A Wicked Left Turn!!!!!!

So, I came across this on reddit the other day (by "the other" I mean "yester"). Now, if you've never lived in Michigan and experienced the "Michigan boomerang" for yourself, you'll probably think that I'm full of crap and that there is no way that this could possibly be real. I assure you, it's entirely accurate, all the way down to flooring it so you don't get hit by the semi as you complete the second half of the u-turn.

Now, according to the wikipedia article "Studies have shown a major reduction in left-turn collisions and a minor reduction in merging and diverging collisions, due to the shifting of left turns outside the main intersection. In addition it reduces the number of different traffic light phases, significantly increasing traffic flow. Since separate phases are no longer needed for left turns, this increases green time for through traffic. The effect on turning traffic is mixed."

I have some problems with this description, mainly because the effect on turning traffic is not "mixed." It's mainly bad. Normally, you might wait through a left turn light for one full cycle if you have bad timing. If you have bad timing at a Michigan left, you might have to wait through 3 red lights (this happens about 60% of the time in my experience.)

But anyway, the effect on traffic is not what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say was something along the lines of the excess miles drive to accommodate the Michigan Left.

Let's take some pulled-out-of-my-ass estimates here. Say there are 1000* such intersections in Michigan and that the average number of turns per day is 1500**. I have no idea if these are reasonable assumptions. But anyway, that means 1.5 million turns are tooken eachen day. Now, one time I measured how far I had to drive to make the right-turn-u-turn-to-make-a-left turn. It was about 0.25 miles. That means that every day, vehicles travel an additional 375,000 miles. Annually, that's 136,875,000 extra miles driven in Michigan. That also means that an additional 1.23*** billion tons of CO2 are emitted by these cars! That's more CO2 than is produced by all the sheep in New Zealand and all the caribou in Canada COMBINED***! So if you want to blame global warming on anything, blame it on Michigan. The world needs a good whipping boy, and Michigan is so down on its luck that it won't even notice the difference.


*Could be off by an order of magnitude.

**Might be nowhere close to reality since nobody has a job in Michigan anymore.

***Absolutely no basis for this claim whatsoever.

Uh???

So, I can't really tell. Which one of these is real???

Freakin' Poe and his law.

If Beggars Were Choosers

Do you ever have one of those days? You know the ones that I'm talking about. The days where you sit there all day worrying about the pieces of your skull that are going to get ripped out tomorrow? Yeah, that's the kind of day I'm having.

But on a lighter note, I started reading The Population Bomb yesterday. I'd bet a million dollars that the malthusian disaster theories that are popular now will be as far off as the massive global famines were in the 1970's. But maybe not. I don't have a million dollars anyway.

I've always wanted to try to deep-fry a turkey.

Yesterday, I ate 4 pieces of toast for dinner. It was crunchy and warm.

It's true that if you throw up at the same time you sneeze puke goes shooting out your nose. Also, you can briefly see the infinity of universes that exist in parallel, but it's not nearly as cool as it sounds.

Guess what! I get to drive to Iowa next week!

I'm getting tired. I'm forgetting why.

White and Pink with Blades of Blue

I've been wondering this for a couple of days.

Who loves America more? The companies that flew their flags a half-staff on Tuesday in memoriam of all the dead people (and soldiers and the million or so Iraqi civilians that have been killed in our "War on Terror"tm, too, I imagine)? Or those companies that flew their flags all the way up at the top of the staff to signify that no terrorists are going to bring us down?

Turn Off Your Smoke Machine

Warning: This post will discuss the single biggest failing of the modern American Christian church. If you can't take it, then stop reading now and save yourself. If you can take it, let's start a movement to end this horrible abomination.


Simply put, the single biggest failing of the modern American Christian Church is not any of the following:

1. Leadership


2. Fundamentalism


3. Guns


4. Stale Communion Bread/wafers (this one was close)


5. Reticence to change

No, it is not any of these. It is the architecture. Modern American churches by and large have the most boring, uninspiring, unhelpful architecture in the history of the known church universe. Let me "explain."

If I wanted to let everyone know that I was an obnoxious, horrible douche*ag (edited for content), would I drive a Jetta with a broken mirror and wear 5-year-old socks? NO! I would wear crisp power suits with red and blue striped ties, have a faux-hawk, drive a BMW 325xi (or maybe the Z4 convertible if I was going for the douchebag/tool difecta) and probably have a Hill badge displayed prominently on my person at all times. (Side note, by driving a Jetta with a broken mirror and wearing old clothes, I'm saying that I'm totally not in any way a douche).

Likewise, if the modern church is serious about it's beliefs that it and It alone hold the keys to the knowledge of good and evil (God = good, funky buttlovin' = evil, pants = ????*) then the church buildings need to show it. If the way, the Truth, and the Life is through the church, let me know, man. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, if I knew all this important stuff about Jesus H. Christ, I would write it in big letters and perhaps statues of sinners burning in hell all over my church. Come on McLean Bible, give the people what they want need. Admittedly it's probably hard to simulate eternal hellfire but there's gotta be something you could do other than look like a mall (actually, there may be something to this....aw, never mind). At least try to be majestic or something like the Crystal Cathedral.

When it comes right down to it, the modern "traditional" American church is the only church movement/body/pantaloon in history to not match it's architecture with it's theology. here a just a few examples"

1. The Catholic Church - Huge, ostentatious cathedrals, some even built with the bones of their enemies**.
   What is says: "We own you. God lives here and we own him too. Plus, we have a truckload (cartload? Popemobileload?) of money, so we've got that going for us. Plus we have cool miters, so we've got that going for us."



2. Islamic Mosques - Tall minarets, domey looking things.
   What it says: I don't know. I don't speak Arabic.



3. Good Ol' One Room Clapboard Baptist Churches - "One Room Clapboard Churches" kinda says it all.
   What it says: One Room Clapboard Churches. Simplicity. Something to do with water or immersion, or squirt guns or something. Also potluck dinners that the same person will bring the same pot of spaghetti to every month for 50+ years.



4. "Emergent" "Churches" - so many options to reflect who they really are!
   
   • Coffee house - "Look how cool we are! We meet in a coffee house! A secular coffee house!"
   
   
   • An Old Warehouse - "Look how cool we are! We don't care at all about our image!"
   
   
   • And old unused church building - "Look how cool we are! We're 'subverting' the mainstream church!"
   
   
   • Strangely, for all the gushing over the "ancient-future" idea, I have yet to hear of an "Emergent" church that meets in underground catacombs like the authentically ancient Christians did. That would actually be pretty awesome.
   
   
   
5. Episcopalian Church - I don't know, something vaguely English/Celtic looking.
   What it says: "If you liked Lord of the Rings, you might be Episcopalian***!"



6. Unitarian Universalist - Anything they damn well want to build.
   What it says: "Do you like it? If not, we'll change it so you do like it!"

So come on mega-churches of America, take back the mantle of "most important buildings in the city!" Show the people what you're about! Bring out the Left Behind-style corpse dummies. Kill Persecute a Muslim. Fight in the Holy War! You've got a soul, now be a soldier! Or a construction worker!




*The Southern Baptist Convention recently published a document disavowing its former stance on the necessity of wearing pants. Pants-wearing is now technically a "greyish area" as defined by the bylaws of the Convention.****

**Could just be the bones of dead parishioners, teh internets were unclear on that point.

***If I am confusing Episcopalian and Anglican, please forgive me since I don't really care at all which is which.

****Not actually true. Pants are still required at all times.

A Watch With A Minute Hand

Due to an unexpected day off from work, I've got some extra time. What's the best thing to do with extra time? Yep, go to the library, check out 6 movies and watch them. I was going to write a post reviewing each of the six movies, but I couldn't wait more than 3/4 of the way through the first one. It's called "What the (Bleep) Do We Know. Putting it into the same post as Network, Chinatown, Duck Soup and Bonnie and Clyde wouldn't be fair to anyone.


The Review
PLEASE DO NOT WATCH IT. It is the worst movie in the history of the world (even worse than Practical Magic if you can believe it). How it ever got more than 1 star on Amazon is as beyond me as any little grasp of science is beyond this movie. It's like watching the crazy chef character from Beakman's World explain the ideas from a Deepak Chopra book. If that doesn't put you off, how about this? The main message of the movie is that anything wrong in your life is your own damn fault because you are thinking wrong and are addicted to your negative emotions. The Holocaust? Yep, those European Jews brought it on themselves because they really were addicted to the persecution. (No, smartass, Godwin's rule doesn't apply here because I didn't specifically mention Hitler. Crap!) Same goes for those negative thinking idiots in Darfur etc. And to add to all these horribly mis-guided ideas, it's a crummy movie. I mean, it really just sucks. Note to the filmmakers: if you are going to have interviews in a movie implying that these people know what the hell they are talking about, you really, really, really have to put their names on the screen or else I'm just going to assume they are a bunch of phonies reading from a teleprompter. This is essentially the polar opposite of a real science movie. I've never agreed with censorship, but if all copies of this movie could be loaded onto a rocket and fired into the heart of the sun, the universe would become a better place. Maybe by positively thinking, I can make it happen. *closes eyes and meditates on breaking the laws of physics as taught to do by this movie* Damn. It's still playing. What a bunch of baloney.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE.


A few choice quotations -

"I'm taking this time to create my day. I'm affecting the quantum field."

"You are a God in the Making"

"God is the superposition of all spirits."

"I can influence space itself. I am responsible for all those things."

"It is my belief that our purpose is to be [something idiotic that I couldn't hear because I have no category in my mind to understand such a nonsensical statement]"

"Everyone is God"

P.S. I'm going to start praying to You today.

P.P.S. I know what the (bleep) they know. They know how to make a God-awful synth-heavy soundtrack.

P.P.P.S. Oh, oh oh this is too good. One of the "experts" is a teacher at, I can hardly say this with a straight face, Ma....Maha.....Maharishi University. ROTFLMAO.

Where'd You Get That Point of View

So, as usual I found some stupid thing in the tubes today (thanks reddit) that is claiming to be the first image ever published on the world Wide WEB!!! Supposedly Tim Berners-Lee uploaded it back at CERN or something. Anyway, here it is.



However, I happen to know for a fact that this is NOT the first image to ever appear on the web. In truth, the first image to appear on the web is one of the oldest images in the history of mankind. It has crossed cultural and millennial borders, it has reached even the most remote of societies. In fact, some sociologists believe that this image is actually a part of what makes us human, part of our very identity. The first record of this image is found in cave paintings from the neo-paleolithic era, as seen below.


Even in this very early form, the image was always accompanied with a warning against masturbation. The characters below this version can be roughly translated as "Whenever thou [indecipherable, assumed to refer to autoeroticism] SunGod kills a kitten."

We also find records of this image nearly 5000 years later in frescoes produced at the height of the Roman Empire, as shown below. However, at this hedonistic point in history, the warning was reversed and read (in Latin) "Eneverwhay ooyay ontday asturbatemay, Aturnsay illskay a ittenkay."


After the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christian Nation-state in the 5th century CE, all art was religious in nature and paintings of non-God related material were essentially forbidden. The warning remained and in this examplar piece of medieval art read "Everye Time Thoue Masturbateste, God Killse His Son."


Eventually, as the Enlightenment gained ground, art became more focussed on the natural as opposed to the supernatural, giving God's creation the primary spot as opposed to God himself. The impressionist era was, in many respects, the culmination of this naturalistic style of painting as it boiled art down to the essential substance in the universe: light. Monet (Painter of Light TM) finally brought this iconic image back to life. It is unclear whether or not he was aware of its prevalence throughout history. Most art historians agree that he was not and consider it one of the great masterpieces of humanist-impressionism. This was the first (and only time in the historical record) that the image was not accompanied by any warnings, in fact, rumors abound that Monet painted it primarily with his own semen, so.....


And finally, as all good things must, this picture showed up on the internet. And, like all things on the internet (including this very post) it is almost irredeemably stupid. In fact, the existence of this monumentally moronic proto-image, this meta-idea in the human conscience is used by many to justify a hard nihilism. Many Christian groups believe that God put this image into our DNA to test us and that the fossil record shows this image to be no more than 65 years old at the most. Carbon dating is unreliable.

Random JapanPicture Friday

If you've never been to Japan, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but it's true; it is impossible to have a picture taken without at least one person making the old "peace" or "V for Victory" sign with their fingers. Seriously. When I got accosted on the streets of Kyoto by two schoolgirls (not what you're thinking, you pervs) so they could talk to me in English for their homework, they wanted to take a picture with me to prove I was real and they didn't just make up the conversation, which is what I would have done if I had that assignment. So I stood there and smiled for the picture and they said "nonononononononono, do..." and they held up their fingers. And no, it's not just a kid thing. This picture, which I randomly stumbled across, proves my point. I really don't get it though. Wasnt't the "V for Victory" finger move an Allied thing in WWII?






That's why this picture is so much better: it makes sense.

See? This guy has apparently brokered a peace between the dog-faced Japanese people and the normal-faced Japanese people, who both appear to be claiming victory. It is a monumental acheivement akin to what Jimmy Carter facilitated at Camp David between the Israelis and the Palestinians*. We all know how well that worked out!

Also, all next week (well, starting today) I will be guest writing over at the amazing Why.I.Hate.DC blog. The great Rusty has asked me to humbly try to fill his shoes. I'll try to keep updating here too, but we'll see.

*may or may not be historically factual. Wikipedia probably knows.

Surveying the Landscape

Well after yesterday's horrendous trainwreck, I decided that all surveys should be written by someone less prone to random capitalization. That someone was to be me. But then I remembered that I already created the best survey in the history of the internet.

It was in 1994, and I was in the 8th grade. We just got our new Mac 9600 or something like that and decided to hook up with AOL. Shortly thereafter, I, know as Milhouse[some number], created the following survey, which spread like rabid fire across the barren landscape of survey-less AOL chat rooms and is still in use today (maybe.)

Here it is:

Age?
Sex?
Location?

OR

A/S/L?

Utterly brilliant, no?

In Which I Reveal My Darkest Secrets

Hey, did you know that MySpace is an internet thing? Well it is. And people like to take surveys and I like to take surveys so I took a survey. I thought, going in, that both MySpace and Blogger were as inane and stupid as possible and that any cross-pollination could only make them both better. I was wrong, horribly, horribly wrong. When future civilizations look back to determine at what point the internet became fatally stupid, I'm afraid this post conflating blogs and MySpace will be it. I'm sorry. I got this survey from my brother's MySpace "page," so you can blame him.


By the way, go add me as a friend in MySpace! I want to have more friends than anybody and I am doing pretty well. After 7 months, I have 8 friends! [somebody] Tequila, here I come!

ALL ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey
Name:	Schuyler
Birthday:	November 23
Birthplace:	Yakima
Current Location:	DC
Eye Color:	green
Hair Color:	brown
Height:	brown
Right Handed or Left Handed:	right
Your Heritage:	white
The Shoes You Wore Today:	black
Your Weakness:	brown
Your Fears:	No more pie
Your Perfect Pizza:	Pagliacci
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	brown
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	phrase
Thoughts First Waking Up:	brown
Your Best Physical Feature:	When they take your blood pressure.
Your Bedtime:	brown
Your Most Missed Memory:	When I ate that wheat thin just now
Pepsi or Coke:	brown
MacDonalds or Burger King:	brown
Single or Group Dates:	sequential
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	It's iced, not ice.
Chocolate or Vanilla:	chocolate
Cappuccino or Coffee:	WHERE IS:
Do you Smoke:	My coffee?
Do you Swear:	Where is it?
Do you Sing:	Yes
Do you Shower Daily:	brown
Have you Been in Love:	yes
Do you want to go to College:	brown
Do you want to get Married:	no
Do you belive in yourself:	Can you restate the question? Yes, I believe that I exist in an ontological manner, and yes I believe myself when I say things, unless I know I am lying. And wait a minute, why are there no inappropriate capitalizations in this question. Do you not believe in me? You don't? I am going to go cry now.
Do you get Motion Sickness:	brown
Do you think you are Attractive:	brown
Are you a Health Freak:	brown
Do you get along with your Parents:	yes
Do you like Thunderstorms:	brown
Do you play an Instrument:	yes
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	yes
In the past month have you Smoked:	no
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	brown
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	brown
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	yes
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	brown
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	no
In the past month have you been on Stage:	yes
In the past month have you been Dumped:	no
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	brown
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	Yes. I just stole several minutes of your time. Loser.
Ever been Drunk:	brown
Ever been called a Tease:	brown
Ever been Beaten up:	no
Ever Shoplifted:	no
How do you want to Die:	brown
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	Oh God, would you survey writers stop capitalizing recklessly? Please.
What country would you most like to Visit:	Critter
In a Boy/Girl..
Favourite Eye Color:	Maybelline Plum Red
Favourite Hair Color:	brown
Short or Long Hair:	brown
Height:	yes
Weight:	brown
Best Clothing Style:	no
Number of Drugs I have taken:	brown
Number of CDs I own:	less than a trillion
Number of Piercings:	brown
Number of Tattoos:	brown
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	1. Doing this survey. Why would I go and do that? That is such a stupid thing. What am I, stupid? That is so stupid.

Dispatches from the Metro: Magical Happy Land

Just so you, you know, know, the greatest thing ever happened yesterday at about 1:05 PM on the New Carrolton Platform at Metro Center. Let me set it up for you....

A typical six-car train came barreling into the station, just like usual. I was standing towards the "front" of the platform. By that I mean I was standing where the front of the train would stop. I thought. However, as I stood there, I found myself thinking, "dang, that train is going pretty fast!" And fast was it going indeed. So fast in fact, that it didn't manage to stop until the first car was almost entirely past the platform. "Sucks to be the people on the first car," I thought. "I don't think they can get out."

Well, as it turned out, no one could get off the train for about, oh, five minutes. At that point the doors opened. The only trouble was that the doors that opened were not on the platform side, they were on the other side. After about 3 more minutes the real doors finally opened and several people spewed out of the train. And that's when it got amazing and awesome!

So, I walked onto the train while both sets of doors were open. What an opportunity this was! Deciding that I may never have this chance again, I stepped across the threshold into the most incredible land I've ever seen. I don't know if the WMATA uses some sort of cloaking device, but opposite the platform, where you never see anything but a vague light is actually a magical wonderland.

I stepped through the doors and found myself walking amongst lovely trees bearing all kinds of fruit. Except cashews because those things will mess you up with their urushiol. Anyway, it was just like heaven. You know that scene in Happy Gilmore where Adam Sandler goes to his happy place? Yeah? It was just like that. That's the best way I can describe it. Well, not just like it. Adam Sandler wasn't there because then it would have been like hell, not heaven. And there were no midgets because they freak me out.

I wandered for what felt like hours. I saw flying cars that ran on air, talking squirrels discussing dirt viscosity, and even some chick throwing moldy tangerines at a case of wine. It was undescribably beautiful. But in the back of my mind I knew that I needed to return to the train and get my butt over to DOT headquarters. And so, with pain in my heart and the seeds of a longing that will never be fulfilled, I returned to my door. I said goodbye to that place knowing that I would probably never visit again. As I was about to reboard the train, I asked the tangerine chick what this place was called. "Is it Narnia?" I asked. She looked at me like I was some sort of nutbag and said, "No, you dork, this is the real world. Where you live is just a hologram projected by the new world order shadow government to keep the masses under control. It's a conspiracy dude."

Maybe I'll make a documentary. I'll call it "Loose Change."