Robot Journal : My Monday Morning Musings

1/21/2008

Football
The guy across the breezeway from us really enjoyed the playoff game last night. I'd be sitting there quietly reading about how much oak is used in which areas of Bordeaux... it was all quiet and peaceful. And then there would be a sudden, loud "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!".
And then quiet.

Grand
The other night, we went out with some folks for a big dinner at Grand Sichuan. It was just awesome. I am still thinking about their soup dumplings. Also, it was BYOB, so our pal Serge brought six bottles for the six of us.
Ugh.
It was all very good. Afterwards we went out to Brooklyn Social for a drink - the next day this caused us to ponder this question: "Who thought that was a good idea?"
It wasn't. Hence the next topic.

Nausea
To treat nausea, some people recommend peppermint or ginger. I tried ginger and I think it works pretty well.

Chinese
Did I mention that we have a new Chinese place in our hood? Finally. For years, we've had a number of the bullet-proof glass, greasy chinese places. But, we haven't had a sit-down, non-fluorescent-lit Chinese restaurant. Until now.
The place started as a sushi place, but there are like 50 other sushi places per block, so they changed to Chinese after sitting there alone with no customers for a month or two.
My favorite thing so far is this soup with pork and cucumbers. Tonight I may try some noodles.

Stupid Dollar
Normally, I wouldn't pay that much attention to the global economy (except to make mental notes on where to go / not go on vacation). This stupid dollar against the Euro thing is uber-crappy. Why? Because I work for a damn company based in Europe. So any sales goals we had are in Euros, which means peoples gots to work even harder.
Which means my bonus may suck this year.
Which means I won't get to spend that money on hootchie dancing girls.
(and by "hootchie dancing girls", I of course mean "my lovely wife")

Mormons
I don't know any Mormons. I have never been to Utah. I have never had more than one wife.
There were two letters in the NYT this weekend that I thought were interesting in regards to this "What if we had a mormon president" idea that is suddenly on the radar after whathisname won in that state the other day (details details).
Michigan. It was Michigan. Now I remember. Romney was there making all sorts of wild, outerspace claims. "We'll bring back the auto industry here to Michigan! Michigan will once again be making great cars like the Chevy Malibu and the Pontiac Aztek!"

So, I don't know much about Mormons. But, there were two letters I liked. Here are exceprts...

Letters: What Is It About Mormonism?
Letter #1
The evangelical discomfort with Mormonism...
the history of Mormonism provokes genuine existential uneasiness. We know more about Joseph Smith than about any other major prophetic figure in history. If a farmer from Upstate New York, who has been denounced by some as a charlatan, can found a major world religion, isn’t it possible that something similar lies at the root of conventional Christianity?

Letter #2
When it comes to religion, the country needs more “soft bigotry,” not less. Although there are better names for it than bigotry: healthy skepticism, critical judgment. Religious beliefs require faith, which is often touted as a glorious trait, yet faith is required because there is not one shred of evidence to support the supernatural claims of the faithful...
With so many politicians pushing their religion, it’s time that “faith-based” arguments are challenged in the public sphere. A healthy skepticism of those pushing unsupported supernatural claims is a good thing.

Supernatural Claims
(At first, I wrote "supernatural clams". mmmmmm.)
It is odd how you can seemingly create a religion and somehow because it's a "religion" then it is protected by these weird cultural rules.

Listen, this morning I was drinking my coffee and God started speaking through my cat. That was, of course, odd because she had been throwing up minutes earlier. The God via Cat told me that the world is all messed up and I need to start a new church and the name of the church would be "The Church of the Holy Talking Tabby Cat".
I guess it's just like that Spaghetti Monster.

But, in theory, you can't really deny that i didn't have God speaking to me via my Cat. Or that I also had a vision. Or that an angel came to my door. Or that I can suddenly read ancient scriptures while wearing special glasses and see the thetans in your body.
You can't deny any of that. But, the oneness would have to be back on me to be charming and charismatic so that I could attract followers. Who would support me monetarily. And then I could go and attract more people.
And it goes on and on.

Then I could either run for president or have a (sexy) stand-off with federal agents.

PBS Mormons
Last year the friendly people at PBS did a whole American Experience documentary on the Mormons. It's online. We should all watch it.

Art Colony Memories
That was a great post. Very very very sad/strange/depressing/hillarious.
I was shocked to find that you've been buying things like underwear and guitars on Ebay when you have a mounting debt.

Underwear on Ebay?

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