winterene

The TP That Saved the Day

2009-11-09T13:49:17Z

http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_11_07.htm

We Can Beat the Odds

2009-11-05T01:56:41Z

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120026976

This could be prevented. This could absolutely be prevented. Not for children already born, at least not immediately, but the government absolutely has the power to prevent the births of a large percentage of children who would otherwise be born to parents that can reasonably be judged to have a poor likelihood of being able to provide a suitable upbringing.

By preventing those births, through a combination of compulsory sex education, free contraception, free sterilization, compulsory adoption, compulsory abortion, and compulsory sterilization (for repeat offenders), the government could prevent countless children from living lives of privation and subsequently growing up to be undereducated and unskilled second-class citizens or outright criminals.

In the reality that we commonly perceive, one plus one is two no matter how much a person's misguided emotions might encourage him to believe otherwise, and probability works the same way. If this study is accurate, a certain percentage of children born to undeserving parents will end up on food stamps and will suffer the consequences. If you support allowing those children to be born, then you support allowing children to suffer privation, and you are essentially making a selfish choice, to support your emotional principles instead of supporting a childhood free of privation.

All humans are not created equal, but the government, through regulation of procreation, could do much towards increasing the likelihood that fewer children are born to inequality.

Jinxing Myself?

2009-11-01T02:34:51Z

I shouldn't post this now, because I'm likely to jinx myself, but there is no way I can win this tournament, so I might as well relish this brief time in first place.

http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_10_31.htm

Louisiana Must Go!

2009-10-29T16:04:25Z

http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_10_17.htm

I KNEW IT--CHILDREN = BAD!!!

2009-10-29T14:19:41Z

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/07/local/me-greenspace7

FINALLY!!! I've been writing this in my blog for years, and I've mentioned it a few times, just to people who I thought might understand. I had no research to back it up, but it was obvious to me that the environmental impact of having a child had to be great, probably greater than any savings to be had from green living.

Forget raising global awareness of climate change--this is the message that needs to be spread as widely as possible, that having children does real harm to the environment.

How to Stop Masturbating So Much

2009-10-29T02:34:36Z

Camping out here on Callowhill in Philly, and something occurs to me.

There's probably guys out there struggling with too much masturbation. I got over that when I was a teenager, but others might not have it so easy.

Well, when you are sleeping in a car a night, masturbation is not really safe (you risk detection and arrest), so if you get that urge it's easy to shrug it off. Driving around looking for privacy is not really worth it, unless you've got a real hard-core compulsion, I supposed.

So the question is, how can I monetize this revelation and help countless men out there stop masturbating?

OMG!!! Why Didnt I Know About This???

2009-10-28T20:27:05Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Rhode_Island

AARRGHH!!! STUPID WRITERS OR STUPID PRIEST!!!

2009-10-28T20:07:56Z

In an earlier episode of "House", a doctor faked a test result to effect the death of an African dictator who was killing his own people.

In last week's episode, the doctor goes to confession and asks what he needs to do to receive absolution, and the priest tells him he needs to turn himself into the authorities.

This is a moronic statement.

Whether or not killing the dictator was the right thing from the perspective of Catholicism has nothing to do with the legal system. If the fictional priest couldn't see that, he's a moron, and if the writers didn't realize this, they are morons.

There Is a God and She Hates Me, Part II

2009-10-23T19:13:29Z

As I was about to walk into the Starbucks at Hillcroft and US-59 in Houston, a young woman, redhead, which I like, was sitting at a table. The wind knocked over her tall can of Arizona iced tea, and I used that as an excuse to break the ice and speak to her.

Unlike most attractive women, especially ones wearing headphones, she did not keep her headphones on, or immediately put them back in, but she took out her headphone and set it on the table, a sign that she didn't mind me talking to her.

When I came back out with my coffee I chatted with her some more, but here's the catch--just an hour earlier I had accepted a contract position in Princeton.

So yeah, as soon as the first attractive woman in a long time seems like she might be interested, I have to leave town.

Cash Money Y'all

2009-10-16T18:18:43Z

This one has a contest.

Everybody likes a contest.

http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_10_10.htm

Mo' Money (Not Really)

2009-10-14T01:00:48Z

http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_10_11.htm

Dull Blade

2009-09-26T20:16:30Z

Blah.

http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_09_20.htm

There's Something Stupid About Mary

2009-09-15T02:27:40Z

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/09/14.php#27153

If you actually listen to the whole report, I point out one thing that is never stated. As bad as poverty is today, in 20 years, it is likely to be as bad or worse given the history of humanity so far. However, the poverty that will exist in a generation can be decimated by realizing that poverty starts with childbirth and then taking logical action.

I'm too tired to rant, so I'll keep this short. There is a caller towards the end (at timepoint 39:30 in the podcast), a single mother named Mary who elicits sympathy from the host with her sob story about not getting callbacks on interviews and not being able to pay the rent for herself and her three children. Fuck Mary. She doesn't deserve sympathy. She claims to be educated, and if that is true, then she bears the brunt of the blame for having had three children with having first secured $1.5 million ($500 grand per child, an estimate based on a calculator at babycenter.com). Assuming the children are under 18, she must have had then after 1992, and any supposedly educated person at that time should have been able to predict that it is getting harder and harder for most people to earn a living for themselves and their children.

Of course, most people are not educated, so their is no point in blaming them for having unsecured children. The responsibility must fall on the government to prevent people from having children without having the funds for a proper upbringing, simply because the government is most capable of doing so.

Selfish

2009-09-02T14:20:26Z

Listen to this "Talk of the Nation" guest, and try to find one point at which she expresses a viewpoint that is anything other than selfish. Her whole viewpoint is based on Americans eating what they want (or as much as they want), cheaply, without regard for the effects. Most egregious are her two comments about how the problems of China are not our problems, and the problems of Mexico are not our problems.

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=5&prgDate=8-31-2009

I wish the host had challenged her a bit more, and at least, even subtly, pointed out that she was expressing an extremely selfish viewpoint.

The world's problems will never be solved until we start pushing back against selfishness. Imagine the transformation that the world could see if every person was assessed for selfishness, and only the least selfish were allowed to procreate.

Three Months

2009-08-29T21:03:26Z

I think I can still play.

http://starbuckseverywhere.net/ScrabbleLog_2009_08_22.htm

AARRGHH!!! THERE IS A GOD AND SHE HATES ME!!!

2009-08-29T18:39:35Z

So I walk into my second Starbucks of the day, the flagship store at the Galleria, and look for a table close to an outlet. At the one free table happens to be sitting a reasonably attractive young light-skinned African American woman, and for some reason we start up a conversation. Turns out we had a few things in common, like having gone to the same elementary school (magnet program) and having recently visited London.

She finishes her lunch and gets back to her pharmacy studies, and start up my Scrabble study and decide it's chilly. I go out to the car for a long-sleeved shirt, and when I get back I see it--she's chunky. Beautiful face, not a 9 or 10 but definitely someone I would consider attractive, but she's definitely packing more than a few extra pounds around the mid-section.

(I'd post a pic, but invariably she would be creeped out if I tried to take a photo of her.)

Anyway, I instantly knew why she had even been talking to me. Had she been slender, she would never have given me the time of day, in accordance with my curse.

More examples--go to HotOrNot.com and do a search of all women in the Houston area aged 18 to 40, and look at how many hotties there are.

Now look at the ones who want to meet me. See a pattern?

http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=NZSLRSA&mp=1

http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=OUHEHQA&mp=1

http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=OMOZO8K&mp=1

http://www.hotornot.com/m/r/?emid=O8BRKMS&mp=1

So what I am going to do? Of course I'm going to try and ask this girl out, because I don't really have a choice. Unless I've got money to offer her, no truly attractive, fit, woman is interested, which means I have to settle for fatties.

I was an unplanned pregnancy. Why didn't my mother just abort me when she had the chance instead of subjecting me to this miserable existence???

Of course I can't really blame her when I myself am too weak to just go ahead and kill myself.

Misogyny or Justified?

2009-08-25T15:41:40Z

Sometimes, like right now, I hate attractive women.

Is this misogyny, or is this justified?

The Wikipedia entry for misogyny gives several definitions, but it makes no mention of hatred of women, or more specifically, a subset of women, caused by actions that they have taken against the person.

Through no fault of my own, because of simple genetics, I, like countless other men, have been cursed with a subaverage, perhaps even foul, physical appearance. The immediate effect of this is to have lived a life in which attractive girls and women simply have no interest in me. Unless in a social situation where a greeting is customer, these women simply do not acknowledge my presence. I do not even get a simple "hello" from attractive women when out in public.

Because of this, I sometimes hate them, and I have to wonder if this is a justified hatred and not in fact misogyny. I do not hate them because they are women. I hate them because I have been, through circumstance, forced to live among this group of people who regard me as a nonentity.

Before you answer, think about this--if a person lives his whole life being harrassed and abused by police, is he justified in hating police?

Or, to give a closer analogy, if a person grows up poor but amidst the wealthy and finds himself constantly ignored, treated as if he did not exist, is he justified in developing a hatred for the rich?

What about the homeless? They are routinely ignored by other members of society. However, I've heard it reported many times that many homeless choose that lifestyle willingly for a variety of reasons. From that perspective, I would argue that if a person chooses not to bathe for long periods of time and chooses to ask for money without offering any contribution in return, then that person is causing himself to be ignored.

But subaverage or just plain ugly people are not necessarily in the same category, are they? Not unless you accept that a person like me should expend all resources possible to improve his looks. If that is the premise, then I am to blame, because I have neglected to undergo skin treatments, teeth straightening and whitening, a rigorous exercise regimen to acquire a more athletic body, hair treatments, and a change in wardrobe. So technically, I could take time away from things that genuinely improve my mind, my knowledge of the world, my personal development and use that time to maintain an appearance that might put me on radar screens of attractive women, even though doing so would probably leave me feeling like I was not doing anything worthwhile.

From that perspective, am I myself to blame for being a nonperson in the eyes of attractive women, and thus unjustified in hating them?

I just don't know.

Can't Believe I'm Not Playing the NSC...

2009-07-14T17:08:10Z

...but I can't deny the logic in remaining here in Europe to finish up the Starbucks while I'm here, and before any close down. And furthermore, heading back just in time to play without studying just seems like a good way to be disappointed. I can always play a big tournament when I return.

Still sucks though. Never thought I'd go a year without playing, no matter what.