[	mood	|		]
[	music	|	Aimee Mann - Save Me	]

My internet was down for nearly three days. Whenever it goes down for a day or so, I usually just wait it out, because it usually comes back up on its own eventually. Well today I broke down and called tech support. I got a recording explaining that if I was one of the lucky few whose antenna was pointed 117 degrees west (and yay, I was,) there had been a server change and I should run Websetup to correct the problem. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE BOTHER TO TELL ME THIS?! They just changed the server and didn't bother to notify anyone? Did they just assume everyone would figure it out eventually? It's not like the problem was made particularly obvious by the error message one got when trying to browse the internet... it's the same exact message I get during a thunderstorm (it's satellite internet, for those of you who don't know.) It basically just gives some BS about antenna pointing or there being problems with the Network Operations Center. Yes, there were problems with the Network Operations Center alright -- they didn't bother to tell me that they had made changes which required me to adjust my settings for my connection to work.
The problem is solved now, though fixing it required the use of my modem... meaning I had to wrestle my extremely large machine (I'm not kidding; it's a heavy, bulky monster,) out from its cramped home underneath my desk, because the way my desk is built, it's impossible for me to wiggle into a position where I can see the back of my computer. This normally isn't a problem, as I just take the plug and probe around back there until something fits... but having only used my modem once in the past for the initial setup of my internet connection, I had no idea where the plug was and couldn't manage to find it. It's really, really hard to slide a heavy computer on carpet, by the way.

In other, slightly less boring news, I started reading And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave. I was already reading A Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins, and really don't like to start reading two books at once, but Glenda, the lady who comes to clean our house once every two weeks, managed to hide my Dawkin's book from me. She's good at that. It doesn't matter that much anyway, since A Devil's Chaplain is a collection of essays rather than a narrative; I don't feel like I'm interrupting it by starting another book. I'm only on page 14 of And the Ass Saw the Angel, but I was already in love with it by page 5. I can just tell I'm going to like this book. Nick Cave is, as anyone who has ever heard his music should know, an excellent storyteller. Imagine one of his narrative songs, only without the rhymes, and you've got this book. Cave is absolutely perfect at setting a mood -- he knows exactly what wording to use and when. I can't wait to dive deeper into this gem.

60 Minutes did a segment on Hillary Swank tonight, and mentioned her role in Boys Don't Cry. From this, I found out that my mom has never seen that movie!! This calls for dractic measures, of course, and I'll be renting it soon for us to watch together. That movie really, really makes an impact.
I watched Kikujiro and Spanish Apartment with mom this weekend, and tried to get her to watch Y Tu Mama Tambien, but she never got around to it. I wanted mom to see Y Tu Mama Tambien, because it really is a good movie, but I didn't want to watch it with her. I went to a topless show (Zumanity) in Las Vegas with my parents, but even I would be a little uncomfortable with watching Y Tu Mama Tambien with my mom.

I got two new fish, too... two platies for the 5 gallon aquarium on my computer desk. I accidentally bought a pair, which means they'll be having babies EVERYWHERE. It's ok, though, because there's also a bumblebee catfish in that tank who would love some live food.

Man, this update has a lot of links in it.

I love psuedo-science, and considering that, this website is a real hoot. I found it by following some links from SomethingAwful.com. It's all about the genetics of angels, and how all Nephilim were male (or maybe it was Grigory, I wasn't paying attention)... and stuff. I didn't read the whole thing, but the section where they almost completely ignore that a YY chromosome combination is fatal is enough to prove to me that this site is indeed comedy gold.

Disorders such as colour blindness and hemophilia, to name the best known, occur very much more frequently in males than females. The reason for this is that genes essential for clotting and colour perception occur only on the X version of the first chromosome.

This goes on to explain that, obviously, a YY individual would be colour blind and hemophilic. What they neglect to mention is that genes for like... the formation of internal organs and other silly things like that, also reside in the X chromosome; so a YY individual wouldn't be colour blind after all, because they wouldn't even have eyes. Or brains. Or anything else essential to function. Think about it, people. If any gene important for survival existed on the Y chromosome alone, then how would women live, being XX? The Y chromosome is completely useless, basically, and exists for the sole purpose of making males so that the species can produce offspring. I didn't read enough of this to know whether or not they actually came up with the idea of an X chromosome from a Grigory and an X chromosome from a human female producing a lethal combination of genetic material which resulted in all Nephilim being male, but if they're so dead-set in believing that all Nephilim were male, then I think that would be the most rational of explanations (in contrast to angels having a Z chromosome rather than an X, which they talked about later on in the article.) Of course, thinking Nephilim or Grigory exist at all is pretty far-fetched, and trying to explain the biological mechanics of how something like that would work is boardering on psychotic.

Thus we would have men born from women, growing to over 300 metres in height. This is, scientifically impossible, based on everything we know, and to make excuses that because they were children of angels it was possible, are on the border of ludicrous.

HAH! Ludicrous indeed!

[	mood	|	grumpy	]
[	music	|	Cirque du Soleil - Stella Errans.mp3	]

Hi. Classes have begun again, and I got some really awesome professors this semester. I've only attended each of their classes twice, at most, but I already feel like I can say with confidence that none of them are the earthly manifestation of Satan himself, which is more than I can say for my professors last semester. I happen to leave at about the same time mom does every day, also, which is going to keep me from skipping because she keeps coming in my room and waking me up if she thinks my alarm clock should have rung already. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
List and description of classes in the order they were attended:

Botany - Let me just say that Dr. Pratt is pretty awesome (I've been saying awesome way too much lately.) This is only the fourth class he has taught so far, since he is pretty much fresh out of graduate school; however, he did a lot of student teaching in college, so he has plenty of experience. He gives notes in a nice, structured fashion, but still keeps class pretty interesting (for botany, that is,) and seems to be an all-around nice guy. He hates cell phones with a passion, so hopefully the annoying random ringing during lecture will be kept to a minimum. The only "bad" thing is that I don't get to skip that class much, even if I could afford to do so, because he will fail my ass if I miss 6 days or more. That will probably help me keep my grades up though, so I'm fine with it.

Botany Lab - I have this right after Botany on Tuesdays, but it doesn't start until next week, so I have yet to actually attend it... but I'm still putting it in this spot on the list because I did go stand outside the door long enough to read the sign saying it starts on Jan. 25th. I'm hoping Dr. Sullivan is as nice as my other professors have been... I'm not optimistic about that, though, since Dr. McCord was a lab teacher, and I will forever be frightened of labs because of that.

Probability and Statistics - Mmm, math. How I hate it. At least Dr. Cunningham isn't horrifically dry, dull, and humourless, like most math professors seem to be. He looks kinda like an old hippie, what with his ponytail and all (note: ponytails on bald men are incredibly unattractive; a concept Dr. Cunningham has yet to grasp.) Cunningham successfully made the class sound interesting on the first day, but I'm not falling for his mind games. Everyone knows it's impossible for math to be interesting, even if he did describe statistics as being "the mathematical function of the scientific method."

Latin II - Oops! This is not Latin I!! How could I mistakenly have signed up for Latin II, you ask? Because SFA forgot to add the "II" part when they plugged in the class name online, apparently. This class has been dropped, which sucks, because I was really excited about learning a dead, nearly useless language.

Evolution - OMG WTF, I am so incredibly excited about this class. It's also taught by Dr. Pratt, meaning that I see him every day and will probably be very tired of him by the end of the semester, hah. The first day of class, he put a whole Hell of a lot of emphasis on just how important genetics was for the course. He basically said that if you haven't taken a genetics course yet, you ought to drop the class, because you are going to be royally screwed during the second half of the semester. He followed this up with a little genetics pre-quiz so we'd have an idea of what we should already know to do well in the class -- and surprisingly, I think I did well! I don't know for sure, since he kinda threw our quizzes all over the floor during class today and I didn't feel like searching for mine to check my grade, but that's another story. Today, the second day of class, one third of the students didn't show up. They all dropped, having been frightened away by the talk of genetics. We had a genetics review, and I am almost completely certain now that I can indeed take the class and do well, since everything we reviewed was actually review for me!! Just goes to show how big of a nerd I am, studying genetics in my spare time and all. God, I suck.

Philosophy of Love and Sex - If I fail at becoming a geneticist, I guess I can always become a sexologist when I grow up, considering that this is my second class with "sex" in the name already. It looks like it's going to be really interesting, though; we're going to be looking at views on sex and love throughout history, as well as throughout different cultures. We're going to briefly study De Sade and Nabokov, so I'm already well ahead in those departments. We're going to watch Quills and Lolita in class... I hope it's the older version of Lolita, because I haven't seen that one yet. Those are two of my favourite movies, at any rate. Maybe I should memorise my favourite line from 120 Days of Sodom so I'll feel smart when we study De Sade.
"Bum-Cleaver lugged a club so amusingly shaped it was nearly impossible for him to perform an embuggery without splitting the ass, whence came the name he bore."
Oh De Sade, you silly, silly man.
Dr. Padron made sure to tell us that he was told to teach the class, that it wasn't his idea, and that he wasn't "some kind of perv." He said that jokingly... he wasn't actually worried about it. He seems like he's going to be pretty funny.

General Psychology - Last but not least. This is the class I replaced Latin with, because A) I'd feel guilty for not having a job and only taking 13 hours, and B) I need a back-up plan incase Evolution becomes as hard as we've been warned it will and I have to drop it to avoid failing. I didn't want another really difficult class this semester (Botany, Statistics, and Evolution are quite enough, thank you,) so I just signed up for psychology because it was the only class available in the Latin timeslot that was interesting and wouldn't require 3 hours of study a night. Professor Joseph sounds Jamaican, so it's neat to listen to him talk. Today was really slow and boring, but I'm hoping it will pick up... if it doesn't, I'll be able to compare Dr. Joseph's teaching method to that of a special ed teacher... just repeat the concept over and over in a lot of different ways and give examples of what you mean until the students get it.

In non-class related news, I got a new cell phone, and it's pretty sexy. It was the cheapest camera phone, at $50 with a two year contract. It's a flip phone, Ooo. I needed a new phone, since my old one had decided to start randomly turning off while dialing. Also, I'm going to be spending the night at my grandmother's house tomorrow, since it's her birthday and all.

[	mood	|	blah	]
[	music	|	Evening Piano - Venetian Gondola Song	]

Classes start tomorrow. I've only got two classes on Tuesdays, though. Botany and Botany Lab. If anyone wants to have lunch or something at around 1:00, give me a call. I'll try to remember my cell phone, hah!
I went to Houston with mom this weekend, and it was pretty fun. We went to a couple of pet shops and the Deerbrook mall. We didn't really buy anything, though. Mom bought Pixy a new dog bed, and I bought a couple of Lifescapes CDs; Beethoven's Moonlight and Evening Piano. They're cheap, and most people would expect them to be crappy, but they rock my socks. Instrumental goodness, mmm.
That's really all I have to say. I suck at updating lately, but maybe I'll actually have some interesting news once class starts again.

Ow, Circe just smashed my bladder by jumping in my lap.

[	mood	|	frustrated	]
[	music	|	Therion - Carmina Burana	]

God damnit. God fucking damnit. Has everyone lost their minds?! Every time I turn around, it seems, I find yet another article about the stupidity of religious extremists. I can't even read SomethingAwful.com anymore without being reminded of the wicked plague of willful ignorance which is rapidly sweeping the country. I don't give two shits what god someone believes or if they believe in one at all, but extremists of all kinds ought to keep their filthy diseased thoughts and beliefs to themselves. I don't want to hear about or see the fruits of their labours, and would really prefer to pretend they don't exist at all. Pretending they don't exist is what I've been doing for quite some time, but it is becoming increasingly difficult with each passing day, as their mark has been left on everything from this country's museums to the government itself. Religious extremists have been around forever, as we all know, but their ranks seem to be steadily increasing; something I would never have expected to happen in modern times. Not only that, but they are gaining a louder and more powerful voice in all branches of society. That, I think, has the potential of becoming a truly dangerous thing. Americans, the majority of whom are Christian themselves, don't seem to recognise the threat. To these people I would stress that there is a very real difference between extremists and typical believers. Your typical Christian, for example, does not believe that one ought to go around shooting abortionists and homosexuals. In the mind of some extremists, however, this is perfectly acceptable; and even considered the work of God. Perhaps the problem is not that we are unable to differentiate extremists from the Christian masses, but that we are completely ignorant of the power they hold. It's farcical, right? The idea that people like Jack Chick or Fred Phelps might ever have anything other than a small (albeit vocal) following? The idea would have been completely comical to me only a few years ago, but with George W Bush in office and religion slowly seeping into our government, I'm not so sure. Some people like that Bush is a Christian man, but to be honest with you, his depth of belief, combined with the power he holds (some say the American president is the most powerful man in the world,) makes me extremely uneasy. I mean, why is it that the population at large isn't really aware that this conversation took place?:

Robert Sherman: "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?"

George HW Bush: "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me."

Robert Sherman: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?"

George HW Bush: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

Doesn't that make anyone else ill? No matter what your religion, doesn't it make your stomach turn to hear that one of our past presidents, and the father of our current leader, thinks of a fairly large portion of the population as undeserving of American citizenship simply because of their lack of religious belief?? That would imply that he would prefer it if atheists weren't allowed to vote, I suppose. Christ, I should hope that most people weren't aware of that comment of his at the time he was elected into office.

It doesn't stop there, either. I'm sure most of you have heard of the ongoing construction of the Museum of Creation, right? I didn't think it was so bad until I stumbled over an article on it today, which went into a fair amount of detail about the planned exhibits which will be on display in said museum. Sure, they'll have dinosaurs and man depicted together, which is typical and, I think we'll agree, laughable; but they also plan to have other dazzling exhibits such as:

...a reconstruction of the Grand Canyon, purportedly formed by the swirling waters of the Great Flood -- where visitors will "gape" at the bones of dinosaurs that "hint of a terrible catastrophe", according to the museum's publicity.

Mr Ham is particularly proud of a planned reconstruction of the interior of Noah's Ark. "You will hear the water lapping, feel the Ark rocking and perhaps even hear people outside screaming," he said.

...

Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a "Bible Authority Room" visitors are warned: "Everyone who rejects his history -- including six-day creation and Noah's flood -- is `wilfully' ignorant.''

I sure hope they plan to make the Ark life-sized. After all, two of every animal living today have to fit inside, along with enough living space and food for them to survive the journey. That results in an Ark approximately the size of... what...? Texas, maybe? They should probably correct their spelling on that warning about willful ignorance, too. I would hope that was merely a typo of the journalist from whose article I took those quotes, but considering how the word is in quotations, I highly doubt it.

This has got to stop. This unhealthy obsession with drenching every aspect of our lives in religion has got to stop. This is exactly the thing the founders of this country fled from, and now, only a little over 200 years later, we are going to simply stand by while religion takes control over the country our forefathers fought so hard to free? You are welcome to saturate your life in religion as much as you like, but I pray, keep the option open for others to keep religion out of their lives as much as they like. Religion does not belong in government, nor government in religion. People should have the right to decide for themselves on matters of morality, rather than having the government and some religion-driven law decide for them. As unpatriotic as I am, even I can see what a terrible mistake it would be to allow religion to continue to be as frightfully friendly with government as it currently is. It goes against everything this country stands for. So far I have seen no major laws passed on moral/religious grounds, and I hope I never do -- for once that happens, the dam will be broken, and I, I guarantee you, will be moving as far away from this maniac country as possible.

[	mood	|	apathetic	]
[	music	|	Sting - Desert Rose	]

Welcome to the first (and possibly only) installment of "Things That Irritate Me." This is where my Blog becomes a real Blog, because we all know it's not officially a Blog until someone uses it to bitch about unimportant and boring things.

Today I was in Yahoo chat, wasting time in Christian Teen chat like I sometimes do, when I happened to see a couple of people talking about how "totally stupid" evolution is. Now, me being me, I couldn't just let this stand, right? This is not a matter of religion versus science. Maybe this is just my bias talking, but it seems to me like not believing in evolution is like not believing in gravity. It's something that there's basically no evidence against, and plenty of evidence for... and don't get into quantum mechanics, people; I know gravity doesn't function the same in that case. True, evolution is not fact; only scientific theory -- but to paraphrase Dawkins, it's only a theory that man wasn't alive during dinosaur times. It's possible that man and dinosaurs existed together... but you wanna bet? I mean, microevolution is observable within a person's lifetime... one can literally see, for example, populations of black moths declining while populations of white moths rise due to changing environment which results in the white moths having better camouflage from predators. Since micro and macroevolution are basically the same thing, just over different periods of time, I can't see how anyone in their right mind could say, "Well, I see it happening, but I don't believe it."
I decided to ask one girl from the chatroom why she didn't believe in evolution. She mumbled something about bees, and how they didn't fit into the theory of evolution, or something, but she never did tell me why she thought that. I have no clue what she was talking about. I was expecting her to say something about it being impossible for one species to become another, but she didn't. I'm glad, because saying something like that is about as ignorant as those people who say things like "I didn't evolve from no monkey!!" Of course you didn't, and no evolutionist would ever tell you otherwise. You evolved from a primate; an ape. Anyway, humans are the ones who decide where one species ends and another begins. Usually, different species are those who cannot produce viable offspring (or fertile offspring, in the case of mules and other hybrids.) There are/were, however, animals that form a chain between any two related species; it's just that those animals are usually extinct. In the case of the Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull, though, intermediates still exist. Gulls all the way down the chain can interbreed, but Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls never interbreed with one-another. Dawkins called these "ring species" (can you tell I've been reading Dawkins lately, lol?) While one can't literally observe one species of gull evolving into another during their lifetime, they can easily see the evidence that it happened in the form of these ring species.

In conclusion, people are stupid for A) thinking evolution is false and/or B) thinking human beings are somehow apart from the evolutionary process. I'm tired of writing, so this is the end of my rant. Have a nice day.

[	mood	|	disturbed	]
[	music	|	India Arie - Video	]

Today I was watching TV and there was a show on about dolphins. They were talking about how dolphins aren't always the friendly Flipper we're all used to, and how they're one of the few animals besides ourselves who kill for reasons over than hunger or defense... Then they showed clips of two male bottle-nosed dolphins harassing a male spotted dolphin. They said the bottle-nosed dolphins were probably just trying to assert their dominance, but the thing is, they both had clearly visible erections. After that, the two went after a young calf -- swimming all about it, roughly bumping into it, etc... all while still brandishing their erections. The calf's pod came the rescue, but still. Is this dolphin molestation? Were those dolphins sexual predators? What the heck?! Dolphins are a lot more like humans than I had prevously realised, I guess!
As if the horrible dolphin pr0n I've seen wasn't enough to scar me for life, now the Discovery Channel has made absolutely sure I'll never think of dolphins the same way again!

[	mood	|	accomplished	]
[	music	|	Cirque du Soleil - Ombra	]

...and rearranged my room. Mom and I went to Tyler yesterday just for the heck of it, and we ended up buying some new shelves for my room, which I desperately needed. I also bought some new live plants for my fish tanks, woohoo! I am now posting pictures of my room, because that makes this look like a long post but saves me the trouble of typing. My closet is still messy, as you'll see; but slightly less so.