C-Movies, Make it Happen

I wonder how many modern-day B-movies start out production with people actually taking the movie seriously, before someone on the production team realizes that the premise is incredibly dumb and that making real horror movies is too hard. Making horror parodies, on the other hand, is incredibly easy. All you've have to do is make the threat over the top and have everyone swear every other word. Y'know, for humor value.*

"We've got a great idea for a movie!"
"What kind of movie?"
"A horror movie!"
"About...?"
"Snakes!"
"Anaconda?"
"No, they're on a plane this time!"
"And what do you want to call it?"
"Okay, okay...Ready? Snakes...wait for it...on a PLANE!"**
"That sounds...stupid."
"Oh..."
"Can we make it a parody?"
"Is Samuel L Jackson available?"
"I have a swimming pool made of money."
"Great, let's make a movie."

And then they spent millions of dollars on it. AND IT WAS AWESOME.

*See: Grindhouse, Evil Dead, etc. Notice that I'm not saying that any of these movies are bad.
**RELEVANT SATIRE

Seven Billion Dollar Man

I'm still waiting for the day when they start implanting iPods into our brains. I know for a fact that a whole bunch of super-naturalists are going to get pissy about it and say that we're allowing technology to overtake our lives and stuff like that, but you know what? I'm down to turn into a cyborg. As long as I get to keep all of my brain functions, and the robot implants are just there to make my body more awesome, I'm all for it. Specifically, I'd really be interested in getting some sort of robotic eye. Y'know, one that has zoom and can take pictures and stuff. And it better look awesome. I don't even care if it can shoot lasers, I just want my robot eye. Once they invent those, I'm going to move to Canada and stab one of my eyes out, so I can get one for free. That's exactly how healthcare works, right?

Of course, the REAL problem will be keeping the hardware constantly upgraded. I mean, let's say you just got a nice 3G router implanted in your skull that displays web pages through your robot eye.* And then a week later, they come out with a FASTER one that can also download music directly into your brain. Well NOW you gotta go out and get surgery again. It'll be just like getting a new iPod every few years, except you have to go under the knife every time. Sounds like a hassle, but then again, you're a cyborg. That's awesome enough to make up for pretty much anything.

I don't know, is it possible to run electronics off of the energy of the human body? If it is, we're going to have to start producing a lot more food, so we'll have the energy to run our brain computers. Also, I want rockets in my legs. Just cause.

*Cheating on tests will never be the same.

Cheaper Than Acid

It's a weird experience to feel guilty about something you did in a dream. Do you ever do that? Like, you dream that you drank a whole bottle of scotch and threw up all over your friend's couch? And when you wake up, you know that it wasn't real, but you still feel bad for doing it. Sometimes I feel like I should apologize to my friend for it. That's what sort of scares me about dreams. Sure, you always know that they didn't really happen once they're over, but some of them are just so damn VIVID. I think the worst is when you dream about something that you really want, and then you fight to stay asleep, because you don't want it to go away. That happened to me last night, and I woke up depressed, because I realized that things were the same as they were the day before. That always sucks.

Or how about when you dream about your friend doing something really not-cool, and then you feel kinda pissed at them the next day? Then again, if you're having dreams about your friend doing crappy things, that might say something about your opinion of them. I'm not sure, because I'm still working on trying to decide how much of the "dream symbolism" idea I believe.

Also, lucid dreaming doesn't make sense. You know you're in a dream, and simultaneously know that that is perfectly reasonable and that the dream world is making sense, even if you're flying on a winged sheep through the Canadian mountains. Dreams are too confusing. I should just stop sleeping.

Kids Are Sexist

When I was a little kid, I watched a lot of TV. But since I was stupid and lazy, I pretty much watched the same two or three channels every day, and would therefore see the same sort of programming and the same sort of commercials all the time. Now, when I was a kid, I hated advertising just as much as I do now, so you can imagine that I would come up with all sorts of complaints for the commercials that I thought I was being forced to watch every day.

There was one specific thing that always bothered me when I would watch these commercials, and it's a cliche that still doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. See, there would be a whole bunch of commercials for traditionally "boy" type toys or campaigns. Y'know race cars and crap like that. Now, these commercials would often have a gag at the end where, in some sort of ridiculous competition involving the toys, some girl would show up and kick all those boys' asses. This baffled me as a child. Not because I was sexist, although like every other 8-year-old boy, I probably was.* However, I DID know that at that age, boys HATE that sort of thing, because again, we were all raging, sexist bastards. Some of us just didn't grow out of it.

And so I wondered. If these advertisers wanted to target young boys, why would they do that? Of course now, I know exactly why. It's because adults can't remember what being a kid was like. I'm going to try to hold on to that as long as I can, but I know that eventually, I'm going to become hopelessly ignorant too.

*Except that one kid who had almost all girl friends and a really girly voice. Every elementary school had one of those, and by 5th grade, when everyone learned what a "fag" was, we all just assumed he was gay.

Computers Are Serious Business

So I've realized recently just how little I care about the Mac vs. PC "war". I mean, I know that most people could not care less, and wishes everyone would just shut the hell up about it, but I becoming more and more aware of the fact that I just don't have enough energy to participate in stupid arguments like that. It seems kind of ridiculous that we have grown men who argue about this sort of thing. That's kind of embarassing, in a way. Like, come on guys, I'm sure there's just gotta be something else to argue about that's a bit less retarded.

Here's the way I see it. Everyone is going to have their own opinions on things, and personal preferences. In this sort of argument, nobody is EVER going to prove anyone else wrong, because it's all a matter of opinion. You're not going to change anyone's mind, and you really should not care about it that much in the first place. It's a matter of opinion. It's personal preference. Who cares?

And yes, Apple's Mac vs. PC commercials are incredibly stupid an pretentious. I don't think you need me to point that out.

Also It Is a Stupid Name

So I'm like...three or four years late on this one, but I would just like to point out right now that Blu-Ray is stupid. Blu-Ray is basically DVD, except it costs about fifty times more to even get a machine that will play them and it's a pain in the ass to even find movies on it. And you know what? It doesn't look that good. It looks exactly the goddamn same as DVDs, an if you care that much about image quality on your movies, then you're a tool.*

Now, I thought for awhile that I was being incredibly ignorant about this. "Oh sure, I'm sure everyone was complaining about the same sort of things when the transfer to DVDs was just starting." But you know what? DVDs have a number of things that actually make them better than VHS. Special features, more storage space, all that good stuff. But what does Blu-Ray have over DVD besides "It looks a little better almost kinda maybe"? Not a whole lot.

So maybe I am being a bit naive, I'm not really sure, but I think it's sort of a moot point anyway. Physical copies of movies are becoming obsolete now that we have all that fancy digital download stuff. So now we get to bitch about DRM and hard-drive malfunctions wipin out your whole collection instead. Yay future!

*Everyone love blanket statements.

We'll Get There Eventually

You know, the people who are crusading against gay marriage are really, really wasting their time and money. Now, that sounds really obvious, but when you think about it, it's pretty ridiculous. Whether you approve of it or not, it's kind of blatant at this point that gay marriage legalization laws are inevtiable at this point. The concept is becoming so pervasive, there's just no way around it. And when you think about it, it's hard to see what these anti-gay people are fighting for. These laws are GOING to happen eventually. I can guarantee that. All these people are doing is delaying the inevitable. And they're
wasting a lot of money on it.

Can you imagine how much more money they'd have for more not-stupid (you know, relatively) goals if they just quit with their anti-gay crap? I mean, I realize that it's "against their principles" and all, but you'd think there'd be at least one super right-wing guy saying "You know guys, I hate them too, but I don't think we're going to win this one." Then again, maybe that already happened, and all the sensible people went off to try and actually accomplish things.

That's the main problem, I guess. The liberals (and by "the liberals", I mean me) HAVE to keep wasting their time fighting for gay marriage, because the bigots on the other side won't just drop the damn issue. It's going to happen eventually, but it sucks that we have to spend so much time on it instead of working on stuff that ISN'T a fundamentally stupid thing to argue about. Should we give everyone equal rights? Yes. It's in the Constitution. Case closed.

No One Is Impressed By Your Candy

I never understood the kids who liked sour candy. I would always ask them "Why would you want your food to hurt?" And except for that one weird sadomasochistic kid, nobody seemed to be able to give me a satisfactory answer. At least with spicy food, that's just what grows in the parts of the world where they eat spicy food, so they were kind of forced to make it part of their cuisine. But sour candy has no excuse. Sour candy is made in a factory by magical flavor scientists. This is a food* that is specifically designed to hurt the inside of your mouth. I don't get it.

You know what sour candy is for? It's for kids to show off in front of each other. Kids see sour candy the same way college students see shots of vodka. It's not about the taste, it's about showing off to everyone else with how many you can take. We all knew that one kid who would just brag about how he could eat like fifty Sour Patches and be totally fine. These are the children that grow up into frat boys.

I bet if the cigarette manufacturers teamed up with the candy manufacturers, they could kill all of us. Here are two sets of products with no actual redeemable health qualities, but still sell for evident, but incredibly stupid reason. Sour cigarettes. There's your billion dollar idea of the century.

*Well, the word "food" is used rather lightly here. Manufactured candy is technically food in the same way that Iraq is technically a war.

Destination Moon

I think it's high time we started working on establishing the moon colony. Now, I am well aware that I mention moon colonies far too much. This is because the moon is cool, and if you don't think the moon is cool, then you can get off my website. Well, not my website, I guess. Google's website. My section of Google's website. Get off of my section of Google's website. Anyway, since we kinda botched the whole "Let's just live on Earth until the sun explodes" thing, we should probably start building crap in space that you can live in without having to eat freeze-dried everything. Of course, farming on the moon would probably be impossible, so we're going to have to get a butt-load of pro-cloning laws passed so we can get away with it. This shall be accomplished through absurd amounts of bribing and possibly orbital space lasers.*

Then we just start, I dunno, being moon people. Doing whatever it is moon people do.** You know, building moon houses and watching moon TV and playing moon sports. Actually, moon sports is going to be pretty great. I'm going to be so damn good at moon basketball. Flying up and the air and crap. And then we can play moon hyperspeed flying through the air in freaking spaceships ball. And I'm going to be awesome at that too, whatever it is.

This is obviously just me being me and saying stupid things, but I really do wish somebody would give NASA some damn money.*** That's why we need the Soviet Union back. We need someone to have our dick-measuring contests with.****

*Speaking of orbital space lasers, HOLY CRAP ORBITAL SPACE LASERS.
**Yes, I want to be part of the colony. This will probably ALSO involve bribing and orbital space lasers.
***I bring up NASA being broke way too often.
****This is a figure of speech, but you can be a weirdo and pretend it isn't, if you like.

Lava Lamps and Drugs and Lava Lamps

There are two things from the seventies that I want to see make a comeback: Awesome concept albums and lava lamps. Now, lava lamps are really more of a sixties thing, but I think the eighties was when everyone just collectively decided that lava lamps were stupid and tacky and burned all of them to the ground.* But you know what? Screw that. Lava lamps are awesome. Have you ever SEEN a lava lamp? Just stare at one for like, an hour, and I'm sure you'll have some great epiphany about your life at some point. Those things are freaking amazing. And I wasn't even on acid. Really, no wonder the sixties and seventies loved those things. I bet they're mind-blowing when you're fried.

And you know what? Bring back concept albums. Those were awesome. Friggin' Pink Floyd and all that, I mean. I realize that the modern music industry is mostly devoid of people with that much talent, but I think it's at least worth a shot. Actually no, people have taken a shot at it, it was just crappy people. Yes, "The Black Parade" is technically a concept album, but that doesn't mean it's any good. Someone start a good band and right a damn concept album.**

But you guys can keep everything else. We already got a crap economy, you can hang on to yours.

*Burned the glass, yes. Burned the glass of something that runs on heat, yes. It was the eighties, there was crack EVERYWHERE.
**This is clearly exactly as easy as it sounds.

The Los Angeles Marauding Hornet Squad of Despair

I like when sports teams have really stupid names.* I mean, when you really want to scare the hell out of someone else, there really isn't anything more intimidating than calling yourselves "The Lakers", is there?** And I just can't imagine being able to not crap my pants at the thought of going head-to-head with "The Jazz".*** I mean, if your home city doesn't have any really scary animals, I'm sure you can just make some up and call the team that. Hell, Detroit did it. I am reasonably certain that there are no Lions in Detroit, but they went with it anyway. Of course, they could have ALSO come up with something relevant AND intimidating, like "The Detroit Trucks-That-Run-People-Over" or "The Detroit Gas Shortage". That's pretty scary.

Hockey gets the worst of this. Sure, "The River Flames" is sort of cool-ish, but it sounds more like the name of an indie band from Manhattan,**** not a group of people who regularly punches other groups of people in the face while wearing ice skates. I don't live anywhere near Cleveland and don't care about sports in the slightest, but I would totally follow a team called "The Cleveland Robots".

Overall, I think professional sports teams need to take advice from eight-year-old boys more often. Ask some third-graders to make up a team name, and you'll inevitably end up with something like "The San Marcos Elementary Giant Killer Death Bees", even if they're just playing Scrabble. In fact, we should probably just let third-graders name everything from now on. It would certainly make life more interesting.

Go ahead and make your own "Horrendous Space Kablooie" joke. I'll wait.

*I'm beginning to notice that whenever I start a post with "I like it when X", it almost invariably means that I'm going to be describing something that I don't actually like at all. I can't tell if that's sarcasm, bad writing, or both.
**I am aware that they're named after the lakes in Michigan. Shockingly, I don't care.
***I am also aware that, technically, there is no "The" in their name, but just calling them "Jazz" would be an offense to every rule of grammar ever, and saying "The Utah Jazz" would've ruined my flow. Kind of like how this footnote completely lacks any sort of comedic timing whatsoever.
****As if there existed indie bands from anywhere else.

All Aboard the Fail Train

I bet it really sucks to work for Amtrak right now. Well, I guess that applies to every kind of...train company, I guess you'd call them. I dunno, we call them "airlines", right? "Trainlines" doesn't seem like a real thing. So sure, train company. Anyway, I say Amtrak because they're the ones who seem to be trying so damn hard. I mean, they advertise and stuff. They still have those huge-ass stations. In Los Angeles. Nobody takes the train in Los Angeles, but they're trying their damn hardest to stay alive. I can't decide whether that's inspirational or incredibly sad. See, because there is basically no advantage of a train over a bus, besides the fact that they're cooler and you're less likely to get stabbed. And it doesn't smell like pee. And nobody's going to try to have their way with you. Okay, so there are a lot of advantages, but none of them are "fifty dollar ticket" advantages.*

It was pretty funny how, after Bin Laden got shot in the face, Amtrak saw that the airlines were freaking out, because they thought for sure there was going to be a terrorist attack, so Amtrak started freaking out too. Yes, I am aware that there have been many train stations targeted by terrorists, but doesn't that seem like a little kid doing something just because his big brother is doing it, and he thinks it'll make him cool? Well actually, I guess since trains have been around longer, it's like a guy going through a mid-life crisis and trying to stay relevant in pop culture. In other news, this is the worst metaphor ever.

Now, if they could somehow figure out a way to make train travel efficient and cheap, I'd be all over that mess. Have you BEEN on a train lately? Probably not. But the damn things have BARS. And flippin' DONUT SHOPS. At the very least, air travel needs to start being that awesome. Hell yeah, I'd get strip searched for that.

*I have no idea if this is even close to a reasonable cost for a modern-day train ticket, but I don't care enough about trains to look it up. Pretend it's hyperbole and move on with your life.

Not Anything Like Alternative Rock

Those kids that go to "alternative schools" are so screwed once they get out into the real world.* Now, I know I'm always talking about how screwed up the public education system is, and how it turns children into mindless drones, or at least tries to. This, however, is not the way to go about fixing this problem. Why? Because while in regular schooling, you learn a ton of completely useless crap, in alternative schooling, you learn absolutely nothing at all.

Once these kids get forced out of this little bubble that the school has created to protect them from the big, bad outside world, reality is going to hit them like a goddamn brick. When they find out that they didn't learn a single goddamn discernible skill throughout their entire childhood, things are going to be pretty damn difficult. Is the American public school system any good? No, not really, but it's better than turning your kids into massive basket cases.

The Waldorf website constantly mentions something called "eurythmy", which is never actually explained. A friend of mine went to Waldorf for a year, and he couldn't adequately describe it either. He just knew it involved some sort of labyrinth, music, and special shoes. This is apparently a very important part of a child's development.

*http://www.openwaldorf.com/index.htmlis a great place to go to learn about the insanity of alternative schooling. It is simultaneously hilarious and incredibly disturbing.

Stupid Brunette Rednecks

I know I don't usually do "topical" stuff, because I'm not smart enough to keep up with the news, but I really, really want to see Michelle Bachmann run with Sarah Palin. I don't care who's the nominee and who's the running mate, I just want to see the quotes. Can you IMAGINE the awesome news stories we'd get out of that? I mean, we thought the Paul Revere thing was bad?* We could get enough stupidity out of that to last like, an entire day calendar. And I would totally buy t-shirts with Bachmann/Palin quotes on them.

Of course, then we'd have to get someone equally crazy to run for the Democratic party.** I'm talking like PETA-level crazy. Unfortunately, most of the REALLY crazy liberals are in the Green party, which nobody cares about. So they can just pretend to be Democrats. I doubt anyone will notice. And then we just have them fight it out. See who can out-crazy each other.

Put it on Pay-Per-View. Call it "Baby Killers Vs. Nazis". And then just let Obama give it another go. He did pretty alright.

*"The British dun came and tooked our guns away!"
**You know, for um...next time...Shut up, I'm writing bad jokes.

Volunteers of America

There's a fine line between being a rebel and just straight-up being a twat, and that line tends to blur a lot. For example, let's say you revolt against the American public schooling system, because you consider it to be stifling and obtuse. Now, it's proven pretty well that peaceful discourse is not going to fix the schools. But acting up in school to make a point? Probably doesn't really mean anything. And the whole point of revolution is to get a message across, and no one's going to be able to tell the difference between the political activist and the douchebag who is just sticking it to authority for the sake of sticking it to authority. It's hard to make a point that way.

Then again, there really isn't much of a point to revolution in a country that, for the most part at this point, is relatively stable. Anyone starting a revolution in a corrupt dictatorship always gets full support, but if somebody who believed in fascism wanted to overthrow US, we'd murder their asses. Obviously, anyone who did that would be a moron, but I'm not really going to take a side there. I don't really have much of an opinion on it, it's just something I find interesting.

That's the problem with this pseudo-existential thinking. It's hard to take a side, and you can't really say anything conclusive in the end. I'm just pointing out things to think about, an I'm not entirely sure if anyway of it matters.

I bet the drastic shifts in tone on this website would make people think I was schizophrenic if anyone actually read it.

Quit Your Whining

I'm getting kind of the sick of the "It could be worse" fallacy. Look, I'm not saying that people in first-world countries don't complain about stuff too much,* because they do (I should know, I'm one of them). This is just a terrible argument against it. Basically, any time someone responds to a grievance with "At least you're not a starving child in Africa", I die a little inside.

Essentially, what you're saying is "Shut up, things could be a lot worse". But if we continue with that precedent, we'd end up getting nowhere. If you take that stance with personal issues (i.e: "So what if your girlfriend broke up with you?", etc.), then you just come off as a massive cock. Yes, things could be worse. Does that make th situation suck any less? Not really, no. Things could be a lot better too. I don't think I can handle the amount of apathy that would be created if everyone thought that way.

And when you apply it to politics, it just gets embarassing.** "So what if the city is refusing to pay for street repairs? At least the mayor isn't Hitler!" Guess you can't really argue with that.

*I've taken to calling this WPP ("White People Problems") lately.
**Kind of like my inability to spell this word properly. Ever.

It Can Also Mean "Something That's Almost A Hole"

Similar to what I wrote about last Tuesday, I think it's important that we have a more clear distinction between "depression" and just straight feeling like crap. Now, in academia, there's a very specific difference, but we tend to mix them together a lot in regular conversation, as if they were the same thing. "Depression" is a medical term, based in psychiatry, with a bit of psychology involved as well.* Depression is when you feel like crap for no apparent reason. The world around you doesn't cause depression. It can AMPLIFY depression, but it doesn't cause it. It's caused by chemical imbalances in your brain, and it's how we wind up with people who should be perfectly with their lives, but aren't.**

On the other side, there's feeling like crap, which isn't a medical term, but it should be. That's just where something that sucks happens, and you're pissed and/or sad about it. If you say "I'm depressed", and somebody responds with "Why?", slap the crap out of them, because there isn't a reason for depression.

I find it so interesting that we have reached a point with our society that we need specfic classifications for the different ways we can describe how messed up our lives our. Gives you a great feeling, doesn't it?

*And yes, there is a difference between the two. God, I sound so pretentious right now.
**Yes, some of them are just whiners. Like ADD, depression is stupidly overdiagnosed, mostly by people who don't want to deal with their problems like adults.

Pineapple Was Here

As far as vandalism goes, I think tagging is pretty damn lame. Now, when I say "tagging", let me make it clear that there's a difference between tagging and graffiti...sorta. Tagging is graffiti, but graffiti is not always tagging. Now if certain people could be said to be "street smart", then I'm street retarded, but let's assume for the purposes of this that my definitions are right. When I say tagging, I'm talking about that stupid cursive stuff. Usually done in sharpie. On street signs. By idiots. That's tagging, and it's dumb.

See, because I think that vandalizing city property should be about one of two things. It should either be used to get a message across or to offend people for the lulz.* Tagging isn't really either. You aren't REALLY getting a message across, you're just letting people know that some dumbass with a permanent marker has way too much time on his hands. And no one can read it, and nobody cares. And it's not offensive either. All you're doing is pissing off the poor city-worker sod that has to clean it up. You bastard. That's just sticking it to the working class...which is stupid.

I mean, either get some skill and actually make some damn art, or at least draw a big penis where children can see it. At least that way you might get on the Internet for being such a twat.

*And shoot me if I ever type this out in a post again.

A Quarter For Your Thoughts? Nah...

I think it would be fun to try to make an absurdly large purchase entirely in change. Like, a plasma screen TV or something. Mostly because I wonder if they would actually accept it, or if they'd force you to go out and get it exchanged for, you know, real money.* I guess since it's their store, they can do whatever they want, but I think it'd be pretty hard to turn down like, 800 bucks like that, even if you can pretty much only use it for bus fare. But dude, that's like bus fare for the next ten years of your life.** That's not easy to come by.

I think this would really all bank on how funny the initial reaction would be. I bet in pretty much every major electronics store, the poor sap at the counter would just immediately start smashing the panic button. I mean, they just GOT to get the manager in there, if only so they can just SEE it. "STEVE! Check this out! This guy's got a friggin' WAGON full of quarters? I know, right? Friggin' WAGON!" And then Steve would probably proceed to haul you and your stupid wagon straight out of the store.

Actually, it'd probably be just as fun to just show up at the bank with that and demand that they cash it. The teller would probably want to slap the hell out of you just for making him doing all that counting. Yeah, that'd be worth seeing. My jar's got like 40 bucks in it already.

*Although, the concept of money in general kind of renders the term "real money" inherently meaningless. I mean, money is only money if we say it's money. And now I've typed out the word "money" enough that it sounds like a meaningless string of sounds.
**Typing this made me realize that my brain is so averse to doing math that I didn't even feel like figuring out whether or not this is even close to a reasonable figure, even though I know exactly how to do it.

Flightless Birds

I'm pretty sure the penguins are plotting against us. Now I'm sure some of you are thinking that that's completely ridiculous. After all, they don't have hands. But if you think about it, they would have a pretty massive upperhand if they did decide to try to take over the world. Once you get over the fact that it's ball-blisteringly cold in the Antarctic, it's actually a pretty effective base point. And it's not like it'd be easy for us to spy on them. They're plotting our downfall as we speak.

Perhaps they're causing global warming on purpose, and merely tricked us into thinking that it was our fault. With, I dunno, mind control beams or something. Actually, that'd be a pretty damn good plan. Lowers morale and threatens our livelihood with watery death. And I'm just going to assume that since they've apparently invented mind control beams and some kind of machine that causes global warming, they also have spaceships, so they can just leave once the planet floods.

Then again, if they have that technology, why the overcomplicated melted glacier plan? Why not just have us kill each other? And if you're just going to fly away, why take over the planet at all? This isn't a very good plan, penguins.

And Why Do They Not Even Look Like Real Hearts?

I'm sure there's probably a very interesting historical reason for why hearts became the symbol of love,* but I find it a lot more fun to come up with my own reasons. I like to imagine that there was just some guy that everyone was convinced was right about everything because, I dunno, he predicted the rate of that year's corn production or something. So he started going on about how the heart was the center of love and all that nonsense, and everyone sort of just went along with it. Either he was completely insane, or he wanted to see how much crap he could get people to fall for.

Taking THAT a step further, I like to imagine that every urban legend ever can be traced back to this one guy who loved to screw with people.
"Well, you know, you only use 10% of your brain."
"But that doesn't even make sense Steve. How coul-"
"Bob, have I ever lied to your before?"
"Well, I guess not."
"Exactly. 10% of your brain. Oh yeah, and try not to swallow those seeds."

And then he started a multi-billion dollar soup industry by claiming it cured the common cold.**

*Or possibly a really boring story. Or maybe nobody actually knows. I really don't care that much.
**"Steve Campbell" sounds nice, but I don't think it's true.

I Don't Call it the Butterfly Effect

Sometimes I catch myself getting really, really worked up about chaos theory. I think about how even the slightest difference in any sort of
decision I could possibly make could lead to an extremely long chain of events that results in a completely different outcome. It can get a bit ridiculous sometimes. "How would the universe be different if I hadn't kicked that rock? Sure, it doesn't seem like much now, but what if some guy steps on it later, and he's not wearing shoes, so he breaks his foot and has to go to the hospital, and then he doesn't make it to work, and since he's not there, someone else has to do his job..." This line of thinking usually ends with the president declaring nuclear war on China.

The point where I really start to think I'm crazy is when I start thinking "How would the universe be different if I hadn't thought about how the universe would be different if I hadn't kicked that rock? Did I get preoccupied with thinking about then, and then make different decisions later on because of my slightly altered mood?" Makes perfect sense.

This is why it was so hard for me to watch Back to the Future. I kept thinking "NO! He STILL wouldn't be born because the circumstances leading up to his conception would be completely different! The chance of the exact same sperm fertilizing his mother's eggs would be astronomically low!" It's a great movie, I'm just completely insane.

How much different would your life had been if you hadn't read this? How much different would my life have been if I hadn't added these last two sentences?