Stone Lantern

People see a long blog post and they move on.

I’ve been told to keep my posts short because people only read short blogs. This isn’t true.

They used to say the same thing about web pages, namely “keep them under 30k so they load quickly or else your audience will leave.” However, pornography disproves this rule.  Porn sites have always been some of the slowest loading sites out there because they had huge pictures and yet, were still very popular.  The load speed to patience ratio is directly proportional to the users desire to see the content. If someone tells you people don’t read long blog posts, it’s a generalization and is completely untrue. People read novels and I hear those are fairly long. The correct phrase would be that your blog posts are not interesting enough to be that long.

The obvious outcome from this realization is that I should only post entries about really interesting topics. Well, I try to do that, but I suck at it.  So do most people. Instead, I’m just going to use the tried and true method of including porn in my posts.

A friend of mine makes corsets.

So, now I’m trying really short paragraphs to make you feel like you are reading faster. Next I’m going to try contractions.

This is not gratuitous.

I don’t necessarily need people to read everything I write, I just want them to visit my site and click the ads. For that reason I try to include a fun, visual media in each rant I post.

What I hope you’ve learned today is that being my friend gets you porn or gets you in porn, and that the perfect length for a blog post is eight to twelve inches.

Your children know how to make meth.
They know the common ingredients needed and where to get them.
They know how to make the counter to it to bring themselves back down.
They understand the immediate and long-term dangers.
They will not believe any lie you tell them about it.
They have access to the truth.

What will your children do?
What will you do?

Gone are the days when we could ‘protect’ our children from information that could be harmful to them.  Access to information has been an almost universal goal since the internet was created. It is easy to get information on anything you wish. Do you want to know how to make a bomb? How big do you need? You can find instructions for many different types of bombs for a variety of purposes. Do you want to know how to cook a turkey? How to fix your plumbing? Download a grade twelve english essay?  How to perform throat surgery? Do you want to make some napalm? Look it up. It won’t take long.

If you are unable to find the information you are looking for, just ask. Log into any large forum and ask your question. Someone will point you to the answer.  They will also offer advice on other aspects of the information you seek and provide moral guidance if the question seems questionable, but you will get your answer.

Your children are better at this than you are.

So, what do we do now that the world has changed for the worse? The world has not changed. Information was always available. You might have gotten it from the library or from fellow classmates or the creepy guy in front of the drugstore, but it was there.  When you were a kid, you had access to information that would have scared your parents. The world has not changed. The same solution to this problem that applied back then, applies now. The only real difference is that kids today have access to almost any information they want, but kids have always had access to dangerous information.  You must talk to your kids about these things. You must discuss making meth, bombs and turkey. You must discuss performing plumbing tasks and throat surgery.

Schools used to test children on their knowledge. What is the capital of Ontario? What is Pythagoras’ theorem? This type of test is meaningless now. Children have access to all of the knowledge they will ever need. Now we test them on their understanding of that knowledge, their ability to gather it effectively and their ability to evaluate its accuracy.

When you speak to your children, it doesn’t matter what they know. They can know everything. It will take them less than two minutes to find recipes and fun, instructional videos on making meth. Don’t try to protect them from information, because that is just impossible. Instead, just do what we have always done. Try to tech them right from wrong, give them a moral compass and help them make good choices. Then set them loose on the world to do this for their children.

What I hope you’ve learned today is that meth is easy to make and really harmful to use, information is never very far away and there are more sites for lock-picking than there are for health issues.

If God came to me and asked what I wanted in this world, I would tell him I simply want to be significant, thanks for asking. I wish to be significant in the lives of my family and in the eyes of those who know me and those who don’t. I don’t want to be forgotten. I don’t  want to feel the indifference of the world around me. Love me, hate me, so long as you know me.

He was probably so proud of this picture, too.

Then God would say I failed and I was supposed to ask for world peace instead of being a self-centered bastard. At that point it would degrade into a knife fight except God would cheat and use an infinity long switchblade.

Perhaps the simplest lesson here is that we all matter to those that we love and we have small, but important impacts in the lives of those we know well.  I think that stuff sucks, though. It isn’t really what I’m going for. I want a big impact. Nuclear bomb, big.  I want people to stand in awe while looking up at the sky and then whisper my name.

I have tried a few different strategies already: I go to work, I come home, sometimes I go outside.  This plan has not had award winning results.  I also tried being really nice to everyone, but I can’t help notice how well known serial killers are. It’s a tough call.

I would start my own religion, but they’re so unpopular right now.  Everyone says they like God, but they don’t trust religion and then they go home and don’t bother with either. A friend of mine recently explained it to me, saying it isn’t the organization itself, but the attitudes of it’s members. I quote “And tithing sucks! They don’t just ask you to tithe. They shame you into it, whether you can afford it or not. Do you know how many zealous, Christian hobo’s I’ve met?”

I would probably get more takers if I called it a cult.

I was getting to the point of giving up on my dreams when I realized the internet held the answers to my dilemma. One method I found that has worked is to present myself on dating sites as a nineteen year old girl called “Double D”.  I’m also a pretty big deal in World of Warcraft where I righteously pwn noobs. People fear my prowess on political forums and I don’t even have to spell-check anything. One harsh lesson I learned though, was that a viral video is not filming yourself giving a kitten aids. Though, nothing demonstrates your insignificance better than your unread blog posts.

What I hope you’ve learned from this blog today is that it isn’t necessary to be more important than everyone else as long as I’m more important than you.

When future generations look back upon us, they will remember a few of our greatest achievements, a bunch of our worst moments and what jerks we were.

And he won't give them back.

Look back at any era, say the renaissance, and try to pick out their greatest achievements.  Didn’t they invent the airplane?  No wait.  It was the rapier.  Or was the rapier already invented and they invented stabbing?  No, that’s ridiculous.  They didn’t invent stabbing, but the french did invent cutting off heads.  Hang on.  Am I still on greatest achievements?

OK.  Perhaps I’m not the best example of how much someone knows about world history, but I bet I’m not the worst either.  When I look back at that era I remember two things very clearly.  The men wore pantyhose and the women swallowed rocks.  The men all wore pantyhose because it was socially acceptable to do so.  This suggests to me that all of the men nowadays are just waiting for the OK to rush out and make their legs pretty and silky smooth.  However, it is the women that swallowed rocks that catches my attention the most.  In addition to aiding the digestion of small seeds and corn, the swallowed rocks caused internal hemorrhaging.  The women would bleed into their stomachs and often throw up blood.  While the Spewing Blood super power is cool, it wasn’t their main goal.  They swallowed the rocks and threw up blood so they would look pale.

Super Fashion Pale.

I’m so glad that we live in a time where that type of foolishness doesn’t exist anymore.  We’re so much smarter than they were.  However, when the world of the future looks back on us, what will they remember?  Will we look that stupid to them?

Of course we will.

For example, go find a puppy that looks cute to you and take him home knowing that it will be your best friend for about eleven years and give you unconditional love during that time.  After a few weeks, take his balls away.  The argument is that it will prevent unwanted pregnancy and take some of the fight out of him.  Well, so will cutting off his front legs, but we wouldn’t do that because it would be cruel.

We had to have this done to my dog and I was uncomfortable with the idea. My wife assured me that this was necessary and since he had never mated, he wouldn’t know what he was missing.  Well, afterwards I noticed a change in him right away. He wouldn’t eat, he sure as hell didn’t trust car rides anymore and all he ever wanted to do was discuss our “relationship”.  I’m pretty sure he noticed something was missing.

What about doggie vasectomies? Or doggie condoms? How about I just sit him down and have a serious talk about doggie abstinence?

We took an animal that we loved just as he was and altered him in a fundamental way.  I expressed this to my wife and she reassured me that he was OK.  This was something we had to do because we loved him she said. Then she said she loved me too.

My blood ran cold.

I hoped she didn’t love me enough to have my balls nocked.  Clearly she viewed testicles as a source of anger and violence.

I don’t mean to preach. Go ahead and chop off your dog’s nuts.  It doesn’t affect me.  I don’t think animals have the same rights as people.  I eat meat and love it.  I enjoy swinging cats around by their tails same as anybody.  However, when the high school kids of the future are learning about us, the thing they will remember is just how barbaric we were.  And aren’t they glad they live in a time where that type of foolishness doesn’t exist anymore.

What I hope you’ve learned from this blog today is that the bad ass girls of the renaissance were way more hardcore than the kids today.  Oh, you’ve got your eyebrow pierced?  Cool, I guess, but does it SPEW BLOOD?

Kids today don’t have the balls.

This is a flash cartoon that my niece and I put together one week-end.  It raises a very important safety concern about crossing sidewalks.

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My friend and I went to a japanese restaurant recently.  They brought out a little bowl of miso soup to start off the meal. Miso soup is an interesting little soup that consists of water and wet food.

It also tastes like they scooped it out of the pond out back.

The first time I had it, I assumed the kitchen staff in the back was making fun of me.  “Hey, let’s see if the round-eye can tell the difference between pond water and soup.”  So, I didn’t eat it in order to show I was on to their game, but I did leave a good tip.  It’s not the waitress’ fault the chef thinks he’s a comedian.  However, I have had it in larger cities as well and it tastes the same.

Apparently it is supposed to taste that way.

People might be getting their back up right now because I’m bashing their beloved soup. Their beloved pond-water soup.  I would normally be the first person to agree about this kind of cultural insensitivity being wrong, but in this case it’s bang on. My friend proved it to me.

Me: “Hey, this soup tastes like pond water.”

Her: “No, it doesn’t. It’s miso soup and it tastes good. It doesn’t taste like pond water.”

Me: “What’s in it?”

Her: “Seaweed.”

Sometimes, the jokes just insensitively write themselves.

What I hope you’ve learned from this blog today is that soup is not culture but yogurt is. And watch out for the samurai elephants.