Dave the Marble

So the last time I posted, I said I'd deconstruct some Hoobasuck lyrics the next time I posted.  I didn't put a time limit on this promise, so even the fact that it's been a while since I posted shouldn't matter.  A promise is a promise.

Well guess what?  The Tuna lies.

Fact is that I have one of those jobs with a workload that is directly proportional to the number of people in the office on any given day.  Today being December 30th, most people are still out on holiday, which makes my workload very, very small.  As such, I'm effectively on call in case something catastrophic happens, like a squirrel hiding under the kitchen oven and chewing on exposed wires.

It took a week to get the smell out last time.  Do you know what flash-fried squirrel smells like?  Here's a hint: not like barbecue.

So I'm bored, and it's the kind of boredom that results in your brain giving all of your excess energy away to charity because, hey, you're obviously not using it.  I barely have the fortitude and drive to type, much less think of something hilarious to say about a crappy band's crappy lyrics.  Not that doing that takes more energy -- it's pretty easy and comes naturally.  I'm pretty sure that it takes more energy to watch linoleum curl.

Sooo.... what will I write instead?  How about a story about a marble named Dave?

DAVE THE MARBLE
by The Tuna

See, Dave was just like any other marble in the bag.  He was glass, he was round, and he had one of those freaky colored swirling patterns stuck inside him like a semi-permanent visible acid trip.  But one thing Dave wasn't was complacent.  He wasn't happy to sit around and be knocked about and dropped and grabbed by grubby little kid fingers like the other marbles, especially this one loser named Carl.

Now unlike Dave, Carl, a marble with a pattern inside that looked like a constipated goldfish, was more than happy to just be a marble.  As a matter of fact, it somewhat offended him how badly Dave wanted to be free and see the world.

He tried to convince Dave.  "Now Dave, come on, you're just a tiny glass ball!  There's no life out there for you!"

"But Carl," retorted Dave, "How can I know that without seeing it and deciding for myself?"

That question actually stopped Carl long enough for Dave to make his move.  With one mighty push of his glass muscles (they exist, look it up), Dave rolled off the table (the kid was playing with his marbles on the table, did I forget to mention that?) and onto the floor.  The particular house the kid lived in had very poor foundations and was therefore slightly skewed, so he immediately began to roll.  Carl yelled after him, but Dave paid him no heed.  Only seconds passed before he rolled out the open door (also, there was no weather striping or sill on the door.  The people who owned this place paid a fortune in heating bills).

Oh, the glorious freedom!  The kid was a shut-in, so Dave had never been outside.  And what a world it was out there!  The blue skies, the warm sun on his glass face (unlike yours truly, Dave did not live in the Pacific Northwest), the warm breeze!  Blades of green grass shot toward the sky as though crying for freedom, the same freedom he now felt!  Birds twittered joyously as though celebrating his feat!  This... this was living.  He did not know how to describe his life before this moment, except that he could no longer call it life.

Then he bounced into the street and a car ran over him, thereby reinforcing that one should never shed conformity for a moment of bliss because the ensuing pain is just totally not worth it.

*     *     *

Wow, I'm laughing at myself for writing that.  Well, hope I didn't ruin your day.  Go have a ball!  But not a glass one that bounces into the street.  Ciao!

Views On Music And Why I Hate Hoobastank

You know, I'm one of the first people to admit that my views on music are odd, and I'm not just talking about the kind of music I personally enjoy.  Finnish symphonic metal bands aren't everyone's cup of tea and I understand that.  But I really do have odd views on the whole spectrum of music as a whole.

I know, that makes no sense.  But consider first how people's general views of band or artist usually line up pretty well with their perception of their skill.  It looks kind of like this:

Notice how it's a fairly linear graph from left to right, with almost perfect correlation between the two values.

Now I've noticed something odd -- my opinion of bands and artists doesn't follow this linear graph.  Rather, it seems to be more of a bell curve when graphed along with skill, and not a particularly uniform one at that.  I love a great band, but I maintain a certain amount of respect for terrible bands, because more often than not they're trying and you can tell they're having fun.  My true ire is saved for those mediocre, middle of the road bands that have just enough talent to sound decent but not enough drive to actually rise above sounding like everyone else.  Observe:

I really don't think this is too harsh.

So who falls into that middle of the road category?  You probably know them pretty well.  Bands like Nickelback.  The Jonas Brothers.  I'm sorry, but Coldplay.  Artists like Cyrus, Beiber and the rest of all those Disney Channel androids.  I'd put Creed here but they've been done ten years now and that'd be disrespectful to the dead.

And of course, my ultimate nemesis, who is so hated that I refuse to write their name correctly and insist on referring to them by a clever pseudonym I made up:  Hoobasuck.  I do not understand how anyone could possess talent and willfully choose mediocrity over actually going somewhere.  If you listen to them (please understand, I'm not actually recommending you do this), you can tell that they know their instruments.  They can play.  The lead singer can sing, although he could stand to not, you know, sound like every other frontman in the business.

But they choose this mediocrity.  It's all bland, uninspired, sounds exactly like a huge mishmash of everyone else, and it just aggravates me to no end.  Even their lyrics are terrible:

What do I have to do / to get inside of you / to get inside of you / Cause I love the way you move / when I'm inside of you / when I'm inside of you

That's sick and stalker-esque, not to mention downright irritating.  I come up with better lyrics by farting through a cardboard tube. 

You know what man?  If you're writing tons of songs like that about a girl that left you, I've got a pretty good idea why she left.

Forgive me, but these guys really get me going.  I feel it's only appropriate at this point to end this angry rant with the following image:

Back from the dead

I do this weird thing sometimes where I'll give something a good, solid try for a while, and then stop.  This doesn't happen because I get bored of it, necessarily.  Rather, it happens because I get busy with something else and flat out forget about it.

In this case I was too busy singing and dancing in the streets to blog, but I'm all done with that and back to stay, I promise.  I've been pepper-sprayed one too many times in the last few weeks and blogging is much safer.

Now this doesn't mean I was part of the Occupy protests, because those people are silly and think that real change comes from people camping in parks.  I'm just trying to manufacture a meme as funny as pepper-spray cop.

Up next, watch as I apply critical thinking to and deconstruct Hoobastank lyrics!

A Pointless Post

I use this blog for a lot of things.  Sometimes I rant and make myself look like a huge arse, sometimes I pontificate, sometimes I geek out.

Right now, I'm using it to say that I use it for lots of things.  I've got nothing else.

Come back tomorrow.

EDIT: Also, I like 'Neutron Star Collision' by Muse. Now which one of their producers thought it'd be just fantastic to have it headline the third Twilight film and have it be about the main characters?  Watch the music video.  Doesn't matter that there's Twicrap footage spliced in -- he's obviously not singing about them.

Why u grab door im holding???

A very large part of my job involves walking through doors. I work on a large campus, so there are many doors to walk through, and since a lot of other people work there, they walk through those doors too. So given that both I and a lot of other people frequent these doors, it's inevitable that eventually, one of us will end up holding a door for the other.

And it's often going to be me, because, gosh, I'm just such a nice guy.

But something really odd caught my attention yesterday. I can very clearly be standing back, away from the doorway, holding the door way back, and a lot of people will go out of their way to touch the door ever so briefly, going so far as to lean way the heck over to the point of endangering their equilibrium just so they can reach the fracking thing.

After the sixth or so time this happened, I could only look to the Heavens and cry out, why? Why would people inconvenience themselves so much in order to touch a door that I'm obviously holding for the purpose of them not having to do that?

This question, in spite of its relative unimportance to my daily life, burned like a thousand value meals at Taco Bell. So I posed the question in a Facebook status update. And the responses came pouring in. Some were thoughtful, others silly, and some yet unapologetically derp. But I wanted to take some time to address each of the possibilities in the interest of getting to the bottom of this. Possibilities like...


1. It's Just A Habit

I can understand this. We do things out of habit all the time even when it wouldn't normally make sense. For example, it's pretty stupid to try and catch a falling bunch of knives unless you're Wolverine. Yet if you saw one fall out of the corner of your eye, it'd be a pretty understandable reflex to try to catch it, regardless of the sudden freedom that action would probably owe to the blood in your wrists.

And on the less deadly end of the spectrum, what about all those times you reach for something that is always in a certain place, only to find it isn't? Your phone is always on the right side of the desk next to your shrunken head collection -- why would you even look? So this kind of makes sense.

Except that someone holding the door is neither an event that takes most people by surprise, nor is it something that can happen without a person noticing. No, it did not just fly open in your face and you can't perform telekinesis. It's got to be something else. Something like...


2. They Don't Trust The Laws Of Physics

Let's face it. Of all the laws in the universe that we understand, we understand the laws of physics probably the least. Especially gravity. What in the world is it about something as big as a planet that makes it pull things into itself? And if it's such a strong force, why is it so easy to break? Ever tried pulling magnets apart? It's easy.

Gravity is such a tease.

So maybe all those people have the same deep-seated mistrust of physics that I do. Maybe they suspect that if they don't reach out a hand and give that door a tap, physics might fail outright and the door will go right through my hand, beginning a deadly trajectory toward the back of their head. Sure, it sounds silly, probably even to them. But they know that the one time they choose not to put out that safety hand, the door's got their number. Better safe than sorry.

Of course, if that happened, if physics failed, what would make their hand any more solid than mine? Actually, what would make them any more solid? The door could just swing harmlessly through them -- or, physics could kick back in just as it's beginning to close and it could rematerialize in the middle of their torso. So really, the logical reaction here would be to get the hell out of the way.

So that can't be it either. Maybe the answer is less science-fictiony. Something such as...

3.  They Know I'm Just Looking For A Reason To Slam The Door In Their Face

Now that's just mean.

So let's move on to... 

4. They Just Want To Help 

Let's assume for a moment that people are basically good. I know, based on previous posts, that's a leap in logic. But hear me out. They approach the door, all ready to put their arm muscles to use and heave that door wide open, but then they see me lil' ol' me grab it and hold it back for them, freely giving of myself so that they don't have to waste their valuable energy on a simple door. So they feel for me. They honestly appreciate what I'm doing, but they desire so badly to give back that they feel like they need to contribute.

So they reach out in passing and give the door one. Little. Tap. To signal that they appreciate my efforts, and though they are perfectly capable of opening that door on their own, they accept my help. It's really just a sweet gesture of appreciation.

On the other hand, if I keep writing on this possibility, I may end up giving myself and everyone reading diabetes. Really, what are the odds that that many people are so selfless and saccharine-sweet? Some of you are. But that's not going to be a conscious reason for everyone.

In any case, each of the above are seemingly valid reasons, ranging from habit to paranoia to appreciation. But there's something else. Something deeper. Something that can only be explained by understanding that...

5. I Live In An Egalitarian Society 

Equality is a huge deal these days. Everyone gets treated equally, in both the good and bad ways. No one person is intrinsically better or worse than anyone else. A beggar has the same rights as someone who gained riches playing the stock market. And really, I agree with this sentiment.

But sometimes it does extend to something as silly as holding a door. I guess the thinking may go in this case that if I have the ability to open the door, so do they. And that's what that little tap means. It's that person saying, "Well thank you, but I'll have you know that I'm perfectly capable of opening that door on my own. So, just to prove it--" TAP.

It's not just women, either, if that's what you're thinking. Guys do it too. People, yes, it's true. We were all created equal, we all have the same rights, and we all have the capability to open a freaking door. But you know what? Don't take it as an insult if someone chooses to do something for you that you're able to do on your own, because maybe they're just trying to be nice.

I'm not saying that this is really the reason for all or even most. But to you egalitarians out there: I'm with you. I really am. But I am still going to hold the door for you, and you've just got to get used to it.

But on second thought, go ahead and keep reaching for that door on the off-chance that reason #3 ends up being the case.

Why I'm Probably a Supervillian

Hey, you remember those quizzes that were all the rage a couple years ago?  You know, the ones that asked you this long series of unrelated questions about your life and then told you to answer them by putting iTunes on shuffle? 

Well, I did one of these just now because I couldn't think of anything to write about. I'll share the answers with you; Some of them are scarily accurate, others hilarious, and still more so nonsensical that it's a stretch to assign them any meaning whatsoever.  And yet, as is only right, I have done my best to frame each answer as a deep, clever insight, using only my wit and neatly placed parentheticals.  Enjoy!

How am I feeling today?
Stand Here with Me - Creed
(Somewhere between needy and clingy.)

Will I get far in life?
Dread and the Fugitive Mind - Megadeth
(The better question is: How far will I make it from the prison before they track me down and drag me back?)


How do my friends see me?
Bye Bye Beautiful - Nightwish
(I see two interpretations here.  They're jealous of my looks and plan to disown me, or they're jealous and plan to cover me in gasoline and packing peanuts and then set me on fire.)

When will I get Married?
My Sacrifice - Creed
(No answer as far as timetable goes.  But apparently I won't be thrilled about it.)

What is my best friend's theme song?
The Dream of a Normal Death - Murray Gold
(Hahaha!  All these odd and unusual deaths will constantly present themselves to him and he will grow increasingly exasperated as he searches for that one perfectly mundane death.)

What is the story of my life?
Crash Landing - Jack Wall
(Nobody expected me to show up and I caused a hell of an explosion when I did.)

What was high school like?
Erana's Garden - Aubrey Hodges
(Pretty, but altogether creepy.  Also one of the only safe places to sleep in the entire country.)

How am I going to get ahead in life?
Dead to the World - Nightwish
(Apathy!  I knew I was on to something.)

What is the best thing about me?
Walk On Water - Milk Inc.
(My supernatural aspects can't be discounted.)

How is today going to be?
Turn the Page - Metallica
(Just another day in the life... and it's after midnight.  Awesome.  Bring on the monotony!)

What is in store for this weekend?
The White Stuff - Weird Al
(For all you sickos out there, this song is about Oreos. The cookie.)

What song describes my parents?
Late Great Planet Earth - Plumb
(They always did strike me as particularly post-apocalyptic.)

How is my life going?
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) - Nancy Sinatra
(That... that one is just painful.)

What song will play at my funeral?
Masterpiece Conspiracy - P.O.D.
(We assure you everyone, he is most certainly dead! ...Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)

How does the world see me?
Get On (Away from me) - Third Day
(Unwanted and unloved.  I think I'm going to cry myself to sleep tonight.)

Will I have a happy life?
Fly Me to the Moon - Frank Sinatra
(If that's where happiness is, let's go!)

What do my friends really think of me?
Idiot Box - Incubus
(No respect!  None whatsoever!)

Do people secretly lust after me?
Rebirthing - Skillet
(Only when I reinvent myself.  They quickly lose interest after.)

How can I make myself happy?
Neutron Star Collision - Muse
(Again, two possible meanings.  I either need to find my polar opposite, or start smashing stars together.  The second sounds more fun.)

What should I do with my life?
Soul - Matchbox Twenty
(Yes... I'm a soul man. <ba-duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh>)

Will I ever have children?
1000 Julys - Third Eye Blind
(Yes.  Every one of them, named July.  Daycares will make millions off me.)

What is some good advice for me?
I Want You - Third Eye Blind
(That's not advice.  That's an unwanted advance.  Get away from me, you creepy quiz.)

What is my signature dancing song?
The Hazards Of Love - The Decemberists
(Also, the hazards of bad rhythm.)

What do I think my current theme song is?
Lint In My Pocket - lpoutsiders
(Give me a sec... okay, according to my bank account, yes.  This one's true.)

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Deathaura - Sonata Arctica
(FEAR ME!!)

What type of women do I like?
Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head - They Might Be Giants
(I'm apparently not a big fan of women who think for themselves.  Hello, chauvinism.)

So what did I learn about myself from this quiz?  I'm needy, chauvinistic, unwanted, unloved and apathetic, yet also powerful, a master of deception, prone to theatrics, and the progenitor of a new breed of crazy people.

Holy crap.  I'm a supervillian.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present -- me.

A Word About Penguins

One time a dear friend of mine told me a joke.  It went something like this:

"Two penguins are in a bathtub.  One looks at the other and asks, 'Hey, can you pass the soap?'  The other penguin looks at him and says, 'What do I look like, a typewriter?'"

A simple joke on the surface, but deep and complex in its many intricacies.  Here's another one:
"Hey, ask me if I'm a firetruck."
"Are you a firetruck?"
"No."

Truly sublime and powerful on so many levels.

Now if you'll pardon me, there's a bowl of Cap'n Crunch that I have to introduce to my digestive tract.

What Happens Now?

Whenever I write a post, my process usually goes like this -- I wait for inspiration, then either write it on the spot or write it over the course of several days, depending on the complexity of the topic.  Either way my process is similar in one way, that way being that I wait for inspiration.  So I'm trying it the other way around this time.  I have no plan.  I'm just going to start writing and see how it goes!

But first, I'm hungry, so I'm going to make some dinner.  Be back in a bit.

Okay, I'm back.  Rice and paninis take a while to cook, so I have a bit to chat.

All right, I got one.  I was thinking about this in the kitchen for no reason whatsoever (okay, that's a lie, the reason's only been on my mind all freaking week) but isn't it so weird how we constantly go 'what if' about things and then never even attempt to find the answer to the question?  We always tends toward what's safe, and this is in no way a criticism of other people over me.  I'm more guilty than most.

Having realized that, instead of just idly wondering 'what would it be like to bit into this huge chunk of salami and would it taste good,' I went ahead and did it.  Turns out salami is best eaten with other food, but I never would have known that for sure if I hadn't gone for it.  I also kept eating it because I secretly suspected it might get better.  It didn't.  But again, I never would have known that if I hadn't gone for it.

I also put my iTunes on shuffle and despite my usual desire to find a song that I like in the moment, I'm just letting it play.  Because maybe I have music on here that I actually love that I've just never given a chance.  So far, no luck, but I wouldn't know that I really didn't like these songs if I hadn't checked to be sure.

Then again, I was already pretty sure I didn't like Kutless (Talentless?  Suck-less?  I need a new name for them).

So all silliness aside, since life is much bigger than Salami or iTunes -- what is it that you're wondering about but have yet to find out?  I know what mine is, and I intend to go for it, but what about you?

See, this is why I plan things out ahead of time.  If I don't, I just ramble.

But it's oh, so enjoyable to rant!  Rant rant rant!

...right then.  Done now.

Deep Thoughts

I'd like to take a moment out of my busy day to state that, yes, I do in fact enjoy pizza a great deal.

Let's have a Hell of a time!

Warning: I'm going to talk about Hell in his blog post. I understand that's a touchy subject, so I probably run the risk of offending a lot of people who believe in God and also a lot of people who don't. But hey, if I'm going to offend people, why not be an equal-opportunity offender? Let's get down to business!

And by business, I mean that I'm going to blog about why I think that a loving God and Hell are not totally incompatible concepts. Now this is a concept that sounds odd, even to people who believe in God, which is probably why the last sermon you'd hear in any progressive church these days would be about hellfire and damnation. Funny thing about that is until around sixty years ago, that wasn't the case. We seem to, suddenly, feel like we have some divine right to being alive and, well, not burning for eternity.

Okay, since that's the mindset of society nowadays, let's go with that one. God exists, people die. People who accept and believe in him go to Heaven. But what about people who don't? They go to... Hell? If God exists, there's no way he'd let something as horrible as Hell exist, right? Well, let's take a moment and see what Google Image Search has to tell us about what the contemporary view of 'Hell' is. Apparently, it's like the end of 'The Black Hole,' but less confusing.

The narrative here is a lot clearer than the end of that movie.

Where did we come up with this image of Hell? Well, according to the gospels Jesus said there would be a 'furnace of fire' and 'weeping and gnashing of teeth.' So... that's kinda awful. Because he also says that anybody that rejects God goes there. Wow.

Good thing that's probably not what Hell actually is.

But wait, Jesus said it! It's in the Bible! Well, that's true. He also said faith was a mustard seed, and trees don't typically sprout from people's chests during Sunday worship.

See, Jesus loved himself some metaphors. They're everywhere in the sermons he delivered. Just like mustard trees haven't decimated church-goers, people who reject God won't start snapping their jaws repeatedly and sinking into lava. Jesus was trying to get across a point – Hell is a place of indescribable eternal torment, and this metaphor was a good way to get across to a bunch of desert nomads that they didn't want to be there.

So Hell sucks. It's probably not literal fire, but it still sucks. That still doesn't answer the original question though – why would God send anyone there? Well, I'm going to say that he doesn't.

90% of the people reading this blog just made this face.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that nobody goes there. It's just that God isn't forcing them. Which means... to go to Hell... a person would have to choose it. Well nobody's that stupid. Hell should be almost empty, right? Like mostly death metal fans with an IQ below fifty?

Let me switch gears here for a moment. I don't feel like writing a novel at the moment, so let's take it as a foregone conclusion that good things come from God. Trust me, it's in the Bible somewhere. Google it like I should have if you don't believe me. Now this world has some terribly sucky aspects to it, but there's a lot of good in it too. People's basic goodness, love, happiness, friendship, laughter, the feel of sun on your skin, the taste of a juicy burger with bacon, Mountain Dew, etc – if you take the above statement as truth, all that exists because of Godly influence.

Now someone can totally say, 'screw God' and completely disown him, letting him know that he/she has no need for him or belief in him. But that person still is going to run into good things, because they're unavoidable. The police will still help you nail your mugger even if you don't pay your taxes, and you'll be grateful for it.

You might also notice that in this example, the knife made you bleed whether or not you believed in it.

So good is unavoidable. Even if our words or actions say we don't need God, we're going to run into it. But then we die and God goes, 'Sucker! Now you're gonna pay ALL the back taxes for the good I didn't owe you! Burn!' Well, back up... like I said before, I don't think God sends anyone to Hell.

See, we say in life that we don't want anything to do with God. So we die, and he honors that decision. We had to put up with all of his 'good' crap for our entire lives, and now we finally get the chance to get along without it. So we end up somewhere where God is completely absent – and by extension, anything good.

That is Hell. The complete absence of good and something that we actively chose. It's frankly unimaginable. I was going to use a metaphor to try and describe it, but if 'lake of fire' is the best Jesus can do, I'd better not even try.

Actually, here's a screenshot of the unanimously agreed 'worst site on the web.' This at least ought to be close.

So that's it, huh? An eternity of that? That's torment beyond imagination. Even if a person inadvertently chose it, they would see the error of their ways almost immediately, right? Hell can't be eternal... right?

Well, while I believe God basically owns us and he can do whatever he wants with us, I do find it tough to swallow that he'd let us stay there for eternity. I'd like to think that there's some second chance... but I'm not writing about that just yet... in fact, I'd be very interested to hear other peoples' thoughts on that. Comments section below. Debate, flame and tear away!

Highway Driving: You're Doing It Wrong.

Quick post here, because I've got this on the brain and have no time. I might step on a few toes here, including mine (ever seen a retarded riverdance before?) and I apologize, but I'll save the real toe-stomping for next time.

Did you know that following somebody super close in traffic doesn't help anything?

This just happened to me. Something I've started doing recently (I don't always do it, hence my disclaimer in the first paragraph -- I'm not perfect) is leaving about six car-lengths in front of me when I'm driving down the highway, especially if it's stop and go. Reason being? More reaction time means that a) less chance of a rear-end collision, b) if I need to slow down, it's easier and I usually don't need to brake AT ALL, which c) saves gas, and d) if I don't need to brake it starts to break up that annoying freeway 'accordion effect,' which can help you get where you're going faster.

It's also not incredibly irritating to the person in front of you because you're not tailgating them. This apparently makes no sense to some people, such as the Prius that was tailgating me for about two miles and then suddenly swung out, passed me on the right, and settled in to tailgate the guy in front of me.

I can picture that guy swearing up a storm because I was leaving so much space, and I can also picture his sense of satisfaction on cutting off that jerk, me, who obviously has one too many little old lady genes and has no idea how to drive.

I can also picture me passing him two miles later and merging three cars ahead of him on the off-ramp, because that totally happened. See, tailgating does not help and can only cause tears. Tears of anger.

So next time you're stuck behind some moron in traffic and there seems to be room in front of him, consider that possibly he's just trying to save brakes or gas or might even be trying to get where he's going faster. Also consider that the fact he's driving slow probably has less to do with how much he hates you and more to do with the eleventy-billion cars in front of him.

Yes, eleventy-billion is a number. Look it up. Actually, don't. I saved you the trouble. Here.

So as with so many things in life, the golden rule applies. Don't be a dick, as you would have others not be a dick to you.

Why so serious, Doctor?

First, a warning. I'm going to geek out about Doctor Who for a while, which is enough reason for most people to probably take a jaunt somewhere else. For those who do care and like the new series, there's going to be enough spoilers in here to filibuster a session of congress. So there's your warning.

I love Doctor Who, but something about the current season just feels off to me. Like something's missing or something's there that shouldn't be. Something that's as essential to Doctor Who as dough to pizza, or blind devotion to an Apple fanboy.

No, that's not it.

You see, every series of Doctor Who has always had this key idea or phrase that basically encapsulated the story arc for the entire series. In Series 1, it was Bad Wolf, the result of Rose Tyler traveling through time and leaving clues for the Doctor. 2, we had Torchwood, the super secret organization that would almost bring the end of the world by summoning a metric ton of Daleks. 3 had Mr. Saxon, the resurrection of The Master. 4 even had one in the whole 'stars disappearing' arc, though that ended with what I jokingly call the 'kitchen sink' episode. 5 had the ever-present 'crack' that culminated in the single biggest 'WTF' moment of the reimagined Doctor Who when they actually restarted the universe.

Series 6 has... umm...

Well, they had this cool thing called the Silence, and those guys were CREEPY. Imagine this race of faceless guys in suits that pull the strings behind every major decision in history and can never be known because the moment a person looks away from them, the person forgets they ever saw them. Cool, right? Fearsome and a worthy adversary for the Doctor? Absolutely. Would their evil plans make a great story arc for the sixth series? You bet.

Did they get their asses handed to them in the second episode? Oh. Yeah, they did, didn't they. There goes that.

"WE ARE THE SIL-- well, crap."

So much for that plot line. But wait! What about the whole thing with the girl in the space suit? Well, we already know that's actually River, and she's actually Amy's daughter, so something must OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT, I don't care.

I don't care because that whole BS about River being Amy's daughter is some seriously contrived crap they threw in at the last second. Seriously, something that Doctor Who has always been good at is planting little hints here and there about the true nature of things from the very beginning. Little clues that make the big reveal totally satisfying because you finally put everything together and go, 'Aha! THAT'S what that meant!"

But this whole River is Amy's daughter thing? That was supposed to be a big deal, but they botched it because they didn't plan it. It feels like it was thrown in at the last minute because they didn't have anything else. River pre-dates Amy in Doctor Who by what, two years? And even when Amy was added to the series, there were no hints, no clues that this might happen. That satisfying moment where you realize what all the clues led to didn't happen this time because there were no clues.

How did this happen? Why did they have to resort to making up a plotline that never existed before this series? I have a theory on that -- no new doctor, no new companion.

Every series before had one or the other, if not both. And that gave the writers freedom to create a totally new character and plan these cool plots from the beginning so that we wouldn't feel cheated by the reveal. But this time the writers had nothing but existing characters, already referenced baddies, etc. To keep things interesting, they had to just make something up.

At least that's my opinion, as of right now. Who knows, the series is only half over. Maybe the final episode will contain something that will do it all -- tie this series and the last together in one nice, neat, tidy package. Something that makes sense and really was hinted at from the beginning that I could have never foreseen.

But right now it feels more like the manatees responsible for Family Guy have taken over.

"River? Pond? IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!!!"

Horoscopes are useless crap.

So I wrote my own!

Aries: Remember that parasitic flatworms favor ichthyoid hosts the next time you go out for sushi.

Taurus: Doubt is the only obstacle to success. You're a born linebacker.

Gemini: Women love compliments. Especially backhanded ones. Remember this at the bar tomorrow night.

Cancer: You probably have it. Get yourself checked out.

Leo: You are the exception to every rule. Especially the ones about public nudity.

Virgo: The ideas you have in the middle of the night are always the best ones. Don't dilute them by looking at them again in the morning.

Libra: You're the funniest guy in the room. Those are looks of awe on their faces.

Scorpio: 'Tis the season of love, and you are going to love being single.

Sagittarius: No, you don't have a ruptured appendix. It's just gas. Persistent, specific gas.

Capricorn: Guns aren't always loaded. That's just stupid. Trust your instincts.

Aquarius: Trans-fats are the secret to immortality. Get crackin', tubbo.

Pisces: Psychotic serial killers are confused by unorganized chaos. Better split up.

That took me all of ten minutes and I'd argue these are just as useful as real horoscopes, and probably less harmful.

Maybe except for the gun one. I can see where that could go wrong.

Waxing Eloquent. Watermelon.

So to recap, remember that long, pseudo-philosophical post about choices or something like that? Yeah, so I decided to take the new job and I start tomorrow. Winning!

This post isn't about that. I'll still try to make it short though because my version of 'waxing eloquent' can easily be mistaken for rambling.

I was just thinking about the concept of happiness and achieving it and how our entire society is based around the concept that happiness is a 'right.' Which believe it or not is a fairly recent invention. Most of us come off today as entitled to happiness, which strikes me as a little arrogant.

And people get really depressed when they're not able to achieve 'happiness.' To me, it kinda seems like people go about it all the wrong way -- the reason they do things is to be happy. I mean, search for books on achieving happiness and self-improvement. It's a huge industry in its own right, and the reason it's so big is because people keep writing books, because people keep buying them, which means trying to be happy doesn't work. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, but if your end goal is simply to be happy, you never will be.

You can't ever do anything with the end goal of happiness in mind. If you want to be happy, you'll have a genuine, continuing passion for something. Theater, people, art, hey, maybe your life ambition is to make awesome engine parts at a factory, knowing that people will use them and appreciate how well they work. And that effect you'll have on other people is probably your best shot at happiness.

But then, lo and behold, irony of ironies strikes. If you're only doing it to be happy, you still won't be because that's your goal.

Of course, throughout this whole thing, I keep saying you when I really mean 'me.' I can wax eloquent (crap, I rambled) about this stuff all the time, but it usually just means that this is stuff I need to work on and I realize it.

Some people call that maturity. I call it 'pencil' because I like to assign new definitions to existing words.

I'm so watermelon.

Speaking of risk...

I took one.

More later.

Okay, here's a real one.

Ever get stuck in one of those situations where you're pretty sure you want to go ahead and do something, but there's this one caveat that makes you wonder if it's worth it at all? So that one tiny thing leads to you spending all this time and energy trying to find a workaround until you finally get exhausted trying to shoehorn everything together into a workable scenario and you just give up and say 'screw it, it's not worth it; I can deal with things as they are.'

The guy on the right knows what I'm talking about.

I'm like that right now in a situation that I can't exactly talk about yet, not publicly. Do I just go for it despite the possible drawback? It COULD pay off in spades. But it could blow up in my face. Staying where I am is safe, but not ideal.

Hey, want to know something cool? The above post is purposefully vague, but it has a definite topic. Yet, I read through it again and discovered that it can apply to at least TWO different things happening in my life without a single word being changed!

...Day-um, I do need to do something.

That was depressing. Here's a puppy!

This is a blog post.

I declare it to be so.

Beer-Guzzling Feline

Maybe it's just the nature of my job, but for some reason I've become acutely aware of all the little, weird things I do, as well as the things other people do. Uncomfortably so at times, to the point where I start second-guessing myself. Did I say that because I'm secretly insecure about my weight? That thought, as many of you who know me personally could guess, occurs quite often.

But pardon me, this post isn't about myself. That would be selfish. This is about some OTHER guy.

Okay, all faux-hypocrisy aside, it really is funny why people do the things they do. I've pretty much given up trying to figure it out for the most part, since I usually don't understand the things I do. If I can't figure that out, what business do I have analyzing someone else?

Doesn't stop me from wondering though. Today at the store, I was in line behind this mullet-sporting guy who wore short shorts and was only buying two things -- cat food and beer. Weird combination. He must've been aware how odd this seemed, since he spent his entire time at the register telling the cashier things like "I was just gonna get cat food, but then I thought my cat might want a beer."

Given that it wasn't particularly funny or clever, WHY did he feel the need to say this? Maybe he sensed the cashier's eyes of judgment staring into his soul or felt guilty for skimping on his cat's food so he could afford the beer. Then again for all I know he's a hedonist millionaire, which makes both of those points moot. There's so much I don't know and I don't have room or authority to make a judgment call.

Point is, I don't know, and all I'm left with is a situation where I'm stuck in line behind a guy buying cat food and beer who blames the beer purchase on his cat. But I'll be darned if the situation wasn't really amusing.

Maybe I should just apply Occam's razor to this situation: His cat has a drinking problem and he's an enabler.


You really can find anything on Google.

I swear I'm trying!

But posting in a blog is hard. Like, most of the time I don't even remember I have a blog. And that's not just an excuse; I forget lots of things. Like two days ago I realized somewhere around 5 pm that I was hungry, and it wasn't just a minor hunger-ache. It was like, mind-blowing stomach-about-to-collapse-in-on-itself-for-sustenance intense. Why? I forgot to eat all day. And that's not an isolated incident. Point is, I forget stuff all the time.

Maybe though, if people had some awareness of my blog, I'd post on it! I might not forget that for the same reason that I have an iPhone app that reminds me to drink water. People would bug me if I didn't post.

I stopped in the middle of this post to play a game on my phone. I'm so forgetful I forget things while I'm doing them.

I guess what I'm saying is I need validation in order to remember to post, so I need to shamelessly plug my blog. Where does one go to do this kind of thing???

Blast, foiled again!

I almost forgot I had this thing! I need to write something, quickly! C'mon Tuna, be clever. Think man, think! Er, fish! Think, fish, think!

This isn't easy when your brain is so small, it will go unnoticed when your life inevitably ends in a can.

Come to think of it, it's made even harder by the fact that I don't have hands. I type with fins. Tiny, stubby, fins. Good thing I'm an abnormally large tuna or I wouldn't even be able to reach the whole keyboard.

But wait... I have a computer... that means I have a waterproof computer. Geeeeez! How much did I PAY for this thing?? Unless... I don't. Which means, I can breathe air! I'm an air-breathing fish! I must have mutated in my sleep last night! Like the Doctor when he regenerates, or the Hulk when he gets angry!

Angry?

ANGRY.

YOU WOULDN'T LIKE ME WHEN I'M ANGRY.



Soon. Soon...

This Just In

I'm still not wearing pants.

Don't cut me off, road ragers.

If I agree to post again, will you please STOP YELLING?

Thank you.

I'd like to introduce you all to my friend, illegal mike. He does things of questionable legality all day long. Like speed by 2 mph. Or take two free samples. Or talk loudly in the library. He's a fine example of someone who forges his own path and someone we could all learn a lot from. Check out his Twitter!

That's all, for now. I'd just like to leave you with a reminder to please not put bumper stickers on your car. Not just because they make you look like a spaz, but because they've actually found links between bumper stickers and road rage. I'm serious. They've done studies.

And I don't need any more forty-something dudes in Porsches with a mid-life crisis who cut me off and drive forty in front of me on the highway in the fast lane because I must have turned on my blinker in a way that offended them while I was driving home from my friend's place five minutes ago.


Above: Probably the guy who cut me off.

Seriously.

Time to take my pants off.

Ah, freedom.

Breaking the rules! Bwahahaha!!!

It's not the am hours and I'm posting! About halitosis! You know it's bad when mint gum doesn't help. Like, at all. And the condition of the dude's teeth looks like this:



Every time he started talking I could hear their chanting. Or maybe his breath was making me hallucinate. Anyway, I made the coffee this morning at work and I'm pretty proud of the results. I put in twice as many coffee grounds as the recommended amount and it actually had the desired effect on me. That is, I could walk upright and string together coherent sentences, which is hard to do when I'm half asleep. Which is most the time.

I didn't take into account what effect my coffee had on normal people however.



I may have discovered the power of flight.

Tuna Fish of War, Unite.

Hi there. So I'm starting a new blog, slightly different concept than the last one. I'll post in this one exclusively in the AM hours. Why? I choose to answer with a picture of tuna fish sword-fighting.