In which I repeatedly insult the bitch who hit us.

So, it's about 8 or 9 on Saturday evening. We'd been home all day, sleeping through most of it, as we do from time to time. Neither of us had taken a shower or anything since Friday morning, and we're getting hungry. Tina suggests we step out of the house for a couple minutes to get drive-thru. She mostly just wanted to get out of the house, and since drive-thru doesn't entail showering and involves minimal human interaction, we agreed that to be the wisest course of action. We agree on Steak & Shake, head out, get our food, and head back.

A couple blocks from home, we pull up behind a Mercury Cougar at a red light. You know those moments when time seems to slow down because you have a dozen or two conscious thoughts suddenly bombarding you right before something happens? Here is my thought process for that brief quarter of a second:

• Hey, the light's green!
• Why isn't the car in front of us going?
• Hey, the reverse lights aren't supposed to come on unless you're going backwards.
• Must be a mistake.
• Tina should probably honk.
• I didn't think tires squealed that loud.
• Especially in reverse.
• Oh good, Tina honked. Didn't seem to do much good, though.
• That car's gonna hit us.
• That's funny. Time doesn't seem to have slowed down.
• Maybe it'll seem that way after the fact (ed. note: It does.)
• That car's coming pretty fast.
• I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be a gentle tap.
• Great. Now we're gonna have a broken car.
• I hope they're insured.
• Well, that didn't hurt.
• Tina looks unharmed.
• Wish we'd showered beforehand.
• Better get the insurance info out of the glove box.
• I should probably take pictures.
• Good thing I remembered to grab my camera.
• Shit. I forgot to bring my phone.
• I wonder if it's bad form to eat at the scene of the accident before the food gets cold.

So, I got out of the car and started taking pictures of the damage. The person who hit us was none too pleased about that, not that I care about the opinion of the ignorant cunt who plowed into my wife's favorite car. Luckily for us, there was a right neighborly couple in a Jeep behind us who saw the whole thing and stuck around to give a statement. If they hadn't been there, there's no doubt in my mind the bitch would've claimed we rear-ended her.

Her story (which makes no sense) was that the car in front of her was signaling to turn right, and she planned to go right too. When the light turned, the car in front of her went straight instead, so, naturally, as any responsible driver would do, she had to back up as quickly as possible to, um... let's see....

Car in front goes straight instead of right. That means that in order for you to turn right, you have to press the accelerator while in drive and turn the steering wheel right at the same time. I don't see how backing up at full fucking speed into our goddamn car was supposed to help in the cunting methwhore's right-turning endeavors.

In fact, if I had to guess, I think she saw a car nicer than hers in the rearview and thought it'd be a great opportunity for insurance fraud by making it look like we rammed her from behind.

Anyway, she gives us her insurance information, but the card's expired. She says it's the wrong one, but the info's all the same. The right one's still in her car. Sounds reasonable enough. She made a big deal of pointing out she's insured. So, it came as no surprise to us when we called Safe Auto (her company) to file a claim, and they told her they haven't had an active account with her since May.

We're still sorting the whole mess out. Tina got her right thumb jambed or something. It's swollen but doing better. Luckily we're well insured, and Tina'll get a rental until the car's fixed or replaced (depending on the extent of the damage).

As for the diseased lump of crusty vaginal discharge who hit us, she's a shitstain on the boxers of humanity, and I hope she ends up destroying whatever is most precious to her.

- Nefarious Grinning Lad

V

We've been watching V lately, thanks to NetFlix. If you're old enough, you may remember this miniseries/TV show from the mid-80s.

The story itself is particularly engaging, enthralling, and enjoyable. It was originally set to be an historical fiction piece based on freedom fighters in World War II, but the network wanted something more sci-fi. So, they changed the Nazis to reptilian aliens invading earth to take our water (since their planet ran out) and people (for food).

The aliens initially came under the guise of friendship, their leader playing the role of an enthusiastic, charismatic man of the people, winning the hearts and minds of the humans, eventually setting up camps for scientists, and sharing their technology with all of us. Eventually, the sinister truth is uncovered, people take up arms to form a Resistance, and there's a world-wide alien occupation.

Each episode starts off with a broadcast from the Freedom Network with updates on the war effort all over the world. Most of the action takes place in and around Los Angeles (I think) which is a decidedly neutral city (i.e. neither controlled by Resistance nor Visitors), and there's plenty of shootouts, espionage, and melodromatic romance. Plus, there's the Star Child, a human/lizard hybrid. She's on the Resistance's side, and she, of course, has telekinetic powers.

Granted there are some pretty hokey plot points and the occasional plot hole, but the story itself is pretty solid.

Unfortunately, the show completely fails at literally everything else.

Niel, Geddy, & Lifeson

Molded by circumstance

We watched March of the Penguins the other night. I'd seen it at the dollar theater, but it was definitely worth watching again. Anyway, it got me thinking. When the movie came out, creationists came out of the woodwork to declare the movie as evidence of design by a benevolent creator. I honestly didn't see that (not surprising). What I saw was natural selection at work. It was at times beautiful, and at other times terrible. But it was all there.

Penguins are funny-looking birds who live at the South Pole and perpetuate themselves every four years. It's really an amazing thing to see. Every fourth March, all the penguins come from their own little corners of the ocean to the middle of an ice mass to mate. Why? Because long ago, some penguins figured out that the middle part doesn't melt. Well, not all the way. The one who didn't figure that out naturally died off. So now, ages down the line, this is where they come to. Why? because they're the distant offspring of the first to figure it out.

Of course, some penguins don't make it. They lag behind and don't get there in time. They, too, die off. Natural selection.

After laying their eggs, the females transfer them to the males who keep the egg warm under belly fat. This is because the females' need to eat is more urgent than the males'. Some couples (penguins are annually monogamous) rush the transfer and the eggs freeze and die. Again, natural selection. Then the mothers walk off to look for food (i.e. an opening in the ice where they can swim and eat) while the fathers keep the chicks warm. Some of the mothers don't come back. Why? They get caught by predators. Seals gotta eat too, right? Naturally, the ones who don't come back and get eaten are the ones who, for whatever reason, allow themselves to be caught, for example by not swimming fast enough. Not only does the penguin die, but the penguin's chick dies as well (of starvation). Again, it's natural selection.

The fathers, meanwhile, have figured out that their chicks won't die if they regurgitate some kind of edible milky substance and feed it to the chick. The ones who didn't figure that out died off long ago. Eventually, the chicks are big enough to go out on their own and socialize with other baby penguins. Unfortunately, some are picked off by predators. Can you guess which ones? Yes! The ones who can't get away. Once the mothers get back, the fathers go out to search for food. They take turns getting food until the chicks are old enough to fend for themselves. When that happens, the parents go their separate ways and head back to their own little corners of the ocean. The new generation of chicks eventually goes off and finds its own little chunk of ocean to call home. Four years later, they'll come up and march back to where they were born, hoping to get lucky.

It's all a beautiful process. Nature selects which birds live and which birds die. It's not a planned selection. There's no intelligent force behind it. There doesn't have to be. The ones who live propagate the species, while the ones who die fade away.

Consider now that penguins continue to evolve. Well, they do. How? Natural selection, genetic drift, the occasional beneficial mutation. They didn't show any mutation in the film, mind you, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. In fact, that's the point. The film is just a cross section of the evolution of penguins. 100,000 years down the road, they may have changed drastically. We don't know.

My overall point it this. Penguins aren't special. They're unique, as we all are, but they aren't special. There aren't any natural laws that apply only to penguins. They are just creatures molded by their circumstances. We all are. No one on this planet is the end result of evolution. We're all just another generation in a seemingly endless continuity of life.

Of course, some people just can't accept that.

- Naval Gym Locker

That is the question

I recently had one of those rare, brief moments of enlightenment.

I'd been somewhat unhappy over the past week or so. Everything was just tremendously annoying to me, and I couldn't seem to figure out why. I needed to relax and reflect. So I did. And I came to realize that I (i.e. everything that can be called me) am small. Very small. Wee, even. I'm miniscule in the grand scheme of things. In fact, given the enormity of the known universe and the the potential size of the unknown universe, I am completely, utterly, and in every other way, insignificant.

No you're not; you're a special and unique individual, and God has a plan...

Quiet, you.

It gets better.

The universe necessarily exists. It can't not. The definition of the universe is that which exists. Throughout history, we've asked ourselves why. For what purpose? To what greater good? To what end was the universe intended? There is none. It just is. It is because it has to be. It is because nonbeing can't be. (Before you start harping about space, vacuum, etc., I would like to point out that there's a fundamental difference between empty space and nonbeing. Empty space is three dimensional space that can be occupied by, you know, stuff. Nonbeing isn't.)

The universe's only purpose, its sole function, is to be. It's been at it for billions of years, now.

Now, the human species is pretty neat, as far as animals go (since, you know, that's what we are). As our brains grew over time, we've developed the abilty and the tenacity to figure stuff out. We like to think of ourselves as a special species, designed in the image of God, and given the planet to do with as we please. We like to think of ourselves as the most evolved species. Well, some of us do. Others say we didn't evolve despite the overwhelming evidence, and others yet recognize the simple fact that we aren't the most evolved.

In terms of cognitive capacity, yes, we're the most evolved. In terms of physical speed, vision, smell, and numerous other attributes, we fall woefully behind other animals. Fortunately for us, our ability to figure stuff out has put us at the top of the food chain and made us the dominant species on the planet.

But I'm digressing. The point is this: Life is rare in the universe. It takes many many factors to generate it, and we have yet to figure out how to do so in an artificial environment. But given the vast enormity of the universe, the billions upon billions of stars in the millions of galaxies that we know of, in addition to everything we haven't discovered, it seems inevitable that life would evolve and that various life forms would become better equipped for various tasks over time. It also seems inevitable that one life form would excel beyond all others in terms of cognitive capacity and eventually discover how to figure things out.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is this: We weren't meant to be the way we are. This is just how we've turned out so far. As such, and this is the important part, I am an insignificant part of an inconceivably enormous, complex system whose sole function is simply to be. But that's not the cool part. The cool part is I get it. I'm a mildly interesting part of a cross-section of the history of the universe, and I'm no better or worse than the rest of it. But I am, in a sense, a manifestation of the whole (microcosms within microcosms), and it is, therefore, my function, my duty even, to be, and I'm going to be to my heart's content, because, in the long run, there is no grand scheme, no great plan, and nothing else matters.

- Naked Gravel Loader