At
each advancing turn of the scientific chessboard, the theological
defense space and no. of moves has been reduced. Or is this the start to
another round of Creationist Science mincing... by deceptive means to
first "agree" before infusing more unproven "truths" to confuse the
mediocre masses yet further.
BUT If you think the Pope is endorsing science, then you must agree with this guy too
from Freethought Blogs
by PZ Myers
(but I am not providing a direct link here as there seems to be some Trojan/ virus with the whole freethoughtblog site now)
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, explains that good ol’
polytheistic Hinduism is fully compatible with science, just like the
Pope finds Catholicism compatible with evolution.
We can feel proud of what our country achieved in medical science at one point of time, the prime minister told a gathering of doctors and other professionals at a hospital in Mumbai on Saturday. We
all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we
realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s
womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is
why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.
Well. I guess it must be true, then, if Karna was hatched from an
artificial womb, that Modi’s ancestors must have had some awesome
technology. Or we could flip that around, and if Modi’s ancestors lacked
that awesome reproductive gadgetry, then Karna’s mythological origin is
false. I don’t think he plans on taking that approach.
Modi went on: We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have
been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on
the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.
All righty then! Have you noticed how all religious just-so stories from outside your
own religion look extraordinarily ridiculous? All we need to do is get
the Pope to look at his Catholic origins myth through the eyes of a
devout Hindu, and maybe he’ll figure it out. I’m thinking if we can just find the talented plastic surgeon who can
transplant elephant heads to human bodies, it’ll be a cinch.
"Bikes with no front derailleur tends to have cleaner chains..."
I must clarify this useless epic post is not about bikes but like so many things, it starts with my my observation on bike related obsession. Drivetrain today.
What's with me and all my seemingly useless trivial observations? As always, once it comes about as I absentmindedly starts scratching slightly above the hamstrings, it would naturally gravitate to.... "Why?"
Greasy chain pick up grit Grit accumulate and keep adding till the point of falling off from its own weight. Chain rubs inner side of derailleur cage. Grease and grit adheres to sides Chain keep moving picking off more grit again. More gets rubbed on cage Cage surface roughens and that picks up and spread even more greasy bits around. Excess bits hanging on gets picked up and a free ride around cassette, rear dee and jockey wheels... Cycle continues... External sides of chain plates keep looking like shit until next round of cleaning Wiping off reveals gleaming plates but one round pass chain ring and the 2 dees-- everything is just as black until every damn part has to be cleaned up before cleaning the chain once more...
Of course it gets a little more complicated than I can humanely pen and not kill via the monotony from reading a million long sentences. The hyper mind of mine is filled up with all kinds of hygroscopic and hydrophillic reactions. Of grease degradation and metal ion reactions happening all at the same time. Even archaic chemical terms from secondary school like ionic bonds and Van der Waal forces started surfacing... "How does different lubes affect the extent of these goop soup spinning on and on and on and..."
Totally useless especially if you don't own a bike or remotely interested in maintenance even if you do ride.
As for me-- I have long ago told myself "Screw it, let it all rot"...I have enough chains to last my next nine reincarnations as a human that potentially owns another bicycle.
As with all great philosophers who try to make an analogy of everything they observe and pin that to certain aspects of life, here I am pretending or at least trying to imagine being one...It does induce a sense of smugness as flatulence reverses direction to the confines of the cerebellum as one starts to get a few more ideas on what to write, self deluding that it would surely impress the world. So shut up world, this is what I "see"
With the accumulation of material things in life... you are just gonna end up with tons of useless things that will eventually be thrown out. Doubt me? Take a serious look around the house. Open up the storeroom. Look into every box that has not been opened up since 1980. Ok make it 1990 or 2000.. adjust as your age deem fit. I can boast about stuff kept from the 70s since I'm fast forwarding into an antique nut case...
Tell me what you find.
Of course there is that corrugated container which once past the musky smell you are surprise to see that even the styrofoam inside has shrunken and gotten brittle.
Thinking aloud "Hmmm.. .no UV so what kind of chemical reaction has taken place here?. Why are the polystyrene beads not adhering now? Old foams had different density and additives in their making back then?... ... ..."
Within this lie another package with yellowed tracing paper wrap.
*wiggle*, *wiggle*
Wait.. WTF is that! -- Oh there's a couple of silverfish that just pop out and a few black bits.. probably pooped by some other insects that has long been plastered on the side of the box like fossilized art..
Peeling off the yellow layer, my olfactory sense is assaulted by this heavy lingering odor almost immediately. It hangs in the air for a bit more... familiar but hmmmm....
Oh-- by the way do you even know what I am referring too?
Yea. Plasticine-- pronounced as PLAS-TER-SIN. Kids these days won't know jack-all what this wonderful thing is. They now have Play-Doh, and whatever fancy yucky hands on gooey toys.
In my day-- it was PLAS-TER-SINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.
Ok looks like Plastercine hasn't really gone extinct after all and they do come in a whole array of bright colors these days that are probably more
appealing to kids now. Back in my days the color choices are pretty limited.
Block after
block after block of pale rigor mortis pink, ghastly blues like the lips of drowned victims or that dull putrid green as a hungry drunk reflects on his surfaced bile.
Yes you feel nostalgic.. these play clay has gone from being made into little swamp thing dolls that fight with my Playmobil figurines set to being meat balls "sizzling" on the cooking pots for those same static idiotic smiling calvary pieces.
No, my little mind has not gone with victorious plastic soldiers cutting up Plastercine Swamp Monsters into Subway Marinara Meatballs. At least not yet at that age.
You think I'm kidding huh.. After some pretense macho bang bang session, those tiny doll sets actually comes with cooking pots and cups and what not? Yea. Check out the pic below-- it shows the cups and pitcher.. almost identical to what I had in 78-79. Ok so I do mix and match a lot with my other toys back then... The "pot" could well have been a bottle cap of some sort... Hey if the size looks alright.. who cares right.. It's all in the mind of someone barely 8-9 yrs old.
Doubt I would be able to find the exact same edition I had online but the scarves on those little plastic people were definitely yellow, not white. And no I did not get the fekking fort.. I cried, jumped, rolled on the floor of Yaohan, Isetan, Metro and any place I see one of those set...it was simply just too expensive for my mum or any of my relatives to fork out and indulge my whims. So yea I built my own cardboard fort and more. Most notably my prized creation which would have gotten an "A" for "Arts and Craft was a big ass boat complete with cabins and sails.. I actually liked that a lot better than the playmobil pirate ship set at the time. Anyway it was all a good experience.. from building the cardboard fort-- it led me to experiment with bamboo skewers guard towers and entire village battle scenes for my 1/72 WWII figures... from Airfix and Matchbox. I might be young but I was a collector. All other brand pales in details and couldn't make me take a second look.
But after 30 odds years-- Here I sit holding a dead-flesh colored lump that has undergone further color degradation, wondering what to do
with it... maybe nice multicolor blocks did exist then but maybe my mum was colorblind without knowing all her life and so all I ever got was the same old horrible ghastly pink ones on those umpteenth occasions whenever I told her "Teacher say we need Plastercine for next week's art class" -- which of course only happened like once in my entire 6 years of primary school...
Alternatively the shop guy could have convinced my mother to take all his remaining stock of these fugly color plastercine. "Don't worry lah... they will ask for 1 block every 6 months, in 6 years that is 12 blocks... only 10 here. Sure can finish one... you take these 2 color lah Mrs.. they say this one not nice. Nobody buy. You take all I give u 50% discount ok?
Told ya.. I can't keep my bloody mind straight.. it will go off tangent even on things that may or may not happen 4 decades ago...
Stored for 30+ years...
Now don't ask me for actual childhood pics kneading those clay... People growing up in the 70s are a sad deprived lot. If your family actually owns a camera and is rich enough to take pictures of you playing with your toys or Heaven forbids.. the toys themselves -- it still takes a week to have the picture developed. Then over the course of 30+ years those photographs would have faded or most probably eaten alive by the (great great great great)x(great) grand ancestors of the 2 silverfish that just fell out of the box with these discolored clay. But many are siply thrown out during one of those major house cleaning or another.
"But my uncle has that cool looking camera you look down from the top and took many pictures of the 70s and 80s... and there is a picture of me on a carousel horse shown to you... "
"STOP being a prick... OK OK your family is rich. Mine isn't.. FUCK U. SHUT UP and continue reading.."
Anyway screw these primitive arthropods (and your uncle's camera) for the time being. I'm getting distracted again.
COA- Course of Action
(1) Soak in the aroma-- take out the plastercine and make those swamp monsters again. Run down to that toy shop in Harbor Front and buy up all the Playmobil and start another battle scene... "Wake the eff up dude.. you are almost half a century old now!"
(2) Re-wrap carefully, place back in box and continue keeping it for another few decades. (and maybe have it cremated alongside you by then... no wait, the temperature in the oven would have vaporize this old shit and nothing is left!)
(3) Throw the fucking sticky gooey glob away..together with the 2 silverfish and think no more... have a coffee, play with the dog or something...
I realize what you once cherished is really just some obsolete junk that only appeals to your sense of nostalgia. It is really the memory you are holding onto by now. What can be worse is- to a whole generation that haven't a clue, letting them catch of glimpse of you clutching that chunk might just make them think there's some terrorist running around with a lump of C4. Children and some whom are adults by now that grew up on a staple diet of words like Kabul and KABOOM from the news and FPS games of the 90s onwards would never guess. Bloody Strawberries arrgghhh!
And again I digress...
As if to prove my point about de-clutterring *kla**klak* -- some plasticky thing fell out of the box where the plastercine had been a long term resident..
A VHS TAPE! Now that is older than Blu-Ray, DVD, VCD and Lazer Discs... Short of a few old audio cassette tapes I'm sure is still around.. I doubt there's much remaining that can boast information storage of some kind from the Jurassic.
"But but but.. what's VCD???"
"Ah my friend you must be from Amelica neh...You guys just bypass a whole transitional generation of data storage, VCD and SVCD and went from VHS to DVD. Nevermind, you didn't really miss much. Really. All the pixelated sh!t and sudden audio screech ain't worth watching anyway."
Fast forward a decade... 1990. The label was faded but I can just make out the words that I have written out with a Stabilo marker bought during army days to mark on those transparent talc over
1:50 000 "confidential/ restricted maps"-- and again this just goes to show the vast the amount of useless things I'm holding in the brain apart from the actual things here...
S. Davis vs S. Hendry
FOR THE LOVE OF THE MOTHER OF ZEUS or WHATEVER EGG ZEUS HAPPEN TO COME FROM-- that was the year boy wonder Steven Hendry became the youngest player to win the world champion title.. If you are 19 or 20 yrs old at that time and a snooker fan-- there's no doubt who you will root for.
Seriously who the hell who want to be jumping up celebrating some craggy dry old fart winning yet another world championship. Ok Jimmy White was a pretty cool maverick but hey its NKOTB here.
"Snooker? What about soccer. Football"
"I HATE FOOTBALL. Period"
Not that I have a VHS player now that can resurrect those scenes captured within but I remember VHS tapes have a catch when flipped will expose the tape..
Found it
Nudged it.
Lo and Behold.... Holy Mother Of Mold. Whatever little exposed section of the dark brown tape is just about all white and green/grey with heavy powdery patches. I held my breath and only exhale cautiously as the hand slowly-- ever so slowly move the abomination out of the way. The mind was turned into a sci-fi movie kaleidoscope of a billion fungal spores flying every which way-- into my nostril, down the blood stream... couple of them found their way and dancing inside the whites of my eyes...sprouting off the next generation of love seeds as sight fades from my clouded and invaded eyes.... Ok too much Ebola news and paranoia about Anthrax in envelopes these few weeks. I digress.
The vivid imagery of fungal infection and possible death certainly play down and euphoria of watching any championship pot black action from Hendry that may have lain hidden in that tape for the last 24 years...
Trust me. despite the fungal defiling- it was a significant piece of memory. Back in those days, TV was all but 2-4 channels before the days of cables and the programs of those short few hours of broadcast were listed in the main newspapers each day.
If I wasn't at the snooker saloon I was scouring to see the word "snooker" in the paper and note the timing... It was the most talked about match in town.. I made sure to buy extra blank tapes to record and this moldy POS was the result of all those billiard crazed days of eons past....
Regrettable and sad as it is, for now this world stirring event lay to rest in the waste paper basket.... awaiting its final resting place most probably in the Lorong Halus incinerator...
I really wanted to watch it one more time! Was willing, even if irrational as it seems to run out there and get a hopefully working VHS player from one of those danky old electronic shops or even be ripped off by one of those toothless old uncle peddling their dusty rarely usable ware of the past .
But hey everything has to exist on the Internet today eh! right down to the first trillionth of a trillionth second of the Big Bang. I'm sure....
Ok maybe not as much footage held in my mold eaten VHS but still...
Just look at the Hendry's returning shot at 14:38 in the video!
Even if this was not available online.. really how much do we need to keep and how much obsolete things do we need to keep up with... Honestly, most, we don't need and are never a matter of life and death.
Not just material things, even stuff you build up as part of yourself at some point or another, it will come to pass... While my current waist line is an absolute envy to all my middle aging friends and many a lot younger, still I had seen better times in the past. Hey everyone aspired to be Bruce Lee at one point or another right? I'm no exception either...
Mighty dragons come and their time shall pass too..
More items of old starting is starting to fill the bin as the physical de-cluttering takes place... My mind again wanders-- am I writing all these down to bring across the point of simplifying or simply moving my mental clutter elsewhere... Somewhere on the web for posterity? For fear, like in hoarding all these things in the past that one day I should need or want to see them again.... It's a constant fight. Having things and hoarding them produces a kind of "feel good" feeling. The state of having little or not possessing is just something that runs counter to the society we live in... We live, we age, we amass. Society tells you and even encourages you to amass. All the marketing out there is asking you to Buy Buy Buy and Own Own Own... They only tell you to throw away other things not made by them so that you can buy theirs. We make tons of built-in cupboards, closets and all manners of storage in our already claustrophobic life within hi-rise pigeon holes (ok at least for 90% of us on this island); only to keep more and more of things we don't need.
Think about that.. true or false? What every individual keeps may be a little unique to themselves but still when things gather dust it is time to start clearing ...
...which brings me to this article that my group of close knitted Faux Fat Boys cronies posted in our super duper secret closed knit (not snitch) group. Quarter ton of accumulated PORN in a lifetime! Holy Patron Saint of the Kabuki and Geisha Bars-- in magazines and VHS!! "Hey dude... Cloud it man. its 2014 now" until I read...
Exactly!!! .. when you are 70 yr old and bed ridden you ain't gonna be needing all those smut fapping material like a panda.
