Out of the mouth of babes

This is a story that a five-year old French boy told me... in English.

"Do you know the juifs?" He asked me. Juif is French for Jew.
"Yes" I said.
"The juifs were in prison."
"I know," I replied, "but it wasn't because they did something wrong, it was because the leaders of the government made a bad choice."
Then he told me this story. "The daddy of Mamina (Mamina is his grandma) was a... a juif. And he was in prison but then someone said to him, come come, and he goed and he... um... escaped from prison. That's good huh."
"Yep, pretty good." I affirmed.
And then he added as an after thought. "But now he's dead anyway."

You are a wise, wise man young squire.

Reason to Survive

I haven't seen or heard from you in over ninety days.
You're in some other U.S. city, in some other U.S. state.
My feet are getting tired and it's getting kind of late.

So why am I still here? Why did I come, and why am I still here?

The church is filled with people so I'm standing in the back.
We try to ignore the sermon. Just another midnight mass.
Merry Christmas, you're all sinners. What else is there to add.

So why are we all here? Why did we come, and why are we all here?

The answer gently pricks me like a spear wound in my side.
We have all come searching for some reason to survive.
But it's been over ninety days since I have seen or heard from mine...




...So why am I still here?

Post-modernism

I google imaged searched "google image search"



I was disappointed that I couldn't find any pictures of actual google image searches so I just took a screen shot.

One day...

One day I'll be humble enough to sincerely believe that God doesn't think that I'm better than an atheist just because I believe in him.

...that's more than I can say for the atheist.

The Heart of Human Being

The sun will still be rising
The sun will go to bed
For another 7 billion years
After I am dead.

And the world will take 6.999
9999 billion less
To lose every single record
Of all that my life ever meant.

I wonder after all that time
In all expanding space
Will there ever be found anything
As lovely as your face?

And in all those empty eons
After our sun's been consumed
Will there be any conscious creature
Who understands this empty room?

So I find my knees and I find my voice
And I beg God for relief.
But the thought occurs that maybe first
I should beg God for belief.

I don't need to know the future
But I'm trying to find some peace.
And I'd like to think, after we're all dead
There might still be some living thing.

That thinks and hears and understands
Why the humans sing.
That sees and feels and understands
The heart of human being.

STOP INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY

The one thing I can not stand...

If there is one thing that I hate more than Gun lovers, evangelical Christians, democrats, Jews, Foreigners, Blacks, homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, those otherwise sexually active, Neo-Nazis, the GOP, North Africans, and "dog people" (people that like dogs, not people that are dogs)... it's a bigot! DAMN THOSE BIGOTS!!!

Morals won't keep me warm in winter.

A friend of mine was telling me how happy he is about some recent progressive trends in American society. We talked about the societal shift in America from being what one might call (euphemistically) a puritan society with stringent morals, to a morally liberated society where the only thing that isn't OK is to think that something is not OK. The major problem with morals is that they impose a sense of "rightness" or "wrongness" that can be utterly confusing. This is because, believe it or not, there is no universally accepted idea of right and wrong. In fact the terms "right" and "wrong" are merely abstract ideas like "love" and "hope"... but even worse. At least Love produces data. Love can be measured in terms of chemical reactions in the brain, increased heart rate or other physical responses. But right and wrong are based totally on personal belief and faith that a certain action or outcome is a "good" while another is "bad". We used to rely on superstition and and fear to give us a standard of right and wrong that while not universal, shared many similarities among the worlds superstitions. Fortunately increased availability of "education" has elevated scientific thought (to it's proper place as Lord and Savior) and helped us to let go of these cumbersome superstitions.

Of course it's an ongoing process and some of us are (understandably) having a hard time completely letting go of our morals. However, the fact remains that there is no universal laws by which one can "prove" scientifically that slavery is wrong or that the holocaust was either good or bad, so I think it's only a matter of time before we stop clinging to our outdated traditions and step out into the brave new world where it won't matter if we are a man or a woman... because even a woman (with all her frailty and physical inadequacy) can still give a slave orders.

Plans

I think I'd like to marry a screamer. That way our kids will never know whether we are fighting or having sex.

I can't take credit for this...

But I'll gladly take credit for sharing it with all of you.

DUMB VS. DUMBER #3

AND THE CONTESTANTS ARE...

Beer Raising Dudes

VS.

Kissy Face Girls

OK, this one is going to be tough. They are both really dumb, I know, but the point is to vote for which one you think is dumber (or more dumb for you grammar fans out there).

Things I almost said but never said.

The following is a list of things that I almost said to you but never said to you:

1. I love you.
2. I hate you.
3. Do you want to grab lunch.
4. I hope you get hit by a bus today.
5. Will you marry me, we will have beautiful children. We will name them Aurelie and Thomas. Thomas will have your hair and eyes and Aurelie will have my complexion. They will both learn to play classical instruments and put on concerts for us, and even though they will sound terrible we will applaud them and tell them they are wonderful. Aurelie will get hit by a car two weeks before her ninth birthday... BUT IT WILL ONLY BRING US CLOSER TOGETHER AS A FAMILY!
6. I'm not a rapist, I just crush a lot

The following is a list of things that I did say to you, but that you didn't hear because you were walking out the door of our apartment building:

1. Hi.

One thing I like is...

When you go to post a comment on blogger and it asks you to choose an identity. It always takes me a while though, you know, to decide who I'm going to be each time I post a comment. And sometimes when I read blog posts that have a lot of comments I wonder if maybe they aren't really all the same person. The same lonely person, with nothing better to do than to talk to himself on the internet.

THOUGHTS ON WRITING:

Do you ever wish you could just cut open your wrist and hold it over the page and something meaningful and intelligent and significant would come pouring out?

STOP INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY

Learning sympathy... the hard way

OK, so I hate it when people ask me for money. To be fair it never used to bother me and in fact I gave them money pretty often, but then I moved to a bigger city with a large population of grifters. Let's call them grifters because most of them are not homeless and they are all very organized and their methods are dishonest (for example they ask you to sign a "petition" saying that you support schools for kids with handicaps and then try to get you to give them money, or once a guy "found" a ring on the ground and gave it to me cause it didn't fit him... then he wanted money). To make things worse these people are always pushy, and if you do give them money often times they will be upset that you didn't give them more. In short, people asking for money is now one of my least favorite things about the human experience.

However, one day while I was in Morroco, I decided to try being a beggar for a while. My motivation was simple, I wanted to get out of Morroco. I was two dollars short of a train ride to the the airport so I made a sign on some cardboard and sat myself down outside the train station. I thought it was going to be a sympathy building experience, that I would better understand our homeless friends, but within half an hour an old man gave me fifty cents and a young woman by the name of Yasmine had come a long and offered to pay for my entire train ticket (at this point I've made somewhere around five USD in cash and goods during a period of about thirty minutes, giving me a rough average of ten USD an hour... in Morrocco, where ten USD an hour is easily higher income than 80% of the rest of the nation). We shared a fifteen minute conversation while we road the train to where I could make my connection to get to the airport, during which time she fed me and gave me some extra change and then suggested we exchange info in case I ever came back to Morocco and I wanted a place to stay in Casa Blanca. It was too easy. It built no sympathy whatsoever.

That is until today. Months after my trip Yasmine and I had the following conversation through Facebook chat:

Yasmine:

hello

Me:

hi

Yasmine:

how are u to day

Me:

not great

hard day

Yasmine:

ok

i miss u so mutch

END CONVERSATION.

Suddenly all the random phone calls from Morocco make sense. You know the ones where your phone rings and you the number has the country code +212 and you answer and then someone is trying to speak to you in Arabic and you don't understand so they start speaking French and you still can't really understand what they're saying and then they hang up. Wait, you don't get those? Probably because you never gave your number to a Yasmine in Morocco because you felt obligated after she had fed you and bought you a train ticket.

But the important thing is that I learned that had never occurred to me. Homeless people are putting themselves out there everyday, out into a world that is a hell of a lot crazier than they are. Now I'm not saying we should go so far as to admire the courage that must take, but I am suggesting that we could all give them a little more sympathy. I know I will.

DUMB VS. DUMBER #2

OK, it's been a long time since the first installment of Dumb vs. Dumber so I'll explain the rules again. I present two different groups of people that are generally accepted as stupid and we post votes in the comments of which of these groups is dumber than the other.

AND THE CONTESTANTS ARE...

Qur'an Burners


VS.

Indians

(Pictured here also burning a Qur'an)

Pearls

Sometimes I'm an oyster and sometimes you're a bird, and sometimes
While I'm making pearls you're out flying into windows, and I think
How is it that you never see these things coming?
True I'm careful, you say too careful, well I don't know
But the thing about pearls is that they are awful patient work,
It may take months, it my take years, but
You've got to take your time to get it right.

And sometimes I'm an oyster and sometimes you're a bird, and sometimes
While I'm making pearls you're out shitting all over statues, and I ask
Why can't you keep these things to yourself?
I don't share a lot, maybe there's not a lot to share, I don't know
But the thing about pearls is that they are awful private work,
I could never really share them until they're ready, cause
you can never really show them until they're done.

And sometimes I'm an oyster and sometimes you're a bird, and sometimes
While I'm making pearls you're out swarming with your flock, and I hope
One day you'll learn to be OK on your own.
You say I don't get out much, well where is there to go, I don't know
But the thing about pearls is that they're awful lonely work, Believe me
I wish I could find something worthwhile to do
That didn't mean sitting at the bottom of the ocean by myself.

But sometimes I'm an oyster and sometimes you're a bird, and sometimes
I know you hate it when I close myself so tight, but I swear
If you ever get me open...
Then I'll die.

I wish you understood, that if I could,
I would gladly go regurgitate some worms
If it meant that I could fly.
If it meant that we'd belong,
If it meant that I could soar by your side, but sometimes,
I am an oyster,
And well the thing is...

I've got this pearl that I've been working on.

- J. S. Guy

HERE IS A FUNNY POEM THAT I WROTE A LONG TIME AGO BUT I NEVER POSTED IT BUT NOW I AM POSTING IT AND I HOPE YOU LIKE IT OH AND BY THE WAY IT IS A HAIKU

One, Two, Three, Four, Five
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Se...
onetwothreefourfive

They don't make 'em like they used to.

Remember when the internet was young? I do. I remember the time when email wasn't a valid form of communication and if someone picked up the phone you would get disconnected.I remember having to wait for like 10 minutes for this picture to load one line at a time.






Worth it.






While I don't miss incredibly slow loading times or phone jack modems. The glory days of the internet did have a certain wonder to them. Everything was new, everything was special, we didn't need Youtube because we could spend hours watching gifs. gifs. and more gifs!

Way to go Youtube. You've robbed us of our sense of wonder.

How did it get like this.

I am 27.
I am a virgin.
My best friend is 5 years old.
About an hour ago I sat at the train station waiting for a train and reading Better Homes and Gardens... in French.
It wasn't actually Better Homes and Gardens, it was the French equivalent, My Garden and My Home.
Except it was French so it was actually Mon jardin et ma maison.
And I wasn't really reading it I was more like flipping through it looking at lawn tractors and wondering if any of the brands were still around.
It was the Mon jardin et ma maison from April 1975.
Sorry, "Avril, 1975."

The last time I kissed a girl was 7 weeks ago.
She was from Denmark.
We were in Morocco.
We snuck into a hotel to swim in their pool, then we went back to our hotel had a siesta on the rooftop terrace.
I told her that I believe in God and I believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ all men can find the power to change themselves into something better than they are.
You know, reach beyond their potential, become more than the sum of their parts.
She told me she doesn't believe in God, that she thinks when you die there is nothing.
Then we made out.

About 10 years ago I was 16.
The last day of my sophomore year a friend and I decided to walk to a party.
We didn't get there until 3 AM.
The party was over.
We didn't want to walk home so we snuck into a neighboring house that was still under construction and slept in the basement.
We thought it was hilarious.
When we told our friends they thought it was crazy.
We did too.
Hilariously crazy.

The day after I kissed the Danish girl I met Sophie and Mathilde.
They were both from Marseille, France.
They were both about to start their first year of teaching physics and chemistry at middle school.
Seven weeks later I got lost trying to find their new apartment in Epinay-Sur-Sienne, a suburb of Paris.
On my way back to the train station, after giving up the search for their apartment, I passed through a neighborhood that seemed strangely familiar.
It was almost like I was back in America, like my location had suddenly changed when I had turned the corner, the way it does in dreams.
I was filled with the fear that my life was just a dream and that I could wake up at any time, only I didn't know what I would wake up to, because I had no idea how long I had been dreaming.
Then I realized that the location hadn't changed, I was just sensing the all too familiar feeling of the unfamiliar.
That was roughly two hours ago.

11 weeks ago I boarded a night bus in Paris at roughly 3:30 AM.
I fell asleep.
When I woke up I had just missed my stop.
I started walking.
Around 5 in the morning I found some grass and tried to sleep for a few hours.
After fifteen minutes an airplane woke me up, and then a girl on a bike.
I didn't think it was hilarious.
I didn't think it was that crazy either.
This type of situation seems to be occurring more often.

I am 27.
I am a virgin.
My best friend is 5 years old.
About 50 minutes ago I sat at the train station asking myself, "How did it get like this?"
"When did I start thinking all of this was normal?"
...
I don't know.
Then the train came.
I tucked the "Avril 1975" issue under my arm and boarded.

It's all the same to me...

How is bisexual a sexual preference?

I guess I always thought that bisexual was more like if you were filling out a profile for a dating website and it asked if you were interested in men or interested in women, and you marked "No preference"

Rainbows

I've often heard that there are a lot of different songs about rainbows, but I can only think of one.

The key to success is in how you define it.

Do you ever feel like maybe all humans try to kill themselves as teenagers and only failures make it into their twenties. I think it should be a requirement for public office to prove you are capable enough to successfully commit suicide.

HOMOSEXULOL!

Get it?

I'm single

I'm starting to think it's because I treat dating like it's just another channel for me to create funny stories. EXAMPLE: I emailed a girl and asked her if she wanted to go dancing with some friends of mine.

Her response was thus:

im sorry. im sick. i've been throwing up :( ill text you as soon as i get better
xx

To which I replied:

sorry to hear that. is it serious or is it just like a normal everyday bulimia sort of throwing up? Just kidding. Actually, are you bulimic? If so I'll never offer to take you to dinner. That would be a waste... Anyway you missed a fun night, hope you feel better.
oo

STOP INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY

More Asian Women

This seems to be working. But not exactly as I intended.


My only worry now is that this blog is becoming a hub for Asian pornography. If these even are porn sites. I don't recommend clicking on them to find out.

Asian Women For Marriage!

First of all, who goes to a site called Asian Women For Marriage? Secondly what is a link for Asian Women For Marriage doing on my blog? Well... I recently signed up for Google adsense. It's this thing where they put these ads on my blog and if anyone actually read this or actually clicked on advertisement links that they saw on the internet then theoretically I could make money.

I don't know how Google decided that Asian Women For Marriage would be a good fit for my blogs readers (what readers?), but I am glad they did. While I have never personally visited Asian Women For Marriage, and I really don't think that I could agree morally with a website called Asian Women For Marriage (if Asians want out of China they should earn it by being good at ice skating like Kristi Yamaguchi or by being really cute like Masi Oka [anyone who looks like a pikachu is welcome in my country]), I do think that an ad that says "Asian Women For Marriage" is very funny. I would like links that say Asian Women For Marriage to continue appearing on my blog. Therefore I have decided to use the phrase Asian Women For Marriage as often as possible in hopes that whatever they use to scan my content and assign appropriate adds will continue to put ads for Asian Women For Marriage on my blog.

Maybe I could contact Asian Women For Marriage and See If I can just put a permanent link in the side bar...

Justice

The next time you think that the world is not fair remember that she:




Is going to look like this:




Take that girls. That's what you get for pretending you don't hear me when I sit next to you on the metro and say hi. I bet those ear buds aren't even connected to anything...

I've been out of school too long.

I just wrote an essay for no good reason, one could even say I did it "for fun", though it's debatable that any fun was actually experienced. It's more like a rant but I call it an essay because it's 2 pages long if you double space. Too bad it will never be graded. The most entertainment it provided was that I just laughed at myself for having done it. I will publish it in it's entirety below, but take my advice and don't read the whole thing. No, really, just read this brief and quotable highlight: "Don't close your mind so tightly around the "facts" you learn that nothing else can get in."

Scientific Knowledge? I've read about that.

There is an idea, an attitude towards the truth, that is commonly held. It is that we must focus in on the facts and empirical evidence in order to find the truth. That we must do equations, and test theories, and rule out all of the impossibilities in order to understand the "real truth". I take issue with this approach to knowledge.

My first issue is this approach sounds great in theory but it in practice how much knowledge does each individual gain through empirical observation and experimentation. On average, probably close to none. Most knowledge we have is based on someone else's empirical study, which is great for them but it means that in reality most people's approach to gaining knowledge and finding truth is believing what other people tell them. And how do we chose who to believe? Someone might argue that it is based on the quality of their research, how much empirical evidence they have, and whether or not their experiments are repeatable. This sounds really good. It's something that I am able vomit up easily because of my traditional education and cultural indoctrination. But let's take a moment to actually think about this.

Plate tectonics. It's widely accepted that the earth's crust is made up of many different "plates" or sections of crust that move and interact with one another. I personally hold this same belief. I don't know if it is considered scientific fact yet, but it's probably close. However, neither I or anyone I know has ever personally conducted any experiments or collected any empirical evidence to support this theory. Nor do I actually know from personal experience whether any of the scientists who claim to have conducted experiments and collected empirical evidence followed acceptable scientific principles. I did read about the evidence in a book and I believed it was true, cause why would whoever wrote that book lie to me. But the point is that if I have knowledge about the "truth" of tectonic plates it came from choosing to believe something I read, which was written by a stranger who chose to believe something he read, which was written by a stranger who actually observed something (and hopefully he's not an idiot or a liar because we all believe him).

For me personally this same example applies to evolution, carbon dating, the big bang theory, the position of our solar system in the galaxy, global warming, and the health benefits of washing your hands after wiping (this may seem self-evident but the point is that it is something that I have no scientific proof of personally, besides "self-evident" is not the same as empirically proven) the list of things I have never personally proven goes on and on and on. And I consider myself more educated (and intelligent, though those things are not necessarily correlated) than 90% percent of the billions of people on this planet. So, in practice this is a faith based knowledge system. We have faith that who ever is doing the science is doing it right and telling us the truth as far as they have empirically discovered it.

Another problem I have is that this approach relies on the assumption that the universe can eventually (through enough tests and experiments) be reduced to actual comprehensible and measurable realities. I do not share this belief. The truth is everything, and we can never hope to understand it until we open ourselves to everything. The truth is not what happens 99.9999999% of the time. The truth includes that .0000001%. And multiplied throughout infinite time and space those tiny fractions add up to become not just significant, but equal to the majority (99.99 x ∞ = ∞, .01 x ∞ = ∞). In essence the truth is nothing more than an infinite list of impossibilities. And while it's good to learn things through empirical observation and experimentation (or to just believe the experiments of others) it's important that we don't close our minds so tightly around the "facts" we learn, that nothing else can get in.

WANT TO BE HAPPY? WATCH THIS!

TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE

Have you heard that Muslims are now using cats to blow Jews/Christians/Muslims up instead of using Muslims? Apparently they realized that the less Muslims they used to blow up Jews/Christians/Muslims they more Muslims they would have to shoot Jews/Christians/Muslims. Frankly, I'm outraged. First of all cats do not actually have 9 lives, that's just a myth. So when a cat is exploded it DIES. Dead. No more cat. And anyone who has ever been to icanhascheezburger.com knows why that is tragic.


Secondly, why cats? Why not dogs? That's just cliché. Everyone always picks on cats. Try something original Islam. And lastly, Muslims should fight their own holy wars. If Allah were here he wouldn't use cats to blow up Jews/Christians/Muslims he would do it himself. But Allah isn't here, because he isn't real. And if he is so real then why can't we see him.

These pictures are funny

Am I right or am I right?

DUMB VS. DUMBER #1

OK, so what we're going to do here is pit two notoriously stupid groups of people against each other to see who is dumber. I will present the two contestants and you can vote which is stupider in the comments.

AND THIS WEEK'S CONTESTANTS ARE...

Rich White Girls

VS.

Poor Black Girls

Two somewhat sad side notes. First, when searching for pictures of rich white girls, google suggested the search "rich white girl names" meaning that there are enough people searching "rich white girl names" that Google assumes that is what I am probably looking for. Of course this is most likely because of all the poor black girls at the public libraries looking for names for all of their children. Not that they are tired of poor black girl names like ShaNiqua and MoNiq, they have just used them all already. The second side note is that when searching for "poor black girls" most of the pictures were either of Africans(most likely taken by white people) or of white people (even more likely to have been taken by white people). Which leads me to believe that either black people do not own cameras, or they do not have internet connections.

STOP INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY

This website ws pretty cool. It takes something in English and translates it to another language and then back to English. Then it does it again four more times and when it get's back to English its typically something completely different. It's kind of like the game telephone, except more fun. I don't know about you but it seems that when I've tried to play telephone as an adult the message at the end is always the same as the message at the beginning. I guess this means that either kids are just retarded, or the telephone game only works because there are little cheaters who change the message entirely just for fun (I was one of those little cheaters). Anyway, here is the result of my first test.




















I think it's interesting that the only original idea that seems to have survived is suicide. Maybe killing ourselves is the universal connection that we share with all humanity.

Typical

I have this thing where I take a simple question and give it a complex answer.



Ask any of my ex-girlfriends if that ever gets annoying.

China Zoo

Three pictures I found by google image searching China Zoo

Letter to a friend

Here is a letter I wrote to a friend. I realized that it was good advice for myself as well. Here it is... good advice for everyone.

Friend, if I teach you anything let it be to never be afraid of making a mistake because you're going to make one no matter what. And never be afraid of getting hurt because we are meant to go through this life with a broken heart. We need to be constantly be peeling off the scar tissue from our hearts so that we can stay open to the world. We are here to feel. Good and bad, we are meant to feel it all. Most habits or neurosis or addictions are developed as a way to cope with, hide from, or numb unpleasant feelings. Don't run from them. Remember: the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. (Romans 8:16-17)

I guess the point is to remember that we all have a bitter cup to drink. And if we're trying to be like Jesus then we need to drink the dregs. Always give of yourself completely to everyone no matter what the Nates of the world have done (but don't cast your pearls before swine). Most of the time you'll be rejected and maybe it will never work out, but in dating as in marriage, always trying again is more important than getting it right. I call it drinking the dregs of the cup of dating... and it's hard to do. But the cup of marriage is far more sweet and far more bitter so be glad you aren't blessed with it yet.

Love you,

J.S. Guy

Autotroph

If he is a predator then I am an autotroph.

He will hunt you down and pounce on you and snap your neck and devour you. And I'll just sit here turning sunlight and chemicals into carbohydrates and hoping that, one day, you will come along and devour me. But despite all of our differences we remain good friends.

I think it's because both of us are lonely.

I <3 ADRENALINE JUNKIES

Thank you Facebook for this gem.

But more importantly thank you Aliyah Newman, you truly are talented and gifted.

What really amazes me is the way you seem to have broken free from all the nasty stereotypes that are made about your people.


...Oh wait, there it is.