Brooding Nostalia Junkie Self-Absorption

Despite my best efforts, an occasionaly embarassingly exposed entry makes it past my better judgment. I've decided over and over to delete them later and never do.

So once again I will subject you to one of my moods. I was listening to one of my sampler CDs and got caught up in one of the best kinds of depressing songs- the haunting nostalgic kind. I have wide taste in music. Anything from desperate, to regretful, to detatched, to forelorn, to heartbroken, to mired in existensial capitulation. Did I tell you I once dated a guy with a radio show called, "The Art of Lonliness"?

Here is the song that got me ruminating again:

And now I will go through my many playlists of rumination and pick a couple other favorites for a long car ride on a dark cloudy day. Through South Dakota. On the way to a funeral. Or something.

Hang on to your anti-depressants. (Humor me.)

From kathleenedwards.com: Away

Youth Group- Daisychains

Red House Painters- Katy Song

Sufjan Stevens- The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!

And one of the most interesting artists I discovered a couple of years ago, Ane Brun.

My Lover Will Go (sadly poor quality) (but hey, I found I can buy DRM free songs at her site)

Team Atheist Needs Help Destroying Nerds for Jesus!

I don't really mean destroy. :) It's a friendly competition between a team of believers versus a team of non-believers. It's nice to see a friendly rivalry towards a good cause.

The Friendly Atheist is passing on a message from someone in a competition to help Stanford’s Folding@Home distributed computing project. It's one of those projects where people install a program on their computer that runs in the background helping to process massive amounts of data for a huge science project.

To repost what Friendly Atheist posted:

You might have heard of Stanford’s Folding@Home distributed computing project. It’s a massive network of computers running software that simulates the folding of proteins. Anyone can download the client to their computer, where it will sit in the background and use the extra cycles that would otherwise be wasted to help cure diseases. It won’t slow down your computer because it always runs with least priority, so it’s basically a donation that costs you nothing.

In addition to helping out humanity, users can join teams and compete against each other. Right now the highest ranking non-theist group, The Godless Ones, is on track to be overtaken by the highest-ranking Christian group, Nerds for Jesus. The deadline for our defeat keeps fluctuating between three and four weeks, but according to the Nerds for Jesus forum, their biggest contributor, Jesta, is about to add another computer lab full of computers to their team (he has access to a few of these labs, apparently). My team members and I have been petitioning forums and chat rooms, but so far have only managed to get about ten new folders, which has only slightly delayed our defeat.

We’d really appreciate it if you could direct some of your readers our way. Petty competition aside, it’s still a great way to help folks out without really doing anything. All anyone has to do is download, install, and run the client, enter team 34395, and use their computer like they always do. If they download the graphical version, it won’t run quite as fast, but they can use the simulation as a screensaver. If anyone owns a PS3, the software comes pre-installed, so all they need to do is enter our team number. If they really want to help, they can download the SMP beta client, but that’s only practical if they have a fairly new computer that’s left on most of the time. If you need any information, feel free to email me at anticontrame@gmail.com, see the FAQ, or visit any of the forum posts above.

Thanks a lot
Mike

Thanks to Hemant for posting this. Hemant is the man best known for selling his soul on ebay. He agreed to go to church for a certain number of days in exchange for the winning bid. He ended up becoming friends with the man who won, and they have a friendly relationship and maintain a blog of Christian and Atheist dialog.

Expelled Exposed

Link to Expelled Exposed, a response from the reality-based community to the movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed featuring Ben Stein. Pass it on.

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An Uncomfortable, "How have you been doing?"

As I got to my restaurant table with a friend, someone I hadn't seen for a long time approached me. Yes I remembered her, but I was terrified.

It was a friend of an old boyfriend's. Last time I had seen her was when my recently exed-boyfriend came in to town to see me for one last time and to hang out with other Cleveland friends he might not be seeing again for a while.

That very recent ex insisted I join him for dinner with his friends despite my doubts. As one would guess, dinner with a very recent ex, who would soon leave never to be seen again, and his married friends, (on their first anniversary, no doubt) eventually took a turn for the worse.

It was nothing dramatic, and I was fairly graceful about the whole thing. Nevertheless, this is the last time this person saw me, about 1.5 years ago.

"Manya! Manya! It's me, do you remember me? Tina?" I did remember, but I was nervous of even the slightest reference to my ex, with which I would no doubtedly torment myself for days. I introduced her to my friend as, "a friend of Bob, old Bob," but that was it. I really didn't know what else to say and just bumbled and stuttered my way through the incident. I was curious about her life and I like her, but it was too much of a pink elephant for me to be more than minimally coherent. Fortunately I accidentally stumbled upon her pregnancy. *phew*

I don't care much about babies and I don't like to ask personal questions, so eventually there was still a vacuum to be filled. Inevitably I was asked, "How have you been doing? What are you up to?"

People I don't keep in touch with, or who don't know me as well as others ask me this, and what the hell do you say?

I mentioned my new job, but I can't use that forever. I haven't been good at exercising, so I can't lie and metion that. So what else?

I have become especially interested in scientific skepticism and positive atheism. I want to be in the Skepchick Calendar and go to TAM 6. Then I'd have to explain what the hell I'm talking about. Too esoteric.

I've been more social, but even so, I've become increasingly happy doing a wide variety of things completely alone. Not the kind of thing you want someone passing on your ex. Too pathological.

I've been adding lots of birds on to my life list. And then I'll prepare for feigned interest in my great birding adventures searching for the elusive Lesser Wild-Eyed Nut-Fiddler.

I'm paying down my debt. Too personal.

I got a new laptop and successfully networked it with my other computer. Superficial, desperate, and nerdy.

I'm eating even less dairy. Too self-congratulatory and ideological.

I've taught my cat several tricks. This may have been interesting to say, but I mentioned this last night to my friend who just had a baby. I'm not playing the "Well, my cats can do tricks" card in response to baby talk twice in one week.

So please. Anyone. What does a person with unusual passions and lifestyle say to someone (especially your ex's pregnant friend) when they ask, "And what's up with you?"

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Dick to the Dawk

I'm a bit late, as this has made the rounds on many blogs already, but for those of you who missed it:


I have a new goal in life: to be important enough to have a viral video made with a dancing cut-out of my head.