Jokes, Death, Simplicity, and Other Miscellany

Great quote from Zuzu today:

At lunch Sebastian took a bite of a hot dog and said, "That's one big, fat, juicy weiner," and we were all like, well THAT'S weird.

April 18, 2024

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Noam Chomsky has this linguistic idea that almost all spoken sentences are unique. Test it sometime. Set a random alarm on your phone, and when it goes off, google the next sentence you hear verbatim, and see if you get any hits. Sure, not every sentence everybody ever spoke is googleable, but you'll get the point. Most sentences people speak tend to be long and convoluted.

Unrelated: Last night my cat caught a mouse and I didn't want her to put it somewhere that we couldn't find it, so I dove for her but missed, re-aggravating an old air hockey knee injury, causing pain so intense that I somehow went into shock and my 6-year-old daughter had to hug me to get me to stop shivering.

I bet this entry didn't turn out the way you thought it would, did it?

Incidentally, Google has no results for, "I bet this entry didn't turn out the way you thought it would, did it?"

April 18, 2022

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Gretel invented a sport called dotorcycling, short for dog-motorcycling. My sport is running as fast as I can while filming her. Pretty good!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0FarnvXK8eViKCM9aMgZTW9LkLCLFwiXidsYTLk8fKxVeRoDCZCoJn7ci5RKPkpCol&id=741063511&sfnsn=mo&mibextid=6aamW6

April 18, 2022

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David Attenborough believes that the devastation of the Earth is rooted in Genesis 1:28: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves over the earth."

He said, "That basic notion, that the world is there for us and if it doesn't actually serve our purposes, it's dispensable, that has produced the devastation of vast areas of the land's surface."

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Had a nice time visiting Weberthal Cemetery yesterday. Gretel and Zuzu picked dandelion bouquets for our ancestors, some of whom were born in the 1600's. We have at least 18 direct ancestors buried there, and at least 28 more buried at Weaverland Mennonite less than a mile away.

Pics in addendum.

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Film night at Daddy School- Wizard of Oz.

I'm giving Gretel an incomplete. She just realized that these are all actors and can't entertain the fact that the witch is dead, since the actress playing her is alive and nobody can die by having water thrown on them. The witch smirks just before she burns the Scarecrow's arm and Gretel asked, "Is she smiling because she likes acting?"

Daddy- "No, WITHIN the movie she's a mean witch deriving pleasure at the thought of injuring others."

Gretel- "Do they all know she's acting?

Daddy- "Yes! They all know they are all acting."

Wicked Witch (melting)- "Oh what a world, what a world. Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?"

At that point Zuzu said, "That is funny, and also it's good."

Daddy- "But wait, the witch is writhing in pain, melting away into nothing. You think that's good?

Zuzu- "It IS good, because she is bad."

Alright, what can I say? Zuzu gets an A+ tonight for moral philosophy, but for now I'm going to ignore that part about it being funny.

April 18, 2020

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Lot of talk about freedom these days, but as they say, one person's freedom to wave their arms ends where another person's nose begins. Anybody touting personal freedom without considering the freedom of others, only understands selfishness.

April 18, 2020

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My grandpa would have been 100 tomorrow so we visited his grave today. Zuzu thought it was a solemn occasion and deserved a serious face. A ridiculous hat too evidently, but a serious face. You ever notice how people who were in WWII have a glimmer in their eye? Probably comes from banding together to defeat a common enemy.

April 18, 2020

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Screenwriter Ben Hecht died on this day in 1964.

"In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace."

This is been a prime motivating force in my life. Or demotivating force?

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Anybody in need of a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect? (People with low ability at a task overestimate their ability because they don't even understand what it means to be good at it.) Here's an exchange I just had with someone who responded to a job advertisement:

Him- your aptitude test is bull shit

Me- We have endless proof that it weeds out the correct people all the time.

Him- I beg to differ some stupid test that some college nit witts come up with they know nothing the real world ever job I work i make it the best like it was my company so questions about this and that blah blah bhal like regirtated throw up

Me- I didn’t think it possible, but you’ve convinced me.

Then if you can believe it, he threatened me!

Funny thing is... I basically use the test to weed out two types of people, those with low reasoning ability, and hostile people (i.e. him!) I know exactly what his test would look like: hostility deep in the red, integrity and conscientiousness deep in the red, 100% candid, direct/determined in the red, not a rule-follower, not a team player. You know how he'd feel about a college nit witt like me having him totally figured out? He'd be hostile, haha.

Good thing it doesn't weed out passive aggressive people, because I guess I'd be out of a job.

April 18, 2020

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Horrifoster!

(Happy Easter)

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"In art, in myth, in rites, we enter the sphere of dream awake. And as the imagery of dream wiill be on one level local, personal, and historic, but at bottom rooted in the instincts, so also myth and symbolic art. The message of an effective living myth is delivered to the sphere of bliss of the deep unconscious, where it touches, wakes, and summons energies; so that symbols operating on that level are energy-releasing and -channeling stimuli." -Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology

Joseph Campbell quotes often sounds like pseudo-science psycho-babble on the surface, but they're not. There's always depth.

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"Oh my god. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked." -Donald Trump, after hearing Sessions appointed Mueller to investigate him.

Pretend you robbed a bank and thought you got away with it, and upon hearing that you were going to be investigated, you tell your friend, "Oh my god. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked."

Taking it a step further, imagine you're on trial, and the prosecutor submits the evidence that upon hearing that there was going to be a trial you said, "Oh my god. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked." How easy do you think it would be after that to convince the jury that you're innocent?

Now take a deep breath because you are not a perpetual carnival barker with the sole purpose of grifting rubes. You can live without guilt. You are free!

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Unrelated, it's the Scopes Monkey Trial Lawyer Clarence Darrow's birthday, born this day in 1857.

"A criminal is a person with predatory instincts; but, without sufficient capital to form a corporation."

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Phillies outfielder Jim Eisenreich was born on this day in 1959. Somehow in his four years with the Phillies he ended with a batting average of .324... good for 8th on their all-time list, and the best in the last 90 or so years!

On this day in 1988, Mike Schmidt scored from first on a wild pitch.

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Voltaire- "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one."

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An earthquake and fire destroy much of The San Francisco Earthquake took place on this day in 1906. Imagine waking up tomorrow and 3,000 people of your city were dead.

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This is also the birthday of the Director Eli Roth, born on this day in 1972.

"Natural disasters are terrifying - that loss of control, this feeling that something is just going to randomly end your life for absolutely no reason is terrifying. But, what scares me is the human reaction to it and how people behave when the rules of civility and society are obliterated."

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Rick Moranis was born on this day in 1953. Wikipedia says that he's a Canadian-American actor, comedian, singer and screenwriter. He's responsible for this blasphemy.

"This whole blogging stuff has been bugging me for years. Talk about no filter on things. People feel free to do and say whatever they want with no vetting, with no editing, with nothing."

Hey, take off you hoser!

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Conan O'Brien was born today in 1963. I think the hardest I've laughed in the last year was when I first saw his trip to the Korean spa for the naked scrub down. He was really getting his skin scrubbed hard, he was red all over.

Conan- "Shut the fuck up, Steven! I'll tell you anything. Our battalion is in the mountains. On the north side. You'll never see it coming, Mr. Lee! What are you doing? Don't... NO! Oh my God! You took the skin off my balls!"

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Historian and academic Niall Ferguson was born this day in 1963, husband of Ayaan Hersi Ali.

"The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man."

I simultaneously believe that, and also think we could be obliterated tomorrow through our own stupidity, in a way that would have been impossible if we were still hunter-gatherers. (But if we were still hunter-gatherers, I guess we'd also be obliterated, just by other people with money?)

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An artist is someone who has something unsettled in their spirit.

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Somehow, a veiled Virgin Mary sculpted out of marble by Giovanni Strazza. He left us on this day in 1875.

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Albert Einstein died on this day in 1955, in his sleep. God I hate that. I can't stand the fact that people can go to bed and then never wake up. It's an intolerable thought, perhaps even worse than my greatest fear, being rolled up in a carpet and thrown off a bridge into the water below. I should probably keep that to myself.

Einstein- "Out of clutter, find simplicity."

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Henry David Thoreau- "As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."

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Dick Clark died on this day in 2012. You know what George Carlin said? "What is all this shit about Dick Clark not looking his age. Take a closer look."

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Here are some skallywags.

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David Hume wrote his entire autobiography, My Own Life, on this day in 1776.

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Stanley Kubrick's 1947 photograph of Chicago Bodybuilder Gene Jantzen with his wife Pat, and eleven-month-old son Kent

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Jim Carroll- The People Who Died

https://youtu.be/xAKoU_W_mf8

April 18, 2015

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I love that phrase, "with all due respect." It leaves open the possibility that the person that you're talking to deserves no respect. You're only giving them the respect that they are due. Everyone associated with the President should open every sentence to him that way, "With all due respect...", then when he looks away they can wink at the person next to them.

https://cnn.it/2HNMLy9

April 18, 2018

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Einstein on why we are alive:

http://www.brainpickings.org/2013/11/27/einstein-on-why-we-are-alive/

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Goalie practice with Gretel... I kick it as hard as I can but from far away.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/UjchjkWMu66m4oVA

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Sartre- "Life begins on the other side of despair."

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Meme- "Why should my civil rights be dictated by your interpretation of the parts of the Bible you choose to believe in?"

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Sam Harris, Free Will- "Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn't choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime - by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?"

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Baron de Montesquieu- "Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it."

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Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion- "I mean it as a compliment when I say that you could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer."

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Ben Hecht again, "The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both."

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Bukowski- "An early taste of death is not necessarily a bad thing."

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Sarah Silverman told what might be the funniest joke I've ever heard. It was about Jonah Hill at the roast of James Franco. "Seth Rogen rolled a big fatty before the show. That was the only way to get Jonah Hill up on the stage." That roast was probably 10 years ago and I still think about that joke all the time.

Addendum