Concern

I would be of limited value in a post-apocalyptic scenario, since I've had a vasectomy. I'll probably be one of the guys sent out to scavenge and fight zombies while everyone else tries to repopulate the planet.

Filling his belly with the sweet flesh of the innocent

It's amazing what we forgive in a person as long as the script labels them as the hero. We just got done watching a fairly well-known movie in which the hero is a remorseless mass-murderer. He is responsible for robbing and killing thousands of innocent people, a fact he talks about in the same way people talk about mowing their lawn. He gains control of a gang of criminals after killing their leader and uses them to kidnap his ex-girlfriend on the night of her wedding. At the end of the movie he finds a kindred spirit just as blood-thirsty and amoral as him and offers to teach him the trade.

I am, of course, referring to The Princess Bride.

It follows for other well loved fictional heroes as well.

• Grandiose sense of self-worth
• Superficial charm
• Criminal versatility
• Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others
• Inability to tolerate boredom
• Pathological narcissism
• Shallow affect
• Deceitfulness/manipulativeness
• Aggressive or violent tendencies, repeated physical fights or assaults on others
• Lack of empathy
• Lack of remorse, indifferent to or rationalizes having hurt or mistreated others
• A sense of extreme entitlement
• Lack of or diminished levels of anxiety/nervousness and other emotions
• Promiscuous sexual behavior, sexually deviant lifestyle

The above is a list of the characteristics of a psychopath. They also describe James Bond and every character that was poured into the same mold. I think I could safely define a modern Hollywood hero as: A person who most people would like to be, but would not like to sit next to on a bus.

Everything has wheat in it. Seriously.

Sooner or later, every non-fatal syndrome that a body can have makes it into my DNA. Neurological, dermatological, gastronomical; if it is mildly severe and mostly just annoying, I have it. I am to genetic disorders what Aquaman is to superpowers.

I can't eat gluten. It destroys my intestinal lining, which brings a lot of unpleasantness to what should be an enjoyable and refreshing activity.

*Ahem*

It also causes tiny painful blisters to spring up all my hands and feet, and gives me intense migraines.

So, here's the thing about gluten, and I mean darn near its defining characteristic. Almost nobody knows what it is. Tell someone you're lactose intolerant, no problem. They know what that means: no milk, no cheese, not Satan. Tell someone you are gluten intolerant, and unless they are a chef, the response is something along the lines of, "Oh, right... so... what are you a vegetarian or something?"

Your next step is to explain that you can't eat wheat. You would think that this would be a sufficient explanation. Unless you have had any experience explaining things to people before. It particularly becomes an issue when they cater lunch at work and well meaning managers try to make sure that those with special dietary requirements are not forgotten. Allow me to give you a sampling of some of the things you hear when those without understanding try to be understanding.

"Instead of pizza we got you spaghetti with no meat in it."
Some variation of this happens quite a bit. Some people believe that all food allergies and intolerances can be summed up as vegetarianism.

"We know you can't have wheat, so we got you white bread instead of wheat bread."
One assumes that somewhere there is a farmer harvesting a vast field of white.

"So, why did you decide to stop eating wheat?"
I have a moral objection to sitting on the toilet for an hour and then having to crawl out of the bathroom on all fours because my legs fell asleep.

Of course, people are becoming more aware of gluten intolerance. I've noticed grocery stores going out of their way to stock gluten free foods. Just the other day I was shopping and found quite a few products clearly labeled as gluten free. Chocolate. Honey. Strawberries. Peanut Butter. All are now gluten free. Of course, all of them have always been gluten free, on account of them not being made of wheat.

1. Lists 2. Indexes 3. Catalogues 4. Tables 5. Enumerations

I like lists. One might have noticed that many of my blog entries are written in the form of lists. Lists are wonderful, because you can sift through the information without having to deal with personality. It has been said that my love of lists is a symptom of the fact that I am merely an automaton who's life goal is to understand emotion in order to truly become "human." In response to that I say:

01010111.01101000.01100101.01101110.00100000.01001001.00100000.
01100111.01100001.01101001.01101110.00100000.01110011.01100101.
01101110.01110100.01101001.01100101.01101110.01100011.01100101.
00100000.01001001.00100000.01110111.01101001.01101100.01101100.
00100000.01100100.01100101.01110011.01110100.01110010.01101111.
01111001.00100000.01111001.01101111.01110101.00100000.01100001.
01101100.01101100.00100001.

So anyway, one of my favorite browsing sites when I'm bored or should be working or both: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists

Today I'm looking at lists of phobias. It's for a story I'm working on. As I go through the list I have to wonder about some of these. It would seem to me that there are cases where the exclusion of a particular phobia would be reason to doubt a person's sanity. Let me put it another way.

Here are some proper phobias:

Arachibutyrophobia- fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia- fear of long words.
Nomophobia - fear of being out of mobile phone contact.

Irrational. Debilitating. If we are being simultaneously honest and callous: really kind of stupid. That is what we, as Americans raised to believe that our uneducated opinions are somehow valid, have come to expect from phobias. It gets a little iffier* when you have phobias like

Algophobia — fear of pain.

July 22, 1973 - Have tested subject by exposing to multiple stimuli including electrical current, angry bees, combination of sandpaper and lemon juice, etc. In all cases, response has been the same - "Please stop hurting me! what is wrong with you people!" We have concluded that the subject appears to be afraid of pain. Fascinating.

Agraphobia - fear of sexual abuse

I can only imagine this one was thought up by a newly graduated psychiatrist who spent most of his college career studying "brewski's" and calling other guys "bra."

Tomophobia - fear or anxiety of surgeries/surgical operations

Also known as fear of being sliced open by a complete stranger. It's an offshoot of another phobia that was very common in the middle ages, particularly among soldiers. For more information, see Braveheart.

Radiophobia - fear of radioactivity or X-rays.

Again, not so much a phobia as a survival skill. Presumably, Madame Curie was being totally rational when she soaked herself in radiation till it killed her.

One final note:

Phobophobia — fear of having a phobia.

Not sure if this one fits into either of the above categories. However, we have been told time and time again** that this one is actually admirable to have, so I think it's inclusion in a list of phobias is somewhat unfair.

(Discovered in the course of writing this post

I like to think of this page as the shortest essay ever written on the subject of modern society.)


*Spellcheck agrees that this is in fact a word. Though it does not seem to think that "spellcheck" is.

** Both Franklin Roosevelt and Professor Lupin say so.

Small Disasters

- Slamming her face into a piano bench
- Falling out of a chair
- Closing her head in a car door

These are the ways our youngest daughter says good morning. She's like a loud bruise with a sunny disposition and an Oxford English Dictionary that constantly leaks out of her mouth. She has yet to develop career aspirations, but were I to wager on them I'd guess auctioneer, crash-test dummy, or fire alarm.



Like all 2 year olds, the boy possesses a supernatural affinity for stickiness. He can actually spontaneously generate it. Wash him, put clean jammies on him, and put him to bed in a clean crib, and in the morning he will wake up covered in corn syrup and coffee grounds. He loves wearing helmets, which is lucky really, because he also loves climbing up bookshelves and standing on kitchen tables. Other interests include the sound of wooden spoons on furniture, the tinkle of breaking glass, and urinating in baskets of clean laundry. When he gets older he'll be an insurance nightmare.

Same nurture, different nature

This is my oldest daughter. She says she wants to be a nurse and missionary when she grows up. She regularly takes charge of the household and makes sure that none of her siblings do anything that she deems inappropriate. She is a born manager.

This is my middle daughter. She says that when she grows up she wants to be a passport. She regularly asks questions like, "How do I know if I'm really awake or dreaming?" and "How old was I before I was born?" She is really good with animals and smaller children.

It's interesting. Especially since the first two children so closely mirror my brother and I. Before our third daughter was born I could already see how the older was just like my older brother, and the younger was just like me. I was very curious about how the third daughter would turn out, because both poles were already covered. I still haven't worked out who she will be. The boy will grow up to be Tarzan. He likes to swing on doorknobs, naked.

Universal Moral lessons in Cartoons

TV is a medium of repetition. Sitcoms are based on using slight variations of the same handful of jokes every episode. Different unrelated sitcoms use the same characters with different names. Any British show that enjoys a small amount of success is translated into a poorly done American show that fails after one season (with a few notable exceptions.) Cartoons are a particularly recidivistic offender (Two words: Scooby Doo.) "Educational" cartoons tend to make flailing swipes at moral lessons, and there seems to be a common pool from which these lessons are drawn. I have collected some of these, listed below.

Moral Lessons you will find in any educational cartoon series:



- You don't need luck. You just need to believe in yourself.


Plot: A character has to do something that they are afraid of doing. This will most likely involve some sort of performance. They believe that in order to succeed that must carry a lucky object with them. Before the event begins, they lose the object, only to have one of their friends turn up with it at the last minute. They perform perfectly, afterwards they find out that their friend pulled a trick on them, and what they thought was their lucky object was an ordinary impostor. They didn't need their lucky maguffin after all! All they needed was confidence!

What the moral should be: Confidence is, without talent and ability, just as useless as luck. If you want to succeed, work hard and practice. Also, don't stake your identity on your success at a given task, because you may just be naturally bad at it.



- Bullies aren't really bad people. They just need to be loved.

Plot: A character is being picked on by a big bully. They envision all kinds of ways to get back at this bully, but have second thoughts when they find out that the bully is in some sort of trouble and needs help. The character helps the bully, and as a result of their kindness the bully sees the error of his/her ways, and becomes good friends with the character.

What the moral should have been: Kindness certainly is the right way treat any person. However, a bully is not hurting you because he needs a friend. Chances are he has at least two friends. They're the guys holding you down while he pummels you. The bully is hurting you because he enjoys it, and has never had to consider the consequences of his actions. Just try to avoid him. If he is ever in trouble and needs your help, then help him out of kindness in a well lit and public area, and then continue trying to avoid him.



- Be kind to others, even if they are (______), because later on you'll need to call in a favor.

Plot: The protagonist encounters a character who appears to be in someway unsavory. They might be of a economic or racial background that the media informs us is universally disliked. They might be really scary looking. They might behave oddly, or be really old. Whatever the quality, the protagonist overcomes their prejudices and helps them. Later, the protagonist is in trouble, and the character they helped earlier comes to their rescue. The protagonists expresses how happy they are that they decided to help the other person in spite of their misgivings about them.

What the moral should have been: Be kind to others, understanding that the reward may never be realized in this life.



- Accidental positive results excuse bad behavior.

Plot: The main character spends most of the show interfering in others business, getting into things that he shouldn't be getting into, and generally acting as a force of chaos and anarchy. Entirely by coincidence, their actions result in a positive outcome ranging anywhere from teaching an old curmudgeon to enjoy his life to discovering a long lost treasure. In the end, everyone is glad the main character behaved that way, and what was originally considered bad behavior is retconned to be good behavior.

What the moral should have been: Unless there is a dated and notarized letter explaining that you knew for a fact that your actions would result in this outcome prior to these events, you're grounded.