Scamming the Cats

In related news, the fastest creature alive is a Tiger Beetle, to scale. It can travel 5 MPH, which doesn't sound too fast until you scale it up to the speed of a drag racer. Apparently the little critters go blind when they run, because they move so fast they can't process the information.

Blast! I've been a naughty boy. I decided to chuck my cell phone off a bridge, so now I will need a home line. But that's okay, because I might postpone senility for a year or two. You may have heard alarmists are predicting that there will be an entire generation of cell phone users going pretty much insane all around the same time.

Premise 1) Thoughts are communicable only by language
Premise 2) Language has strict limitations
Therefore 3) Nobody will every fully understand my thoughts
Premise 4) Being misunderstood is intolerable
Therefore 5) There is no point in communicating with anybody but myself

I'm so bored at work. But on Saturday I got wine-wasted while painting. Jared wouldn't let me use his wine for paint, but I discovered a new technique anyway (dissolving ink into watercolour). Then I passed out before I could put the top up on my convertible... it poured rain overnight. Then I came in late this morning to find out that I'd been rejected for a position transfer. Down, down, down we go. Where we die, nobody knows.

I won't explain why we chose the name "Calgary Coleman" for our company's team-building event, but we did. The day before the event I'd made up a PowerPoint presentation with bouncing Gary Coleman heads and the proclamation "Cal-Gary Coleman is gonna win!!!" -- e-mailing it to the rest of the department. Yes, it was quite a cocky thing to do, but today when we came in first place (there were 16 teams), we were vindicated. The event was a scavenger hunt for which we worked our butts off, and of course there was controversy over whether we should be disqualified. In the end we each walked away with $25 in dinner certificates. Just in time for the weekend. =) The moral of the story is: it's okay to be cocky if you have the goods to back it up!!

Why isn't it Friday?
For now, I'll blame the Romans.

Last night in Social Psyc I learned a new way to keep a class interested. I've begun to argue for moronic, extreme viewpoints - basically anything against the majority - just for the sake of argument. Yes, just for fun. The best part is that people take me seriously and get upset about things. Ahh, so much fun!

Later, I began to think about the old expression, "If you like [an inanimate object] so much, why don't you marry it?" And of course, there are several reasons that would be impossible. For example, a non-speaking thing could not say "I do", nor give consent to sex, even if you argue that sex is possible (for if not, how could the marriage be consumated? It would be null and void).
So, what about someone like Stephen Hawking, except without a fancy computer with which to communicate non-verbally? Someone with no use of limbs and no way to communicate? If that person is not able to consent and you somehow fell in love with them, would sex be considered statuatory rape?
Since sex with vegetables should be considered, then, to be statuatory rape... are they all unfulfilled in that way? Perhaps it is irrelevant, for they may be unfeeling, and certainly not able to give complaint. But if the above seems to be too ridiculous to contemplate, then perhaps you should ask yourself if marrying a blender is really that ridiculous.

Well I suppose I was thinking about Miss Lazy's "braindead" comment all weekend, and I can't help but wonder what was really behind that comment. There has to be some bitterness behind a question like that -- normal people don't speak that way to ask how you're doing: "Braindead today?"
If she spoke what she was really thinking, it might have been something like "Are you too stupid to talk to me?" -- the irony of which is, with an attitude like that, it may be stupid to talk to her. She seems to be quite vindictive, actually, so it may be wise to keep a cordial distance.

Somebody just asked me if I was "brain dead" -- presumably because I was not speaking to her. In fact, I was very deep in thought and not predisposed to debating the merits of (useless) astronomy. It just occured to me that perhaps ones eager to make small talk can do little more.

Everybody needs money. Even starvin' artists. I had a job interview for an internal position today, and all went well until I had to ask the questions. First I threw my panel interviewers off when I asked about their policy on diversity. They seemed to understand me as asking "Do you discriminate against people?" when I wanted to know if they generally encourage hiring diverse employees. Aye carumba.

This Saturday I'm getting a truck so I can buy huge canvasses (prestretched.. I'm lazy). I don't know yet what I'm going to paint on them, but think I might do something with four thousand cats within a 4'x6' surface. This could take some time...

Also, last night was our first class of Social Psychology, and - oh brother - here we go with more evolutionary psychology. It amazes me how many people fear to question the faith of evolution when there are so many problems with it. Arguments against evolution are no less cogent than those for it. Regardless of how much "critical thinking" is encouraged in post-secondary, counterarguments are shunned, and so everybody grapples with the subsequent problems... egads!

Do I really think I'll finish reading Mizora? This 19th Century feminist utopian novel isn't very long, but it's not something I'm actually interested in. What's the point? Do I just want to have pretentious literature bowing my shelves? That's probably it. But having interesting things around helps stimulate ideas... I completely overhauled a painting I'd started about 9 months ago. I've never been happy with it - a bit too simple - but someone gave me the idea to use a palette knife for a thicker look, and now it's powerful. It's one of those pictures that's ambiguously disturbing. In other news, I have some ideas for writing a one-act play, and have decided to start submitting more of my writing to different lit mags. Keeping most of my art to myself, hidden under wing, seems selfish. I should share.