“Where is your global warming now?!” As I discussed before, snow or lack of snow means nothing when it comes to the greater picture that is Global Warming- oops, it’s “climate change” now. It’s easier to “prove” climate change than global warming, because, well, the climate changes. Well, shit, that’s like proving that <insert cheap shot at your least favorite celebrity here.> I mean everyone know that.

OK, with the snow comments out of the way, what else can I talk about? Uh. “Pardon me, but I have nothing to say!” “Well, there’s 300 blog entries that prove that.”

… Not because I did anything wrong, but because of a disagreement between two coworkers. Once again, I come out of it pretty much unscathed, although I will admit that it was intense, and did have the sweaty hands afterwards. Before I was ordered out, when I saw that it was going south, I closed my eyes, and listened to it. Why listen? I don’t know, but has always been my way of dealing with embarrassing situations, and I have always found arguments embarrassing. And tomorrow, I get to tell one of them how they fucked up- err, critique their efforts.

One of my co-workers has a wee bit of a temper problem; there are times when he forgets he isn’t an E-9 anymore, and barks at us in frustration, oftentimes in front of everyone else that isn’t in our little section. Not too long ago this would have been mightily upsetting to me, and might even have thrown me into a depression. Nowadays, I just half-listen, waiting for the storm to blow over, so I can ask real questions.

Why the change? I think I finally came to terms with my past, became grateful for the tools it provided me in dealing with life, like knowing when and how to batten down the hatches when the thunderheads threaten. It used to bother me because I so desperately wanted to leave that life behind, but now I know there’s only one way to escape your past, and that way is final. So I accept it, and now I’m pretty sure I can bend to any wind. Growing up in the social equivalent of a combination of Oklahoma and San Fransisco will do that to you.

I think this is the first time I’ve booted up my laptop in a week. No, that isn’t right, because I did some surfing sometime this past week. It is the first time I’ve logged into gtalk and MSN, so I think that I’m back to my “normal” self.

So last night I did something kind of unprecedented: I argued for a liberal viewpoint. *hears thuds from several thousand miles away* Shit, I just killed off my entire readership… All four of you. I don’t have the time to go all of those funerals! And I don’t know if I could get to England in this short of time. I’m terribly sorry Astraad. (This isn’t as bad as when I told my grandmother that she should go get cremated. Upon realizing my mistake, “I didn’t mean right now, Nanny.”)

So yes, I argued a liberal’s viewpoint, not because I entirely agreed with her, but because I wanted to give it a shot and see if I could convince the guy that the “industrialization of animal husbandry” was wrong. (I wish I had thought of that phrase last night; I would have sounded like a proper liberal twat. [No, she wasn't a twat, but a very nice lady, who happened to care very much about the balance of nature.]) Needless to say, I failed. Two takeaways: 1) it’s hard to argue for a point that you think is mistaken and misguided, especially if you really agree with the person you’re arguing with; 2) In a way, I think she was correct about the heart of the matter, large mechanized cow farms are “wrong”, but for completely different reasons than she stated.

“Uh, who in the hell is sitting at that keyboard?!” “Did someone implant a mind altering alien in bren’s brain?!” Or the more prosaic response: “bren really should change his password more often.” (quasi-related to prosaic: I’m the only person that thought “Streetcar Named Desire” when the name Stella came up.)

Any ways, relax people, I’m still, uh, me. (When I try to think of a term to describe my political/philosophical/quasi-religious, I come up short, because I’m the first to admit that I’m all over the fucking place. Mild libertarian and closet anarchist come the closest, and the last only makes sense if you’ve read my blog for a while. [I'm abusing those parentheses today. I hope PETA doesn't come and get me.]) Sticking to a topic is for pussies!

Let’s go back up to the title of this post and how the plight of the cow relates to how people that know each other, and are probably related, start shooting at each other on a large scale: physics. I have come to see everything in the world as physics, from economics and politics to the humble cow. In this case, I’m talking about long term stability of systems, something which really doesn’t exist. If you step back far enough, every system “fails”, from our sun to the proton. I was going to go with bacteria, but I wanted something smaller, and I remembered an interesting fact: protons decay, but over extremely long time scales (a lower limit of the proton half-life of 6.6×10^33 years. That 33 zeros, for those folks not familiar with scientific notation.)

Shit, I started reading about all of the star types, and was in danger of not finishing it at all. Yes, stars. Interesting fact, the larger the star, the more violent its death. It’s been hypothesized that the first stars were very large, and their deaths were the seeds of the super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies.

So, my point, which I somehow have not forgotten, is that larger systems tend to collapse much more dramatically, and tend to have much shorter life spans than smaller systems. Yes, there are exceptions, but every exception that I can think of has gotten a infusion of “energy” from an external force, like blue stragglers (keeping with the star motif [wait, when in the hell have I ever stuck with a motif?]) and the United States (all of those loans are going to have to be paid eventually.) Stability requires energy to maintain, like keeping your house clean (or not), and once that energy goes away, voilà! your nice beautiful systems crumbles into the past, sometimes very slowly, sometimes faster than you can blink.

So the cow… here in the US, we have an extremely mechanized farm system that we all depend on in one way or another. So what happens when that system collapses? My guess is that we’re all going to be hungry for a long while. (Why would it collapse? Energy shortages; oil most specifically.)

And I just realized that the system of this blog entry has started to collapse… no, it’s too small to collapse. More of a fizzle. So to make up for it: Look, ninja cheerleaders!

edit: What do you know! I never talked about civil wars! I will eventually though… changing title so people don’t get their hopes up.

I’m typing this last, even though it’s the first thing you’re reading: read this if only you want depression as a Christmas present.

A moment of honesty: I’ve never looked forward to Christmas. Wait, I think I’ve admitted to that before. I just have different memories than most people, anger and screaming. Threats and embarrassment. Trying to be as small as possible. Here I am, 33 years old, and all of those days are like old scars tightening when a storm front moves in, Christmas day. Emotional arthritis. I’m relatively better now, much better than I was 2 years ago, but still a ways to go, hopefully. The odd thing about emotional scars is that you can’t just wish them away. They stick with you, and some things make them linger longer than others, but sometimes they fade away, but only after a while, only after you leave them alone. But Christmas Day shows up like clockwork, rolling in, and even though I see the happiness in everyone else’s faces, I can’t help but feel alone, that storm wall that I hid behind for so long, protecting me from a gale that no longer exists. And the ache in my metaphorical bones still comes and goes.

I’m not a Scrooge. I don’t wish Christmas would go away, although the roll up to it has become overlong, like clouds in the distance that I try to ignore for months. No, I want everyone else to be happy as they open presents; I don’t want people to be as miserable as I was as a kid, opening presents, and hearing the yelling. Or spending time in a stranger’s attic, with a cheap remote control transforming truck that had a laser you stuck in his belly that would light up when I pushed a button. I miss that truck, but I don’t miss the sense of being uprooted that was endemic of my childhood years.

And as strange as this might sound, typing this out, facing up to those rough years, this is my Christmas present to myself. Because by facing them, I can remember that they no longer exist, except in my mind. Hopefully next year, I’ll have someone to share Christmas with and be too busy to worry about, to remember events that can’t hurt me anymore. This year might be a wash, but the future is always waiting for us.

Oh, and another Christmas present: I found the website for the busty antiquities expert. Yum.

I think I spent 2 hours total on toilet today, and I’m not quite sure that I’m completely alright. And that stuff the hospital gave me? I’m shuddering at the thought of drinking that stuff again. It doesn’t smell quite right, and the taste… They said to drink it cold, but I don’t think even that would help (I put ice in it and I’m grimacing at the thought of doing that again.) Yes, Go Easy, or Go Lightly, or whatever the hell that stuff is called is terrible. It might have cleaned my colon, but I think there has to be better ways of doing it than that.

*gets distracted by a show about high speed cameras, and then watched a Ancient Discoveries show, hoping to see the busty Antiquities Expert again.*

Uh… Err… Yeah… I guess I’ll post the “bitch slap Evony” ad I saw a couple minutes ago while checking my webcomics.

From my conversation with Kiv:

yeah, they said I’m so constipated that I’m backed up from the left to the right
which caused abdominal pains
Arrakiv says:
Oh
that’s fun
brenatevi says:
yup, so they gave me something called “Go Lightly”
who said drug makers have no sense of humor?
so me and John are going to have a lot of sit down time tomorrow
Arrakiv says:
?
brenatevi says:
John… toilet?

I never get tired of Toilet jokes, although on the other hand, I think I’m the only that makes them. So yes, I’m not going to die any time soon, although I’m probably going to feel like I shit out my guts tomorrow when I drink the “Go lightly.” It’s going to be me, John, and my book. Thankfully, I’m only halfway through my Clone book, but I hope to God that I don’t spend enough time on the toilet to finish it. Otherwise I’ll have to get out the Bible, or maybe get out the manual for exorcism, because I have another 150 pages to go… 2 1/2 hours on the toilet seems a bit excessive, although I’m quite sure that I will feel really good when I’m finished, because after 4 days of being bound… Yeah.

For some reason this constipation has brought me closer to God. No, not really. The documents guy asked me if I had a religion to declare, and I replied, “No, not really.” So, I’m going to make an attempt to sleep, in preparation for my marathon toilet training tomorrow. I know you really can’t wait for the full details.

So how did I end up in an emergency room? The short answer is I’m too stubborn to admit anything is wrong until it gets to the point that the chest burster says “Hi!” The long answer is a journey that explains why I’m too stubborn to admit anything is wrong, a journey too long for my poor Palm Pre and my thumbs.

“No, no, no! We want to know what’s WRONG with you. Wait, stop. Don’t go down that path.”

So, what’s physically wrong with me is abdominal pains probably caused by several days of constipation, and I hope to God that it isn’t something worse than that, although I do have insurance to cover it. We’ll discover soon enough.

The funny part of this is that I was supposed to do my first shift alone tomorrow because I was going to be covering for someone else. Instead I get to listen to the charming sounds of the person in the next room throwing up, while my own rock hard intestines try out their best Arnold impressions on the nurse.

Yeah, this is going to be fun night.

This and this makes me laugh now. When I first saw it, I was like “Are you even listening to yourself?” What am I babbling about? Here:

We had some snow this morning ! Snow is quite rare where I live. Last time was 4 years ago.

And this:

The Copenhague conference was a failure, but the Empire is still doing its best to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Those two are a day apart from each other. I started to tear into the apparent contradiction of those two statements, but as I started typing, I realized something. First what I originally typed:

Now, the lack of snow is one of my very smart friend’s arguments against me, “We haven’t had real snow in several years. Tell me that means nothing!” Which would be all and well, except… well… An area that rarely gets snow, got snow. So what does it mean?

Nothing. The rare snow, or the lack of local snow, means nothing for global climate.

Yup, I realized that the snow proves nothing on either side. So why in the hell post this if it didn’t prove anything at all? Because I actually think about what I’m posting, even if it doesn’t seem like it, and when I’m wrong, I’m not afraid to admit to it. So what is the reader supposed to take away from this? Well, think about what you’re writing, and don’t be afraid to admit that you’re wrong, even if it makes you look like an idiot.

I want to start this very special spam post with an admission… no, two admissions.

1) I never got the whole “In the Soviet Union, you!” joke.
2) Therefor, the subject joke is most likely really lame.

But any ways, the “very special” part of spam is in this image:

Now, as Google is so kind to point out, that sender is likely forged. The fact that it’s from me tends to be a dead giveaway, because while I love spam, I’m not going to go through the effort to titillate myself with the thought of a Russian hottie waiting to meet me. I might be masochistic, but even that is a bridge too far for me. The reason I bring this up, is because a lady at work couldn’t understand the fact that her email address was spoofed. I have only so much time in the day.

Let's find out how stupid you are...

Back to my normal spam habits:

She wants some fun today? She wants a real man.

No, really? Here I thought she wanted a fake man (what us freaks call a blowup doll.)

Your shlong can be shlonger.

Doh! I can’t beat that… Uh. I WON’T beat that. Nope, won’t touch that at all. Unless it’s my shlong…

OK, I’m finished on that note.