Come forth, Bulimia, and deliver me from my foodcrimes!

Part One: I walked into HKG and greeted 'er with a warm, "Ching chong; ching chong!"

Woah, blog. It's been a while.  Mainly because I've been sans un ordinateur for a bit -- my last one begged me to light it on fire, so I did. Generally people don't understand when I say this, but I don't feel like it's something you kid about. Speaking of computers, does anyone know how I can make Papyrus my default font?

So, let's catch up. Here are all the completely unrelated points that must be addressed and pondered, at least fugaciously and superficially:

1) People don't talk often enough about __________. I did that because I want you to take a second and fill that in. What should it be? Moldova - US relations? United's subpar overseas flying options? The monstrosity that is the food pyramid? NO. It's NONE of those. The correct answer, idiots, is PLATE TECTONICS.

That's right. I'm being serious here. If I could be a plate, I would be so happy! Think of the things I'd see! And cause! The funny thing is...all my atoms, at one time or another, probably were. Digest on that for a hot minute. Or digest on this, if you'd rather:

The connections between modern land masses and those of the past were found to be infinitely more complex than anyone had imagined. Kazakhstan, it turns out, was once attached to Norway and New Zealand. One corner of Staten Island, but only a corner, is European. So is part of Newfoundland. Pick up a pebble from a Massachusetts beach and its nearest kin will now be in Africa. The Scottish Highlands and much of Scandinavia are substantially American. Some of the Shackleton Range of Antarctica, it it thought, may once have belonged to the Appalachians of the eastern US. Rocks, in short, get around. 

[...] The constant turmoil keeps the plates from fusing into a single immobile plate. Assuming things continue much as at present, the Atlantic Ocean will expand until eventually it is much bigger than the Pacific. Much of California will float off and become a kind of Madagascar of the Pacific. Africa will push northward into Europe, squeezing the Mediterranean out of existence and thrusting up a chain of mountains of Himalayan majesty running from Paris to Calcutta. Australia will colonize the islands to its north and connect by some isthmian umbilicus to Asia. These are future outcomes, but not future events. The events are happening now. As we sit here, continents are adrift, like leaves on a pond. Thanks to Global Positioning Systems we can see that Europe and North America are parting at about the speed a fingernail grows --  roughly two metres in a human lifetime. If you were prepared to wait long enough, you could ride from Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco. It is only the brevity of lifetimes that keeps us from appreciating the changes. Look at a globe and what you are seeing really is a snapshot of the continents as they have been for just one-tenth of 1 per cent of the Earth's history.

See what I mean?! Man.

Trouvez la verite avec NPH.

2) I've recently become a bit more atheist than I used to and/or would like to be. I'll get into it more later, but for right now, here's a reason: pandas. Again with the seriousness. In the Hong Kong airport, there's this sign that says, 'Chengdu - hometown of pandas!' Well, for starters, no wonder they all look the same! Huh. And I thought it was due to some widespread genetic coding. But b), and rest assured this killed my spirit for a bit, instead of the reaction I should've had, or would've had a year ago -- which is, "AWWWW, PANDAS!" -- I immediately thought, "What a stupid fucking animal." To the point. If God existed, there surely wouldn't be pandas. Or, rather, if God were sane and/or not looking for a little sadistic fun, pandas wouldn't exist. Who in their right minds would dump an animal on this earth that can't see for months after it's born, can only eat one food, AND that one food just so happens to grow selectively in one rather shitty climate and doesn't provide enough nutrients to enable long-term hibernation to protect from the wintery climes it requires. It's a fucking wonder pandas are still here, especially with us wandering the same planet. And we think we're evolution's crowning achievement?

(While I am entirely capable of providing you with a caption that links this picture to the content, I am choosing to say this:)
I wish there were more WNBA on television.

 3) We are vessels for our genes. We are vessels for bacteria. I am an ant on this ant hill (human beings are smart by comparison to other species. See later notes on vegetarianism). This is only slightly related; however, in terms of this blog, slightly related is pretty damn good: check out this article by Mark Pagel: Infinite Stupidity. He talks about how the ratio of innovators to copiers used to be, say, 25:1 in the tribes humans lived in (on good ol' Gondwanaland) and now, with technology and whatnot, that ratio can be 2,500,000:1. In other words, in order to succeed, in this day and age, we never have to think. We have to copy. For some reason, this really bothers me. Legitimately makes me uncomfortable. Bothers me so much that I blogged about it a while ago, if you remember. I'm a copier and a result of everything and everyone around me. "I" am simply a distorted reflection of everything that "me" has seen. I know everyone's life is somewhat determined by the people around them. Easy. But like my good friend Malcolm Gladwell explains, while everyone is subjected to this, am I one of those people who gets their life determined and doesn't do other people's determining? Is my life more determined by other people than your average schmuck's is? If I give you an example, will you have to agree with me because you don't have anything to counter it? Why do I find solace in thinking I have that control/influence over others?

You are a power-hungry maneater.

4) I cannot commit to anything (and you know that I know that you know that I know that defecting is a dominant strategy). That's obviously not true. I can commit to wanting the wrong men, procrastinating, and, in general, things lightly detrimental to my well-being. But I can't seem to commit to anything of any substance. I'm pretty sure there's no god, but I'm uncomfy calling myself an atheist. I probably should be vegetarian, but I just can't seem to make the leap. I thought about eating meat like I drink alcohol (if it's free, we're game (it's nothing I've actually given thought to, it's just turned out that way)), but that's conviction-less and I would feel sort of ashamed about that.

I am so glad I ate 6 chalupas.

JSF's 'Eating Animals' promised not to be a moral compass rudely nudging me in the direction of vegetarianism, but I call bullshit. Check it out:

 According to the UN, the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40 percent more than the entire transport sector -- cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships -- combined. Animal agriculture is responsible for 37 percent of anthropogenic methane, which offers twenty-three times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2. Omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gases that vegans do.

What's more:

Not a single turkey you can buy in a supermarket could walk normally, much less jump or fly. Did you know that? They can't even have sex. Not the antibiotic-free, or organic, or free-range, or anything. They all have the same foolish genetics. Every turkey sold in every store is the product of artificial insemination. If it were only for efficiency, that would be one thing, but these animals literally can't reproduce naturally. Tell me what could be sustainable about that?

Technically, TECHNICALLY, eating babies solves the eating animals quandary AND prevents overpopulation. What is sustainable about that? EVERYTHING.

 
 These things being apart from the sadistic slaughtering practices 99% of factory farms partake in, the question of human sentience, and the fact that there will be a day we have to accept that antibiotics will no longer be a tool to prevent human suffering because of what we've been feeding our food. Yet even after all this, it's still not enough. It's still not enough for me to turn down my aunt's chicken bacon mac n' cheese. At least, not right now. Why? WHY AM I A CREATURE OF HABIT? WHY AM I SPINELESS?



Part 2: How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Suppose the universe is in a state with the Planck density r ~ 10⁹⁴ g/cm³. Quantum fluctuations of space-time in this regime are so large that all rulers are rapidly bending and shrinking in an unpredictable way. This happens faster than one could measure distance. All clocks are destroyed faster than one could measure time. All records about the previous events become erased, so one cannot remember anything and predict the future. The universe is incomprehensible for anybody living there, and the laws of mathematics cannot be efficiently used.

 Just food for thought. Mainly because I lack the cognitive capacity to expand in any humorous or sagacious fashion.


Part 3: If there is applause, let it stagnate.

OH SHIT LATER ADDENDUM: Alec Baldwin is a vegetarian? Who has two thumbs and is sold? THIS GIRL. That's all one needs. A good role model.

Part 4:  AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AR AS AW AX AY

That's a blog.



xoxo.