Death To Blog

So it's the end of March, and...

2006-03-28T00:07:00.000-05:00

Spring weather is finally starting to peek out. It's not coming out full force, of course; no, that would be cheating. The seasons love it when we suffer in cold weather. Those arrogant pricks.

I'm confused, though; did it take this long to get our Spring last year? Or is the US government developing devices that can control weather and the seasons? Sorry, pollution does that...let's go for another angle. Is the Greek Pantheon pissed? Did Poseidon's wife miss her period, and is he pissed off about having to deal with yet *another* child? I'm not sure.

Long story short, I won't be so hesitant to step out of the house anymore for lack of warm air. If only this had come earlier: I might have had the desire to attend more morning classes (although I only have one), and might have gone on more walks. Stupid weather. The gods are out to make me fat!

God Defies Logic (but not necessarily).

2006-03-14T13:54:00.000-05:00

I added that last part for all the wussy scientists who like to argue that God doesn't exist (while criticizing the view that God does exist).

Anyway, all I need for this is the premise that God is all-powerful. Or, let's just say X is all-powerful.

So, can X drive any car? Of course X can; X can learn anything through X's infinite power. Can X use ingredients in baking a cake that haven't been invented yet? Of course X can
; X can traverse time for the components, or even create them through X's infinite power. Can X create an object that is too heavy for X to lift?

This is where we get tricky.

The short story is, X can. Logically, we might think that X cannot: can X bypass a paradox which it itself creates, with infinite power? Logically, this seems to be a contradiction. We are taking for granted, though, that a being of infinite power - X - is subject to the laws of a finite logic. Even under logic, the question should be: can X (using infinite power) bypass a paradox that it itself creates (using infinite power)? What happens when infinite power meets infinite power? We find yet another paradox, even logically.

That said, why would a being of infinite power - X - be bound by the laws of a finite logic? I'm not quite clear on that. So, if one asks "Can God create an object that is too heavy for God to lift?", we're not stuck with the answer of "no", but indeed with yet another paradox. Infinite power, though, we assume can accomplish anything, even circumvent other infinite power (that's included in the definition; "it can do anything"). If you don't take the paradox, then, you can choose to take the easy "yes" answer; it's merely a little fishier, and I'm sure the logicians and scientists will attack you. You should be able to tread firmly along the lines of the paradox, rather than the "no" answer, though; any rational attempt to rebute that should pretty much fail.

Who Designs Superhero Costumes?

2006-03-14T13:21:00.000-05:00

Ok, let's take Batman. Batman has a pretty neat costume, aesthetically speaking (I'm thinking the smoother black suit, not the clunky armour in the movies or the blue/grey show stuff): it has a bunch of useful goodies, and hides Bruce Wayne's identity pretty damn well. The same goes for Spiderman, as much as I don't like Spiderman: he wears that silly spandex, stretches in poses that you wouldn't catch Peter Parker dead in, and again, wears a great disguising mask.

So, who decided on the costumes of the X-Men? What happened to their masks? Is it *really* so difficult to distinguish Ororo Munroe and Storm? Not really. If I saw Storm on the news, and Ororo on the street, I'd probably say (if I were a stupid kid or something) "Hey look, it's Storm!".

Have disguises gone out the window? I mean, in the Marvel universe, mutants are (at times) hunted down like animals, to be slaughtered as hideous aberrations of the human race. Talk about xenophobia. Why, then, do the X-Men not believe in masks, especially since they go out into public and try to live "normal lives" when possible?

Cyclops wears a mask. Unfortunately, this is because he has to, and not because he's disguising his identity. Besides which, it's just as effective as those nasty glasses girls wear nowadays. Most of you have probably either read the comics or seen the movies: the X-Men just plain don't like masks.

The only excuse they'd have is psionic alteration of memory. Professor X and Jean "Wussy" Grey wouldn't do that, though Emma Frost might. What else have they got? I'm not really sure, and it's been bugging me lately.

Yes, it's been bugging me lately. Ever been bothered by something in a book or movie? Same thing. Lousy glaring problems. If someone can solve this in a non-smartass way, please help me out here.

The Difference Between Strategy and Tactics.

2006-03-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

A beginner's guide to Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", I guess you could call it. This is as I understand it, anyway; he might have just written a jokebook in Chinese, for all I know, or maybe a guide to milking cows. Anyway.

Strategy is your over-arching plan (modified or not, though if you don't modify it to counter your opponent's strategy, you're probably a noob): it is the grand method of attack you use to crush, kill, and eat the babies of your enemy.

Tactics are the immediate turns and twists you (or your troops) take in the course of enacting your strategy. Let's have an example.

My strategy is to cut off access to point X, in order to delay my opponent while I take point Y. His strategy is to push towards X. It seems, then, that my strategy is superior (And that I will be eating my opponent's babies soon enough!). The tactics here are how exactly I delay my opponent's attack on point X, and how exactly I take point Y. I could use guerrilla warfare against the troops that advance on point X, or perhaps I could set up a nigh-impenetrable bulwark and fight a battle of attrition. As for point Y, I could sneak in with a crack team of baby-eaters, or I could just attack with the larger part of my army once my opponent has committed to attacking point X, where I have delayed him.

So, there you go, if you didn't know. You learn something every day, or at least every third or foourth day in our TV culture. Now, go out and destroy your enemies with superior tactics. Oh, and don't forget to eat their babies, or at least their cats.

Creating the lego game.

2006-03-02T11:24:00.000-05:00

Some of you may be aware that I'm designing a table-top game involving lego. Why? Because lego is awesome. This game started out as a substitute for Warhammer, which was expensive as hell (you might think of the cost of lego, but we already had tonnes of the stuff, so we were set), but has started to evolve into a highly-customizable, not strictly combat-oriented game.

I say "started to", because we're still playtesting it. Currently, my friend (and you know who you are) is making use of a very heavily-armoured knight to pulverize my troops, and the only things really standing in his way are a) an armoured acolyte (who can eventually become either a druid, shaman, or cleric/priest), and b) an archer (who loves buying increased-movement potions).

I'm aiming to make this a relatively simple game with nigh-boundless depth: There are already seven or eight basic classes, which each branch off into many, many more; non-combat classes include crafters who generate money and goods, merchants who sell goods, medics who heal, engineers who design engines of war and buildings, and so on; various stage objectives and items, including a kind of capture the flag and an economic race; a real difference between spells and prayers, and so on.

Sounds interesting, huh? Well, I hope it'll be. If any of you have absolutely any ideas as to what to put in a fantasy tabletop game (something you've wanted to see, an interesting thought), please let me know. I'll credit you when and if the game becomes a bit more publically available. Further, if you want a copy of the rough rules, let me know. I can arrange to send them over.

Stupid lack of good castle lego sets.

Cortisone Cream, mm.

2006-03-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

This is the best stuff ever. I noticed an itching on the back of my hand last night, while writing a test (needless to say, I was pretty distracted, grr). This morning, it turned out to be a mild skin rash. Now, I know none of you care, or even want to hear about my skin rash, but it leads to a bigger point. Trust me.

So, I had a nasty case of eczema about a month ago, and I still had some cortisone cream left over. I don't know whether it's expired or not, but hey; if it works as a placebo, so much the better. This stuff is a god-send. If you ever, *ever* have any reason to get it and keep it around, do so. I'm not advocating cheating the medical system (or am I...), but this stuff is great for any sort of skin irritation, whatever the case may be.

Anyway, that was a little less focused than my other rants, but I just love this stuff. No more itching!

PS: If you're making fun of me right now, you have genital herpes. That is all.

Poison yourselves, not me.

2006-02-14T17:00:00.000-05:00

Two groups of people with whom I hang out/do stuff smoke. Unfortunately, they do it around me. These are people with whom I enjoy spending my time (for the most part), so I've toughed it out until now. Finding that the "total crap" feeling persists a day or two after those particular instances (and not otherwise), I'm going to have to put my foot down. It's unfortunate that this poison is considered legal by the government (I no longer want to go to the Niagara Casino); I'm sick of smelling that garbage and feeling awful afterwards, so I'm going to stipulate that no such nonsense occurs when I go out with those people, or I leave. Hopefully they understand but, if not, ah well. Poison is bad!

Kaboom Goes The Embassy?

2006-02-09T12:07:00.000-05:00

Admittedly, I try not to pay too much attention to goings-on in the world. People are stupid, which we already know, and I'd rather not embroil myself in stuff they're up to. That said, I heard about some Danish - and I think it was the Danes - newspaper printing anti-Muslim comics, in the form of Mohammed concealing a bomb in his turban. Again, I emphasize that this is all second-hand information, but it's the principle I'm getting to, not the details.

Now, this sort of print is disrespectful, yes, but it shouldn't be banned. Nonsense like this borders on hate-crime, I'd say, as it's far more "severe" than the prophet sitting down to have a few drinks with Christ and Buddha or some such.

Anyway, to the point. I hear that, in reaction, the Danish Embassy was attacked (after the Norweigan embassy, forgive the spelling) took a severe hit itself. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the best way to protest a comic labelling your people as mad bombers and over-the-top religious zealots is not by blowing shit up. That situation is much like this one: I called you a gun-toting criminal, so you shot me with a "nuh-uh!".

Now, I've got a few Muslim friends, which makes me sad to say that these stupid reactions (combined with the crap in the Middle-East) make Muslims look worse and worse as the days go by. The sad fact is that conservative religious groups don't look like they'll ever grow up, and I'm not just talking about Islam here. Swords and violence might have been cool back in the day when your religions were founded, but they aren't cool now, despite what America's monkey-leader might have you believe.

I'm glad I'm doing this over the internet, so nobody tries to blow me up.

Midichlorians Make Me Laugh.

2006-02-07T16:53:00.000-05:00

Episodes one to three, of Star Wars, are not canon. George Lucas is a nitwit, and I refuse to accept that bullshit. Discuss.

These Are The People Who Deserve To Be Eaten By Zombies

2006-02-07T16:43:00.000-05:00

Noisy little idiots on the bus. Yes, that's right. This morning, I had the displeasure of sitting in front of a couple (not really a couple, but you know how 20-somes flirt these days) who insisted on babbling in Italian-accented English - the kind that kids put on to pretend to sound Latino, not even the real accent - about someone who evidently did mundane things so poorly that they were worth swearing about every second word. When you say it in a poor Italian accent, kids, it's cool!

If zombies had boarded our bus, I'd have scrambled behind these two, and hoped to any deities that exist that there were enough brains to go around. Honestly. People like this should be hauled to colliseums, where the dead have been animated for the express purpose of feasting on their irritating, over-cologned/perfumed, fabu-tanned (Thanks, Oscar), generally gimped flesh. Assholes.

Hey, their word, not mine.

Edit: "assholes" was supposed to be "self-centred fucks". Yeah.

Discomfort In Public

2006-02-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

So I'm sitting in my class today, and I start to feel something digging into my toe inside my boot. Given that I haven't trimmed my nails for more than a week (though I have been cleaning them, so piss off), I figured that my toes had arranged themselves such that one nail was digging into one toe. Now, this sometimes amounts to a sock-full of blood, so I waited for the break (which came 2.25 hours into a 3 hour class, by the way), then promptly hobbled to the washroom to check. No blood, fortunately, and my makeshift toilet-paper toe-sheath is holding. Yes, that's what we call it nowadays.

How the hell do you people tough it out? The pain (discomfort in public) started about ten minutes into the class, and I waiting - squirming - for two hours until I could fix it. I'm not female, so I don't have the biological excuse (sexist bastards). What do you do?

Further, pain hurts. That's right, pain hurts.

Sorry for the delay: War Sucks.

2006-02-07T16:19:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's right, war sucks. Furthermore, I apologize for not posting for a while, but life got the better of me. Anyway.

War is good, for defensive purposes. In that case, it's really not war, it's more like resistance. That's ok, unlike my spelling. Invasion, on the other hand, is bad. I'm not saying that recent invasions haven't achieved anything good: dictators are almost always bad. Unfortunately, warmongers use dictators as excuses to do what they love doing.

Let's get this straight. The goals of war are conquest and money (which loosely fits under conquest, so...). If you're not interested in these goals, don't wage war. War games are fun. I love strategy and conquest on an animated scale. When people start dying, and you're doing more than throwing your hard-earned money into the meat grinder, you know something is wrong.

The hippies were right. Why do we keep on condoning this nonsense?

Lack of rant topic on Wednesday.

2006-01-27T00:22:00.000-05:00

Nothing in my immediate world offended me horribly on Wednesday, surprisingly. Well, that's not *entirely* true; it just wasn't something to write home about. Wearing knee-high boots over one's pants is irritating and hideously ugly, but not on par with other ideological issues I've written on.

Also, I wish U of T was a car-free campus. Driving through there today, I realized just how easy it would be to run a pedestrian over. While the idea is satisfying in principle (especially with all those dumb kids...), it's not ethical. I don't bemoan this, but I do however rack up a few extra pedestrian kills in Grand Theft Auto.

That's pretty much it. I'll write some more when it comes time to tear the world apart again. For now, enjoy your existences.

Voting.

2006-01-23T19:48:00.000-05:00

I expect to hear a little bit of a rebuttal, from a certain someone who seems to disagree with me on almost every ideological issue out there. That said, let me talk about my voting experience.

I went in and did my civic duty, just now. Of course, having absolutely no respect for the promises of politicians, I decided to cast a vote of no confidence. It turns out, however, that the system is rigged against a certain kind of ballot: mine.

It turns out (and I asked several polling-booth folks) that my vote is just as good as if I hadn't shown up in the first place. Since there is no spot for "no confidence", I wrote "no vote" across the ballot, as suggested; this ballot with be discarded with the other spoiled ballots, totally inconsequential.

Perhaps, if this option became open on the ballots, more people would be less likely to acquiesce and vote for the better of the evils. The politicians can't have that, of course, so there probably won't be such an option for the foreseeable future.

I'm confused: does that mean that the vote of a person who has a solid stance against liars taking power doesn't count? I guess it's a safeguard against people who might vote like I do; judging the promises of politicians according to established precedent.

Underworld 2

2006-01-21T01:49:00.000-05:00

If you like plot holes and silly vampire lore, you might not want to see this movie. Fortunately for some of you, if you like Kate what's-her-name in a black latex catsuit, you might change your mind. I think that's enough on this topic.

Super Mario Strikers

2006-01-21T01:37:00.000-05:00

Now I know what you're thinking: it's a stupid Nintendo sports game with very little to show for itself, besides new outfits for the two princesses. To be honest, that's what I thought (and I didn't even know about the outfits!) until I went to Toys R Us today and tried it out on the demo box. Well, about half a minute in, I went and bought it. Sure, there aren't as many unlockables as in Super Smash Bros., but that's ok: The game is challenging (so far) on the "medium" mode, and I find myself hollering at the television when a goal is scored on my silly little alligator goalkeeper.

The game has great 4-player potential. A friend and myself spent the evening at it, two-player (of course), and had a hell of a time setting up even something as simple as one-timers. There's also a nifty shot you can pull off that automatically scores - the goalkeeper catches the ball, but it thrusts him into the net. I thought that was a neat touch; did I mention it's worth two points?

Anyhow, if you have a Gamecube and don't want to buy the game, at least rent it and figure it out with some friends. It's a lot of fun, and certainly a game to replace the good ol' Mariokart and Mario Party when all your drinking buddies come over and get sloshed and vomit on the carpet. That never happened.

So I Recently Took up Final Fantasy Tactics Again...

2006-01-19T00:31:00.000-05:00

What can I say, it's a great game. My three big gripes with it, however, are as follows:

1) Computer-controlled allies are idiots. In what has been commonly called the "Rafa Syndrome" (Rafa is a character who flees to you, only to turn back around and try to use her feeble powers on the enemy; this usually results in her being cut down like wheat, and most usually when the mission is "protect Rafa or lose"), pretty much each and every computer-controlled ally will first run towards you (in a sort of "sike!" move), then run way the hell back to the people who are chasing it, with the intention of gunning them down. Needless to say, this happens - as mentioned above - when the mission is "protect X or die", so you usually end up losing before you even get a turn.

2) Gil is useless. That's right; in the late game, money is stupid and worth absolutely nothing, just as in most Final Fantasy games. They should have added some sort of purchasable incentive, like the orbs in Tactics Ogre (they give you elemental resistance, and decrease your weight, raising your overall speed).

3) You can't get assassins without a game shark! Granted, they fixed this error in Final Fantasy Tactics 2, but even so: Celia and Lede, the demonic assassins who could kill with *one hit* (100% chance, most of the time), were the greatest thing to come out of the game. They were modified Dancer models too, so they looked pretty flashy in a sort of "I'll kill you any turn now" kind of way.

Anyhow, that's enough griping about the game; maybe I should turn my attention to it now and stop dying so often.

I hate Twinkie Rogues.

2006-01-15T02:06:00.000-05:00

Yes, this is another World of Warcraft rant. As I only have classes two days a week, I don't get to "enjoy" the sheer idiocy of the world outside my home and places I can visit by car very often; this leads to poor rant topics. Anyhow, I hate Twinkie Rogues.

For those of you that don't know (and I might even be wrong, but hey), characters that are "twinked out" have the absolute top gear - or something close to - for their level. That means to say that they've spent a small fortune upgrading their characters, using the resources of their level 60s to "twink them out".

Let's take weapon enchantments, for instance. The Fiery, Icy, Crusader, and +15 agility enchantments are end-game material. They take a decent amount of materials to put together, and you really don't want to waste them - usually. Twinked out characters in the pvp level bracket my hunter belongs to - that is, levels 30-39 - will routinely have weapons with these enchantments.

Back to the topic. In my last ten or so games of Warsong Gulch (a glorified Capture the Flag), I noticed a rogue (fast, stealthy, lots of damage) named Rogueish running around with a few shiny blades. Closely inspecting her armour (from a distance, using a spying ability - phew), she's wearing pretty much the top gear for level 39, as well as carrying two rare swords enchanted with Crusader and agility +15. This twink has killed me more times than I care to remember, pumping out a disgusting amount of damage for her level. People like this bug the hell out of me, so I concocted a plan.

Hunters can lay traps that are invisible to the enemy, unless the enemy is smart enough to use the rogue ability "Detect Traps". Rogueish, it turns out - for all her damage - is not that smart. I usually see her vanish into thin air (a rogue ability), then take up a turret position outside the fray. Before I begin firing, I place a trap that turns its victim into an icy block for about 8 seconds, give or take: then the barrage begins.

Rogueish seems to fall for this. She comes up behind me and does a nasty rogue stun move, then finds herself locked in ice. The stun mitigates about 3-4 seconds of my trap, so I have about 4 seconds to run away. The thing is, hunters are great at playing keep-away. Needless to say - despite her damn twink swords and gear - Rogueish dies pretty quickly.

Anyway, I hate twinked-out rogues. If you play one, go to hell. If you won't go willingly, I'll send you there with an Aimed Shot critical hit, so either way you lose. Idiot.

Screw You, ROSI.

2006-01-13T00:21:00.000-05:00

So, the University of Toronto's brilliantly designed registration website has a mascot by the name of ROSI. It stands for repository (perhaps suppository would be more appropriate) of Student Information, or something like that. Anyhow, personifying the object of every student's hatred was a bad idea. Allow me to explain.

We have X weeks to register for additional courses, after the start of the school term, X being something like 2.5 or so. For those of us who could not get into our courses during registration, this is the time we have to plug the holes in our schedules. At first glance, you can probably see the big issue here: the entire university's worth of students who are missing classes have to book during this period of time, resulting in a hell of a lot of server clog. That would be the regular bad situation. This year, ROSI has decided that he/she/it (it looks like an inflated condom wearing a bulky rugby sweater) has severe brain damage, and will periodically just go down, regardless of server congestion.

So, we're left with a) competing with other students to get precious server time/space (whatever metaphor you'd like to use) , and b) ROSI's occasional (read: frequent) vegetable state. Needless to say, the chances of me getting into my missing classes is about 0.6%. Yes, that's an arbitrary number.

Back to the ROSI issue. If anyone wants to sew/knit/cobble together a ROSI effigy and BURN it somewhere, please invite me. Again, my email address is Typhael@gmail.com (for those of you who weren't paying attention during my rant on the rich); I'm sure we can make a big bonfire and sit down for marshmellows when we all find ourselves unable to complete our degrees due to ROSI's crippling illness. You'd almost think that the university was planning this. Hmm.

Is Choosing Your Own Grading Scheme Common?

2006-01-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

So I went to my evening class today, only to find the professor asking us "so how should you be graded, hmm?". As the prof is an aging fellow who spritely hops about the class, we thought he might have been asking a rhetorical question: after two or so minutes of silence, it turns out that we were wrong.

So, we spewed out our answers, very hesitantly (he could have arbitrarily chosen any one of them!), until we had about five on the board. They consisted of some blend of papers, tests, and exams, some missing one of those options. After a quick vote (who knew?), it came down to the following two options. Be honest, here; which would you pick?

1) One long paper, one examination.
2) One short paper, two longer papers, one midterm, and one exam: after completing your last paper, you can decide that you don't want it marked, and the exam counts. If you don't want the exam to count, the paper counts.

Who in their right mind would vote for one!? Well, nine people did. I'll leave that to you to think up; take into account that I have preempted most of your arguments with "how is that sane!?".

So, the second choice it is. We'll have a variety of assignments to be graded on (if one is a royal mess, it's relatively ok), *and* the option not to take the exam: having done both long papers, I could walk in, look at the exam, shrug, write "don't grade this please", and walk out. Mm.

Am I crazy enough to commute in to school (that's an hour and a half of travel, folks) *just* to do that? Time will tell. A reasoned guess, however, says hell no.

Butcher

2006-01-10T11:08:00.000-05:00

So, I've been reading some other blogs, and I've decided that most of them prattle on about either a) the same kind of ideological stuff mine does (in a different way), or b) day-to-day nonsense that nobody wants to hear about. Since I'm determined to do things my own way, and absolutely abominate traditional blog format, I'm going to tell you about my day.

I woke up at 6:45am. Then, I decided that I didn't want to get up that early, so I went back to bed. Waking up at 8:30am this time, I did my 100 or so crunches and some stretches, then took a shower while humming the Tragically Hip's "Gift Shop". My shower lasted about fifteen minutes.

After my shower, I combed out my hair twice (I had to get all the stray hairs out), then went downstairs for some Kamut Krisp. I have no idea why it's called that, but it's damn good cereal if you throw raisins in there. Along with a mug of milk on the side (for some reason I like some milk untainted by cereal bits and taste), I played a map of Dawn of War (with the Imperial Guard), crushing my opponents while simultaneously playing a map of Tactics Ogre for the PSX. Then, I got on my boots and coat and went outside.

Bored yet?

I took Mississauga Transit to the GO station, then took the bus (with my horribly rumpled ticket) to Union. From there, I got on the subway, got off at Museum station, and am now sitting in the library across from where my class will take place at 12. I'm hungry, but there isn't anything great to eat within walking distance.

Well, that was stupid. Why people choose to write about their days, I'll never know; unless one has some sort of memory-loss, in which case I suppose that keeping records of your life would be acceptable. Oh, and I hate emo kids in general. So there.

A Pause

2005-12-12T23:32:00.000-05:00

For anyone that actually reads this blog (I can think of maybe three people tops, but who knows?), I'll be out of order for the next week and a bit. Exams are coming up, and I have to start cramming. Good luck to everyone who still has exams to go!

Space Marines are Here!

2005-12-08T11:22:00.000-05:00

I'm curious as to why Games Workshop isn't filing lawsuits against Blizzard. I'm fairly certain that GW owns image copyrights on their model and character designs. If you haven't seen the new Paladin armour for Blizzard's World of Warcraft, just crack open one of your Warhammer 40k books to the "Grey Knights" chapter of Space Marines; that's basically what it looks like. I won't link any images for fear of Blizzard or GW destroying me and scattering my atoms throughout the cosmos, but the image research isn't very difficult to do.

I'm just envious, so don't mind me. I wish undead priests were Space Marines too. Damn Blizzard.

My Sagely Wisdom: Calling Me White Is Racism

2005-12-08T11:04:00.000-05:00

That's right, I'm toeing the hard line here. If you say that I'm "white", you're being racist. I also believe that calling someone "black" or "Asian" is racist, even if you do it within the culture. All of the racial slang that is supposedly "ok" within racial groups (by common thought) is still absolutely racist, and I would be offended (as some people rightly are) if someone called me by that name.

Anyway, on to the actual topic of this post. I am not "white". My skin is actually a very, very light shade of brownish-pink, I think. Furthermore, calling me "white" is slotting me into the tradition of "white dominance" that many people take offence to. First of all, these "whites" were actually Anglo-saxons. I'm sick and tired of hearing that my ancestors are responsible for slavery and so on (and I responsible, somehow, with them), when my ancestors were also used as cheap labour by the Anglo-saxons. I'm sure that many of you can empathize. Grouping my family (extended and otherwise) together with the Anglo-saxons is actually an affront, and pretty damn offensive.

Further, to call me "white" is to mask the fact that I actually do have a cultural heritage (despite the fact that I don't cling to it as desperately as some others). "White" could be anything from Northern Europe to Southeastern Europe to people with albino pigmentation. Nations in that division have been at war, and have various animosities, and would probably also balk at being lumped under "white" if they weren't too busy being stupid. The same statement applies to "Asian" (which is popular now, it seems; I guess that's one way to bring together the Chinese, Thai, North and South Koreans, Japanese, etc.) and "black". I mean, there are many places around the world where "black" people come from. I would take offense at being lumped into the same grouping as my enemies of the same skin colouration, let alone people from halfway across the globe.

Long story short, using the terms "white", "black", "Asian" (which seems like the positive replacement for "yellow", to be honest) and so on is called racism. To comment on the "dominant white culture" is to be racist, and to offend victims of Anglo-saxon dominance by blaming them for the same cultural sins.

Why do people insist on blanketing myriad cultures with such simple terms? Every freakin' culture (on the whole) has suffered under their neighbours or others who actually very closely resemble them in a physical fashion, and still these terms are used.

I guess the bigger question is, "why are people such idiots?" I don't have the answer to that, unfortunately, unless "just because" is an answer. That's something a non-philosopher would say, though, and we know you're all just being ignorant.

Hehe.

Nick Treanor Is What You Kids Might Call "Da Shiznit"

2005-12-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

So, my third-year class in metaphysics came to a close tonight; boy, am I stuffed. Allow me to explain. First of all, he fed us this last class. This is by no means his most amazing feat, but it is still damn awesome. My friend and I came into class expecting pre-packaged veggies and dip, maybe some pre-made sandwiches, but Nick surprised us all by making a) mixed salad (yes, salad), b) grilled sweet potatoes, c) cheese/onion/squash quiche (homemade), and d) cans of pop (rather than the asinine bottle approach). If you ever read this, Nick, know that we are eternally greatful for the stupendous food.

Secondly, Nick had the guts to introduce a highly interactive class environment and a neat series of papers that had us analyzing each other's work as though they were the articles we had to read for class. Of course, I don't speak in class, having been conditioned out of it in the early years of university (speak in class, sound either arrogant or like an idiot; that's bad!), but I got a lot of information - about the topic and about irrelevant concerns of my classmates - out of the discussions. As for the paper analyses, they were a great idea. We're told to write papers in school, but very seldom taught how; these analyses gave opportunity for feedback and criticism that I believe we sorely need. Anyhow, three cheers for Nick Treanor!

And for all of you that have never had an instructor like this...

ENVY US! Suckers.

My Sagely Wisdom: Having Lots of Money Does Not Make You Better

2005-12-05T03:07:00.000-05:00

If you believe this, you have been duped (...sucker). If you make over a million dollars a year, hurray for you. If you drive a fancy car, lovely. If you live in a veritable mansion, yippy-do-dah. I can't think of anything else to mock these people about, but I'm sure something will come up eventually. Anyway, congratulations to all these rich folks on being modern feudal barons. If money added to the intrinsic worth of the person in possession of it, I'm sure you would all be gods among mere mortals. The fact of the matter is, though, that it doesn't. Wearing a business suit, carrying a loaded wallet, and walking seriously up and down Bay street only goes to show that you think way too highly of yourself, and maybe that you're just a little insecure about your actual character, if you can remember exactly what that is.

If you think I'm just being bitter, and you have a bunch of money to throw my way to prove that I would be just as much of an idiot as you if I had the cash, please send it my way. I'll try to feed more people than you've fired over the course of your career (in order to raise your own salary, let's not kid anyone), but that might be an unrealistic objective. Maybe I'll just keep enough to pay for my books this year, donate some to my friends in similar need, buy a new graphics card, then spread the rest around to the less fortunate folk of the city. I know that they might be hard to see from Bay street, but trust me, they're there.

(I'm not kidding. If you have ridiculous wealth you'd like to test me with, send me an email; we'll see what we can do: typhael@gmail.com)

Why I Don't Edit

2005-12-05T03:05:00.000-05:00

If you find a typo in one of my articles, hurray for you. My reasons for not editing my blog in a painstaking fashion is that I a) don't want to, and b) edit enough school nonsense to satisfy my yearly quota. Take into account that my spelling and grammar are usually better than that of most people who put their piddly ideas up onto the internet, and throw in a bit of "I don't care" attitude, and I'm sure you'll find yourself able to forgive me soon enough.

My Sagely Wisdom: Why Atheists and Theists Should Stop Arguing

2005-12-05T02:37:00.000-05:00

God exists/God doesn't exist: both sides of this debate are absolute champions, as far as I'm concerned (that's internet sarcasm for you). Let me briefly state why I hold this opinion.

Let's just clarify that theists believe that there is a god, while atheists believe that there is not a god. If I'm wrong, you clarify for me, and I'll rework what I write if your clarification has merit. If not, get lost. Anyway. I'm not going to get into semantics about any particular god - you can attack a certain theology all you want, but that doesn't destroy the gist of my argument.

So, theists believe that god exists, atheists believe that god doesn't exist. What's the problem here? These are beliefs. I believe that 90% of the world's population is stupid. Am I wrong? Probably not, but that's besides the point. I could believe that the moon was made of blue cheese. Would I be wrong? Likely, so says science. My point here is, the questions are not the same. "Is the moon made of blue cheese?" or "is 90% of the world's population stupid according to a particular measure of intelligence?" are verifiable questions, at least in some way or another. "Is God an existent entity?" is not verifiable, at least not yet, so I don't quite understand why this argument persists.

Yes, I grant that most rational proofs of god's existence are silly and ultimately full of holes. However, I also grant that most rational proofs of god's non-existence are just as flawed. I came upon a site recently that had "300 arguments for the Existence of God". These are all shown to be silly and idiotic (for the most part, I agree), and this list was somehow supposed to incline one towards atheism. Think again, idiots. In a link on the site, the atheists give us a nice scientific explanation about how we shouldn't believe in the existence of god. Once more, think again, idiots. I would go into specifics, but you can read them on this site:

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/WhyAtheism.htm

They just love that straw-man argument, don't they. Hold on, let me quote something before I finish up here:

" The Atheist position is that the Universe is understandable and explainable in the naturalistic terms of science and mathematics."

This may very well be true. However, let me congratulate you idiots on only considering an existent god as an entity within the system. What if he/she/it existed without?

Here, another genius line:

" We’ve seen that there is no reliable evidence that any god exists, especially a personal god of the Christian/Jewish/Muslim type."

What a way to nitpick. According to these educated atheists, the "absence of evidence is evidence of absence". Never mind that perhaps our evidence-gathering systems are flawed (unable to collect data of a higher order or what have you). Never mind that we never used to have means by which to gather evidence from the stars, and so we attributed all sorts of strange astrological occurences to strange astrological forces. By this paradigm, the absence of evidence we cannot find becomes the evidence of absence. That our high-and-mighty sciences cannot yet gather particular evidence to substantiate any particular belief is not an indicator that they will never be able to: it is perfectly rational to believe this, from the progression of the sciences thus far. Before the microscope, it would probably have been foolish to believe that the human body was composed of cells. After all, we had no way of proving this. Hey, the absence of evidence for it had to be the evidence of its absence: damn good luck, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, that was a big side-rant. Ultimately, stop arguing. No one unfalsifiable belief trumps another. Whether god exists or not, we can't know yet, if ever, so stop telling everyone that your one side is right. It can't be, by nature of the disagreement. Idiots.

Note: There seems to be something wrong with the format of this post. I'm doing my best (given what time I have) to try and fix it). Thanks.

Winning At Poker

2005-12-04T03:35:00.001-05:00

So it seems that Texas Hold 'Em is a big thing now. My friends just recently invited me to play an all-night series of games (which ended up being two really long games), and so I went along more for the company than anything else. I love gambling, don't get me wrong; I'm fairly sure that I was mildly addicted to Blackjack at the casinos a while back. I'm even with casinos now, but that's not the point.

I stink at poker. I mean, I'm the player equivalent of a 7-2 offsuite hand. So at this poker night, I plummeted miserably during the first game; I think I was the first one out, of six. The second game, however, I was playing on borrowed money, so I had to pull out the big bluffing guns. Strangely enough, it worked. It might have been that it was 3am, or that the table was distracted by "There's Something About Mary" on the television, but I cleaned house. The borrowed money was paid back, and I got my original investment of ten bucks back too. All had fun, and I actually felt like I was decent at the game. Of course, this feeling won't last long, and I'll swear off gambling until the next time my friends ask me to come along.

The moral of the story is, spend time with your friends, even if you absolutely suck at whatever it is they ask you to do. You might even win something, and get to make fun of their stuffed animals while you're at it. Oh yeah, and the company and all that. Good stuff. Your friends will know you like them if you go play games you're absolutely horrible at with 'em. Go try it, though I don't recommend playing in traffic. Most people are bad at that one.

Wearing A Dress In World of Warcraft

2005-12-03T16:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, I play an online game by the name of World of Warcraft. I run a level 60 undead priest on the Terenas server, spec'd holy and discipline. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, this pretty much means that I sit back behind everyone else and heal them so that they don't die horrible deaths. Good, fun stuff.

The great folks at Blizzard (who make the game) have decided, in their infinite wisdom, to make robes the clothing of choice for all clothies (the nice name for most magic users in the game - the derogatory one is "squishies", because we die so damn fast if an enemy attacks us). Robes don't look so much like robes as they do dresses. So, we're all dress-wearing magic-users. You can guess how much mockery this nets us. Of course, most of the other classes in the game aren't entire sure if there is really a priest conspiracy, so they tend to walk on broken glass around us. Also good, fun stuff.

My pet peeve (because let's face it, that's what my blog is about) is when non-clothies confuse one cloth-wearing class for another. Most classes have unique abilities (warlocks can summon party members, mages can generate free food and water, and so on), yet still I get requests for summons, and food/water, and portals (another mage feature). Yes, I wear a dress, but that does not mean that I'm a class-swiss-army-knife. When you click me, the game will have a window pop up telling you that I am a priest. Priests can not do these things. If you think that priests can do these things, then you are an imbecile. Your only excuses are a) you're too low of a level to know better (and these requests come at high levels, so that's not really an excuse), or b) you bought your level 60 character from a Chinese gold farmer (in which case, you're an imbecile anyway).

On a related note, "come scholo now" is not the appropriate way to request help from a healer. I hope you get killed.

How University Will Drive You Mad

2005-12-02T10:13:00.000-05:00

I'm in my third year. About halfway through this first term, I realized that if I wanted to maintain any sort of good grade, I would have to stop doing all the work. Why is this, you might ask?

I'm getting an honours degree as an English major and Philosophy specialist. To those who don't know what a specialist is, it has higher requirements than a major. Anyway. I worked out my reading requirements per week: I have to read about 800-1200 pages a week (I won't argue about quality here; I know that other disciplines have to put up with stuff equally as nasty as Kant), plus churn out 2 papers per week on average. There was a little amnesty period in September, where the University was trying to fool us into thinking that life was easy and good, but that fell apart as usual.

So, being foolish, I tried to keep up with this work. Pretty soon, I couldn't stand the company of other humans, my flesh turned pale, my hair fell out, and I developed an inexplicable taste for brains. Drastic measures had to be taken. I started working only on my projects and ignoring any readings that didn't directly apply to my grade (content quizzes, tests and the like). Since then, I'm still pulling a sub-par grade, but at least I like normal food again. My hair's grown back, and my agoraphobia is fading away. Long story short, my sanity has returned (mostly).

The moral of the story is, the folks who prescribe work at the University have no idea what the words "appropriate amount" mean when taken together.

A Feature of Stupidity: Stopping Abruptly In Mid-walk

2005-12-01T14:29:00.000-05:00

I have come to the conclusion (many times in the past, of course; today was yet another instance) that people, in general, are stupid. Today's featured act of stupidity is stopping abruptly in mid-walk. The only time this is excusable is if a) you have a stroke at that exact moment (I'll take some other medical disaster here as well), b) you have reached your destination and are safely out of the way, or c) spiritual entities literally compel you. That's it; those are the only excuses you can have.

I experienced this monumental display of stupidity four times today, and it is still only 2:30pm. What is it that makes people stop abruptly in their tracks? I was walking down Bloor today, cheerfully listening to "Vox Stellarum" by some anarchist band my brother favours, when the fellow in front of me simply stopped. There was no preamble, no casual flirtation with slowing down; he just stopped. Now, I walk pretty damn quickly (why I hate it when people stop abruptly), but I'm told that even slower walkers find stopping abruptly in mid-stride irritating and generally maddening.

I usually don't collide with these idiots (since I make an effort to get the hell around them), but next time I might try a different strategy. Maybe I'll get some insight into what they think out of the chaotic argument that ensues.

"Administrative" affairs.

2005-11-30T23:33:00.000-05:00

So, I finally caved in to peer pressure and got a blog (who am I kidding? Peer pressure, sheesh). The name "Death to Blog" was created by a friend of mine who, I'm sure, was poking fun at me in some way. The morbid colours you see before you were also designed by said friend, but I think that I approve. A warning: I don't read blogs, so I have no idea how "traditional" blogging is supposed to go. Oh well, you'll suffer through my haphazard attempts if you want to.

For those of you who were seeking morbid topics and deep depression, here's something to tide you over:

Dark, dark rain; crimson blood; horrible souls; streaked makeup (I think that I'm catching angsty images here); babies being hit by cars (too much?); heartbreak. How sad.

See you soon.