Pause

First and foremost:
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!

Our family just finished looting the tree, and I'm in a good mood; I got practically everything I wanted. However...
Isn't it ironic that one of the holiest times of the year can be the most sinful? We all know how much Christmas has become twisted by materialism, commercialism and Coca-Cola Santa Clauses. And therein, of course, lies the aforementioned sin. No matter how hard we try, it is difficult to concentrate on the true meaning of Christmas instead of the loot under the tree. But we must try.
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For hundreds of thousands of years, the human race slogged across the Earth. Wars were fought. Civilizations rose out of the debris, then collapsed into it again. Monarchs and commoners alike lived, loved, worked and played in a somewhat barbaric and dangerous world. Rome, Egypt, Babylon...all rose into the glorious limelight, but no matter how powerful or permanent they seemed, they were doomed to collapse, as were the people who populated them. Earth was dark. Not pitch black, but gray. Storm clouds always gathered on the horizon.
Then, one night 2005 years ago, something happened. A star broke through the darkness, and underneath it, a baby was sleeping. And to this single, poor, even somewhat wretched baby, kings and commoners alike came and bowed.
Funny, isn't it, that the birth of a child was enough to haul Earth out of the gray fog it had been living in for so long. But it was enough.
And that's what Christmas is really about.
Just to remind you.

Monkeys? What monkeys?

So, chances are many of us have heard of the court ruling over in New Hampshire in which Judge Jones decidedly flogged any chances the Intelligent Design movement had over there, calling it an excuse to squeeze religion into public schools.
Really rather silly. If you think about it, ID is actually more than relgious propaganda. A-hem:
Intelligent Design says (as far as I'm aware) that evolution is not likely the way living things on earth formed, that instead of being a great big cosmic accident, a living intellect was behind...um...everything.
Somehow, this prospect doesn't sound much less likely than the idea that some great cosmic machine blew up and amidst all the muck infinitely complex life and structures came into existence--purely by accident. Isn't this basically what is being taught in public schools today? If so, ID has every right to be taught alongside evolution because it does have basis in scientific fact (as our knowedge of biology increases, we are finding more and more complex structures that just couldn't have formed from billions of years of slow, generation-by-genereation tweaking), and, frankly, because the typical Atheist's idea of creation, which often includes evolution, is pretty ridiculous itself.
However, that isn't really what this post is about.
As I follow the whole Evolution vs. Creationism smackdown, I begin to realize, more and more, how silly the whole thing is. This was perhaps driven home to me when I listened to a talk on chastity by Mary Beth Bonacci. In her talk, she mentioned a chemical the human body produces called oxytosin. It is produced primarily in two situations: sex and childbirth. What does it do? It weakens your reason, makes you more susceptible to suggestion (I think--don't quote me on that one) and, most importantly, builds a strong attachment in you to whomever you're with at the time. In other words, the feeling of love and attachment people feel for their spouses and children is (at least partially) manufactured by a hormone. And here was Mary Beth Bonacci, a devout Catholic, speaking of this phenomenon as scientific fact. Many die-hard Christians are inclined to get all bristly and defensive at the idea that human emotions are no more than chemical reactions, but not Ms. Bonacci. And that got me wondering: Why not?
Let's backtrack a bit. Evolution vs. Creationism basically equals Science vs. Religion, right? Well, I seem to recall reading the words of some wise guy like C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton which basically said that religion and science need not conflict because they are two entirely different things. And they are. If you think about it, they both have distinct purposes. Science tells us how things happen (A mother's love for her child is partially produced by the hormone oxytosin), but relgion tells us why they happen (A mother loves her child so that she will want to stay with it, nurture it, and see that it becomes a good person). Or for another, more pertinent example: Humans came to exist through a slow process of natural selection and perfection, originally coming from monkeys (???), until they reached the form they have today (science). Humans were created by God to be His magnum opus; His highest creation, meant to love and serve Him and eventually live with Him forever (religion).
In other words: Why does it matter to us how we came to exist? The point is, we exist. Why does it matter how the mother comes to love her child? It doesn't, the point is, she does love him/her.
All this time, we've been fighting for no reason. Rather stupid, if you ask me. C'mon, people. Kumbayah and all that jazz. Gawsh...

Harry Potter and the blah blah blah

First of all, I'd like to say: Christmas break started today! Arrrreeeba! (those "r"s must be rolled so they sound Spanish, by the way.)
Anyhoo...
Yesterday, my siblings and I got to musing on what possible titles J.K. Rowling may have lined up for the next (and last--*sniff*) Harry Potter book. We came up with some amusing ideas. At least, we found them amusing. You might not, owing to the fact that we get a rather deranged sense of humor when it's almost time to hit the hay.
Anyhoo, here are some:

• Harry Potter and the Cursed Toenail of Icklebog*
• Harry Potter and the Pillar of Storge*
• Harry Potter Dies in the End!!
• Harry Potter Dies while Defeating Lord Voldemort and Ron Marries Hermione and has Twelve Kids and Sends Them Off to College and Eventually Falls into Credit Card Debt Until Harry Returns From the Grave since he was Actually Hiding in Scandinavia and Slaps Some Sense into him!!
• Harry Potter and the Blazing Iranian Bumblebee
• Harry Potter: Jurassic Classic
• Harry Potter: Culture Vulture
  
• Harry Potter: The Real Scoop (by Rita Skeeter, a.k.a. irate beetle--err, irate Skeeter--uum, Rita Irate--oh, whatever--for the Daily Prophet)
• Harry Potter meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meet Harry Potter

That is but a sampling of what we were coming up with (in fact, some of those I came up with myself more recently. And the two marked with an asterisk are based on real crock titles other people came up with).
G'night, all.

Snow...or something like it

For pretty much the entirety of the day, evreything outdoors was covered in ice. Yipee. And then, a little before school's out, several of us observe small, rather grainy snowflakes falling from the heavens. Not expecting them to stick, I sighed a resigned sigh and wandered into the hall to gather up books and other assorted paraphernalia (great word, that. Assuming I'm even spelling/using it correctly).
I peek outside a few moments later to discover that the snow is not only sticking, but that the parking lot has become a veritable ice rink. Schweet!
And so I wasted about 10 minutes sliding and screeching around in a rather haphazard way along with a dozen other people. Narrowly (well, not really) evading disaster at the hands of...well...ice. Panting like a St. Bernard as I proceed in and out of the school. Never (thankfully) getting the idea of licking the flagpole. And feeling my fingers burn up as I sit in a toasty car.
Fun schtuff.

Aaahl be baahck...

So...after much bumbling and procrastination, I managed to get Chapter 1 of my below-mentioned story up. For those of you who are curious, it can be read here.
And in case you're wondering, I did indeed steal Green Flash's idea. "Contract hits" sounded appropriately evil to me.