Ok, tonight I’m going to download what I can, from my brain to my blog, in one large data dump. It won’t be pretty, but at least I will have posted something. My memory is so porous that if I don’t post shortly after an event has occurred I really don’t remember it with any clarity. The memory of my past week has already faded in my mind and I will doubtfully be able to do much more than recite some basic bullet point items.
I have a few photographs, none of them really all that representative of everything that happened, but they will at least anchor portions of the story.
Last week my company sent me to GDC at the last moment. They flew me out on Monday so I could attend a Microsoft DirectX developers day event on Tuesday. My flight was relatively uneventful. The small pewter sculpture I brought in my baggage for my friend John Oberschelp was successfully investigated by the transportation and safety administration and determined to be safe to consume a small quantity of weak tea from the fishes mouth.
On my flight I watched two feature length movies on my Pocket PC. I had ripped and transferred my copies of “Momento” and “Gross Point Blank” two very enjoyable films.
On Tuesday I had a great time at the DirectX conference and learned a lot. I was very impressed that Microsoft seemed to be dedicated to improving DirectX instead of overloading us with new and unnecessary features.
Wednesday and Thursday were a blur. I walked the show floor, attended numerous meetings, and got to attend a few presentations. I really enjoyed Michael Abrash’s talk on PC optimization techniques and David Stout’s presentation on artificial potential fields for AI navigation. I’m very enthused about this algorithm and I think I will try to work on a hobby project to implement the technique. In fact, it might make a good talk for next year’s GDC to show an actual working implementation with a high-end physics engine to drive it. The basic premise is that you can navigate an AI entity through a complex physical environment without pre-computed path nodes. Instead you represent goals and barriers as electrical potential fields and the AI will more or less ‘flow’ through the environment in an efficient way. It’s a similar technique to what many game developers have implemented in the past, but it’s very powerful to have it presented in such a clean mathematical form.
On Tuesday I met Tim Sweeny for the first time. I really only knew Tim Sweeny from over 15 years ago when ‘the internet’ really meant Genie and Compuserve. There was a game developers forum on compuserve and Tim was just one of the guys posting there. I remember many useful exchanges back then. I also met Jay Wilbur for the first time as well. Jay and I go way back. Years and years ago I worked on a small contract for Jay. I lost touch with him and only years later found out he was the founder of Id software. I always kicked myself in the butt for not just continuing to work with him on projects.
This GDC felt like old times. I met up with so many old friends from the past that it felt very intimate and not the great marketing zoo it has seemed in recent history. I visited, among many others, Casey Muratori, Jeff Roberts, Mitch Soule, Tom Forsythe, Adam Moravatsky, Pierre Terdiman, James Golding, Michael Abrash, Evan Robinson, George Sanger, Sam Powell, Scott Cronce, David Warholl, Nicky Robinson, Kevin Gliner, Lou Castle, Brad McQuaid, Ray Tobey, Mike Kulas, Ned Lerner, Dave Weinstein, Gordon Walton, Tracy Seamster and many more. This is nowhere near a complete list, but I met so many old friends it made the whole trip a blast!
While walking the show floor I passed the independent game festival student showcase. There were lots of nice products there but one in particular caught my eye. I was watching this one game and the more I looked at it the more familiar the landscape looked to me. Sure enough, it was a piece of terrain I had originally authored for the terrain engine in Planetside. I spoke to the young programmers who had worked on the product and found out they had downloaded it from my website. Years ago when I was working on my terrain engine, so were many other developers. It was getting very hard to compare one terrain engine to another; there really were no standards for comparison. So, I figured if there could be the Mandrill, the Teapot, and the Stanford Bunny, I could create the ‘crater’. So, I released a terrain data set as a baseline test model for terrain engines into the public domain. I found out at the show that quite a few people have seen and used it in their demos, so it was quite gratifying. A lot of work went into creating that particular piece of terrain so I’m glad people are getting some use out of it. In addition to the terrain it turns out these students had also used ODE and OPCODE. OPCODE was written by my friend Pierre Terdiman so I thought it was cool to see students using our work to get started in the industry. The product being demoed was called ‘Fatal Traction’ and can by found here.
Nvidia had a number of locations on the show floor but the most interesting was their art contest. They were running an art competition every half hour. With the number of incredible graphic artists in the game industry it was amazing the quality of the sketches they would produce in twenty minutes.
On Friday evening I went to dinner with my friends Ray Tobey and John Obershelp at the Menara Moroccan Restaurant in San Jose. The food and setting are fantastic and the entertainment makes it all the more fun. I have known Ray Tobey for many years, and he is a rather famous character in the game industry. You can read more about Ray at his website. Ray has recently become a political activist and has been helping with several campaigns in the Bay Area. It was great to hear him tell stories about all of his recent experiences. We invited Ray to go out with us on Saturday evening but he had a previous commitment with one of his political causes.
On Saturday I spent the day with my friend John Obershelp and invited my colleague from work, Dilip Sequeria. We decided to cram as full a San Francisco day in as we could and I think it was a great success. In the morning we went to Golden Gate Park and played a round of disc-golf. Afterwards we stopped at some battlements overlooking the bay and briefly at the beach. Next we drove to Sausalito. There we stopped at art galleries and had a fantastic lunch. After lunch we visited the bay model museum. I wasn’t so impressed but Dilip and John seemed to like it. After that we went to Muir Woods Redwood forest. There we went on a peaceful two mile hike and soaked up the beauty of the coastal redwoods. The drive was breathtaking as well.
You would think the day would be near over, but we were not done yet! John had scoured the internet to find some unique and interesting activity to do. He had found a fund-raising event for a political activist group that was showcasing a talent show. It sounded interesting so we went. I was a bit skeptical but in the end it turned out to be fantastic evening.
When we entered there was a lot of rather strange artwork. A metal coffin made of guns with a skull on the inside. There were a lot of causes showcased and I have to say I didn’t quite understand many of them. There is a strange reality tunnel in the San Francisco Bay Area. People, in general, are activists. They have causes that they are very passionate about. It’s not that the rest of us in the country don’t care about things, we just don’t do anything about it. We go about our daily lives, worry about our commute, our job, our kids school and soccer practice, and rarely have time or care to do anything about ‘causes’. In San Francisco that just isn’t the case. These people care, and they care passionately. It’s wonderful to see, but it’s also kind of strange and surreal. Throughout the evening a popular topic of conversation was “what country should you move to if George Bush is re-elected president?” I mean, that’s a real concern for a political activist who believes their country has been abducted by scoundrels and thieves. I both admire and respect it.
Meanwhile, I pay my ransom (taxes) and just trudge along with my life; as does most of the rest of the country. The activists in San Francisco don’t really understand why everyone else just isn’t as riled up as they are. I have to admit, after being around them for just one evening I could literally feel the power of their reality-tunnel sucking me into it.
The first two acts in the show were not my cup of tea. Young rappers; and I couldn’t understand one word out of their mouth. It didn’t bode well if you had asked me. However, the level of talent quickly picked up and the evening was fantastic. Two poets came out on stage during the evening, one was the poet laureate of San Francisco. I liked a man, can’t remember his name, but his words were crisp, clear, sharp, powerful, and rhythmic. I was really blown away. There were a number of musical acts, a circus performer, and finally a dance troupe that brought a tremendous amount of energy to the stage.
The most interesting performance of the evening was by Matt Gonzalez. He is the Green party candidate that Ray Tobey was campaigning for. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked around the audience and found Ray Tobey in the audience! What a coincidence that out of an area of millions of people we would end up at the same event!
Matt Gonzalez walked out of the stage and made the following statement. He said, “I would like to read two historical documents.” First, he read a statement by King George in 1774 railing against the troublesome colonies. Then he read the entire declaration of independence. And I mean the *entire* thing, down to the last and final signature. Then he walked off-stage. It was a bit over the top, but it never hurts to hear the declaration once every now and then. The point was clear, of course. The entire declaration of independence is worded in terms of the right of a people to throw off an oppressive and corrupt government when it no longer represents them. In the eyes of many in San Francisco this is how they see things today.
Well, that pretty much wrapped up my trip. Here are a few photographs from the event.
This photograph was taken from the lounge area at the Computer Game Developers Conference held in San Jose last week. While hundreds of people prowled booths trying to get someone to talk to them about potential employment, young Alex Feinberg took a more creative approach. He sat himself down in the lounge area and showed demos to anyone who passed by. I don’t know if he got a job, but his stack of demo CD’s, replete with code samples and resume, disappeared quickly.
As I was driving to my hotel I stumbled across this scene in a shopping mall parking lot. A huge crowd of knights dressed in full armor doing combat in the dark by light of street lamps. It was, of course, the SCA an organization I belonged to for a very brief period of time long ago.
A nice shot of a group of artists competing at the Nvidia booth.
A group of aritsts displaying the work. No editorial comment necessary.
Another round of the competition. The quality of the art was amazing.
A close-up of one of the sketches in progress.
My wife always complains I never smile in photographs. I have no idea what she is talking about.
Unfortunately something was in front of the lens on this picture but, other than the obstruction, it turned out fine. This is a booth babe any my two friends Adam Morvatsky and Pierre Terdiman.
A nice photograph showing one of the dances at the Menara while she is twirling in front of us.
John up and dancing.
Another nice shot of John.
The Blog Continues... Here are some thoughts I had after trying to catch up with my Tivo'ed shows.
New shows courtesy of Tivo
So, I'm back from out of town and I'm catching up on my archived shows on Tivo. This evening I got caught up on two shows that blew me away.
The first was "Extreme Makeover - Home Edition". This is an obscene reality show on ABC that basically awards the lottery to some people and then films the results. The select a 'needy' family, and then usually reward them in a fashion far disproportionate to what any single family could ever deserve. In some cases the families are truly ‘needy’, like a young couple suddenly expecting triplets, or a single mother who is a social worker and takes in foster children. However, on another episode a bunch of lazy religionists unable to clean out their own garage are given a quarter million dollar home renovation for no explicable reason.
That was not the case on the episode I watched this evening. The show is, of course, commercial television. Somebody is making money, and in this case it’s Sears. Now, Sears can spend it’s advertising money any number of ways. They could have scantily clad bikini girls or croaking frogs. On this program they choose to spend their advertising dollar blessing some individual family with a vast sum of money in new furniture, appliances, and home renovations (all products for sale by Sears, of course.)
On this particular episode the needy ‘family’ was ‘Sweet-Alice’ Rather than a ‘home makeover’ this really turned out to be a community renovation project, on par with the best works ever done by habitat for humanity. By the end of the episode I actually wept. I kid you not. Tears rolling down my face while watching a crass-commercialism reality program. I kid you not. This was an incredible experience, and I don’t care how calculating it may have been on the part of Sears and ABC, I don’t see Walmart spending their advertising dollar in such a worthwhile way. Maybe this will start a new trend of corporate community involvement? It would hardly be a bad thing!
The other show I watched was called “Wonderfalls”. I watched the first episode and laughed about half the time. Unfortunately the other half of the time I was groaning. However, I read a review in the paper that said “each episode gets better’, so I stuck it out. Thank God I did!! This last episode was incredible. It was extremely funny, strange, quirky, and insightful. If you don’t already know, “Wonderfalls” is some kind of a Gen-Y slacker rip-off of “Joan of Arcadia”. Our young protagonist is plagued by a mental illness where small sculptures and plastic toys speak to her and tell her to do odd and inexplicable things. This always produces a Rube-Goldberg chain of events that unfolds as an unpredictable mystery in each episode. The biggest mystery is whether Jaye is actually insane or is being ‘touched by the Universe’. In this episode Jaye has an exorcism performed as she tries to come to grips with her new reality. It has more biting religious commentary than any Simpsons episode and is shockingly refreshing. It has more in common with an Ethan and Joel Cohen movie than the typical network sitcom. Sadly, because this show is so good, it is surely doomed to be cancelled by the time you read this blog.
Ok, it's feast or famine. I probably won't update this blog for a while, so this one giant post will have to suffice for some time to come. My blog is always safe and tame, so I thought I would share something I posted somewhere else. As those who read this blog know, I recently jointed the Orkut community. There are forums on that site and one I belong to is where atheists debate amongst each other how strongly they don't believe in things. So, I occassionaly post there just to be a shit disturber. So, here, completely out of context, are a couple of posts I put up there in the last month.
Why not believe a ghost?
If you are going to conjecture an afterlife existance, why not take the word of someone who is already dead?
In the 1970's a woman named Jane Roberts channeled a spirt named Seth. She's not the only fool to do this sort of thing. Many have. Including a man named Joseph Smith who started a cult that is followed by millions and worth billions.
There are bibles and testimony stacked a mile high. You are quite free to conjecture any wild notion you might wish.
You can read the works of a thousand different religious beliefs and ultimately conclude nothing. Let's face it. You are going to have to die and be faced with some form of sustained consciousness to really 'know' for sure and, even then, you will probably think it's a dream anyway.
Given this massive shit pile of theological options to wade through, why pick one over the other?
This is actually quite an interesting question. Why does anyone choose one spirtual model over another? Admittedly many use threats of extortion, mind control, brainwashing, and other cult indoctrination techniques.
But, what if you fool yourself and think you have taken a clear look at the matter?
Why choose one over the other? Well, this woman channeled a ghost named Seth in 1970, and his version of the afterlife made more sense to me than anything I have ever read in any religious document to date. So, there you go. Pick you poison you quantum physics pill popping freaks.
Why do I only post when I'm drunk?
The last time I posted to this forum was several weeks ago. I think I was mildly intoxicated at the time. I just came back this evening and found out that, even in spite of this horrendous forum software, a small community responded to the spew I spat out in a drunken rampage of mindless discourse.
Perhaps I should visit the forums more often?
Perhaps.
I've debated these topics for so long I feel like I'm on autopilot. It's hard to turn over fresh dirt that doesn't simply contain more seething worms I've stuffed down my craw far too many times in the past, all the while providing little sustenance.
So..anyhoo..I'm on my 6th beer and before I waddle off to bed I thought I might ask a question.
I poked at it in my previous troll but none of the fish bit. So, perhaps subtlety isn't my strong point. I'll be blunt. What makes people form beliefs systems when faced with a variety of options?
I'll answer my own question first. I think most people form their belief systems based on cultural imprinting and cult indoctrination.
However, for those who fool themeselves into thinking they are 'free and clear' (pun intended) what makes us believe a particular spiritual model over another?
I know this is an atheist forum and all but there must be some spiritual model you identify with more than another, or find less offensive?
For me, I have found the alleged writings of a ghost in the 1970's, channeled by a woman named Jane Roberts to be some of the most interesting material I have ever digested. And, yes, for those who are keeping score I still call myself an atheist....
I have a few photographs, none of them really all that representative of everything that happened, but they will at least anchor portions of the story.
Last week my company sent me to GDC at the last moment. They flew me out on Monday so I could attend a Microsoft DirectX developers day event on Tuesday. My flight was relatively uneventful. The small pewter sculpture I brought in my baggage for my friend John Oberschelp was successfully investigated by the transportation and safety administration and determined to be safe to consume a small quantity of weak tea from the fishes mouth.
On my flight I watched two feature length movies on my Pocket PC. I had ripped and transferred my copies of “Momento” and “Gross Point Blank” two very enjoyable films.
On Tuesday I had a great time at the DirectX conference and learned a lot. I was very impressed that Microsoft seemed to be dedicated to improving DirectX instead of overloading us with new and unnecessary features.
Wednesday and Thursday were a blur. I walked the show floor, attended numerous meetings, and got to attend a few presentations. I really enjoyed Michael Abrash’s talk on PC optimization techniques and David Stout’s presentation on artificial potential fields for AI navigation. I’m very enthused about this algorithm and I think I will try to work on a hobby project to implement the technique. In fact, it might make a good talk for next year’s GDC to show an actual working implementation with a high-end physics engine to drive it. The basic premise is that you can navigate an AI entity through a complex physical environment without pre-computed path nodes. Instead you represent goals and barriers as electrical potential fields and the AI will more or less ‘flow’ through the environment in an efficient way. It’s a similar technique to what many game developers have implemented in the past, but it’s very powerful to have it presented in such a clean mathematical form.
On Tuesday I met Tim Sweeny for the first time. I really only knew Tim Sweeny from over 15 years ago when ‘the internet’ really meant Genie and Compuserve. There was a game developers forum on compuserve and Tim was just one of the guys posting there. I remember many useful exchanges back then. I also met Jay Wilbur for the first time as well. Jay and I go way back. Years and years ago I worked on a small contract for Jay. I lost touch with him and only years later found out he was the founder of Id software. I always kicked myself in the butt for not just continuing to work with him on projects.
This GDC felt like old times. I met up with so many old friends from the past that it felt very intimate and not the great marketing zoo it has seemed in recent history. I visited, among many others, Casey Muratori, Jeff Roberts, Mitch Soule, Tom Forsythe, Adam Moravatsky, Pierre Terdiman, James Golding, Michael Abrash, Evan Robinson, George Sanger, Sam Powell, Scott Cronce, David Warholl, Nicky Robinson, Kevin Gliner, Lou Castle, Brad McQuaid, Ray Tobey, Mike Kulas, Ned Lerner, Dave Weinstein, Gordon Walton, Tracy Seamster and many more. This is nowhere near a complete list, but I met so many old friends it made the whole trip a blast!
While walking the show floor I passed the independent game festival student showcase. There were lots of nice products there but one in particular caught my eye. I was watching this one game and the more I looked at it the more familiar the landscape looked to me. Sure enough, it was a piece of terrain I had originally authored for the terrain engine in Planetside. I spoke to the young programmers who had worked on the product and found out they had downloaded it from my website. Years ago when I was working on my terrain engine, so were many other developers. It was getting very hard to compare one terrain engine to another; there really were no standards for comparison. So, I figured if there could be the Mandrill, the Teapot, and the Stanford Bunny, I could create the ‘crater’. So, I released a terrain data set as a baseline test model for terrain engines into the public domain. I found out at the show that quite a few people have seen and used it in their demos, so it was quite gratifying. A lot of work went into creating that particular piece of terrain so I’m glad people are getting some use out of it. In addition to the terrain it turns out these students had also used ODE and OPCODE. OPCODE was written by my friend Pierre Terdiman so I thought it was cool to see students using our work to get started in the industry. The product being demoed was called ‘Fatal Traction’ and can by found here.
Nvidia had a number of locations on the show floor but the most interesting was their art contest. They were running an art competition every half hour. With the number of incredible graphic artists in the game industry it was amazing the quality of the sketches they would produce in twenty minutes.
On Friday evening I went to dinner with my friends Ray Tobey and John Obershelp at the Menara Moroccan Restaurant in San Jose. The food and setting are fantastic and the entertainment makes it all the more fun. I have known Ray Tobey for many years, and he is a rather famous character in the game industry. You can read more about Ray at his website. Ray has recently become a political activist and has been helping with several campaigns in the Bay Area. It was great to hear him tell stories about all of his recent experiences. We invited Ray to go out with us on Saturday evening but he had a previous commitment with one of his political causes.
On Saturday I spent the day with my friend John Obershelp and invited my colleague from work, Dilip Sequeria. We decided to cram as full a San Francisco day in as we could and I think it was a great success. In the morning we went to Golden Gate Park and played a round of disc-golf. Afterwards we stopped at some battlements overlooking the bay and briefly at the beach. Next we drove to Sausalito. There we stopped at art galleries and had a fantastic lunch. After lunch we visited the bay model museum. I wasn’t so impressed but Dilip and John seemed to like it. After that we went to Muir Woods Redwood forest. There we went on a peaceful two mile hike and soaked up the beauty of the coastal redwoods. The drive was breathtaking as well.
You would think the day would be near over, but we were not done yet! John had scoured the internet to find some unique and interesting activity to do. He had found a fund-raising event for a political activist group that was showcasing a talent show. It sounded interesting so we went. I was a bit skeptical but in the end it turned out to be fantastic evening.
When we entered there was a lot of rather strange artwork. A metal coffin made of guns with a skull on the inside. There were a lot of causes showcased and I have to say I didn’t quite understand many of them. There is a strange reality tunnel in the San Francisco Bay Area. People, in general, are activists. They have causes that they are very passionate about. It’s not that the rest of us in the country don’t care about things, we just don’t do anything about it. We go about our daily lives, worry about our commute, our job, our kids school and soccer practice, and rarely have time or care to do anything about ‘causes’. In San Francisco that just isn’t the case. These people care, and they care passionately. It’s wonderful to see, but it’s also kind of strange and surreal. Throughout the evening a popular topic of conversation was “what country should you move to if George Bush is re-elected president?” I mean, that’s a real concern for a political activist who believes their country has been abducted by scoundrels and thieves. I both admire and respect it.
Meanwhile, I pay my ransom (taxes) and just trudge along with my life; as does most of the rest of the country. The activists in San Francisco don’t really understand why everyone else just isn’t as riled up as they are. I have to admit, after being around them for just one evening I could literally feel the power of their reality-tunnel sucking me into it.
The first two acts in the show were not my cup of tea. Young rappers; and I couldn’t understand one word out of their mouth. It didn’t bode well if you had asked me. However, the level of talent quickly picked up and the evening was fantastic. Two poets came out on stage during the evening, one was the poet laureate of San Francisco. I liked a man, can’t remember his name, but his words were crisp, clear, sharp, powerful, and rhythmic. I was really blown away. There were a number of musical acts, a circus performer, and finally a dance troupe that brought a tremendous amount of energy to the stage.
The most interesting performance of the evening was by Matt Gonzalez. He is the Green party candidate that Ray Tobey was campaigning for. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised when I looked around the audience and found Ray Tobey in the audience! What a coincidence that out of an area of millions of people we would end up at the same event!
Matt Gonzalez walked out of the stage and made the following statement. He said, “I would like to read two historical documents.” First, he read a statement by King George in 1774 railing against the troublesome colonies. Then he read the entire declaration of independence. And I mean the *entire* thing, down to the last and final signature. Then he walked off-stage. It was a bit over the top, but it never hurts to hear the declaration once every now and then. The point was clear, of course. The entire declaration of independence is worded in terms of the right of a people to throw off an oppressive and corrupt government when it no longer represents them. In the eyes of many in San Francisco this is how they see things today.
Well, that pretty much wrapped up my trip. Here are a few photographs from the event.
This photograph was taken from the lounge area at the Computer Game Developers Conference held in San Jose last week. While hundreds of people prowled booths trying to get someone to talk to them about potential employment, young Alex Feinberg took a more creative approach. He sat himself down in the lounge area and showed demos to anyone who passed by. I don’t know if he got a job, but his stack of demo CD’s, replete with code samples and resume, disappeared quickly.
As I was driving to my hotel I stumbled across this scene in a shopping mall parking lot. A huge crowd of knights dressed in full armor doing combat in the dark by light of street lamps. It was, of course, the SCA an organization I belonged to for a very brief period of time long ago.
A nice shot of a group of artists competing at the Nvidia booth.
A group of aritsts displaying the work. No editorial comment necessary.
Another round of the competition. The quality of the art was amazing.
A close-up of one of the sketches in progress.
My wife always complains I never smile in photographs. I have no idea what she is talking about.
Unfortunately something was in front of the lens on this picture but, other than the obstruction, it turned out fine. This is a booth babe any my two friends Adam Morvatsky and Pierre Terdiman.
A nice photograph showing one of the dances at the Menara while she is twirling in front of us.
John up and dancing.
Another nice shot of John.
The Blog Continues... Here are some thoughts I had after trying to catch up with my Tivo'ed shows.
New shows courtesy of Tivo
So, I'm back from out of town and I'm catching up on my archived shows on Tivo. This evening I got caught up on two shows that blew me away.
The first was "Extreme Makeover - Home Edition". This is an obscene reality show on ABC that basically awards the lottery to some people and then films the results. The select a 'needy' family, and then usually reward them in a fashion far disproportionate to what any single family could ever deserve. In some cases the families are truly ‘needy’, like a young couple suddenly expecting triplets, or a single mother who is a social worker and takes in foster children. However, on another episode a bunch of lazy religionists unable to clean out their own garage are given a quarter million dollar home renovation for no explicable reason.
That was not the case on the episode I watched this evening. The show is, of course, commercial television. Somebody is making money, and in this case it’s Sears. Now, Sears can spend it’s advertising money any number of ways. They could have scantily clad bikini girls or croaking frogs. On this program they choose to spend their advertising dollar blessing some individual family with a vast sum of money in new furniture, appliances, and home renovations (all products for sale by Sears, of course.)
On this particular episode the needy ‘family’ was ‘Sweet-Alice’ Rather than a ‘home makeover’ this really turned out to be a community renovation project, on par with the best works ever done by habitat for humanity. By the end of the episode I actually wept. I kid you not. Tears rolling down my face while watching a crass-commercialism reality program. I kid you not. This was an incredible experience, and I don’t care how calculating it may have been on the part of Sears and ABC, I don’t see Walmart spending their advertising dollar in such a worthwhile way. Maybe this will start a new trend of corporate community involvement? It would hardly be a bad thing!
The other show I watched was called “Wonderfalls”. I watched the first episode and laughed about half the time. Unfortunately the other half of the time I was groaning. However, I read a review in the paper that said “each episode gets better’, so I stuck it out. Thank God I did!! This last episode was incredible. It was extremely funny, strange, quirky, and insightful. If you don’t already know, “Wonderfalls” is some kind of a Gen-Y slacker rip-off of “Joan of Arcadia”. Our young protagonist is plagued by a mental illness where small sculptures and plastic toys speak to her and tell her to do odd and inexplicable things. This always produces a Rube-Goldberg chain of events that unfolds as an unpredictable mystery in each episode. The biggest mystery is whether Jaye is actually insane or is being ‘touched by the Universe’. In this episode Jaye has an exorcism performed as she tries to come to grips with her new reality. It has more biting religious commentary than any Simpsons episode and is shockingly refreshing. It has more in common with an Ethan and Joel Cohen movie than the typical network sitcom. Sadly, because this show is so good, it is surely doomed to be cancelled by the time you read this blog.
Ok, it's feast or famine. I probably won't update this blog for a while, so this one giant post will have to suffice for some time to come. My blog is always safe and tame, so I thought I would share something I posted somewhere else. As those who read this blog know, I recently jointed the Orkut community. There are forums on that site and one I belong to is where atheists debate amongst each other how strongly they don't believe in things. So, I occassionaly post there just to be a shit disturber. So, here, completely out of context, are a couple of posts I put up there in the last month.
Why not believe a ghost?
If you are going to conjecture an afterlife existance, why not take the word of someone who is already dead?
In the 1970's a woman named Jane Roberts channeled a spirt named Seth. She's not the only fool to do this sort of thing. Many have. Including a man named Joseph Smith who started a cult that is followed by millions and worth billions.
There are bibles and testimony stacked a mile high. You are quite free to conjecture any wild notion you might wish.
You can read the works of a thousand different religious beliefs and ultimately conclude nothing. Let's face it. You are going to have to die and be faced with some form of sustained consciousness to really 'know' for sure and, even then, you will probably think it's a dream anyway.
Given this massive shit pile of theological options to wade through, why pick one over the other?
This is actually quite an interesting question. Why does anyone choose one spirtual model over another? Admittedly many use threats of extortion, mind control, brainwashing, and other cult indoctrination techniques.
But, what if you fool yourself and think you have taken a clear look at the matter?
Why choose one over the other? Well, this woman channeled a ghost named Seth in 1970, and his version of the afterlife made more sense to me than anything I have ever read in any religious document to date. So, there you go. Pick you poison you quantum physics pill popping freaks.
Why do I only post when I'm drunk?
The last time I posted to this forum was several weeks ago. I think I was mildly intoxicated at the time. I just came back this evening and found out that, even in spite of this horrendous forum software, a small community responded to the spew I spat out in a drunken rampage of mindless discourse.
Perhaps I should visit the forums more often?
Perhaps.
I've debated these topics for so long I feel like I'm on autopilot. It's hard to turn over fresh dirt that doesn't simply contain more seething worms I've stuffed down my craw far too many times in the past, all the while providing little sustenance.
So..anyhoo..I'm on my 6th beer and before I waddle off to bed I thought I might ask a question.
I poked at it in my previous troll but none of the fish bit. So, perhaps subtlety isn't my strong point. I'll be blunt. What makes people form beliefs systems when faced with a variety of options?
I'll answer my own question first. I think most people form their belief systems based on cultural imprinting and cult indoctrination.
However, for those who fool themeselves into thinking they are 'free and clear' (pun intended) what makes us believe a particular spiritual model over another?
I know this is an atheist forum and all but there must be some spiritual model you identify with more than another, or find less offensive?
For me, I have found the alleged writings of a ghost in the 1970's, channeled by a woman named Jane Roberts to be some of the most interesting material I have ever digested. And, yes, for those who are keeping score I still call myself an atheist....
