I’m sorry that I keep writing these rant-type posts complaining about things.  Unfortunately I seem to be good at bitching, and I need to get it out of my system.  I have a list started of upcoming topics, so look for new non-bitchy material soon.  In the meantime…

Spaceships

Curse whoever decided that spaceships have to have little glowing engine exhausts.  Arrgh! 

So you probably wonder why I would care about that.  Well, in my spare time, I’m a reasonably accomplished CG artist.  At least on a very independent, small scale.  Recently I offered to do some CG for a guy making a student film.  He’s entered a competition and he’s got some talent, so I figured I’d help him out with some outer-spacey-type spaceship shots he had written into his script.  OK, fine.  No problem.  That is, until the very end when I realized I’d have to rotoscope all the engine exhausts onto the little spaceships by hand, frame-by-frame, one at a time.  It took me two days, and when I finally viewed the end result, I didn’t quite have them all lined up right from frame to frame.  Well, I’m not doing it over.  Screw that.  I started over enough times early on when I realized some mistakes I made.  Plus I had to develop a whole new complex Photoshop method to do it.  I’m not about to throw two days worth of unpaid work away for a couple jittery lights.  Still, I do suppose it would be hard to boldly go forth and conquer new worlds and new civilizations when your armada sputters through space with engine problems.  Ah well.  I call it done.

People on MySpace

Specifically, people who set their profiles to “private” so other people can’t look at them.

OK.  I’m only going to explain this once, so listen up.  Myspace is a social networking web site. You create a profile on Myspace so you can network socially.  By that, I mean meet new people and discover things that you might have in common with them.  I met one of my best friends through MySpace, and without her, I’d be insane from the boredom and uber-conservative nature of living in Salt Lake City.  I might do something crazy like go out in public on Sunday or drive near the speed limit.  MySpace is about meeting people, and when you set your profile to “private”, you’re completely missing the point.  “I must be your friend to view your profile.”  What is that?  How am I supposed to know if I want to be your friend if I can’t view your profile?  Sure, you look like a hottie in the one tiny picture I clicked on because you piqued my interest, but I’ll never know for sure because I can’t see any of your other pictures or learn about you in any way.  If you have some stalker after you or something, I’m pretty sure you can ban a specific member.  You don’t have to ban everyone else.  Who do you think you are, MySpace Profile Set to Private person? 

Environmentalists

I touched on this in my previous post under the header of “Some of the Things I Don’t Understand“, so I won’t go into detail here, but the Tree Huggers are really getting to me lately.  Yes, I’m aware that a giant iceberg broke off the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica, and that the entire shelf is set to go any minute, but you know what?  Who cares?  I don’t.  So what?  Shit like this happens all the time.  We need to deal with it instead of making up reasons behind it.  Bigger icebergs have broken off in the last decade or two.  That’s part of living on planet Earth.  We humans account for such a tiny little infinitesimal impact on the planet that I’d be surprised it even notices we’re here.  Trust me, me driving back and forth to the grocery store in the gas-hogging, pollution-spewing Oldmanmobile didn’t cause the bloody iceberg to fall off.  Nor did any of the other six billion people here.  It fell off because that’s what icebergs do when the Earth heats up, and the Earth heats up because that’s what the Earth does on occasion, humans or no.

I was reading this blog earlier today where this tool was describing several ways we could “save the planet”.  Among my favorites was using the search engine “Blackle“, because apparently using a search engine with a black screen takes less energy to produce a picture than one with a white screen.  And that’s good for the environment.  Another was not eating meat for lunch.  I will quote for impact:

“Many people are not aware that the meat industry causes more damage to the environment than all the cars and airplanes put together. The massive amounts of land that are cleared for farming, the food produced for the cows to eat, the trucks needed to move them around, the gas that the cows fart out… it is all very bad for the environment.”

C’mon people.  I am SO not giving up my cheeseburger for your stupid environmental concerns.  If I’m wrong, and Burger King is the harbinger of global destruction, you’ll still have to pry the Whopper out of my cold, dead hands while all the oceans rise and the rain forests turn to desert and the Cubs win the World Series and all the other signs of the apocalypse occur.  I’ll be over here making spaceships on my computer,  blogging with my white-screened Wordpress template, stewing about MySpace morons, and chowing down on a nice juicy steak while giving Al Gore the finger.

Haha.  I’ll see you next time.

In the many decades I’ve been a passenger on Spaceship Earth, I’ve learned a lot of things.  Some of these things required me to un-learn things that I’ve previously learned, and some of them have been learned with sacrifice or consequence.  All of them have contributed to making me a fairly intelligent person, although there are still a few things I don’t understand fully.  Things that are incomprehensible to me for one reason or another.  Not that I’m incapable of grasping them intellectually, it’s that I don’t follow the reasoning behind them.  Here’s a short list:

Vegans

I get it.  You don’t eat meat.  You don’t eat anything that’s ever had anything to do with an animal of any kind because you feel some moral obligation toward the creature.  No meat, eggs, milk, nothing.  I get it, I really do because I personally don’t eat vegetables.  None at all.  So I kinda know where you’re coming from, and a little bit of how you feel.  I’m not opposed to vegetables, and I know they’re a great source of all kinds of good stuff, I simply don’t like them. 

I recognize the health issues I face by not eating veggies.  But do you realize the health issues you face by not eating meat or dairy?  I know you know the excuses, but do you know the reasons?    The human body has evolved to eat and process meat and dairy along with vegetables and fruit.  That’s how it’s built.  Meat and dairy products are very healthy and provide proteins and carbohydrates and vitamins that your body needs to function.  Some of these cannot be had by fruits or vegetables, or even by supplements.  By forcing your body to live without these nutrients, you are malnourishing yourself.

I know that I sound hypocritical, but there’s a difference.  I can, have, and will eat a vegetable.  I’m not opposed to them for any other reason than I simply don’t like them.  I know meat used to be a living creature, but then again so did a vegetable.  I can understand not liking something because of texture or taste, but not eating meat or dairy and depriving yourself of essential nutrients because of some strange ethical belief?  I don’t get it.

Gas Prices

This is one of those things that has just got to stop.  There is simply no reason why gasoline should cost as much as it does.  Not only is it severely over priced, but the price keeps going up, all for no reason.

I read an article recently that some expert somewhere was quoted as saying that gas prices were rising because of “market speculation”.  Translating this, it means gas prices are going up because investors think gas prices are going to go up.  Am I the only one confused here?  This is ridiculous. 

I have a friend who used to work the oil platforms down in Houston, Texas.  He spent many years doing this, and is intimately educated on the process of oil and oil refinement as it pertains to gasoline.  He also keeps up on political issues and is intelligent and well educated.  I asked him not long ago how much a gallon of gasoline should cost, factoring in refinement costs and realistic profits for oil companies.  His answer, “about a buck.”

The real reason is simply greed.  Every American know that though, and no amount of horseshit shoveled by politicians and oil company executives and foreign leaders and everybody else is going to change that understanding.  Oil companies, backed by a statement from the President, have said point-blankly that price-gouging is not the reason.  Yet the oil companies have produced record profits continually, and the President is a heavy investor in oil.  We aren’t that stupid people. 

And despite what the wacky environmentalists say, there is no oil shortage.  None whatsoever.  There’s more oil in Alaska than all the entire Middle Eastern countries combined. 

It’s greed, pure and simple.  Too many people make too much money from the price-gouging, the artificial “shortages”, and the over-inflated value of oil for the price to ever be reasonable.  Most of those people are not you or me, and we get stuck with the check.

Advanced Algebra

No, I don’t understand it.  I hate hate hate Algebra.  I hate all Math, really, but I hate advanced Algebra with a passion.  Just give me the damn number already, and stop screwing around with all the letters.  X=Y is NOT an answer or solution to a calculation of any kind, no matter what you say.  AARRGGHH!

I’ve been at war with Algebra ever since I failed it in High School.  Twice.  It just doesn’t make any artistic sense.  I told my teacher repeatedly that I had no use, and will never have any use for it.  She said I was wrong, and that I’d find out after school what a valuable subject it was.

Guess what?  20 freaking years after High School I have yet to EVER use advanced Algebra even once!  HA!  In fact, I never intend to use it.  If there ever is any need for whatever reason why I would need advanced Algebra for anything, I’ll simply enlist a Math Nerd.  That’s what they’re for.  I’ll be over here being artistic, and you can keep your pointless letter/number combination game.

Creationists

Seems I can do nothing but sigh in this case.  This is the 21st century last I checked, yet some people still cling to beliefs that were outdated centuries ago.

Religion is a different topic for a different time.  There’s simply too much to say about it for now, so I won’t go into it.  I’ll say this though:  Isn’t it about time to put away the superstitious nonsense once and for all?  I’m not talking about faith or belief or any of that.  Worship all the gods you like in whatever fashion you see fit, but understand a few things too.  There is zero, and I mean ZERO evidence in creationism and mysticism, and OVERWHELMING evidence in evolution and science.  The answer is all around you.  You have but to open your eyes (and your mind) and look.  This isn’t about faith, it’s about fact.  Creationists, I don’t understand you.

The “Green” Movement

This will be my last topic, because this post is getting a little long.  I have to start watching that.

The Earth is billions of years old.  Yes Creationists, I said billions.  Deal with it.  In that time, she has gone through all kinds of situations.  Floods, fires, volcanoes, tsunamis, ice ages, warming, meteor impacts, plagues, infestations, populations, extinctions, rebirths, continental drift, sunspots, shifting magnetic poles, radiation baths, ozone depletion, poison atmospheric conditions (oxygen),  earthquakes, hurricanes… the list is endless.  Almost all of these situations are violent to some degree, yet the earth is still here.  You could also argue that these situations are also normal and beneficial in their own rights.  But beyond that, the earth is just fine.  Doing pretty well, thank you.  You see, the earth is a vast organism in its own right, constantly changing and adapting and evolving (Creationists, I’m glaring at you).  It’s a very organic process, and it’s very balanced.  For all the bad things that happen, good things happen too.  That’s how it is.

The earth goes through periods of warming.  It also has periods of cooling.  This again is normal behavior for a complex organism in a state of balance.  It has to be.  Right now, for example, we are evidently going through one of those warming periods.  It could last a while too.  Maybe hundreds of years.  The earth doesn’t care, she deals with this all the time.  Many times, in fact. 

We humans, in our ignorance and our arrogance, seem to think we are causing  it.  Well, there’s an off chance that we may be exacerbating it by an infinitesimally small fraction of a percentage, but our impact is quite negligible to the earth itself.  The earth has been through far worse than us, more times than we can possibly fathom.  The earth laughs at our carbon emissions and spits them back in our faces.

There are crazy people that think we’re destroying the planet.  These crazy people are stating that we need to be “green” and protect our environment, otherwise the planet is in severe jeopardy from our SUVs and our discarded McDonald’s cups.  “The planet is slowly dying” say the crazy people, and as proof of their ideas, they make up horrible fatalistic scenarios like “global warming” and “ozone depletion”.  The earth doesn’t give a shit about these things, believe me.  She’s seen them all before.

Global warming is a natural condition of the cycle of the earth.  We just happen to be here to see it.  There is a likelihood that we won’t be here to see the end of it, however.  Not unless we learn to adapt to it.  If the earth wants to heat up and melt all the icebergs and flood the oceans, there isn’t much we can do about it except learn how to deal with it.  Our trivial technology isn’t causing it.  The best we can do is learn to adapt our technology to live with it.  We cannot destroy this planet.  Not with any technology we have now, or have ever had in the past.  To think that is the embodiment of arrogance, and it’s that arrogance that’s the real danger. 

Protect the environment.  Sure, why not?  Do it for us though, and not the planet.  Do it the right way too, not with politics or propaganda or rock concerts.  We could probably do with fewer giant SUVs hogging the road, and it’s a good idea to discard your trash in the proper and provided receptacle.  Still, quit freaking out about it.  Quit telling me I’m not “green” and look after yourself.  Quit making up doomsday scenarios that you can’t even give justification for in any scientific sense.  And stop giving credence to all these Chicken Littles crying out about how the sky is falling.  If the earth wants to crush us with falling sky, she will, regardless of however many Toyota Priuses we drive.

Earth doesn’t care.  If we wipe ourselves out, she’ll simply seed another life form to take our place.  Don’t think so?  She’s done it before.

There’s a new barber school in Midvale. It’s right behind the jewelry store, and a short walk from my apartment. Having the misfortune of looking in the mirror this morning and noting my amusing appearance, I thought maybe a haircut would be just the trick.

Now, I don’t much care for my hair. That’s not to say that I don’t take care of it. I wash it daily and occasionally condition it, then I comb it and style it and pretend that it looks decent. But I don’t obsess over it. It’s not worth it, because my hair has a mind of its own. I may get out of the shower and style it up all nice, maybe a dollop of gel, but as soon as I look from the mirror it’s poof city. Seriously, I have no control. It pretty much does what it wants at that point, so while I may think “Brad Pitt” when preening in the mirror, my hair is perfectly happy styling itself into a reject prop from a Wendy’s commercial once I turn away.

So I don’t obsess. These days I tend to wear it kinda longish and floppy. It gives me a more youthful appearance (in my own mind) and means I can be lazy and not get it cut for months at a time. I’m capable of trimming it up a bit myself, courtesy of the clippers I bought a few years ago and a smidgeon of knowledge passed on from my stylist mother. I draw the line at actually cutting it though, save for the times during the summer when I just buzz it all off. Several Attractive Females have the opinion that I look better with the hair though, so in my misplaced vanity I do my best to abstain from shaving it anymore.

Since I lack the skills (read: bravery) to cut it myself, and because it started to resemble a wildlife preserve, I decided to get it cut. There are two more factors in this decision. One, it was a beautiful Spring-like day and I could take a nice walk down to the place, and two, haircuts are only $5.

Haircuts are only $5 there because it’s a school. A Barber school, and the barbers are students. Some people might balk at this, thinking there’s no way some under-skilled student is going to touch my lovely thatch, but I have no such reserves. If they butcher it, I’ll just buzz it. Easy and simple. I’m a guy; hair isn’t a huge deal unless it’s thinning.

The girl I got seemed confident at first. Eager and willing to put her hard-earned knowledge to the test. I sat down and outlined what I wanted in direct and specific guy terms. “Take some off the sides and make it un-poofy,” said I. She seemed to understand. Her instructor (older guy with pretty hair) hovered about as well, occasionally peering over at her progress, peeking from under his glasses and giving the sporadic “uh huh” at times. What interested me is that once she started, some of that confidence waned. Instructor Guy took over and gave a few example snips, demonstrating the proper technique, and she seemed to follow. I did notice a peculiar tendency to cut too little though, as she would run the comb through to gather up a pinch of hair, then cut like .0000009-tenths of an inch off of one strand. Instructor Guy’s only comment was “She’s one of our most careful ones.” Uh huh.

After about twenty minutes or so, she pronounced me done. Honestly, it didn’t really look any different than when I went in. It feels slightly different, maybe trimmed up and straightened out a bit, which is subtle but not wrong. Upon further inspection, it does appear to have been cut, although I could stand to lose a bit more. Even so, I’m happy with it. I thanked her (she let out a relieved sigh, as if she’d been nervously holding her breath the entire time) and paid my $5 to the receptionist, with a $2 tip to the student. I even let them add me to the client list, thinking I’ll likely be back next time.

Five dollars isn’t a bad deal at all.

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Sovknight.com has moved to a new web host, so hopefully the slowness issues are gone. In all of my tests so far, it’s going smoothly. As of now, the template you’re seeing is probably temporary, and I don’t have all the links and widgets and whatnot, but I’ll keep working on it.

If you’ve come across this post, and you have some suggestions or observations please leave a comment. Let me know if you experience any more speed issues or lag.

Also, if you’ve left any comments or anything over the last couple of days, I’m really sorry. They didn’t make the transition to the new host. Please forgive me.

Thanks!