit out of my mouth at that point. It came out something like “daarrr… so where are we anyway?” My brain and my mouth are now mortal enemies. Quite frankly my mouth had it coming. He just kept drinking the alcohol despite the fact that it was causing so much damage to brain. I think they’ll get over it.

The good news is that she apparently doesn’t remember any of this. Things like this are exactly why alcohol is banned by so many major religions.

– Celes – said:
Hey Taoco,

Sorry to hear the life has become complicated, but you know… life… it happens. And even if this whole thing seemed like a big mistake, some beautiful things come out of it at least.

Great post.

Everyone needs to get hit in a head with a gold brick every now and again. But, I’m sorry that it hurt.

Know that more people know than you know. You can’t find out until you reach out. It’s horribly terrifying, painful, and yet wonderfully amazing.

But don’t get me wrong. It’s nice and cozy being safely aloof.

The Cowboy said:
Hey Celes, thanks.

Just to be clear on a couple of things, my little secret that I don’t talk about has been officially rendered moot. It’s no longer a source of pain. That’s what she did for me (that’s a good thing). I don’t talk about it because, quite honestly, there’s nothing about this story that makes me look good. We probably all have at least one story (or three) like that.

She’s given me direction and a focus as well, and that’s why the other crap no longer matters. I know this post came off kind of dark, but what’s happened is really a good thing. It might get a bit uncomfortable along the way, but it’ll all be good in the end. What happens from here on out is fair game, and will probably show up here as well. This blog just might get interesting….

How to make an ass of yourself without really trying

When I was 14, I met a girl. I know, you’re already thinking “you were 14, that was just hormones”, but I had several girlfriends back then. There was something different about her. It only lasted a couple of months, but when she broke up with me it messed me up for years. It’s possible I never really completely got over that one. Even now, after a span of time measured in decades, I still think about her. Even now, when she’s got children who are as old as we were when we met, I still think about her. She was a Virgo.

I try very hard to dismiss all of this astrology crap, but I’ve noticed a pattern evolving in my life. For the record my astrological sign is Libra. It’s hard sometimes not to see something to it, because most people I’ve met who are also Libras tend to be a bit like me. And all of the women who have seriously messed me up since age 14 were Virgos. All of them. No exceptions. Rebecca in college, devastated me my freshman year: Virgo. Anita, possibly the most beautiful girl I’ve ever dated, over it in a couple of days: not a Virgo. Kate: Virgo. Michelle: Virgo. And then there’s last night. We’ll come back to that. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe there’s something to it after all.

Let’s be honest, It’s absurdly illogical to think that the position of planets and stars in the sky has some kind of bearing on how my day will go today. Nearly as illogical as belief in this dude sitting somewhere “up there” watching over the day to day activities of each and every person on the planet. I’m not saying either are impossible, I’ve learned that nothing is impossible. However, it doesn’t seem very likely, does it? However, it’s less absurd to think that the season you were born in might have some effect on your personality. Still kind of silly, but slightly more plausible.

Superstition is everywhere. I’m in New York this week, and I just noticed not five minutes ago, the hotel I’m in has no 13th floor. I thought stories like that were a joke, but I’m quite serious. In the elevator there’s a button for 12 and a button for 14. They’re right next to each other. Coincidence? Maybe. So I asked the man at the counter “why is there no 13th floor?” His answer, after a slight grimace, was to say “the builders considered it unlucky. A lot of buildings here are like that.” Uh huh.

So back to the title of the post. The short answer is drink an absurd amount of alcohol in front of people you work with, yell at the top of your lungs until you’re hoarse, and do a lot of air guitar. It’s happened before, and it very well will probably happen again. I have a self-destructive streak wide enough to be used as an overpass. If you put the gun in my hand, I’ll probably pull the trigger. If you put a beer in front of me, I’ll probably drink it, even if I’ve already had too much. And yes, that happened (the last part about the beer, that is).

I’ve gotten comments from many people today along the lines of “I heard you had a lot of fun last night”. I did, I suppose, but that’s not really the reputation I should be shooting for. Being a borderline alcoholic doesn’t help one climb the corporate ladder. It’s a little disturbing just how fast the news of my drunken escapades made the rounds at work, even here in New York where many of the fellow employees have no idea who the hell I am. Needless to say, productivity was down today.

Virgos. What the hell is it with Virgos? Virgos Virgos Virgos! Why am I drawn to a subset of people who inevitably destroy my soul? They don’t mean to, I know that, but they do it all the same. I’m not going to go into any details about what happened for various reasons, but I will say that A) nothing (very) inappropriate happened and B) she managed to get herself stuck in my head. When a Virgo does that, it can take a long time for me to get them unstuck. That’s the part that sucks, because even though I’m not doing anything wrong, it feels like I am. Guilt. My mother’s gift to me.

One thing I can say in favor of my maturity, is that despite having the opportunity to get hammered again, I refrained and drank water tonight. Maybe it’s not self-restraint as much as it is fear, since I seem to have done some rather serious damage to my digestive system yesterday. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into on of those go-see-the-doctor-and-get-some-bad-news deals. Again, withholding the details, but this is mainly because they’re kind of gross and I really think you would wish I hadn’t told you if I actually did. I’m doing you a favor, you may begin thanking me …….. now.

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Restored Comments

314159 said:
First, no I’m not jealous. Yes, Virgos are alluring. Especially this one… Maybe I’m a little jealous.. Her spirit is intoxicating. It pulls you and wraps your very existence with it’s caring and warmth. If she were a star, you would be blinded by her radiance. If you can’t tell, I would fall for her in a heart beat if I haven’t already. You lucky bastard.
Ok, I am seriously jealous!!!

Dude, Hope you relieved some stress in NY.

But, hands off Cowboy. I’ll let you have Tricia Helfer and Grace Park if you do.

The Cowboy said:
Actually no. I’ve created more stress for myself. That’s what I do.
Also, that’s exactly why I withheld details. There’s nothing to be jealous of. Don’t jump to any conclusions here because they’ll be wrong. Nothing like that happened, at least, I don’t think it did, but the details of the evening are a but fuzzy…

With my luck Tricia Helfer and Grace Park would both be Virgos.

– Celes – said:
Virgos, huh? Well, for me it’s been Geminis- with very little variation. Don’t know why…

Astrological thing aside, it does make sense that one falls for the same types over and over. And we inadvertently make the same blunders over and over without the least bit of control.

I don’t know that I can give you any advice for unsticking, but I can empathize, Taco. Hang in there.

Doctor Who is back!

And it’s about bloody time! 

Martha Jones is gone.  That’s too bad, I really liked her.  She made an appearance on Torchwood for a couple of episodes, but disappointingly didn’t stay, even when they killed Owen.  One can hope that was a preview of of things to come.

So it looks like the new companion is Donna Noble, who rode around with The Doctor for a bit when her wedding got interrupted by, if I recall correctly, evil robots.  She had an awesome way of putting The Doctor in his place.  Something you don’t see too much… Plus I’ve got a serious thing for redheads…Open-mouthed

This season should be awesome. I borrowed this from Lisa 4.0.

… and the horse you rode in on!

I’ve taken a little flack lately for the fact that I was in a cult and tend to be frank about it.  It’s amazing how many people consider themselves an expert on the topic, despite having never been in a cult or even so much as read a book on it.  I suppose they saw some documentary on Jim Jones or David Koresh, which was all the education on the topic they really needed.  A friend of mine jokingly told me once that this video was all he needed to know about being a Mormon.  The context made it quite funny, but I’m not going to go into that.  What’s sad is that many people probably think that it’s true. 

Joining a cult is not an indication that you’re stupid or disturbed.  That’s like saying being raped makes you a slut, it’s idiotic.  A cult is something that happens to you, like a car accident, being mugged, or getting a disease.  Nobody joins a cult intentionally, nobody joining a cult knows they’re joining a cult.  Most don’t know they’ve joined a cult when they leave.

Maybe people think I’m honest about it because I think it’s cool.  I don’t.  Would you brag about being raped?  That’s how stupid the idea is.

Maybe people think I’m honest about it for attention.  Would you want that kind of attention?  If you do, you’re a moron.  Imagine how much fun it is to go back to all of the people you were an asshole to and say “I’m sorry I was an asshole to you for the past few years, I was brainwashed in a cult.”  Woohoo, now that’s some real fuckin’ fun!

I’m honest about it because it happened to me.  It’s part of who I am now, and that can’t be changed.  Believe me, I would love it if I could erase that from ever having happened.  I was a different person before, and that person is gone now.  I miss him, because he was a great guy. 

Maybe you would like to have somebody fuck with your brain for years, then have to recover on your own.  No empathy, no resources, nobody you can talk to about it.  Jack shit.  You’re on your own to figure out what happened to you and make sense of it, and try to rebuild some sense of self and self-esteem.  How’s that sound for fun?  Wanna try it?  I hear the Scientologists are still recruiting.

And here’s the best part, in all the years since, all the people I’ve told this experience to, not one person has EVER said to me “Gee, I’m sorry that happened to you.” or anything even remotely empathetic.  Instead, I get jokes, off color comments, and strange looks.  I went through hell, and my reward is people looking at me like I’ve got a nose growing out of my eyeball.  What lovely people.  Let’s be honest, I don’t really expect anybody to give a crap, and I never have.  That’s not why I’m honest about it either.  I’m honest about it because it’s liberating.  If I can tell people what happened, the cult has no hold over me any more.  Believe me, my first instinct was to hide it and never tell anybody.  I’m glad I didn’t go that route.  I will, however, never refer to them any other way than “the cult.”

Next time somebody tells you they were in a cult, perhaps you should ask them about it, instead of mocking them for it.  You might learn something.  At the very least you’ll look less like an asshole.

http://www.ex-cult.org/General/lifton-criteria