37 Nuggets of Knowledge About Matt

Despite the fact that these long lists of questions usually strike me as a bit...well...masturbatory, Dan did call me out. Honor demands that I answer these questions!

1. Do you like blue cheese?
Like Dan, I'm not entirely sure that I've ever eaten blue cheese...at least knowingly. I have to be Switzerland on this one.

2. Have you ever smoked?
Yes. That's yes as in, "Yes, I've smoked a cigarette and/or cigar before." but not "yes, I've been a smoker."

3. Do you own a gun?
No actual firearms. But man, I miss my tracer gun. That was one of the best toys ever. Also, I used to have a battery-powered squirt gun that looked like a real machine gun. That was back in the good old days when toy guns weren't all neon orange.

4. What flavor Kool Aid was your favorite?
I have no clue. Probably black cherry. At least, that's the only flavor I can actually remember drinking. Favorite by default.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Depends on what I'm there for. I'm a bit of a wimp about shots and/or getting blood drawn. I don't get dizzy or the shakes or anything, but I hate the anticipation. It's the long, ridiculous, drawn-out nature of the thing. They sloooowly put on the rubber gloves. They carefully knead your arm to expose a good vein. Then they methodically swab your arm with alcohol. All the while, you're painfully aware that these are just the steps that must be taken before you are stabbed. I'd much rather they jump you from behind the door the second you walk in and take the blood by surprise.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
I'm pro hot dog.

7. Favorite Christmas movie?
Scrooged, I'd say.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Life, man. Life. Too douchebaggy? Ok, Water.

9. Can you do push ups?
Sure.

10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
The only jewelry I possess is my wedding ring.

11. Favorite hobby?
Currently, I'd say Guitar Hero. I have many hobbies, but they tend to fade after a short, intense run. So far, Guitar Hero has lasted about a year and a half.

12. Do you have A.D.D.?
Probably not technically...but my attention is very divided normally.

13. Do you wear glasses/contacts?
I do not.

14. Middle name?
John.

15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
I'm vaguely irritated that my girls are still awake, because they have had an exhausting day (we are on vacation at King's Pointe waterpark) and should be passed out. I realized today that I'm really hard on first time novelists...I read their books with a frown and they have to REALLY blow me away. I finished watching "The Abyss" on my iPod last night while my wife and girls were asleep...and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Much better than I remember.

16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink?
Water, Lemonade, Orange Juice (I'll drink OJ with anything. Spaghetti, pizza, you name it).

17. Current worry?
Fear/xenophobia/racism/cynicism will prove powerful enough to overcome Obama's candidacy.

18. Current hate right now?
Mayflies.

19. Favorite place to be?
That's a tough one...I tend to like really ridiculous fake touristy places like Universal Studios.

20. How did you bring in the New Year?
I honestly can't remember...and not because I was drunk. Exciting, I know.

21. Where would you like to go?
Maine, Seattle, Portland, San Diego...

22. Name three people who will complete this?
Wow...I don't even have 3 blogger friends!

23. Do you own slippers?
No.

24. What shirt are you wearing?
Right now I'm wearing a Maynard Ferguson shirt, spreading the word!

25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?
I'm not sure I ever have. It doesn't sound appealing to me, though.

26. Can you whistle?
Like a champ.

27. Favorite color?
Blue.

28. Would you be a pirate?
Probably not.

29. What songs do you sing in the shower?
I usually have talk radio on in the morning, so I guess whatever jingle is on the radio. "...everybody knows it's Lebeda".

30. Favorite Girl's Name?
Mattilda

31. Favorite boy's name?
Matthew

32. What's in your pocket right now?
Not a damn thing.

33. Last thing that made you laugh?
My kids being ridiculous today.

34. What vehicle do you drive?
A gold Toyota Corolla.

35. Worst injury you've ever had?
In the first grade (on May Day, no less), I was hit in the face (accidentally) with a golf club by the neighbor girl. 28 stitches were required to close up my chin.

36. Do you love where you live?
Not even a little bit.

37. How many TVs do you have in your house?
Four.

Hero or Arch Nemesis?

As you all know, I am a bit of a Guitar Hero nut. My master plan is to eventually support myself with Guitar Hero winnings, as I travel the countryside from tourney to tourney.

Blake Peebles, a 16 year old from Raleigh, is either living my dream or is an obstacle in my path.

His parents have agreed to let him drop out of school (they are home schooling him now) so that he can concentrate more deeply on Guitar Hero.

This is not good.

Not only does he probably have faster reflexes (he is, after all 17 years younger than me), but he now has much more time to devote to his regime. My super awesome talent can only take me so far.

Hatred Lives

As a Unitarian Universalist, I was horrified to hear about a man walking into a UU church in Tennessee yesterday and opening fire with a shotgun. I first heard the news from a fellow UUer, whose mother attends that congregation and was there at the time (she was not hurt).

Anne and I were discussing it last night, and she mentioned that it had crossed her mind before that the church (as in, the UU church as an institution) could be a magnet for someone who is unstable and looking to cause some trouble. I kind of brushed it off, thinking that there must have been some other motivation.

Today the AP confirmed that the liberal views of the Unitarian Universalists were indeed the target of this man. According to the article, "An unemployed man accused of opening fire with a shotgun and killing two people at a Unitarian church apparently targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal social policies, police said Monday." Also, "It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that and his stated hatred of the liberal movement."

This is obviously very disturbing to hear that your views are so offensive to some people that they are willing to commit murder over them, but I'm more angry than distraught. The AP article has this to say about UU: "Unitarians have roots in a movement that rejected Puritan orthodoxy in New England. Although the outlook and beliefs of individual Unitarian churches can vary dramatically, most congregations retain a deep commitment to social justice, which has led them to embrace liberal positions over the years. Unitarians were among the first to ordain women, support the civil rights movement and back gay rights."

Yes, we're clearly on the wrong side of history here.

Why should I worry about gunmen in my church, while churches who proudly advertise their "homosexuality treatment camps" walk around with heads held high? How are our views somehow more offensive than churches who picket funerals of gay soldiers with signs that read "God Hates Fags!!!" or churches that work to Christianize the science that we teach our children, thus making us less competitive in the global market?

Today I'm frustrated, and my thoughts are with those Tennessee UUers.

Late Update: Here's a post from someone who can actually write on this issue. (Thanks to Dan for this link)

Growing Up

I'm normally a bit uncomfortable with these sentimental posts, and this one smells strongly of P.J. of Family Circus fame...but here goes.

Lately I've been really aware that my youngest, Melanie, will be slipping out of "little girl" mode any day now. She's six years old, and doesn't have much time left before she starts pronouncing words correctly. Today, I heard her say two things that reminded me that she still is that little girl, and it depressed me to realize that I'm on borrowed time here.

She still pronounces "animal" like "aminal"...and today, after some rigorous exercise, she told me that she could feel her heart "beeping" really fast. I'm going to hate it when she gets those two things right.

Bush or Batman?

A co-worker sent this to me, and it cracked me up. Can you tell the difference between Batman and Bush quotes?

Things Matt Finds Weird, Volume 68

You know what I find strange? Couples that have a shared email address. And if the email address is a mash-up of their first names, like richandsuze@thesmiths.com, I find it even stranger.

If you're one of these people, please explain yourself by leaving a comment. I mean, email addresses are free in most cases. You can have your own.

Maybe we can get some informal data to draw some correlations. I'm curious if couples who share an email address are more likely to open each other's mail. Or wear matching pajamas. Or are more likely to grocery shop together, maybe? Do they eat more casseroles than the average couple? I don't know, I'm just throwing things out here in the name of science. This is a learning opportunity!

Peepers

I went to the eye doctor last week for perhaps only the 3rd or 4th time in my life. I've had a couple of odd things going on with my eyeballs lately and thought it was time to have them checked out. Because I've had my eyes examined so rarely, the entire process is something I'm completely uncomfortable with.

After last week's examination, I've concluded that a trip to the eye doctor is a 30 minute willful suppression of every eye-protecting instinct that we've got. Think about it...our eyes are extremely important and delicate organs. Over millions of years, we've evolved some pretty powerful instincts to protect them. Heck, even a loud noise causes an involuntary blink. But not on eye doctor day! That's the day that our minds have to overpower our reflexes.

Here, stare at this device while I shoot a blast of air into your eyes!

Look straight at the ceiling with your eyes wide open while I drop a chemical into them, please. Will it sting? Oh, hell yes. What does it do, you ask? Oh, it overrides your eye's ability to protect itself from bright lights and forces your pupils wide open for about six hours so that I can do a 3 minute examination. Are they wide open yet? Good! Now place your head into this brace so that I can shine incredibly powerful lights into them while they are at their most vulnerable state.

The New Atheism?

"The New Atheism" is a term used to describe the recent spate of outspoken and unapologetic atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. The general feeling among hard right conservatives is that this new form of sometimes aggressive atheism is its own kind of religion.

Here's just a taste of the kinds of statements that these authors are making these days:

• "Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."
  -Richard Dawkins
  
• "The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of history, mythology, and art even to be entertained.... Whatever their imagined source, the doctrines of modern religions are no more tenable than those which, for lack of adherents, were cast upon the scrap heap of mythology millennia ago."
  -Sam Harris
  
• "Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins."
  -Christopher Hitchens

Reading these quotes, it's clear to see that these authors are not only atheists, but they are also anti-Christianists. They have been taking a lot of heat for their stance, and this phrase "the new atheism" seems to reinforce this meme that atheists these days are mean, arrogant, pushy jack asses.

I'm a little torn, myself. I have to admit that I agree whole-heartedly with the sentiments in each quote above. But is this kind of atheistic writing actually helpful? I used to think so. Outspoken atheism was waaaay overdue, in my opinion. After all, every religious community in the world has a never-ending supply of outspoken and judgmental representatives. And yet...atheists are still hated and distrusted in this community. A single strongly-written pro-atheism book makes waves and gets all kinds of press...while a book from Pat Robertson with equality inflammatory language wouldn't even raise an eyebrow.

My favorite blogger, conservative writer Andrew Sullivan, has been engaging with readers in a discussion about this new atheism. The conversation has been respectful, thoughtful, and eye-opening.

Sullivan has posted several reader emails in addition to his own thoughts. In particular, three of the reader emails resonated strongly with me. They represent my own thoughts very well. Here are all three.

The first:

To me, atheism is a scientific argument with moral ramifications. Theism is a theory that cannot be reasonably defended within the paradigm our natural world. Just like no scientist would give any consideration to people claiming that the sun revolves around the earth. It's not matter of ridicule. It matter of understanding hypothesis, observation, and conclusion. While this angers many religious folk as somehow condescending, most atheists like Dawkins are simply saying that based on our knowledge of the scientific method, one cannot argue that the world was created in seven days, or that water turned to wine, etc., etc. There is no malice intended. There is only frustration at the number of people who can selectively relax their notion of scientific rigor to allow for these supernatural beliefs.

Personally, I can understand anti-theism, and in many ways support it. The reason has nothing to do with superiority or snobbishness. It pains me in my heart to see the death and destruction that religion has caused throughout history. It gives me anxiety to look at my one-year old son and think that he'll be brought up in a society that doesn't see any link between the erosion of critical thinking and the increase in religiosity. People seem to need figures like bin Laden, Koresh, Hubbard, etc., so they can point fingers and proclaim them to be religious fanatics or "wackos". It makes the average moderate Christian/Muslim/Jew/Hindu feel better about their faith. As if the suspension of scientific thought that they exercise has absolutely nothing to do the extremism that is built on the same principle. I am not trying to lump everyone into the same group here, I'm just attempting to explain how a scientist views this general line of thinking as major threat to society. The slippery-est of slopes.

I sincerely believe that most atheism is spawned not out of hate and elitism, but out of love. Atheists like me have simply lost all faith that religion can exist without being used as a tool for justifying war and subjugation. If it could, even scientists that cringe at the thought of accepting supernatural beliefs would probably learn to coexist peacefully with theism, given that many beliefs system also catalyze acts of great compassion. But in the end, I'm torn as to which notion is more naive and idealistic: a world without theism or world in which theism does not lead to human suffering.

The second:

I read your (and your readers') religious posts with great interest. Hell, I go to one of the top Catholic universities in the country. I have taken more theology courses than any human should.

That said, I'm probably an atheist. What I am not, however, is an anti-theist. Religion has the same potential for good as for bad. If all faith ceased to exist tomorrow, there would still be war, persecution, crime, etc. What upsets me, and I assume many atheists, is the inability of many in the religious fold to admit that they might be wrong.

I fully understand and realize that I may burn in hell for my beliefs (or lack thereof). Why can't they just say 'look, this is what I believe, but who knows.' It is the hubris of the theists that turns atheists into anti-theists.

The third:

You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt. You cannot believe in God unless you are capable of questioning the authority of prejudice, even though that prejudice may seem to be religious. Faith is not blind conformity to prejudice - a "pre-judgement". It is a decision, a judgement that is fully and deliberately taken in the light of a truth that cannot be proven. It is not merely the acceptance of a decision that has been made by somebody else.

Quote of the day

"Any joke that doesn't offend at least a few people is unlikely to be funny." - Michael Kinsley, in an article for Slate.com about Al Franken's senate run.

So true.

Fark Roundup

Fark.com is an incredibly effective time killer. If you've never been, it's essentially a site where users submit links to other sites, and they describe the links with humorous descriptions of their own.

Here are a few links I saw today, with their clever user-submitted headlines.

• BBC News: Henry Winkler visits British school to talk about dyslexia. Because who could be a better spokesman than someone whose catchphrase consisted of one letter?
• AP News: If you're going to kill your wife by poisoning her with antifreeze, be sure that you flush your browser cache and history to eliminate your search terms "ethylene glycol death human"
• Chicago Tribune: Fireworks store burns down. OOOOOH AAAAAH the humanity
• Ninemsn.com: Protesters chain themselves to power station. Some will like it hot and sweat when the heat is on, while some will feel the heat and decide that they can't go on.
• AP Wire: Pentagon unveils new enlistment waiver procedures to make it easier for the military to accept sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads and of course righteous dudes

Jack Black is Bringing on the Fun

I love Jack Black. I celebrate his entire catalogue. Two years ago, I caught this commercial on our DVR and we played it over and over again. My daughters would sing with it and could also do his little dance. My wife and I were just trying to remember how the song went while driving on a mini-road trip this weekend. God bless you, YouTube.