Sequels to 300?

I wrote this as a post in a forum, in order to threadjack a particularly piss-poor excuse for a thread with an otherwise inspirational title. However, the mods felt that, despite my and other's efforts, the thread had to be locked.

Thus, I'm copy-pasting it so it may be shared with you all:

400

Visigoth messenger: This is madness!
Julius Caesar: This is ROME!

Then:

500

Englishman:This is madness!
William Wallace: This is SCOTLAND!

600

Nazi messenger: This is madness!
French Resistance: This is PARIS!

700

Communist: This is madness!
Richard Nixon: This is VIETNAM!

800

Terrorist: This is madness!
George W. Bush: This is TEXAS... er, AMERICA!

900

Martian: This is madness!
Robot King: This is EARTH!

And finally...

1000

Chimp soldier: ook ook oogook!
Gorilla king: oog oog AROOG!

I would like to point out that all of the above exchanges in no way reflect my actual opinion of how the events that would be portrayed in them actually are. Clearly, they are entirely historically inaccurate propaganda films, much like 300 was.

What is wrong with television...

I watch too much tv. This is bad for me. So, in an effort to dissuade you from making the same mistakes, I am going to, in single-sentence reviews, tell you what is wrong with the shows I watch religiously. Even though most of these are my favorites.

• Law & Order: Lenny Briscoe left the show, and then died.
• Law & Order SVU: Too much Benson and Stabler drama, not enough Munch and Tutuola drama.
• Law & Order CI: There was a recent episode that began with Under Pressure during the opening montage, and didn't extend the montage so that I could listen to the whole song.
• CSI Miami: David Caruso tries to be a tough guy while looking like Howdy Doodie in sunglasses, and wears a black suit in Miami.
• Cold Case: Every victim they investigate on this show has committed fewer sins than Jesus.
• Heroes: Why do we have to wait a week for each new episode?
• Scrubs: The last episode I saw was entirely made up of rehashing old jokes from a new perspective.
• The Daily Show: Since the Daily Show is actually more informative than other news shows, it's not just in my head that I get more depressed about the world when I watch this show.
• The Colbert Report: Sometimes, he's just too good at playing the role of the asshole pundit.
• House MD: It's medically inaccurate, and thus my hopes of being a doctor from watching this show have been dashed.
• Monk: Why does he always have to be placed in mortal danger from the bad guy?

I'm sure there are more to be added to the list. Some day.

Heroes is back! [major spoilers]

I'm giddy. So giddy that the homework I should be doing takes a back seat to this entry. Which will detail my take on the events that occurred in tonight's episode. Just don't read this and skip to the entry on Atheism if you haven't seen it yet. Let's begin the fandom:

• I totally called Linderman being the head of the group that Mr. Bennett worked for. Granted, I didn't do so great at predicting who Linderman would be, but Linderman being the bossman of both organizations was a keystone of my thoughts about the times to come.
• Who wants to take me on in a bet? I say that Old Lady Petrelli doesn't reveal her ability until the season finale, and that she resents having it. You'd be stupid to take me on, since it's practically a given, but I think we know right now that Peter and Nathan didn't get their powers from nowhere. I'm sure the fact that she was stealing a pair of socks in the first episode is significant to her ability, too. In fact, I've been certain of it since the first episode.
• The above notes would sound less like a self-important asshole who fakes predictions to sound right if I'd actually been able to document these predictions when I made them.
• Every time Claire appears onscreen with either of the Petrelli brothers, I really get creeped out. Even before she was revealed as Nathan's daughter, it looked like "creepy older dude and young girl have mutual attraction" material. Maybe I just read too much into it, and it's not like I don't believe the characters could be related, just that it's going to take some getting used to before I stop thinking "please step away from the underage girl, sir."
• Malcolm McDowell has appeared in three things that I've seen; A Clockwork Orange, Star Trek Generations, and Heroes. Now, he basically plays a villain in all three. The odd thing is, though, that in the first, he plays an evil person who is forced to undergo a worse evil to make him good, and then is abused by the world, unable to fight back. In the second, he is just an old man trying to get home, who can only do so by destroying planets. In this, he's destroying most of New York in order to make the world a better place, and has the ability to heal other things. What I'm saying is that the man knows how to pick and play his bad guys. These are not your "Me bad guy" evil guys.
• Future Hiro needs to teach Hiro how to better use the sword via a samurai duel. It would be greater than awesome. It is necessary for the betterment of mankind. Blowing up New York is nothing compared to the beneficial effects of having Hiro and Future Hiro in a swordfight.
  

Atheism

I honestly can't say how I started thinking about this topic a few minutes ago, but I felt it was something I needed to say. If you spoke to me about anything other than religion, you'd probably get the feeling that I'm an agnostic. If you spoke to me about the supernatural, you certainly wouldn't be able to think that I'm an atheist.

Basically, I have a very open mind regarding the rules of existence. Moral laws, matters of ethics, science, etc, if it's got a ring of truth, I'll be willing to believe it. Hell, I'm willing to concede that Intelligent Design is, by and large, somewhat reasonable. It's more of a sidenote to the theory of evolution than an alternate theory, but it doesn't feel entirely wrong to me that there could be a guiding force to evolution. I don't think it's really a counterpoint to evolution at all. If the fundies understood what they were peddling, they'd probably never be able to sleep at night.

Which is too bad, because I'd like for them to realize just who they are and what they're doing and never be able to reconcile themselves again.

Anyway, the point is that I'm an atheist. Very little of my doubts about the rest of the universe have been able to dissuade me from that position. I don't hate the concept of God, or of gods, or those who worship either. I fully embrace the fact that I have faith in the fact that there's no god. I even don't feel it's conceding anything when I'm interested in the supernatural, and am willing to believe that things like ghosts can exist.

I mean, the belief that everything that's happened so far is a completely random series of events (although they're not quite that random, considering that most of the events are effects of previous events) doesn't preclude a belief in things beyond scientific comprehension. There could even be perfectly logical explanations for a real ghost, even if we don't have the capability to understand it at this point in time.

That said, it seems incongruous that I'd believe that the supernatural could be real, and part of a natural process, yet not believe in any god. If I were talking to myself (as I'm apt to do), I'd probably label me an agnostic.

But I'm definitely not. I just can't believe that there is any higher power. I think and think, but there is nothing to suggest that there are real gods, anywhere. I mean, I can believe that there might be beings that are outside the normal natural spectrum. I just can't believe that they're anything beyond other life forms, basically in the same boat as you or me.

It sort of starts with how our concepts of the gods have changed over time. I mean, just the switch from polytheism to monotheism. That's a big shift, and yet it happened as a result of human struggles. I can't help but notice that every time in history that this shift occurs, it could just as easily be humans using their god to unite disparate groups as it could be the god himself doing it. Every time the preferred mythology changes, it's through a human vessel. That's suspicious. Not to mention the fact that, despite apparently being great beings who create and control the planet, they can't seem to keep their stories straight at all in different portions of the planet. There's really barely any similarities between the Norse and Shinto mythologies.

Then there's a slight problem with history. You see, for beings that are supposed to be present in everything we do, there's a surprising lack of involvement after recorded history begins. Most of what has been recorded of the acts of the gods are things that can occur naturally. Events that can be attributed to any god dissipate the closer we get to modern times. Now, I'm sure someone will say that this could be God testing us, but it seems like there's a very perfect inverse correlation between what we know about the world, and how many events we ascribe to divinity.

I'd say more, but it's 2:30 AM where I am, and I need to get some sleep...

Moonlight

I don't normally have too many problems with living in the city instead of back home. It's basically the same problems in either place, except at least in the city I can walk to most of the places I'd like to go. Which is cheaper than driving. It's also easier to get shoes on my feet than to get ahold of one of my family's cars, even though at this point I believe we have one car for each of us. It's just that around half of the cars are broken down at any one time.

That's not what this is about, though.

So, yeah, what counterbalances the fact that I don't have the ability to do anything interesting at home is that, when I'm at college, the city's lights drown out the night sky. Plus, the moon doesn't seem to pass through my dorm room's view, which is otherwise superb. Instead, I get a bunch of street lights. Granted, I have a nice view that, at times, makes the street lights beautiful (like when it's snowing), but it's nothing like when I'm at home.

I live out in a rural area. We don't even really get the city lights on the horizon. On a clear night, the only light is coming from the sky. It's a perfect shade of blue, really. I like it at about midnight, when usually all lights in the house are off, and the moon is visible from my bedroom window. Then, sometimes the moon is full, and it will come through my window, and it's about as bright as the glare of the sun off of a piece of glass. And if there are no clouds out, there's a lot of starlight, and it looks like I could just walk around outside, with no real problem seeing.

The fact is, I like the night precisely because of the times when I can sit in bed and look out the window, totally awake, but in a completely dark room, and just look at the moonlight hitting the ground, and the brightness of the moon. I really wish I could show everyone what it's like, because I can't do it justice in words, and there's no way to take a picture of what amounts to the effects of having almost no light.

It's beautiful.

Did you know that...

I've been told by multiple people that ringing in the ears is supposed to mean that someone is thinking about you. It's been clarified for me that the left ear means that the person is thinking negative thoughts, and the right ear means positive thoughts.

Odd thing is, I've been experiencing a constant, soft ringing in my left ear for a couple of days, normally starting at noon. And a few minutes ago, I got a very sharp, momentary ringing in my right ear.


I say this because it suggests some odd things. One person can't seem to stop thinking about how much they dislike me. And another could very well have just achieved orgasm while thinking of me.

I don't really understand why either one would happen, only that I'd rather believe that my ears are telepathically receiving vague signals of the emotions of others toward myself, than that I should probably go to a doctor and get my ears checked out.

Two Things

You may have noticed an entry that's gone missing from my archive. This is because I told my mother about this blog. Mostly so my parents would know about this marked improvement in responsibility over my writing career.

You may draw what conclusions you wish over the fact that starting a writing blog is somehow a massive improvement.

The other thing is that I've found myself, today, listening to The Fratellis' song Flathead, and Curtis Mayfield's Pusherman. I recently bought them both from itunes, and haven't gotten them onto my ipod. Generally, when that happens, I'll listen to the songs in my "recently purchased" playlist repeatedly when I don't feel like listening to my ipod.

I only have those two songs in that playlist right now. I've had them on a continuous loop since the beginning of the day.

Odd thing is, I'm not tired of the songs, just embarrassed that I've been listening to these two and only these two for that long.