Oh, Evolution . . .

These days I try to dodge the topic of evolution vs. creation.  Years ago I used to try to start debates on it because I read up on it all the time, formed my one-sided opinion, and would head out into the world with guns loaded and ready.  Usually I’d get crushed by someone else who either knew more than me or was just a better arguer than I was.  In the last five years or so, however, I’ve learned just how important the whole topic is over all (not very) and kept my beliefs to myself.  Life as a Christian is supposed to be about living a changed life that pursues Jesus’s example and reaches those around you, not debating text books at PTA meetings, which only polarizes everyone.  As I’ve said so many times before, our purpose is not to make everything look Christian; our purpose is to lead people to Christ so hearts and lives are changed.  While I don’t believe in evolution at all, I don’t think Creationism or Intelligent Design (or whatever name it has now) should be taught in our schools anytime soon.  If it happened it will only serve to polarize people all the more, and while Creationist “activists” would no doubt cheer wildly at their victory, those strongly opposed would demonize Jesus in their hearts and minds all the more.  Then those people, whom Jesus loves dearly, would be that much closer to being lost forever.  Seems kind of counter-productive, doesn’t it?  Well, at least you can scoff more proudly at episodes of Nova.

Yet despite all of that, I’m still a critic of the way the scientific community treats evolution.  As I’m sure you know, the whole debate has gotten quite ridiculous over the last few years, and (at least from a Northwesterner’s perspective) the evolution side is winning the popular vote.  Darwin’s theory is held as fact more than ever before everywhere I look.  Those who still participate in the debate but side with evolution have seemed to claim victory, and it’s amusing to me when it’s not breaking my heart.  In my beloved Emerald City we have more cars with those “Darwin” fish on the back of them than the Mid-west has Wal-Marts.  It’s getting close to the point that those fish will be more associated with evolution than the original symbol will be associated with Christianity. I’ve even been treated to some tasteful bumper stickers; the one most prominent in my mind said, “We have the fossils. We win.”

So with my seemingly-unique approach to the whole debate, does my continued belief in the Genesis account exist only out of faith, or do I still see fundamental problems with the theory?  The answer is B.  An article I found this morning (which prompted me to write this blog, which is making me late to the gym, which considerably slows down my day) reminded me of one of my primary problems with the evolution perspective.

A few months back, a very in-tact fossil was revealed to the world (which had been discovered, I think, two years prior) and was being touted as the “missing link” between reptiles and mammals (again – I think that’s what they said it was), and the scientific community was saying things like, “It changes so many of our pre-conceived notions about our evolution!”

About a year or so ago, “Lucy” (the revolutionary find of bones from an ancient ape, or early human, depending on how you look at it) were making their “World Tour” and hung out in Seattle’s Pacific Science Center for a few months.  Radio advertisements for the exhibit mentioned how the discovery of Lucy “changed how we understand evolution!”

Something I read back in my days of unwisely starting arguments talked about how a guy was able to successfully create amino acids (which make up proteins) in a soup of what was then understood to be early-earth conditions.  A while after that revolutionary experiment, something was discovered (I honestly can’t tell you what it was) that COMPLETELY CHANGED what scientists believed made up the atmosphere of early earth, thus rendering his experiment completely useless.

And now, today, I find this article that mentions the discovery of some hands and feet that, YET AGAIN, “reverses the common wisdom of human evolution.”

I’m sure there are countless other examples out there of which I am unaware.  This is my main beef with the whole idea.  We started with Chuck’s observations on an island, suddenly science takes on his ideas as truth, then when they find something that doesn’t fit their previous equation, they re-write the equation but maintain the same solution.  Then something else is found and they re-write it again.  Then they figure something out that contradicts what they thought before, and they re-write it again.  I’m not so dense to the way the scientific method works to think that if you don’t get it right the first time that you must be wrong all together, but I do know that after re-writing everything several dozen times, at SOME POINT you, or someone else, needs to start asking some different questions.

Let me put it another way and conclude (because I’m REALLY running late to the gym, now).  How about a metaphor?  Fun!

Evolutionists have given the world a giant, incomplete puzzle, already in its frame, and titled it, “How We Came to Be.”  When you ask about the many parts that are missing, they calmly tell you, “We haven’t found those parts yet, but when we do, they’ll fit perfectly.”  Well, then they find some more parts, but it turns out they don’t fit perfectly.  Therefore, they take down the frame, re-arrange a large portion of the puzzle to make the new parts fit, then put it back up and tell us it’s the same picture.  As they find more and more pieces, they keep re-arranging different sections of the puzzle, but all the while maintaining that the “whole picture” is unchanged.  How many times can you do that until you begin to question if you’re going about putting it together the wrong way in the first place?  I’m putting my money on “many more times,” and I think that’s sad.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_sc/us_sci_before_lucy

 

Let’s put this to rest once and for all.

I was going to write up a whole blog on how I have said time and time again that a “sugar high” or a “sugar rush” is not at all true – meaning that you, nor anyone else, anywhere, ever, have gotten a surge of energy from eating an excess of sugar.  No, not even kids.  (This does not account for caffiene). I was going to search and search and search and provide references out the proverbial butt to support my case so that all you nay-sayers can see what I have on MY side so you know what  you need in order to prove YOUR side, and thus effectively knowing that what I know is RIGHT.  I was going to do that, but the first place I looked turned out to be all I needed.  It’s The Straight Dope article from February 15, 2008, where this reality was first introduced to me.  In it, Cecil Adams (self-dubbed as “The world’s smartest human”) cites many studies that have been done over the last 30-40 years which have all effectively failed to prove that sugar has any effect on people even closely resembling what is commonly believed.  In fact, what HAS been observed is that parents’ behavior around children, when the children have been given sugar and the parents know it, is what changes.  If you still refuse to believe me after reading this article, then there’s no hope for you.

So in your FACES! I love you all.

 

(Why) I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet . . .

This is a topic very dear to me.  Those who know me will certainly be able to attest to this.  I must choose my words very carefully, and be sure to support my grievances with plenty of examples, as people on the other side of this eternal debate seem to be filled with TNT as I spew my fire at them at close range.

The mainstream ruins good music. I hesitate to use such a tired term, but I will stand by my decision to do so.  By “mainstream” I mean not only commercial radio stations, Mtv etc., trend stores like Hot Topic, and end-caps in the Wal-Mart CD section, but also popular culture’s common knowledge (which is usually incorrect in its assumptions) and, overall, things teenagers these days think they understand, and by extension what adults think they therefore understand by watching today’s teenagers.

It is because this “mainstream” ruins good music that I find myself getting upset when (to name just a few examples),

1. My favorite bands sign to major labels or go on tour with crap groups like Blink 182 or Nickelback,
2. A song on one of those bands’ new albums (which I would have had for 3 months or more at that point) becomes some cell phone company’s new jingle for their commercials,
3. New bands spring up that only imitate that what has already been done and get more attention for it,
4. I see a store in a mall selling ready-made fashions that, years prior, I watched creative people design for themselves via thrift shops so as not to support stores in malls,
5. The songs and albums that defined the genre in question are belittled by those who think they understand music better because that OLD stuff was never on the radio, but the NEW stuff is.

There is a general understanding held by many people that good bands get famous, okay bands are one-hit or one-album wonders, and crappy bands are just generic little garage bands you never hear of and that’s okay because they’re no good anyway.  Furthermore, this general understanding also says that people who get mad when their music gets famous are just selfish and guided by some irrational, anti-establishment ideology and only listen to the music to perpetuate their image of independence from mass culture in the first place.  That understanding is disgustingly wrong.

I’ve had this blog on my mind for quite some time, and since starting to write it two days ago I’ve gone “J.R.R. Tolkien” on it about four times (kudos to those of you who get that analogy).  What I have concluded is the best way to state my case is to tell my music story, and then conclude with some insightful thoughts for all of you to take home.  It is my goal that those of you who may, to whatever degree, agree with that “general understanding” I mentioned, go away with a broader perspective on the world of music, and the eternal struggle of artistry and sound vs. image and money therein.

I got into punk rock starting in 1995 and developed an affinity for the more pop-punk sound (featuring vocal harmonies and simple chord progressions) by bands such as NOFX and Bad Religion. It wasn’t long after that when I started getting into ska by way of bands like The Toasters, Mustard Plug, and Slapstick, to name a few.  I dissected every album I had, learned all about the genres’ histories, and read other bands’ names in the special thanks sections and hunted down their works as well.

1997 was one cool year.

I was sure I was on the cutting edge of the new wave of popular music because mere months after friends introduced me to these two genres, they became more and more popular.  However, I quickly learned a distaste for this as some of my classmates, who were Rage and Bush fans the week before, were writing “New Found Glory” and “Mighty Mighty Bosstones” in white-out on their backpacks, Mtv (as it existed in that day and age) was having a hay-day with “Sell-Out,” and other people were asking questions like, “What’s this new form of music called ’ska?’” and when I’d inform them that ska is actually older than reggae, I was ridiculed for being so ill-informed.

Crappier

Crappy

There were guys that I knew as Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam junkies who actually convinced me that The Urge were a good band so I regrettably bought their second album.  There were popular kids in the cafeteria singing the new ska-punk hit, “Walking on the Sun.”  My gut twisted as I even saw a few of my favorite bands, such as Buck-O-Nine (see albums Barfly and Twenty-Eight Teeth) change their style in hopes of landing an Mtv hit (see album Libido).  My heart broke as the popular kids that owned Turn Off the Radio and Dude Ranch, as I did, would roll their eyes at albums such as Life on a Plate and Lookit! (which, in my opinion then and now, are WAY better).  I wanted it to stop.  I wanted them to say away because, for some reason, I knew that since they weren’t genuine, the consequences could not be good.

Then ska disappeared like any other flavor of the week.  From around 2000 or 2001 forward, there have only been a small handful of such bands, playing shows and releasing albums for those who were really ska fans all along.  If you don’t believe me, check out groups like Mu330, Voodoo Glow Skulls, and Streetlight Manifesto.  I think the Toasters might still be together, too, but I could be wrong.

Next came emo.  Emo was harder to define than punk or ska.  The bands were all so different, though they still carried a certain, common je ne sais quoi between them.  There were straight-forward rock bands like Braid, Alkaline Trio, or Moneen.  There were synth-rock bands such as Sig Transit Gloria, The Anniversary, or latter-day Get Up Kids.  There was the hard-edged dissonance of At The Drive-In, the melodic screaming of Thursday, while also the artistic concept albums from Appleseed Cast.  

 Early on the label of “emo” was already viewed as negative by some because some pure-blood punk rockers saw emo as the next stage of evolution from pop-punk (and they were probably right), and those guys hated pop-punk.  Also, many of the groups were interested in just being bands, rather than a kind of band, so they did all they could to distance themselves from the label.  Usually they failed, and I’ve tried to maintain a much more loose and positive assigning of the word to acknowledge that to some degree. However, I always feel it necessary to remind everyone that what you may THINK or have BEEN TOLD is emo (Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte) is NOT what emo is.  Or was.  However you want to put that.

Honestly, would 20-somethings in 1997 have bought into this?

When I started listening to emo, I was a late-comer, as many emo bands of the time were gone or entering their last days by 1999.  These groups were Tuesday, Braid, Jawbreaker, among others.  Other bands coming onto or who would be on the scene for a while longer were The Get Up Kids, Hey Mercedes, Appleseed Cast, Alkaline Trio, etc.  I had known of emo for several years at that point, and had hated it and avoided it like the plague.  I began liking it when I realized 1) I was maturing with my musical tastes and needed new things, and 2) hating an entire genre as I saw it based on a tape an old friend had made me three years prior was just silly.

Emo, to me, circa 2000

The downfall of what was emo came with Dashboard Confessional[1].  Others may say otherwise, but trust me on this one; it was Dashboard.  And Jimmy Eat World. I’ll get to that. . . . The lustful eye of the mainstream was noticing the commotion in the “underground” scene and was taking an interest already, so when Chris Carraba burst onto the scene with his second album, The Places We Have Come to Fear the Most, with his rugged-but-pretty-boy looks, soothing voice, and ringing, slide-tuned acoustic guitar, the teenie girls went nuts.  Almost overnight, what was emo before (maturing punk-rockers with more complex song structure and at least an attempt at insightful lyrics) was re-defined as crying 14-year-old girls, singing along as Dashboard waxed sappy over lost loves.

Not much longer after that, Mesa, Arizona band Jimmy Eat World released the follow-up to their sophomore masterpiece, Clarity, and called it Bleed American (in case you didn’t know, it was re-titled Jimmy Eat World after 9/11, which was around a month later, and making it Jimmy Eat World’s third self-titled release).  The title track was a good hard-rock anthem about who-knows-what, but there were a few songs on there that reeked of radio-pop-hits. I remember the first time I heard “The Middle.”  I don’t think I made it through the whole song.  Where Clarity screamed at me with the beauty of life through sound, and elevated the standards I held for what a good album should be, this song “The Middle” made me think of puppies and pastels and matching white suits and musical guest appearances on Regis and Kathy Lee. “Well Jimmy Eat World just isn’t emo, anymore,” I thought.  But pretty soon, the song hit the airwaves and everyone was talking about this new kind of music, “Emo!”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” us emo fans shouted.

A tug-of-war ensued between those of us who didn’t want a repeat of what happened to ska and those who suddenly thought they knew how to define one of the most eclectic genres in rock music.  But we were destined to lose.  So sad.  Those on my side either abandoned the whole “emo” thing altogether (remember that many didn’t like the label to begin with) or just hung out on the side-lines and threw punches when someone got near (like I did).  Emo, as I knew it, flailed about like a fish on concrete over the next year or two in its attempts to somehow not end up in its inevitable fate of being a lame excuse for gutless teens to hide in corners and be laughed at by everyone.  I was embarrassed when someone asked me what kind of band The Get-Up Kids were and I would respond, “emo.”  I tried to defend myself, explaining that what they had been told was wrong, but no one cared.

Take some goth, add some pink, you get emo. . . . I guess.

And what followed was pretty weird.  The scene’s look mutated.  It mutated into some gross emo-goth conglom.  I honestly don’t know how the goth look even came into the picture in this story, but it did.  Maybe it’s because both were associated with Hot Topic, but I don’t really know.  I’m still perplexed to this day.  “Emo-Kids” before 2002 or 2003 looked like your normal college rockers, but since then they look like Apoptygma Berzerk rejects like that douche to the left.  Keep in mind, I knew self-defined goth rockers at the time.  I’ve gone to industrial rock shows.  I know what “goth” fans look like, and it’s being called “emo” by the mainstream to this day.

Well, it’s been several years now, and rising in popularity (and in the mainstream’s peripheral), we have what is called “indie music.”  Where emo was a difficult-to-define genre of rock, indie music (that’s “indie” for “independent”) isn’t really a genre at all, and certainly isn’t always rock; it’s more of a broad category (kind of how “metal” isn’t just one type of sound anymore, except broader).  These days we have bizarre, hard-to-classify groups like Polyphonic Spree, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or Broken Social Scene.  There are also catchy soft-rock bands like Stars and Fleet Foxes; artsy, folksy singers like Sufjan Stevens; quirky line-ups like Mates of State; and even groups with heavy other-genre influence but providing new twists in the sound, like Black Kids, Miracle Fortress, or Vampire Weekend. The list would be infinite with this kind of music because no one (finally) is asking “does this band fit the genre?”  There is no genre.  It’s called indie because it is truly independent.  They make their own genres, either for themselves alone, or one for each album or song.  Bands make the music they want to make without pandering to a scene, and the scene that is there wants to see what they come up with.  I’ve loved going to the few shows I have lately with absolutely no pre-conceived notions as to what the bands will sound like.  The more originality, the better.  The more clear influences and classic nods, the better.  The more anything, the better.

Bands have more than one person, idiots.

But it’s happening again.  It’s becoming fodder for comedians.  The mainstream is catching on and putting these bands on talk shows and Caribbean cruise and cell phone commercials. I’ve already heard reports of radio stations spinning the new hit single from the band Feist!

I’d like to just shrug this one off, since the very nature of indie music is to let it be what it is – but I’ve seen it too much.  I’m serious.  I’m tired of my favorite bands becoming trends and then becoming teen-movie fodder for money, and my subsequent furry causing me to be lumped into a category of people whom everyone assumes just doesn’t like to share and only cares about image.

It’s not about sharing!  It also certainly isn’t about image!  I’m almost 30 and work in an office!  I have no image these days, and I’m not trying for one.

I have stood by helplessly three times as the music I enjoy is destroyed. This “mainstream” gobbled up ska and pop-punk and emo like a Maury Povich fat kid on a pre-rehab ice cream kick.  But he’s not eating Haagen-Dazs. He’s eating out of the plastic tub you find on the floor of your grocer’s freezer. As he’s shoveling it into his face-hole, he does not know how to, nor does he think to, enjoy the treat for the delightful confection it’s intended to be.  Instead he acts purely on instinct and finishes two gallons before sane people could finish a half-pint.  Then he throws up and is so disgusted by the memory of the gluttony that led to the cold-and-warm mass on the floor that he never eats ice cream again – nor does anyone else in the room. But he is not cured – no, his lusts are not quenched or swayed.  He will find a new snack to devour with the fervor of a starved and rabid wolf.

Certainly, I am not so naïve to think that such a blog as this will forever change someone who defines the success of a musical artist by whether they perform at the Grammys or not; but please understand — I want success for my favorite bands.  I want to be able to share the music I find and am introduced to by other friends with even more people.  What I do not want is some guy at the head of a major corporation, whose main goal is to make money, to package and sell and overexpose the masses, and not only ruin perfectly good bands, but attract more to the arena that WANT to be used and overexposed, because as far as they know that is what music is supposed to be about. They come along and play the game by the numbers, crap out some quick hits that hit our ears like cotton candy to the mouth, until we all stop and wonder what was so appealing about any of this in the first place.

I want to conclude on a positive note by stating that regardless of what happens from here forward, understand that true music fans will always be one step ahead.  Ska, punk, and emo are not the only genres to be devoured by the mainstream, and they will not be the last.  But those of us who like good music and appreciate the artists that make it will always be doing something new and something different, and it is the mainstream that must catch up and exploit in order to survive.

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[1] I want to point out that there’s nothing inherently wrong with Dashboard Confessional.  I like Dashboard.  I’m listening to him as I write this, because brining him up earlier made me realize it’s been a while since I listened to Places (though my iTunes has already moved on to the incredible So Impossible EP).  Had the whole mainstream thing never happened, he would have been one branch on what was a beautiful tree of a variety of sounds.

 

There’s a reason it matters.

One way to get someone mad at you really quick is to point out their flaws. However, many people’s responses wouldn’t be to the tune of, “why do you have to focus on my imperfections? We all have them,” but instead a justification of themselves (citing extenuating circumstances) and/or belittling you for noticing. It is my belief that such a response is a sign of both narcissism and lack of education.

Recently, the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen came out. I paid $6.75 at a theater in illustrious Carbondale, Ill. to watch this piece of trash. Thank goodness I saved my additional $3 that I would have spent in Washington; Michael Bay will never get that.

Now, you can go anywhere on the internet to find blogs and reviews of why this movie was so bad, with its poorly edited exposition, gaping plot holes, crude humor, plastic characters, and overall minimization of the title characters. And anywhere you go you will also find a mass of people attacking the reviewer for taking things too seriously, or forgetting that it’s just a movie, and reminding said reviewer that it’s just meant for entertainment “and it did just that.”

What is happening here? It is my opinion that, more and more, people in America today are allowing themselves to become uneducated and are losing their ability to recognize quality in forms of art, or lack thereof. We are allowing ourselves to be stimulated by only our most basic and primal of instincts, and not just leaving our brains at the door but never taking them with us anywhere; so we end up with Michael Bay movies, useless reality television, and music that consists of nothing but the most basic of chord structures, over and over, and poorly written lyrics. And what’s worse is that when someone points this out, we attack them like rabbid dogs. But we’re not really upset at them for not liking that movie, or that show, or that musical artist. We’re upset at them because they’re saying that it was unintelligent, and we are subconsciously denying that we have bought in to such a ploy, and we can never be convinced otherwise because our pride won’t let us.

And on the flip-side, when something requires a little more thinking, or some time and focus to appreciate fully, it is diminished by the masses. This is, at the end of it all, what makes this so concerning. It’s not that we just allow ourselves to be filled with sugar-for-the-brain, but that we also despise that which is truly visionary and creative.

I have no redeeming comments; I’m very saddened by this and hope that when I become a father that  can instill in my children an ability to appreciate that which is good and wholesome.

 

Election Day

I hate election day. I begin to enjoy life again slowly as each day passes beyond it. I’ve already gotten into three arguments over things that neither I nor any of the three other people really understood. I told one of them that Obama came from obscurity, and she said that Palin was more obscure, and I said she wasn’t, and then she somehow got me to defend the notion of Palin as President some day, when all along I don’t really think she’s that capable. How did she get me to that place? I’m awful at real-time arguments.

I usually try to keep myself out of the American political arena, instead standing on the outside where I can clearly see how everyone inside all act exactly the same way or, at the very least, have the same, messed-up hearts despite the fact that their issues are opposite.

So many people think that the future of the world hangs in the balance with this election, but that’s just not true. It’s the same as all the other elections previous. The left says that if the right stays in power, the world will be thrown into the dark ages. The right says if the left gets in power, they’ll take over everything we own. Obama is a Chicago politician (a city known for corruption) who has rose from obscurity over the last 4 years (he was first elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, served 8 years, and then has been a US senator for 4), and he’s gotten us chanting things like, “Yes We Can!” and “It’s Time for Change!” without any of us really knowing what he means. Sure, we know what WE mean, and that’s what those who wrote those slogans were counting on: that we’d all fill in our own blanks. McCain is a Republican who has stood in the Moderate range at best for years now, and now that he’s the GOP’s candidate, he’s suddenly as right-wing as they come. Do we really think that Obama will make all the difference with the issues we’ve made him represent in our own minds? Do we really think that McCain really means it when he tells us he’s against abortion, let alone anything else he’s said? If you answer “yes” to any of those, I’m afraid you’re naive. The crossroads where we stand right now WILL NOT be the defining moment in our nation’s history that either brought about our demise or our success. It can be a step in either direction, but nothing that’s not reversible within 4-8 years. When Clinton took office, the right shouted “he’s undoing everything done in the last 12 years!” and then when Bush took over, the left shouted “he’s undoing everything done in the last 8 years!”

In the end, when you vote today, you’re just defending a point of view or your own comfort. Those on the left can go on about how horrible the Bush Administration has been, but the fact is there are those who think he’s done an excellent job – it all depends on the criteria you put forth. Those on the right can scream about universal health care and assisted suicide and increased governmental controls, but the fact is there are those who want those very things and will be happy if they are put into place. As much as anyone on either side wants to think, their opponents will not someday think, in mass, “Oh, gosh, guess I was wrong about this one” under any circumstances. Americans are stubborn like that.

I think we need to take a long, hard look at how important we make this stuff. Yes, it’s important and valuable in this nation to be sure to vote, but the fact is that people see various issues differently and you might lose. We have turned the act of NOT voting into an immoral action, and not because of fear of an unelected person taking over or people of which we don’t approve making decisions for us, but to keep the other guys from getting their way.

Go ahead, get mad, tell me I’m not seeing the importance of this election. Tell me that I don’t really understand what’s at stake. I’ve already heard it. Let me tell you that all of this will eventually pass, be it 4 years, 8 years, or maybe 16 to 20, and we’ll all have some other list of issues that we’re debating and thinking that the world will end if things don’t happen the way we think they should.

 

Three or four is good enough for me.

I saw an article on Yahoo yesterday that talked about the Duggar family in Alabama, which has 17 children and the 18th one on the way. I read the article, rolled my eyes, thought about how I have wanted a big family someday, but by “big” I meant like 4 kids . . . and then something almost set me off. The story was rated by readers as 2 out of 5 stars. “Oh, no! Say it isn’t so!” Well, to understand why I had to quickly grab my composure again so as not to venture down a path of irreparable furry for the whole day, you have to understand all the things I’ve seen, heard, and discussed over the last couple of years relating to large families.

I think it was the Duggar family in the summer of 2004 when they had their 15th kid, and I heard the mom and dad being talked to on the radio. Well, some lady called in and was calling them horrible human beings. Why? Because they have so many kids. Because they’re adding to the population and therefore causing more pollution and using more resources and (she didn’t really say this) making more Republicans. Man, that lady made me mad, especially when she said that she had two children, “To replace my husband and I.”

It was probably, again, when the Duggars had #17 that it was in the news (as it clearly always is – develop some modesty, people, please!), that a co-worker of mine went off about how horrible it was that they could get away with that. She cited a bunch of reasons similar to the lady I just mentioned, but then went on about how everyone needs to adopt and stop pro-creating for like 40 years. Some of you have heard me rant about this co-worker before, so know that she’s a quack, but she’s not alone.

I enjoy web comics, usually ones that reference old video games and comics. I found one that I liked for a bit until I saw a strip that showed one of the two main characters walking by an SUV with one of those “Our Family” decals on the back window. You know the ones: with the stick figures of mom and dad and all the kids and the dog and cat? Well, the family depicted in this comic apparently had 4 or 5 children. The main character wrote a note on the SUV and walked away satisfied. The note read “This should help” and had a condom taped to it.

I get so furious about that stuff that I sometimes wonder if I over react a bit. Yes, I said “sometimes wonder.” In this age of “live and let live” social theories, the taboo-ing of believing in universal truths, and supporting just about any sexual lifestyle imaginable, we have people who are viciously against two people wanting to have tons of kids. I think the Duggars are nuts, but I wouldn’t ever think that their decision to do this was wrong, especially since they are all from the same two parents and every kid is in a loving home and well cared for. The people against this sort of thing almost always admit happily that the genuine reason is because of how (they think) it affects their lives. This further supports my view that Liberal vs. Conservative is a bunch of crap and they’re (we’re) all the same because it’s not about the issues; it’s about our approaches to those issues and where are hearts are. Maybe I’ll write a book about that someday.

There are couple of other smaller things that bug me in regards to things said or assumed when it comes to the Duggar family. The first is how so many people hear that they’re from Alabama and think, “oh, well that makes sense.” Why? That could actually open up a whole other discussion on how the East and West Coasts wrongly dismiss the South and Midwest as worthless and dumb.

The other thing that gets me is really just a fallacy in logic, and I noticed that I was guilty of this a couple postings ago. When a couple has several children, or has a few really close in age, people tend to make comments about the “active” sex life that couple has. Really? Do you honestly think that this man and woman have sex any less or any more than any other healthy married couple does? A child doesn’t mean that they had sex. A child means that it worked.

Ugh. Anyway, I need to go so I don’t get fired. One last thing – to the Duggars: Keep having kids so you keep annoying these annoying people! Thanks.

 

It made sense in my head.

Here’s some thoughts I was having on my way home from work last night.

I’ve noticed that the band Coheed & Cambria polarizes people. Thankfully my friends who do not like them are reasonable and intelligent people, so when they tell me, a huge Co&Ca fan, that they do not like them, they simply state it as a fact. They do not hurl insults about them. I know that there have been many reports of D.J.s insulting their music; I’ve heard some myself, but then I don’t trust the opinions of radio D.J.s, and neither should you.

But last night, as I was having an imaginary but intelligent conversation with a friend in my mind about this band, I noticed there are two distinct ways to approach a band and their music. The right way or the wrong way depends on the band, I think.

The Genre Approach: This is when you pick up a CD or select a song by a particular artist because you know or have heard that they fit into a particular genre (or based on how strongly they are influenced by a more famous band, or to even judge a new album of a band based on how similar it is to their previous works). In my life, this happened the most in my punk and ska days. I picked up albums by bands such as Mustard Plug, Blink 182, I Against I, Pulley, The Eclectics, Ozma, and many many many others based purely on my understanding that the band fit into a genre of music that I liked. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this, but it is definitely very limiting. I began to lose interest in all the new music I bought because I wasn’t interested in what each band was doing, I was looking for a sound that I’d already made my mind up on and was trying to find it. Now, some of the groups looked into for this reason were only worth that approach. Sorry if you’re a Pulley fan, but they’re pretty typical and nothing special, and I think that if you are a huge fan of them, it’s mainly because they best fit the kind of sound that you were looking for before you bought their CD. There are lots of other bands, however, that I started listening to in this manner and I found that they were better listened to with the 2nd approach:

The Digestive Approach: I really wish I could think of a better name for that. This is when you listen and pick apart a musician’s work in an individualistic fashion, measuring its worth not based on how it holds up to a similar sounding band, their previous albums, or the rigid definitions of a genre, but only on how it works as music. It really requires you to “digest” an album, which is why I chose the gross name. As mentioned before, it is certainly possible to look into a band based via “The Genre Approach,” but then begin to look into them deeper over time and learn to appreciate them (or not appreciate them) as simply an individual artist. In the past, this has happened with bands I love (such as Dead Kennedys) and bands I really don’t care for (such as The Dave Matthews Band). But I’ve found that there are lots of bands and artists I’ve listened to in this manner right off the bat. Some of them are worth it and endure, like Sufjan Stevens or Broken Social Scene, and some don’t hold up too well and are best left as novelty items, like (in my opinion) groups like The Killers or The Hives. So many bands can easily move back and forth or even exist simultaneously in both of these approaches, but Coheed and Cambria is one of those bands that I really think exists the best in this second one. Theirs is a sound that requires commitment and is not classified easily. I think the best test for this is to see whether or not a band’s songs fair well on a mix CD.

And I’ve completely lost interest in this blog. It’s hard to think through legitimate thoughts and put them into type when you’re constantly looking over your shoulder to make sure your boss isn’t coming.

 

Obligatory Valentine’s Day Post

Having been single for 26 of my 27 Valentines days, and being old enough to care for at least the last 15, I easily fall into the masses of single people who gripe and moan about, “Oh, I hate Valentines Day! Oh, woa is me! Oh, I’m still single! Oh, I ‘hate’ people in relationships!” I was actually performing this routine with a coworker the other night, and I finally allowed myself to verbalize a fact: I don’t care. I don’t think I have for several years now. It’s not that I don’t care about being single, or ever being in a relationship. No sir. But I’ve grown numb to the depressing effects of Valentines Day, and I think that’s a result of noticing the Hallmarkyness of it. Or maybe I’m just so worn out from griping about singleness all the other days of the year, it doesn’t feel any different. When I do get to a place in my life where I’m coupled on February 14, I really hope she’s cool enough to know why I don’t want to waste any time or money on it. Honestly, if you’re in a relationship, do you really try to get dinner reservations somewhere on V-day? I know I wouldn’t.

Happy V.D.

 

I don’t buy it.

I’m putting something out there about myself so that I can at least say that it’s possible to know this about me without me having to tell you in person. I think a lot. Too much, some would say, though I do not say that. I take very little at face value, especially when someone is expressing an opinion as if it were fact. Maybe it’s my God-given nature. Maybe it’s the fact that I was raised in a family that held more traditional and conservative values among a culture that is leaning more to the left every passing day, so I refuse to assume that either approach is correct right off the bat. So I think about a lot of things. My life right now, with my 90+ minutes of driving time per day and monotonous job, gives me time to do so. Often, I will approach things from an angle that does not automatically assume that a point of view is correct, find flaws in the logic, then speak on the flaws in the logic, but not have it thought all the way through before I speak, therefore leaving me either easy to refute or sounding like someone who just wants to disagree with something. Usually both. There are two solutions to this: never speak until I have a conclusion worked out, or learn to accept being wrong. I choose the latter, because I often process externally. I often have to hear myself say something to someone before I realize that I’ve been running down the wrong trail. I think maybe there are a lot more people out there to whom this happens, but our society is very proud and doesn’t like to admit that it’s ever wrong, so we don’t see it as much. We just see lots of people arguing stupid points of view that don’t make any sense and no one’s budging in the discussions. Let me also add (and I’ll conclude with this) that being someone who is willing to admit they’re wrong in our society may be something that is applauded in theory, but in practice the ego of the person who is right is more likely to think higher of themselves as opposed to learn a lesson from the person who backed down.

 

Master Sonic

It really bugs me when someone’s facts or logic are way off. I don’t just mean theologically, either. Actually, I should clarify that in this instance I don’t mean theology at all. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s people who are wrong about something and then arrogant because they think they’re right. Kind of like the time back in 1998 when my co-workers at McDonald’s tried to tell me that the Star Wars movies were based off of novels. They didn’t ask if they were, they didn’t say, “I heard that . . . ,” they flat out told me that they were, and even that wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t argued with me when I (politely, at first) corrected them. It’s scary sometimes how things like this rattle me so bad, and it’s only been the last year or two in which I’ve been able to approach situations like this with a little bit more rationality. Now, let’s get to the inspiration for this rant:

Last night I was looking through one of my nerd groups on Facebook, the one that was started as a group for vintage-Nintendo lovers, but has expanded to just be a group for fans of games spanning the history of home consoles. One thing that people do in this group that tends to bug me is post pictures of their disgustingly huge video game collections. Some of them put up as many as 40 pictures! It’s usually pretty sad, but this time someone is a genuine video game collector. This guy has some unique titles, and even some that are widely known to be little more than pieces of trash, all for the sake of having full collections from different consoles and different franchises. In these photos, he had one of a select group of Sonic the Hedgehog titles. Two of these were the original Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, except they were for the Sega Master System (see here). This intrigued me, because Sonic was introduced on the Sega Genesis console in 1991, nearly 2 years after the Genesis was introduced and the Master System was put to rest. I don’t know exactly when they stopped making games for the Master System, but I know that it was by 1990, for sure. The fact that these two cartridges exist means that, for some reason unknown to me, Sega programmed, manufactured, and distributed the first two Sonic titles as 8-bit cartridges for their dead system. Crazy, right? I know! So I pose my inquiry on this to the poster of the picture, as I would think that the man who owns the game would know the story. Please see the exchange below, even though you probably already saw it if you clicked on the link earlier:

Braden Eugene Bost wrote at 11:26pm yesterday

How were there Sonics on the Master System? Please enlighten me.

Alexander Badr wrote at 8:55am

That’s like asking how there’s Mario on the Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s Sega. Who’s Sega’s mascot? Sonic! Always was, and always will be. Alex Kidd “thought” he was, at first, but it was always Sonic. Oh, by the way, the Sonic games were only released in Europe, but they work on all Master System consoles, and they all kick ass!

So apparently they were European releases, but that’s moot at this point. This guy is dead-wrong and has no clue. This is where “getting-older-and-more-mature” Braden would step in and say nothing and let morons be morons and let them eat themselves to death with there ignorance, but this will eat at me if I don’t write SOMETHING. It’s not like asking how Mario is on the NES. The NES came out in 1984, Super Mario Bros. came out in 1985, followed by 2 1/2 sequels on the same system before moving to the Super Nintendo in 1991. Sonic was not “always” Sega’s mascot. Sega’s mascot was Alex Kidd until 1991, when Sonic was introduced and replaced him. To say that Alex Kidd “was, at first, but it was always Sonic” is like saying that The Dodgers have always been in Los Angeles; they only thought they were in Brooklyn, at first, but they’ve really been in Los Angeles the whole time.

Yes, I do have more important things to worry about, but I’m on break and my tasks for the rest of the day are pretty monotonous.