Stratovania

Man, why has the Internet gotten so boring recently? I mean, it's entertaining at times, but only when other people post interesting things. But the Internet is supposed to be something I can use to entertain myself without help from others, isn't it?

Anyway, in my boredom, I've been looking over the entries for individual songs at the They Might Be Giants Wiki, and I've noticed two recurring themes:

1. People can come up with really bizarre interpretations for the simplest songs. I mean, just look at all the argument over "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Doctor Worm," each of which I think can be pretty well interpreted in a single sentence.
2. The song ratings are very generous. Ratings are done on a scale of one to ten, yet even the lowest song on there has an average rating of 5.41. I can't really take issue with this sort of rating, though, as I do the same thing. I mean, I probably like the vast majority of what TMBG has turned out, and a song I like should get at least a 5, right? I'm not going to do some bell curve thing and give really low ratings to songs I don't like as much, and I guess other wiki participants feel the same way. I still find it oddly entertaining, however, that the song they did for a Play-Doh commercial has an average rating of 8.

One cool thing I found on there was an unreleased Venue Song. I wonder how many others of those there are. I seem to recall hearing that there was one for Irving Plaza.

And here's the result of a quiz that I got from annarama:

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Recently, I've been considering some problems with the idea of an omnipotent being. And I don't mean whether Jesus could microwave a burrito so hot he couldn't eat it, but just how the concept doesn't really fit too well with other parts of major monotheistic religions. I often see atheists asking why, if God is supposed to be all-powerful and all-loving, He doesn't do anything about all the bad stuff in the world. The response by believers often seems to be, "Because then people wouldn't learn anything," which sounds suspiciously similar to what Glinda says when she shows up in her pink bubble toward the end of The Wizard of Oz. She couldn't just tell Dorothy to click her heels together back in Munchkinland, because she wouldn't have believed it, and had to figure things out for herself. I guess bubble-riding ladies, singing midgets, and green-faced women obsessed with killing your dog are acceptable things to believe; but the idea that magic shoes can take you back home isn't. Of course, everyone who's read the book knows that a large part of the reason for this is that the filmmakers tried to streamline the plot by combining two good witches into one. In the book, the witch who greets Dorothy in the Munchkin Country DOESN'T know how the shoes (which, as you probably know, are silver instead of ruby in the original text) work. And I think there was a little bit of that same kind of editing at work when stories that originated in polytheistic religions were brought into monotheistic Judaism. While Sumerian versions of the flood story could have one god going against the others and deciding to save one person by talking to his reed hut, the Bible story has the same deity deciding to kill all mankind, to save one person, and eventually determining that flooding the Earth isn't something He needs to do again. God also worries that the inhabitants of Babel might succeed in building a tower to Heaven, and is unable to fight people with iron chariots (see Judges 1:19), which are perhaps also signs of the transition from a bunch of gods who can do some amazing things to one who can do anything at all.

In most of the old polytheistic religions that I know of, the gods are neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and have more or less human personalities. We can expect, say, the Greek gods to behave arbitrarily and make the occasional mistake, because, after all, they're only superhuman. A lot of the weird stories and rituals also make some sense in context. Odin had to hang himself on the World Tree in order to gain arcane knowledge, because that was presumably the only way that even a god could access it. On the other hand, the idea that Jesus had to die on the cross to pay for the sins of mankind makes less sense to me, because: 1) the mainstream Christian concept of the Triune God essentially means that the entity atoning for mankind was the same one who had condemned them in the first place, and 2) resurrection isn't really that much of a feat for someone with infinite power.

To play devil's advocate (or would that be God's advocate?) for a moment, I believe I've seen the intriguing notion proposed that, even though God is technically all-knowing, He's too separated from mankind to fully understand them. This would mean that His incarnation as Jesus would be as much for His own benefit as for that of humans. That would mean God isn't perfect, because a perfect being would presumably understand humans, well, perfectly. Then again, why would a totally perfect entity desire love anyway? We could also return to the old notion of a deity playing games with the Universe, or perhaps as somewhat of an author with us as His fictional creations. I think it's pretty typical for a writer of fictions to have a certain amount of love for his or her characters, but is still willing to torment them if he or she thinks it works for the sake of the story. In this case, God's love would be more akin to that than to the love of a parent for a child. I don't know. It just seems to me that the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing being creates more problems than it solves.

And with that in mind, here's a quiz result:

What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Scientific Atheist These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 83% Agnostic 58% Apathetic Atheist 58% Spiritual Atheist 33% Angry Atheist 17% Theist 8% Militant Atheist 0%

Why do some sites insist on strict password protection when there really isn't much, if anything, to protect? For instance, I forgot my last.fm password, and they wouldn't send it to me, instead making me reset it. What are they afraid will happen if they just give it to me? That someone will log on and say I like artists that I really don't?

I don't go on last.fm very much, so I just found out about the picture-rating utility yesterday. It's really kind of an odd exercise. I wonder if the people giving the thumbs-down votes are ones who like the artists but not the particular pictures, or non-fans with too much time on their hands. Actually, I noticed that some of Neko Case's pictures, particularly the racier ones, have a fair number of negative votes. I do think it's weird that someone who's said she has a pathological fear of being photographed would pose topless. Is that a case of confronting a fear head-on, like someone who's afraid of heights taking up mountain climbing or skydiving? What really confuses me, though, is how could someone possibly give a negative vote to this.

Another thing that bothers me as far as the Internet goes is when a site for a particular place will have a "get directions" link, but clicking on it results in a "we couldn't find that address" sort of error message. Shouldn't they make sure these links work before putting them on their pages?

And getting back to music, I've heard a few Nellie McKay songs recently, and I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to pick up one of her albums. Any suggestions as to which one would be the best to start with? Also repeat that same question for Visqueen, although I think they only have two albums anyway. I think I've gotten into a bit of a rut as far as music goes, so I don't think it would hurt to check out some new artists (new for me, that is, although I do think both of the ones I mentioned starting recording in this decade).

( Here are some quiz results, and a survey. )

I had a dream where last night where I was attending some event, and instead of it being down on a stage, it was up above the balcony, so we all had to sit in the balcony facing upwards. I think the event itself was some political thing, which is becoming somewhat of a recurring theme in my dreams nowadays.

Speaking of political events, I didn't watch all of Bush's final State of the Union address last night, but from what I saw, it looks like he's sticking with the classics. Those evil people hate us for our freedom! Come on, even Pat Buchanan essentially said that was bunk, and when your attitude is more prejudicial than Pat Buchanan's, you KNOW something's wrong. I also saw a clip of Bush's buddy in believing that terrorists hate freedom, Rudy Giuliani, talking about how we have to be on the offensive in the war on terror. I really hope that guy's strategy of concentrating entirely on Florida doesn't pay off. I wonder if it's a bad sign for him that Firefox's spell check still doesn't recognize his name.

I've been talking a lot about politics and religion as of late, haven't I? I'm now going to change the topic to They Might Be Giants. I'd say that's a less controversial subject, but considering some of the flame wars I've seen on various online forums dedicated to the band, I'm not so sure. Anyway, there's a new regular podcast out (not to be confused with the children's video podcasts that they've been doing for the past few weeks). It's mostly songs from The Else and previews of Here Comes the 1-2-3's, which is coming out in February. "Nonagon" might be my favorite of the songs I've heard from that release, although maybe that's just because of the title. (By the way, Firefox? Your spellcheck not recognizing "Giuliani" was kind of funny, but it makes no sense that you wouldn't recognize "nonagon." And why am I addressing a program as if it's a person? I don't know!) There's also a repeat of "Turtle Songs Of North America," which I can't say I understand. Wouldn't it make more sense just to direct people back to the older podcasts, rather than repeating material? The Johns seem to like latching on to new ideas--websites, streaming radio stations, street teams, podcasts, themed projects, etc.--and then not sticking with them for very long. I guess they're really kind of like me in that respect, actually. {g} Dial-A-Song is no longer around either, and while I rarely called it anyway, it was nice to know that it was there, always a constant in the world of TMBG. The impression I get is that it got too difficult for them to keep getting new phone machines only to have them malfunction shortly afterwards, but it's still quite disappointing. O John, why have you forsaken me? Is it because I'm one thousand years old? The podcasts do occasionally include some of the previews and weird stuff you could get on DAS (the most recent podcast's song about invisible people on stage looking for a trapdoor, for instance), but it's not really the same.

I think bethje will be happy with this quiz result:



And finally, happy birthday to onib!

I only saw a little bit of last night's (Tuesday night's, that is, since I probably won't get around to posting this until it's technically Thursday) Democratic debate, which featured only the top three candidates. While I don't have that much against any of them, it does seem like our supposed democracy doesn't really give The People (whoever THEY are) that much power in choosing presidential candidates. Before there were any primaries or caucuses, the media had pretty much already decided that Hillary and Obama [1] would be the top two, and then they gave them the most attention in news coverage and the early debates. And sure enough, now they're the top two. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, really. It's quite possible they would have been the top two anyway, but it seems like none of the others really got a chance, you know? That's one reason why, even though I wouldn't want Ron Paul as president, I can appreciate that he's an unusual candidate who's getting some grassroots support and, while not making excellent showings, has been doing about as well as Giuliani (whom some thought would be the front runner) in the primaries so far.

One question in the debate that I DID see answered pertained to nuclear power, and Edwards said he didn't want to build any more nuclear plants. I guess I have to say I'm kind of on the fence about this issue, because I don't really know that much of the science involved. It seems like a lot of the objections to nuclear power are based largely on an "OMG, that's dangerous!!!!111" gut reaction, but maybe they have a point. I'd love to see a viable source for the mass generation of solar, wind, cold fusion, or magic power (not Mako, though, as that sucks out the lifeblood of the planet), but I don't know that it's viable at this point, and I kind of have to think that the pollution from coal and oil plants is a more serious danger than the possibility of a meltdown or some such. As I've said, though, I don't really know much of the science.

Speaking of Edwards, I also saw a little bit of Bill O'Reilly criticizing him for his belief that the odds are stacked against poor and working-class people. It's no surprise that O'Reilly would favor the rich, but I think Edwards is the only one of the top three Democratic candidates who's really addressing this issue. That ANYONE can make it in this country is one of the great American myths. Sure, it's more possible here than it is in a communist or fascist dictatorship, but it's just not as easy as the believers in good old-fashioned gumption want you to think. When these people point out someone who's become incredibly successful despite humble beginnings (and it's not someone who actually DIDN'T have particularly humble beginnings, which happens sometimes; I think I've even heard it suggested that Bill Gates is a self-made man, which is totally untrue), there are usually some other factors at work that don't come into play for everyone, like skill in business and the right connections. As inspirational as stories about some guy who came up with a brilliant idea that propelled them into fame and fortune might be, does that mean that those of us who DON'T have practically inventive minds and good business sense (or a friend who does) deserve to live on government cheese? (And people like O'Reilly might well think that even the cheese is a waste of taxpayer money.) And that's not even mentioning the huge role that luck plays. There might not be any such thing as luck in Obi-Wan Kenobi's experience, but I don't think that holds true for this galaxy.

( Click here for a collage and a quiz result. )

[1] It's kind of weird that, of all the current presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton is the only one I consistently refer to by her first name (although I usually use both of Ron Paul's names). That's probably true of the media as well, although I think there's something in my subconscious that makes it sound wrong to refer to a woman by just her last name. Kind of sexist, isn't it? I think there might be a societal thing that suggests women's last names aren't all that important. After all, a lot of females change them entirely when they get married. I think I also have a habit, at least on this journal, of referring to people I like by their first names and people I don't by their surnames, but I'm not going to look back at my old posts and see if this is actually true. Hillary isn't my favorite candidate, though, so I think it's more of the woman thing in her case.

I've occasionally thought I'd like to do an entry on stupid magazine covers and headlines that I see in the grocery store checkout lane, but not only has that been covered by lots of other people, but I can never really remember them after I leave the store. And I'm not QUITE dorky enough to bring a notepad and jot down particular headlines. Still, I do want to mention that seeing Hilary Duff on a magazine brought to mind how odd the Disney child star factory is. Of course, there are a lot of manufactured celebrities, and not all of them are bad. But Disney in particular has a way of promoting the crap out of kids with no apparent talent. First they'll cast one of them in a Disney Channel original series, then a few more TV shows and movies, and eventually give them recording contracts. Hilary Duff is a case in point here. She seems to have won her initial fame by overacting on Lizzie McGuire. Of course, EVERYONE on that show overacted, probably because the writers didn't have much respect for kids and thought that's how they actually acted. Still, it's not like I've seen Ms. Duff in other things that made me think, "Hey, she's actually a good actress after all, and it was just the lousy direction that was keeping her down!" When she cut her first song (for the soundtrack of The Santa Clause 2, natch), her voice was so heavily digitized that it might as well have been credited to "ProTools, with special guest Hilary Duff." Then, when she recorded an album, people actually bought it. And now the magazines are apparently trying to sell her as a sex symbol. I saw her on the cover of Maxim a few months ago. So do people just assume that, because she's famous, she has to be good? I can't say I get it. Of course, Disney is now successfully selling Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana, who has the added advantage of a dad whose hit song has been danced to by old people for the past fifteen years.

And to fill out this entry, here are some quiz results:
( Read more... )

A few people on my friends list have mentioned stuff about the "flag this journal" option, and the ability to mark a post as having adult content, neither of which I was aware of until these people mentioned them. I don't really keep up with LiveJournal news myself, except when something is obviously going wrong (like the server being down). I can't say I really understand the concept of "flagging" journals. I assume it's a way to report objectionable content, but who determines whether someone is objectionable? I get the feeling that the only people who would ever use that option are busybodies who think everything they disagree with is objectionable, and kids who want to play pranks (you know, the same ones who randomly IM people and then warn them 800 times for no reason). And do we really need to give more power to those people? I think most of us understand that we can just not read someone else's journal if we find it objectionable. So, yeah, I can't say it makes sense to me.

I watched The Year Without a Santa Claus today. This was one I don't think I'd ever watched as a kid, although I did see it last year. I've heard people say that the Snow Miser looks like John Kerry, and I can see the resemblance. He also gets compared to the angry apple trees in The Wizard of Oz. ( And for the purposes of comparison... )

It almost seems like I've been blogging at a brick wall as of late. Sure, I still get SOME comments, and I know some things just aren't going to be of any particular interest to anyone, but still. It bothers me a little when I write about something I think is interesting, and nobody else cares. But I suppose that's the way of the world sometimes.

I should probably update my web page sometime soon. Does anyone have any sites that they'd like me to link to? Personal home pages don't seem to be as common now as they were back in the day, but I'm sure some of you still have them.

I had some crazy dreams a few days ago that I'd been meaning to write about, but didn't want to devote an entire post to. In one, I had jury duty again, but it was in a bathroom, and the jury had to sit in the bathtub. Another one involved my being in high school, and there was an assembly devoted to the Mario games. I wish there had been something like that at my real high school! Anyway, what I remember was largely accurate (I know they mentioned how Donkey Kong was originally planned as a Popeye game), but they claimed that Donkey Kong was made in the twenties, around the time of Shigeru Miyamoto's twentieth anniversary. Later in the dream, I was supposed to take an algebra exam, but in contrast to how these things usually work in dreams, it turned out I had already finished with it. So I went running around the halls for no apparent reason, and passed someone in a knight costume pushing a cardboard castle. I somehow ended up in what appeared to be a mall food court, where there was a restaurant called "World War I" that apparently specialized in German cuisine.

It's weird how people from the past will sometimes show up in dreams for no real reason. One of the people on the bathtub jury with me was a guy who was in my classes from elementary school up through college. I never knew him very well, but I remember our sixth grade science teacher used to pick on him a lot. The guy who sat next to me in calculus was in the high school dream.

And here are the results of both versions of this nerd test:

I still haven't finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I've read twelve chapters, and will probably read more before I go to sleep today), but I DID finish three other books recently. They're all three Oz books that bethje gave me for our anniversary, and I'm going to put my thoughts under a cut, since I know most of my readers probably don't care about Oz. And maybe some of the people who DO haven't read these particular books, and don't want them spoiled. So here we go.

( Spoilers for Toto in Oz, The Three Imps of Oz, and Ozallooning in Oz )

Something non-Oz-related that I've been enjoying recently is a page of Stupid Comics. And if you enjoy those, Superdickery is along much the same lines. (I think I've already linked to the latter, actually, but it's worth another mention.)

This quiz, which I got from twobitme, is just a multiple-choice identification thing, but I think that Beth might be interested in it, even if no one else is.
( Disturbing Cinema Quiz )

Finally, I keep forgetting to wish a happy belated birthday to jenhime (whose actual birthday was back on the sixteenth), so I'm doing so now.

The envelope that my registration renewal came in has the sentence, "Please drive safely and wear your seatbelt" right above a copy of Governor Corzine's signature. If THAT isn't "do as I say, not as I do," I'm not sure what is.

I bought pants at Target the other day, and I was reminded (as I usually am when I'm trying on pants) of how, when I was a kid, you could just walk right into the fitting room without taking a number or anything. Yeah, I know they started that system to prevent theft, but wasn't it so much simpler back in the good old days? (Man, now I'm starting to sound like a Republican! :P)

On my way out, I noticed that one of those stupid magazines at the checkout line (I forget which one) had a cover with pictures of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and some caption that included, "Where are their parents?" Wait, aren't they both legal adults? I tried to check the wording of the caption at the drugstore this morning, but they didn't seem to have that issue. They did, however, have two different covers mentioning that Jordin Sparks loves her body. I probably wouldn't even get what they were talking about if it weren't for Dorothea telling me a few days ago that someone on the radio said she was fat. You know, I don't remember that being an issue with Ruben Studdard. Stupid American media and their double standards.

I had a dream the other day where I was at some event (possibly for school) that involved a lot of different political figures, including Al Gore, Rudy Giuliani, and Robert Byrd. I shook hands with Gore at one point, but his hand was really big, and I was unable to move it. There was also something about a water cooler falling apart, and the cooler part was so heavy that they needed someone with super strength to lift it. I forget whether Giuliani fixed it, or he just happened to be around during that part of the dream. Later on, we had to go into an auditorium, and some speaker on stage kept telling us to switch seats. He was really hard to hear at first, but eventually the crowd quieted down, and he told us we could come up and do something (what, I don't remember, and I'm not sure he even said) to get a free coffee. I didn't want to, but bethje (who wasn't even in the rest of the dream) told me I should. And it was right around then that I woke up. There was also another dream where I was outside Beth's house on a snowy day, and a bunch of people had to help me get the car out of the parking lot. When I reached the road, there were very few breaks in traffic, and a bunch of cars were driving on the shoulder. I noticed Beth's cat Wally running around right near the street, and I tried to stop and get him, but I wasn't having much luck. Fortunately, it was right around then that Beth called and woke me up.

( A quiz result )