Kinda Ironic

So, I am a May baby. Which means basically nothing, but since my birthday is coming up it means I had to renew my vehicle registration and this year I had to renew my driver’s license as well. I find it funny that I had to pay $62 dollars for a piece of paper and sticker whereas the plastic card that is a driver’s license is only $18.

Why are registration feels so expensive compared to license fees? Although, I guess I shouldn’t complain as my grandfather (another May baby) owed $128 for his renewal. Gotta love make, model, weight class, and year produced which causes the amount you owe to change from person to person, vehicle to vehicle.

Carnism = Sexism & Racism

I am not against feminism or anything, but I have to say that some of these people come up with the most absurd theories. The newest one in being that eating meat, or “carnism,” is akin to racism and sexism. At least according to Dr. Melanie Joy. For the scoop, check out the original articles posted on CampusProgress.org. http://www.campusprogress.org/books/5348/how-eating-meat-is-like-sexism-and-racism

In my opinion, why do humans eat meat? It is not because it is some senseless thing we are taught from birth. Meat does bring in needed nutrients (iron, protein, and more) and it was a big staple to our ancestors before farming was invented (can you “invent” farming?).

There is nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or a vegan, but they miss out on the protein and other goodies meat provide. They also have to be very careful and make sure they are eating a well-balanced and supplemental meal (which quite a few vegetarians and vegans actually ignore). You need to make up for what you are not getting by adding meat into your diet.

You don’t need meat everyday. You won’t die without it, but to say that a person who eats meat is as bad as a racist or sexist is too extreme. It’s like those radical feminists who link pregnancy to a parasitic relationship that invades a woman’s body unfairly. (No, I am not making that up, I studied it in a philosophy class in college.)

But read the article for yourself and make your own judgments. I won’t give up eating meat. I am not a racist nor a sexist. Nor am I a total feminist, which makes some of my more radical friends cringe, but hey, not all girls today have to be feminists, right?

Funny Times Comic

I think this comic expresses how a lot of us feel about our jobs at some time or another. If we weren’t crazy when we started, we sure are now.

comic from The Funny Times website on their “About the Funny Times Staff” page.

Condoms Blamed for Rape . . . ?

While updating the blog list for work, I came across this interesting blog article. Just when you thought the Catholic Church couldn’t get and crazier, add in Italy’s interesting safe-sex policy of installing condom vending machines in high school and you get one hot potato on your hands and the Catholic Church expressing their outrage.

About as good as expressing outrage over condom use in third world countries. Seriously.

http://technorati.com/politics/article/condoms-blamed-for-rape-really/

I don’t believe this is necessarily promoting sex before marriage or underage cavorting, this is just being realistic. Teenagers (not all, some) will have sex before leaving high school, so you might as well get them in the habit of practicing safe sex, right? But then again, this is a hot topic everywhere. Just what should we or shouldn’t we teach our children about that 3-letter word and its consequences?

I am all for informing them and letting them know the consequences without them experiencing it firsthand (i.e. teenage pregnancy, STDS), but I suppose the method of believing they won’t and keeping them in the dark works too, right?

Ah, Cartoons!

This made my day. Serious chuckle alert. Mainly because the cartoons themselves are more fun than the commonly misspelled words.

But don’t take my word on it, check out the poster here (available for purchase)

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

The perfect gift to give the annoying person whose spelling drives you crazy ;)

80s Generation Turns 30

It’s hard to believe, but if you were born in 1980, you’ll be 30 this year.  It is shocking to realize that the people born in my decade are starting to turn 30.  It is peeking just around the corner.  Not that 30 is by any means old (although it probably seemed that way when we were children), it is just kind of weird to think about.

It’s also weird to think about the 90s children are in high school, graduating high school, and some are even in college range and are getting ready to graduate college.  I spent the 90s in elementary school and middle school.  Hard to believe the babies born in that decade are as old as they are now.  I still think of my cousins born in 1996 as babies, but they’re turning 14 this year.  14!  I remember them from when they were just 4.  hard to believe it’s been ten years already.

You know, the sad thing is, looking back as we 80s children approach 30, more than half our lives (so far) consist of school. Kind of pathetic in a way, if you think about it – especially if you regard the downturn of education.  But I shouldn’t get started on another rant about education in Michigan and the US in general.

But anywho, Happy 30th 1980!

Picture of the Month

http://bit.ly/6lsqi2

Seriously, I love this picture, it is awesome. This was taken in Overland Park, KS.  I found it on Bob Sommer's Uncommon Hours as I was adding it to NewPages Guide to Blogs by Poets and Writers.  Priceless and clever. Take a look.

Musing #1

I sometimes wonder what they are doing, how they are. Sometimes more than I am ever willing to admit. They were there, we were friends, but in the blink of an eye, all that seems to have disappeared. Apparently, absence does not make the heart grow fonder. No. It makes the heart forget. Or maybe it has shown that what you thought was real may have never existed. The great thing about that being that you will never know because it is doubtful the person will ever tell you themselves.

I am thinking about her again. Thinking and thinking, but not talking. I don’t know what to say anymore. ‘I am sorry’ doesn’t seem quite right, I don’t think I have anything to apologize for. ‘I miss you’ sounds so inane, but it is surprisingly true. I miss her. She was my best friend for so long.

So what do you do after you lose touch? After a friendship has grown cold? I actually ventured onto Facebook to try to talk to her, but I just couldn’t figure out what to say. “Hi.” It is really inane and she probably won’t reply to me, she never has whenever I have tried talking to her before. I am sorry for that.

I wish we hadn’t grown apart. I wish we hadn’t stopped talking. I wish I knew why things ended up this way, but I don’t have a clue. So we remain as strangers who were once friends. High school acquaintances and nothing more. I wish it were more.

Another mystery that hurts my brain entirely too much.

Contradictions # 1

1) Being extremely organized when it comes to work and school while home is chaotic

Really my bedroom is in complete disorder, but when it comes to stuff for work and school, I am an organizing freak. And when it comes to the kitchen and the living room movie cabinet, everything has its own place and I get upset and irate if it’s not where it’s supposed to be.

It always amuses me when people compliment me on my thoroughness and my organizational skills. I tend to think to myself if they only knew. Yes, I can be extremely thorough and highly organized, as long as it does not apply directly to me and what is going on in my life outside of the realm of school or work.

But, no one ever said that a person has to make sense, right?

Experiment #1

I am unhappy. I am not happy. Why? Es geht mir unglucklich. Es geht mir unglucklich. Warum? I don’t remember. Was there ever a reason? Was I ever happy? I am not happy. I am not happy. I am unhappy. Happy I am not.

I hide it. I don’t want them to know I am unhappy.

There is no reason.

 

 

 

                                                There is a reason . . .

I AM BROKEN

*Disclaimer: I am not unhappy, this was a form experiment gone amuck because the blog format can’t really show what was going on spatially.

Word Game Challange

At my sister's with some friends for the weekend, we came up with a game. Every person got to choose one word and then Chani and I would each write a poem using the 5 words chosen by each of the people present.  The words are as follows:

JonG - Cocaine
Sis - What
JonS - Why
Chani - Picture
Me - Sarcophagus

So here is my very brief poem, currently untitled:

 Why, what light through yonder cocaine haze shines

on the brilliant sarcophagus

in the black-and-white picture

of my mind's naked eye

Chani-chan shall be posting her attempt at the word game challenge shortly. And I must admit her attempt at the word game more than likely wins over my brief attempt at pithy brilliance. It is utterly innovatively funny and yet totally random.

Enjoy 

Quote of the Day

"Some people don't want to be compassionate. They want to be right."
~Unknown

But really, you know people who want to be right, all the time whether they are or not. So, what does this mean exactly? What does compassion and being right have to do with one another? I am not exactly sure. Maybe that's why I thought the quote was cool, all the different interpretations a person could get out of it.

Po-tay-toh, Po-tah-toh

The add old adage "you say po-tay-toh, I say po-tah-toh" is interesting. I am not talking about the meaning we get from this saying, but rather the fact that it is one word said two different ways. This is basically regional and where you grew up determines which pronunciation you use. It works with tomato and aunt as well as many other words.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I wish to talk about one word, namely a name. The name being that of Leigh. So, how do you pronounce it? I am willing to bet that 99.99% of people will say Leigh is pronounced Lee. There is no other way to say it. Is that true?

Answer being, uh, no. It isn't true. There is another pronunciation to this name. What is it? It is lay. People scoff and sneer and say that makes no sense. Really? Let's take a wander down vocabularly lane, shall we? Evidence that it can (and probably should be) pronounced lay:

1. Sleigh (how do we say this word? slay! with the long a sound)
2. Raleigh (ok, some people will say raw-lee vs. raw-lay)
3. Eight (last time I checked it was pronounced ate, again long a sound)
4. Freight (frayte)
5. Weight (wait)
   

Enough with the word games. I know they are probably not the most convincing, but I just thought it was nice to point out. In the English language, what does the vowels 'ei' put together sound like? Think about feint (pronounced "faint" not "feent"). It is the "ie" combination that is actually pronounced as the long e sound versus the long a sound. Now, I am not saying that everytime "ei" is together it will be pronounced this way (like agreeing), but I am willing to say that the majority of words with "ei" should be pronounced with the long a sound.

So why do so many people pronounce Leigh as Lee vs. Lay? And why did I spend a whole blog post on this particular topic? Well, look at my name: Leighton Nichols (pronounced lay-ton). Tis a nom de plume, but Leighton is derived from my middle name, which is? You guessed it, Leigh. And no, it is not pronounced Lee. My father, for whatever confounding reason, gave me one of the commonest middle names and decided that it will be Lay vs. Lee.

It is a pet peeve of mine when people get the pronounciation of my middle name wrong. Petty? Probably, but it just annoys me. Just like when people start adding extra letters to my first name.

G.I. Joe

I used to love watching the cartoon when I was a child so I was excited yet worried that they were making a live action. I guess I can’t be too disappointed granted that I can’t remember too much about the series as it has been close to 20 years since I have watched it.

The action sequences were decent. The CGI, well, you could tell whatever was CGI was indeed all computerized. It is interesting how some CGI you can hardly tell at all that it is computer generated and others you can tell and you seriously wonder if they actually tried to make it look realistic.

I did enjoy the movie. I loved Ray Park as Snake Eyes. It is funny how this martial artist actor always seems to play characters where you can’t see his face, i.e. Toad from X-men, Darth Maul from the Phantom Menace. I loved his fighting with his nemesis from Ninja school.

Speaking of his arch nemesis. Ok, there are many Japanese actors out there, they exist, so why was a Korean playing a Japanese ninja? I am just curious. The actor did a great job, if I didn’t know better, I suppose a person wouldn’t even know that he wasn’t Japanese, but I do, so I found it amusing. And, totally off topic, another Japanese Ninja movie will be coming out sometime later this year or next year and the main star is indeed another Korean, Rain. Is the reasoning behind this that all Asians supposedly “look alike” (which is not true, you can tell the difference between Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese, etc – if you know what you are looking for)? Just an interesting question to contemplate.

Back to the topic at hand. Yes, I liked G.I. Joe. Yes, it had cheesy acting and more action than anything else, but it was at least enjoyable, which is hard to say for some of the more recent movies I have seen.

Warning Labels - Let Hilarity Ensue

At work I came across something I found to be fairly amusing: A book with a "warning" label . . . or perhaps "rating" label is more precise. It is reminiscent of how TV rates viewer programs, from child safe to all that fun stuff (I can't recall an exact one but I think there was one that have like 13 or 14 on it saying it was unsuitable for children below that age) and of how videogames are rated (E for everyone, M for mature).

Wolf Pirate Publishing is actually putting labels like these on the back of their books. Really. I just laughed when I saw it. Probably not as funny as I am making it out to be, but it seems ridiculous to me.

So, on the back of The Angel's Iscariot, there is a box with a big, bold M next to another box that descries "Contains: Adult situations, violence, and mature subject matter not appropriate for young readers." And on the back of The Repossession is a box with an R next to another box that reads "Contains: Adult situation, violence, sexual content and mature subject matter not appropriate for young readers."

Apparently sexual content is the only thing that is the difference between an R rating and an M rating. Shouldn't that be an X rating instead? And, truthfully, this stuff is found in basic sections, not children's sections, so is a label even necessary?

Micro-fiction that makes no sense

Sometimes the girl wondered what the big deal was.  It was just another day like any other.  Sure, it was the day that began a new biological year, but what was it’s significance?  It was never really celebrated or rejoiced.  In fact, she was pretty certain that her mother cursed this day every year – if she wasn’t too drunk to remember that is.

The girl sighed.  Life, supposedly the greatest gift.  This morning she had received one card telling her she was now officially over the hill at 25.  Enclosed was a picture of a Mayfly, a creature that lived such a brief life.

Sometimes the girl wondered why she was born.  Her parents hated each other enough to get divorced and move half a world apart, leaving her behind, stuck in the middle.

The girl sighed again and looked down at the card on the table.  She was burning that picture tonight.

Burn, Baby, Burn

And so this is how it begins. This is how it begins, and this is how it ends . . . in fire and in ice. Burning passions, freezing loves consuming the world – seeking, searching. It is never enough. It is never enough. This echoes and resounds. He is consumed by fire – nothing but burning passion. She is ice incarnate – her love burns as it freezes. Seeking, searching. They can never find the other without withering within. Opposites consumed by fire, burning hot, burning cold til nothing is left, even heaven has turned to ash.

The Monkey’s Paw

A bookshop in Toronto, The Monkey’s Paw, is definitely a curiosity shop.  It specializes in “uncommon scholarly and out-of-print books; ephemera & images; manual typewriters; [and] biological specimens.”

Seriously. One would expect some odd things in a book and curiosity shop, but biological specimens?  Definitely a must-see if one is ever in the Toronto area.

The books offered are amusing to note, such as A Treatise on the Use of Flogging in Medicine and Venery by John Henry Meibomius along with poetry by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  Something for everyone. From history nerds, literature lovers, and people who are just amused by rare and weird items.

To check out some of what The Monkey’s Paw stocks, check out their blog. [http://mo-paw.blogspot.com/]

Shattered

Our lives are fragmenting, breaking like shattered glass.  Each time we think that we have picked up the pieces and mended it, it breaks again.  The pieces are getting smaller and smaller with each new fracture.

Pieces are missing now.  We can’t find them, perhaps they have turned to dust and been scattered to the wind.  The possibilities are endless as to where they have gone.  All that is known is that our lives shall never be whole, but rather mish-mashed mirrors full of holes, reflecting a refracted image.

That is our lives now. An imperfect image, splintered and divided. No glue, no heat can bind the gaping wounds and fill in the gaps. Nothing can replace what has gone missing, our most precious things.

How did they do that?

You know I attended catechism classes for my church for two years. All I can remember from those two years are the Apostle’s Creed, a little bit about baptism and confession (not that Lutherans practice confession like Catholics do), and some little pieces of scripture that had to be memorized.

But, the thing I remember the most (and probably one of the most worthless pieces of information) is how to figure out when Easter will fall.  Did you ever wonder how they determined when Easter will be every year?  There is actually a formula for it.

Ready? Ok, here goes.

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.  Hence why sometimes it is in March and other times it is in April.  It is all tied to the lunar cycle.  Very pagan in a way.  But what are Christian holidays but versions of pagan holidays?  Christmas shouldn’t technically be celebrated in December because if you do the math and everything Jesus was most likely born in either fall or spring (I can never remember which).  So why do we celebrate that particular holiday in December?  Well, it comes down to this lovely thing called evangelism.  When the Christians tried to convert the pagans, they made it easier by corresponding holidays and traditions all in one.

Hey it worked.  And if it didn’t?  Well, if you didn’t convert, then sometimes you died.  Gotta love it.