Some Mild Heresy (with light showers in the afternoon)

I have just had an epiphany of sorts. You ready? Judaism is a gnostic faith. Allow me to explain.

Gnosticism is essentially the belief that the universe was created by an imperfect deity, known as the Demiurge, and that a Supreme Being of pure good exists indepently of said Demiurge. The Demiurge is usually thought of to be either malevolent or simply unable to properly execute perfect good. It's easy enough to see the God of the Hebrews as a Demiurge. After all, his track record is far from perfect. In the delightfully amusing language of Richard Dawkins:

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

But this raises the question: if He's the Demiurge, who's the Supreme Being? Who's the Force of pure, omnipotent good that will save us from this world of suffering?

The answer struck me this suddenly afternoon, as I sat in bemused debate with a small troupe of Lubavitchers who were attempting to persuade me to don tefillin. It was so blindingly obvious, that I am astonished I didn't figure it out sooner. The Supreme Being is this guy:


Ha. Bet you didn't think you'd see a photo of him on my blog. Or should that be a capitalised "Him"? After all, according to Lubavitch thought, that man is the Messiah. The one who will lead us into an era of pure good, and perfect/supplant the evil-ridden universe of the Hebrew God.

Sounds like gnosticism to me. What do you think?

Pain and Numberings

Number of Chabad emissaries brutally murdered in Bombay: 2

Number of deaths on the roads of Israel this year*: 244

Number of Israeli Jews who died of lung cancer in 2005**: 1193


"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
- attributed to Joseph Stalin


* Source: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Motorist fatalities 1/1/08 - 31/8/08.
** Source: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. Includes cancers of the trachea and bronchus.

Northrend Musings - All the World's a Toilet

It's not like Blizzard has never made me clean up their shit before (I remember one particular adventure I had in Nagrand). Yet I had hoped, with unwarranted optimism, that I could leave my dung duties behind when I arrived in Northrend.

Alas, twas not to be! No sooner had I stepped off the *boat thingy* than some crazy gnome was having me feed gourmet Sephardi dishes to the local wolf population and search the, uh, products of my labour for missing microfilms.

"That's no problem," I hear you say. "When I go to Northrend, two months after everyone else, I'll just go to Howling Fjord. FIXT!"

So this is where it really gets fun. A gnome in Howling Fjord gave me sticks of dynamite and directed me to throw them under nearby bats to, quite literally, scare the shit out of them. Then, big surprise, I had to collect it. Me, big, hero, saviour-of-the-Alliance me. Once again, picking up droppings.

I'm assuming Blizzard hired heaps of new people to help with the construction of Northrend.

I wonder if they hired someone solely to create feces-based quests.

I wonder where he lives...

My Life According To My Playlist

There's this nifty little game Louise put me on to. You take one of those quizzes that make you explain your entire life in a couple dozen questions, and you fill it in. But, instead of giving accurate answers that make things all-too-easy for faux psychics and identity thieves (you may as well just take off the damn tin-foil hat), you play all the songs you have on 'shuffle' and let Windows Media Player answer for you! Or use iTunes - if you SUCK! Here's mine:

1. If someone says "is this okay?" you say...

California Love (Tupac & Dr. Dre). "It's all good from Diego to the Bay!" I actually answer like this quite often ^^

2. How would you describe yourself?

Puke (Eminem). "You don't know how sick you make me/ you make me fucking sick to my stomach/ every time I think of you I puke"? Words cannot express the emo...

3. What do you like in a guy/girl?

Till I Collapse (Eminem, 50 Cent, 2pac). I like a girl with Stamina. Yes, that capital S is intentional.

4. How do you feel today?

We All Die One Day (G-Unit, Eminem, Obie Trice). Today is a good day for contemplating mortality. It can be quite freeing.

5. What is your life's purpose?

Sing for the Moment (Eminem). "Sing it with me/ just for today/ maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away..." Friends tell me that doesn't count as a proper ambition. I tell them to STFU before I pop a cap in they ass, yo! :P

6. What is your motto?

Eye of the Tiger (Survivor). SEE! I don't JUST listen to hip-hop. Getting a song like this for the motto question is just stupidly easy. I'm not even going to bother.

7. What do your friends think of you?

For Aragorn and Arwen (Enya). They think I'm the saviour of Middle Earth, come to reclaim my kingdom and vanquish evil. Honestly they do.

8. What do you think of your parents?

Little Becky wants to have her school knocked down (Simon Jones). "Is this a demolition company or a joke factory?" - that pretty much sums it up. :P

9.What do you think about very often?

Random Englishman (the "Microphone" function on my Mp3 player). This is a recording of an awesomely wacky dude I once met on the bus home. You know that type that doesn't quite get how you're never supposed to talk to strangers on public transport? I love that type. Reminds me of me. Quotes like "You're almost an English gentleman, the way you carry on. You're one of the nicest blokes I've ever met on the bus" and "Thank you Jew Itzi. What a nice Jew man you are" are not actually things I think about that often; although perhaps if I did my answer to question 2 would be a little more positive. XD

10. What is 2 + 2?

Busted (Matchbox 20). I wonder how many people actually get a relevant answer to this one?

11. What do you think of your best friend?

Give It Up To Me (Sean Paul). Best friends should always put out. This I believe very strongly.

12. What do you think of the person you like?

Hey Jude (The Beatles). "And dont you know that its just you/ Hey Jude, you'll do" - because Jessica Alba is married and has a kid now.

13. What is your life story?

Stoned (Dido). BWAHAHAHAHHAHAA. Isn't it wonderful when the RNG comes up with this stuff?

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Nothing Else Matters (Apocalyptica). When I grow up, I want to achieve a Taoist sense of nihilism. True story.

15. What do you think of when you see the person you like?

When You Are Old and Grey (Tom Lehrer). "Since I still appreciate you, let's find love while we may/ Because I know I'll hate you when you are old and grey." Okay, not HATE... but I might want to keep the light off, you know?

16. What will you dance to at your wedding?

Chemo Limo (Regina Spektor). I think this song is about cancer. I sincerely hope they do not play this at my wedding.

17. What will they play at your funeral?

Wasting Time (Blink 182). I can hear the eulogy now: "We are gathered here today to say goodbye to a man who made nothing of his life." XD

18. What is your hobby/interest?

All Kinds of Time (Fountains of Wayne). "Just like he planned/ The whole world is his tonight." Stupid Fountains of Wayne, blowing my cover. It's a lot harder to achieve world domination when they know you're coming.

19. What is your biggest fear?

Popular (Wicked: The Musical). "Celebrated Heads of State or specially great communicators - did they have brains or knowledge? Don't make me laugh! They were POPULAR!" I wouldn't say this is a fear as such, but this stark truth does irritate me at times. "It's not about aptitude/ It's the way you're viewed/ So it's very shrewd to be/ Very, very popular/ Like me." Heh, I could quote Wicked all day long.

20. What is your biggest secret?

Moon River (Frank Sinatra). "Moon River/ Wider than a mile/ I'm crossing you in style/ Someday." Wow, I can't think of anything funny to say. I'm too busy being seduced by Frank Sinatra. What a voice...

21. What do you think of your friends?

The Great River (Enya). They're all drifters. Get it? Drifters? Like on a raft? Pretty funny, eh? I hate you.

22. Whats a bad habit you have?

What If She's An Angel (Joe Nichols). Occasionally, I make the mistake of not having enough misanthropy. I'm working on it.

23. What do you enjoy of yourself?

No One (Alicia Keys). "No one, no one, no one/ Can get in the way of what I'm feeling." I love the way I can have fun without being worried about making a fool of myself. I feel bad for people who are so terrified of what random strangers might think about them that they won't even sing in public or talk to pretty women. Poor things.

24. What do you think of others?

Michel (Anouk). "You were my first and worst love." That pretty much sums it up. I have this generic love for all people, despite being acutely aware of mankind's tragic failings. Go figure.

25. Boyfriend/Girlfriend?

Take Me Away (Cascada). Europe would be nice...

26. Homework...

Argue (Matchbox Twenty). Classic! Reminds me of a wonderful story from the Talmud - the tale of Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish, Bava Metzia 84a.

Said Rabbi Yochanan, "Whenever I stated an opinion, the son of Lakish used to make twenty-four objections, to which I was compelled to give twenty-four answers; in this way, our understanding of the Law was broadened."

They should give this kind of homework out more often. Kids may actually LEARN something for a change.

Well, that's my quiz done. What a wonderful ride it has been. I encourage you all to go out and complete this quiz yourselves - it's marvelous fun.

Good night, and good luck.

Further Northrend Musings

* Dalaran Fountain Fishing: Jaina Proudmoore is the pin-up girl of kings. Her relationships with Medivh and Uther were supposedly platonic *cough cough*. And her feelings for hunky Thrall - powerful, confident, he-of-the-immaculate-abs Thrall - were supposedly confined to "admiration". But everyone knows about her and Arthas. And according to Kael's coin, he was majorly crushing on the sorceress, too. Honestly, she could have solved all the wars of Azeroth with a little well-placed flirting.

* The Ziggurat Defenders in Borean Tundra make a snazzy Halo tribute. "Noble Hierarchs, surely you understand that once the parasite attacked..." <3

* The quest It Goes to 11... in Howling Fjord was clearly just an attempt by Blizzard to show off their new graphics. I was mildly impressed. Then I did the follow up quest, Let's Go Surfing Now. Wow. Just... wow. You must try it.

* Sharks and dolphins! The way they've done them is INCREDIBLE. The hammerheads of Howling Fjord glide powerfully and elegantly through the surf, mimicking perfectly the movements of real sharks. The melodies murmured by the orcas of Glimmer Bay are chillingly, hauntingly magical...

Get yourself to Outland and swim a little. The greatest rewards often lie just below the surface.

* Once you complete Tools to Get the Job Done for Walt of the Explorers' League, he offers you two new quests: We Can Rebuild It and We Have the Technology. I found that immensely amusing. I would like to pretend I got the reference because of my extensive knowledge of popular culture, but the truth is, they did it on Scrubs.

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Damn, I am loving this "Link" feature. Makes me feel like I'm writing for Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Politics

The really clever people realise that most issues are far too complex to easily form strong and valid opinions on.

The really clever people realise that any input of theirs, through word or deed, would be staggeringly statistically insignificant.

The really clever people would rather spend their limited time, power and cognitive efforts on problems that they can actually solve.


Thus is political governance left to fools.

Northrend Musings

Some random impressions of Northrend before I repose:

* Tuskarr are the sexiest beings known to man. They are heroic and brave and oh-so-cuddly. And they love fishing. <3

* The druids of D.E.H.T.A are unnervingly psychotic. Their struggle to annihilate all who hunt in cruel and unusual ways quickly gets creepy and disturbing. Torture some hunters over here, cut off some ears over there. It's the most chilling thing I've seen in WoW since All That Remains.

* I like how Blizzard has made Nesingwary into a villain for this expansion. Now, I love the little guy. He's pretty much my favourite NPC of all time (Mirren Longbeard and Smiling Jim, you know you still my peeps). But if there's one thing the World of Warcraft portrays spectacularly, it's moral ambiguity. Major props to Blizz for the latest in a long line of feuding factions that make you stop and really think about causes, beliefs, morals, and perspectives. Kudos.

* It's nice to have spirit tap back. I've missed you, old friend.

* Only four levels till Dalaran! Then it's time for me to fish some coins. Salty Dragonyitzi... has a ring to it.

Raise your flippers to the sky!

For those of you who are uninformed and out-of-touch, on account of until recently being held in a PoW camp on a Pacific island by a squadron of Japs who don't know the war's over (it's been over 60 years, fellas; your people are now famed for attaching mops to their shoes), Blizzard Entertainment has just released a new expansion to World of Warcraft.

I went to the midnight launch tonight at EB Games. It was a wonderful, giddying experience; I had ever so much fun mingling with my co-geeks. I got major props for my [T-Shirt of Pure Pwnage], I made fun of blood elves, and together we all bitched about why Blizzard is the worst games company in the world and how every single thing about WoW is unbalanced and stupid.

The single most memorable event of the night occurred while the security guard was explaining to the attentive masses what they should do when their tickets are called. He was speaking pretty softly, which gave me a wonderful opportunity to interject. I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled in a booming voice which carried wonderfully in the silent, empty mall: "EVERYONE! MURLOC NOISES ON THREE! ONE-TWO-THREE! RGGGRLLRRRGRGLRL!"

Not unsurprisingly, no-one else joined in. There was a moment that I will remember forever, when, with the entire WoW community of the Eastern Suburbs watching raptly, I cried the gargley cry of a Murloc. It was one of the moments that seemed to go on forever, those dazzling singularities of time. In reality, it was probably only half a second before the sheer absurdity of it all breached my wall of bravado and I broke down in hysterics.

Everyone joined in.

It. Was. Wonderful.

What would Chuang Tzu do?

After the circus was over, I went to Borders (Cirque de Solei - expensive, fun). I find the atmosphere conducive to reading. At Borders, obviously. It's difficult to read when there are people before you are flying through the air on blue ribbons.

I managed get my paws on an edition of the Chuang Tzu. In it, I read the following:

A man of Sung did business
In silk ceremonial hats.
He traveled with a load of hats
To the wild men of the South.
The wild men had shaved heads,
Tatooed bodies.
What did they want
With silk
Ceremonial hats?

So, with the reckless abandon that is often cultivated when I read the Taoist classics, I went home, typed out those lines into an email, and promptly sent it, with no subject line, to 63 not-quite-randomly-selected contacts on my list. I did exercise some discretion - my workplace will not be receiving any sackable Taoist riddle emails from me, no sir.

The first response has just come through, from my brother, Hecky. It reads "weed much?". I wonder if, among what I'm sure will be many accusations of excessive drug use, I will recieve any truly wonderful responses. Because really, what did the wild men want with all those hats?

This should be interesting.

Let the games begin.

Never Really Asleep

A guy came to fight club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood.

- Edward Norton, Fight Club

His name is Julian. The new gym instructor. He has the friendliness and eagerness to help that typifies tenderfeet everywhere. And he looks like a ripped Mace Windu. We must cherish the little things.

Because he's new, and feels like aiding gym members as much as he possibly can, I got what effectively amounted to a free personal training session this past Tuesday. I love rookies. Especially Caboose.

He formulated an exercise routine for me to follow, but first he asked me what I wanted. Unfortunately he had never watched Buffy, so I couldn't tell him how badly I idolised Spike and wished to emulate him in every way. Except for attempted rape. Attempted rape is a very bad thing. I mean, SERIOUSLY, you're imbued with all the fel energies and raw power that goes with being undead, and you STILL get fended off by a squealing teenager? Your mother and I, we are so ashamed...

Then Julian mentioned how people come to gym and want to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. "Edward Norton," I interjected. "I want to look like Edward Norton from Fight Club."

After much laughter and merriment all round, Julian set me an exercise regimen and told me that, were I to eat properly as well, I could look like Norton in a year.

It was an altogether rather painful enterprise. Very painful. Exercise is supposed to hurt, but I went in today and another trainer (Julian's shift had not yet begun) said I had "severe muscle damage". Told me to do 10 minutes on the rowing machines to keep blood flowing through my arms, and then just work my legs. That's what I mean by "painful enterprise" - "severe muscle damage". But despite the hurt, I pushed through Tuesday's session because I had a goal, because I have a goal. I'm going to be Edward Norton from Fight Club.

Yesterday I went to sleep early. Having had little sleep the night before, I dropped onto my bed around 8:30 and instantly slipped away. I woke in the middle of the night because I was cold. It would seem my blanket had slipped off. I blearily opened my eyes and the dining room windows swam into view. My first thought was "this isn't my bedroom". My second thought was not an original. The voice of Edward Norton echoed through my mind, and I heard him:

If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?

The entire circumstance is especially mystifying when one takes into account that I have never, in my entire life, ended up somewhere without knowing how I'd gotten there. Well, I'm guessing I didn't quite understand the Great Miracle of Childbirth when I was a newborn, but you get my drift. I've never even been drunk, for the love of Christ.

There's only one plausible explanation of how I got to the loungeroom couch: in my sleep I must be doing things I can't remember when I wake, operating under a completely different persona.

And Julian thought it'd take me a year! Ha!

Get Stoned, Lose Your Virginity. Or Vice Versa.

The Bible really is quite a charming book. It's truly astounding what you'll find if you just take the time to sit there and read it for a while.

This week's Torah portion is Ki Teitzei. I started reading from the beginning, and it didn't take me long at all to find the good bits. The following is from my Artscroll Chumash. Yes, I have an Artscroll Chumash. Sue me.

If a man marries a wife, and comes to her and hates her, and he makes a wanton accusation against her, spreading a bad name against her, and he said, "I married this woman, and I came near to her and I did not find signs of virginity on her." Then the father of the girl and her mother should take and bring proofs of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city, to the gate. The father of the girl should say to the elders, "I gave my daughter to this man as a wife, and he hated her. Now, behold! he made a wanton accusation against her, saying, 'I did not find signs of virginity on your daughter' - but these are the signs of virginity of my daughter!" And they should spread out the sheet before the elders of the city.

The elders of the city shall take that man and punish him. And they shall fine him one hundred silver [shekels] and give them to the father of the girl, for he had issued a slander against a virgin of Israel, and she shall remain with him as a wife; he cannot divorce her all his days.

But if this matter was true - signs of virginity were not found on the girl - then they shall take the girl to the entrance of her father's house and the people of her city shall pelt her with stones and she shall die, for she had commited an outrage in Israel, to commit adultery in her father's house, and you shall remove the evil from your midst. (Deut 22:13 - 21)

TL;DR version: If a girl gets married, has sex, and doesn't bleed, her husband can get her executed just for the lulz.

A girl sometimes bleeds during sex due to her hymen breaking. The understanding in Biblical times was that the first time a girl has sex, her hymen will break, and she will bleed. If there's no blood, it's not her first time. Simple.

The problem is that many a woman does not bleed the first time she has sex, due to her hymen already being broken or, less frequently, due to her hymen simply stretching, rather than breaking, during sex. A study by Monica Christiansson and Carola Eriksson of Sweden in 2005 stated that "fewer than 30% of women who have gone through puberty and have consensual intercourse bleed the first time" (thank you, Wikipedia).

To recap: every single woman whose hymen breaks before marriage can be effectively murdered by her husband based on false accusations of immorality.

Ask me again why I'm not religious.

Sex, Lies, and Newspaper Clippings

I will often cut out and Blu Tack to my bedroom wall especially poignant or witty sentences or paragraphs that I encounter in newspapers. I've been reading the past few days' worth of Sydney Morning Heralds, and have decided to add three clippings to my wall today, which is quite a good haul.

The first is from an article about the legal difficulties facing transsexuals in Australia today (I couldn't be making this up if I tried). The article covers a full page, but the excerpt that I am keeping reads:


In Australia few couples are willing to go public. But theirs are great love stories, nonetheless. Bobbi and Susan, married for 13 years, and parents to a five-year-old, have drawn closer in the five years since Bobbi confessed her feelings. In November she had the operation.

"It took me 37 years to admit to myself who I was," Bobbi says. "Susan's first words to me were, 'The marriage is over.' I got the divorce papers; I was prepared to give her the house and everything in it. She hated what I was doing, she was losing a husband."

They never did divorce, and Bobbi had an operation in November. "When you have a true soulmate, nothing is too much trouble," Bobbi says. "Love can be boundless."


In an article all about the grown-up issues of marriage, sexuality and the law, that short tale, strange and unexpected as it was, really hit me with its youthful Disneyesque message - its testament to the power of love. Cue the Celine Dion.

The second article I read was about Sarah Palin, John McCain's new running mate (whom, I must note, merits her own post. Stop bugging me, Sarah, I'll write it when I'm good and ready). This piece was about Palin's support for abstinence-until-marriage sex education programs, and the impact these programs have had on America.

The closing paragraph, which quite appalled me, went thusly:


Abstinence programs, which cost $US176 million in 2007, have been controversial since a congressional committee report found teens were being wrongly taught that HIV can spread via sweat and tears, and that condoms failed to stop transmission of HIV up to 31 per cent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.


The cost doesn't really bother me; newspapers love to give the seemingly high costs of various government programs to provoke outrage amongst their readers, while not providing the proper context of how expensive goverment projects really are, and how much money governments really have to play around with.

But while I really should not have batted an eyelid at the misinformation spread to lend credence to the pro-abstinence educators' policies, I have never quite been able to rid myself of the tendency to be irritated every time I encounter a new instance of fudged figures. Although I see the value, and even the necessity, in figures of authority blatantly lying to the people to achieve their goals, it has never sat quite right with me.

And finally, to take us out on a lighter note; the third quotation, also from the abstinence article:


...studies had found the programs to be ineffective in changing sexual behaviour.

"The states have realised this is not a public health approach and 25 states have withdrawn. Sarah Palin's own state, Alaska, has pulled out..."


It's really important, in this world of thorny issues and weighty problems, to take the time out to enjoy some nice, wholesome sexual innuendo. Adios, and have a most wonderful day.

The Spirit of Competition

As I sit here the Olympic flame is about to be extinguished. Beijing 2008 draws to a close. It's a strange feeling; a wraithlike, bittersweet, nostalgia. It feels as if I'm mourning for someone I barely knew. The music has been exceedingly well chosen.

-------------------------------------------

It is gone. The ashes of the torch lie dormant, settling in for another four years of solemn repose.

These Olympics have been significant for me. Neither Sydney nor Athens really interested me. But my outlook on sports, on athleticism itself, have changed dramatically.

No longer is physical prowess the pursuit of uneducated proletarians. No longer is human fitness and strength irrelevant, despite paling - as I oft reminded myself in my younger days - besides that of much of the animal kindgdom.

I am an athlete myself now, a martial artist. Kung fu has slowly stirred in me a respect and deference to those with speed, power, endurance and agility. The grapes are no longer sour, I have recognised them for their sweetness. And I long for them.

In four years' time, the Olympics will come to London. I will have six and a half years of martial arts experience when they arrive. I get the very strong impression that my appreciation for Beijing will be dwarfed by what I see, what I savour, in London.

Goodbye, China. Your Games were truly impressive. Your ceremonies were spectacular. I have seen in your Olympics what your kung fu has wrought. It has stirred a part of me that slept within for seventeen years. Deep within me, with a rippling, surging energy . . .

The dragon awakens.

Does my new niece look evil to you?

She looks evil to me. Here, take a look:

There are those who aren't that good at spotting evil. They'll look at pictures like that and go "awww, she's so cute." BAD REACTION. Don't let her youth and colourful blanket lull you into a false sense of security - just 'cause she has no teeth, don't mean she can't bite.

Some people are so steeped in their ways that they refuse to see truth; others merely don't have enough information to come to the correct conclusions. For those of you in the latter group, I present a comparison:

The fellow on the right is Kim Jong-Il, dictator of North Korea. Notice the similarities. Is that enough proof for you??

If you're still not convinced, you're probably one of those morons who have no idea how to tell if someone's evil or not just by looking at a photo of them. So as a public service, I put together a demotivator, warning you all of the dangers of underestimating this grave new threat:

And that's all we have time for. NEXT WEEK: Mother Theresa

Nobel Peace Prize? Beatification??? ARE YOU FRIGGIN KIDDING ME????

The Swimmer and the Stork

This post was going to be about my new celebrity crush, Stephanie Rice. Ah Stephanie, what a honey! Have you noticed how stunning she looks at the Olympics? Winning Australia's first gold medal doesn't hurt, either. And I'm pretty sure that look is au naturale - I doubt you can wear much make-up to a race. Unless it's waterproof. But still, wouldn't it adversely affect your aerodynamics? This would be a fun line of enquiry, but I'm getting sidetracked.

This post is not about my new celebrity crush, Stephanie Rice. I decided to change the subject an hour ago, when I heard that my sister had given birth. I figured that should rate a mention. Sorry, Steph!

This is her first child. My sister's, not Stephanie's, can we please stay on topic? So now I'm a nuncle. I'm so happy. I've been waiting to be a nuncle ever since I heard Rechama was pregnant. I look forward to being greeted with hearty cries of "how now, nuncle!", though I doubt it'll happen that often.

Oh, do me a favour. Next time you see me, hail me with "how now, nuncle!" It'll make me very happy.

Shmuel Raigorodsky, my brother in law, called in with the news. Rechama was too exhausted too speak to anyone. The baby is apparently a girl, which came as quite a surprise. My mother's side of the family are Sephardim, and they often have dreams predicting the genders of unborn family members. This latest addition was billed by my grandfather to be a boy. Thus we are left on the horns of a dilemma - a new avatar of good old Science vs Religion.

I left a comment on the Raigorodsky family blog, under the post "ITS A GIRL!!!!!!!"[sic]. I've translated the foreign bits:


No, it's not a girl. We haven't seen the baby or spoken to Rechama yet. All we have to go on is that the doctor SAID it's a girl.

My psychic Sephardi relatives said it was going to be a boy, and I have more emunah [faith] in their ruach ha'kodesh [prophetic abilities] than in what some goyishe [gentile] doctor says. So it's a boy.

If you disagree, you're a frei yok [person of questionable religious devotion].


So whom does one believe in these situations? The men of God, or the men of science?

AMAC & WMM. JFGI.

I competed in Round 4 of the Australian Martial Arts Championships last Sunday. It went slightly better than Round 3. I got beaten in my first bout of the day again, but this time it wasn't quite as embarassing. I lost 4-1 to a karateka, who went on to win his next two fights 8-2 and 6-0, and take out the gold. Frustratingly enough, the two who lost to him by larger margins than I did ranked second and third, while I was eliminated off that one fight, purely because of an unfavourable draw.

In other, less sucky news, I came first in the soft forms. Woot!

This week, I downloaded, and taught myself how to use, Windows Movie Maker. The following is my first ever video, so leave nice comments, or it'll hurt my feelings. You have been warned.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=35963899472

Prices and Values

Have you been following the markets? Gold is down, oil is down. Gilad Shalit is up.

Hamas has apparently raised the exchange price of the captured Israeli soldier after Hezbollah's lucrative prisoner exchange last week. Israel released five living Arab prisoners and the bodies of 199 more, in return for the remains of two Israeli soldiers.

The story of one of the five prisoners Israel released is particularly gruesome. In 1979, in a raid on an Israeli town, Samir Kantar shot dead an Israeli man in front of his four-year-old daughter, then bashed the girl's head in with the butt of his rifle. Upon hearing about his grotesque deeds, I instantly recalled the words of psalm 137: By the Rivers of Babylon.

It is a psalm included in the Jewish Grace after Meals, and well known for verses 5 and 6 ("If I forget thee, O Jerusalem . . .").

But the final two verses are the ones that really get to me, the ones that instantly sprang to mind when I heard of Kantar's murders:

O Babylon, who are destined to be laid waste, happy is he who will repay you in retribution for what you have inflicted on us. Happy is he who will seize and crush your infants against the rock!
Psalm 137:8-9

There is nothing funny to say. No punchline. Just sick revulsion at a horrible crime; a revulsion compounded by the fact that so many of my friends and families, believing Jews, chant these exact words in high spirits, words sanctioning and blessing crimes like Kantar's.

Prove Me Wrong

I have always taken it for granted that religion avoids making falsifiable claims. A falsifiable claim is one which, if it is wrong, can be proven wrong. For instance, if I say there are invisible pink unicorns gallivanting around my bedroom, that would be an unfalifiable claim. There is no way to prove me wrong.

Contrast that with a claim that, say, blue whales are the largest living creatures on Earth. All you have to do to prove me wrong is show me a bigger animal. (Interestingly, there are bigger organisms out there. There's a single fungus in Oregon, for example, that is 3.5 miles across. Is it not wonderful, children?)

In the great Science vs Religion kumite, science makes plenty of falsifiable claims. To quote Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist with a brilliant mind and the smile of a psychopathic pedophile: "If there were a single hippo or rabbit in the Precambrian, that would completely blow evolution out of the water. None have ever been found."

I've always thought that religion shied away from making really falsifiable claims for the most part, preferring instead to stick to vague statements about the nature of the Universe and Man. I have had a quick glance at documentary hypothesis in the past, and do intend to delve into it deeper in the future, but assertions like "the Bible seems to be written by four authors with distinct writing styles" are hardly knockouts.

"Letter to my Rabbi" by Naftali Zeligman has really opened my eyes to a new line of inquiry. In it, he addresses and discusses Biblical and Talmudic statements with falsifiability, like "the four animals listed in the Torah as each having a single sign of purity . . . are the only animals in the world with only one sign of purity"[Chulin 59a] and "All countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn, for the famine was sore in all lands." [Genesis 41:57].

He does a thoroughly sterling job, and I highly recommend reading his piece: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/letter1.cfm

Never Degreenify Me!

Today was one of the most wonderful days of my life. Really. And surprisingly, it didn't involve martial arts, or stealth bombers, or Ellen Page.

It involved a musical called Wicked. Shana first introduced me to Wicked by giving me some of the songs to listen to. And what songs they are! Full of wit and colour, poignancy and splendiferousness. They soon became part of our routine (we sing a lot), and today we finally got to see it live in concert at Melbourne's Regent Theatre.

The thrill of it all was magical. I was admonished by someone several seats up for singing along. Which I continued to do, albeit somewhat quieter than before. I bought an overpriced Wicked t-shirt for the residual joy I will feel every time I see it. I was jumping up and down before and after. Long after.

From the moment we stepped out of the theatre, we were singing. We sang through the streets of Melbourne city. We sang on the bus to the airport, waiting for the plane, on the plane, getting off the plane, bussing home.

The bus to the airport was particularly fun. Some people in front of us had just been to the same performance, and were greatly impressed by my ability to remember the words so well as I chanted verse after verse from the showtunes. They were impressed for all of five seconds, until Shana told them that we were, in fact, already quite familiar with the Wicked tunes, thus ruining my chance of pretending to some random South Australians that I was a musical prodigy who could properly remember and sing songs after hearing them once. A musical Simmons, if you will. Ah well.

I highly recommend the songs a listen, and if you ever get a chance to see it live, take it. Otherwise, you're a dunderhead. For all you lazy people, here are Youtube links. Listen to these two songs, then tell me they're not fantabulous. I dare you.

Popular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uzhw3hmRoc
I'm Not That Girl: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ePSQtDGkFnk

I guess the most apt summary for this somewhat rambling review would be a line from the show itself:

I couldn't be happier.

Young Love

When I first saw her I knew I had to make her mine. Her skin seemed to sparkle, seemed to glow. I gazed in awe at her delicate frame, her gorgeous features. Whenever we're together, my heart beats fast, and I feel my insides aflame. When we move, it is the laughter of the gods, and a thousand thousand cherubim singeth verses of praise all around us. Time loses all meaning. I move slow as a paper lantern on a calm lake, yet faster than the cloud-borne dragons. The entire world vanishes, and for a moment there is only she and I, and that moment is pure bliss.

But this merriment, this mirth, it comes at quite a hefty price. I payed most heavily for the privilege of being with her. Yet, I am confident that the purchase was a shrewd one, for I expect that we shall be together for a very long time. At least a year and a half - two years, I'm told. And I guess, like with most anything else, if you want a good quality bike, you gotta put the money down.

I bought her today, from my local bike shop, and named her Epona. I have learnt to ride on whatever third-rate bikes I could find around the house (think very old, very crappy, very stolen), so the handling alone was like eating ice cream. She seems to respond to my thoughts themselves, not unlike a Firebolt.

Anyway, that's enough about my bike. It is always insufferable to hear a young buck in love ramble on about the object of his desire.

Quick shout-out to my man Seagen, who can play Samus better than my Link, and Link better than my Samus. The man's got skillz.

And we're just about done. Before we go: did you notice how I didn't use the phrase "ride her" in the opening paragraphs? See, I do have class.

My 20th Birthday? That's a rap.

I had my birthday party tonight. I'm 20 now. No more teenage years for me, no sir.

The party was pretty frikkin' great. We all chilled at my grandparents' pad: it is a bitchin' joint. And yes, Huda, pad is a real word.

And the freestyling!

Seemingly out of the blue, Simmons suggested that I have a rap battle with Alex, and we both agreed. On the coin toss, he hit his tails, and chose to go first.

Now, my man Gillespie is pro at freestyling. He practices at home a lot. I did not know this when I agreed to duel him. I quickly found out.

Alex spat an astonishingly fluid piece. He just kept a flow going through line after line. I was in awe by the end of it, but no way was I gonna fold. I pulled myself together and scrapped together some couplets. They didn't run like Gillespie's - not even close - and my verse was much shorter than his. Ultimately though, I pulled through, and slammed him on the fact that he's Colombian and has rich parents who buy him nice clothes ^_^

I went toe to toe with Simmons straight after, and he put together some damn nice lines that hit right on the mark. I managed to stay on top though, with both the crowd and Gillespie (adjudicating) calling the battle for me. It's a good thing his hatred for short people is so legendary.

So, I now have an amateur freestyling record of 2-0. If only I'd fought like this at AMAC . . .

Homework Assignment

"This week each one of you has a homework assignment.

You're gonna go out, you're gonna start a fight with a total stranger.

You're gonna start a fight, and you're gonna lose."

- Tyler Durden, Fight Club

I watched Fight Club last Saturday night. I fought in a martial arts tournament on Sunday. It was not a winning combination. I lost my first fight, and was eliminated from the tournament. It wasn't a close fight. I was demolished. I was steamrolled by a fighter I know I can beat; I lost without scoring a single point. To put it simply, I failed. Epically.

Since the tournament, Sifu has been insisting on a return to basics. I've started doing san ti again, a meditative standing posture. And I've realised something quite important. My goals, my dreams of martial arts greatness, have slowly been slipping away from me since I started full-time work 5 months ago. It's not so much my physical fitness and strength that concerns me; they're sub-par, but not too difficult to correct.

Rather, a spirit of despair seems to have overtaken me. Doubt. I have not been as confident in my path, my future. I have begun to question all too frequently whether I really have it in me. I realised all this during the meditation of san ti.

However, I've also begun to feel something during san ti, something I haven't properly felt in a while. It's a raw, surging power; this vast energy that seems to fill my body and set my skin on fire. And while I feel this surge, my confidence returns. I can feel in my arms the seeds of great power, the power to defeat all my opponents, claim the titles, and take my place alongside the all-time greats of martial arts.

Or it could be muscle burn. Whatever.

Hello to my readers! Both of them!

It occurs to me that I haven't blogged in a while. And I fall into the trap of feeling some kind of obligation to write a new entry. So much for writing for my own enjoyment. Now it's like AaronJ and Simmons are paying customers.

Btw - Simmons, AaronJ - race to get first comment. The winner gets to have no life. Go!

Current bloggable events include my birthday on the 21st of June and and a martial arts tournament on the 29th. I will blog about neither. Instead, I will recount a couple of amusing anectodes.

At the recent wedding of my cousin Robert, I was asked to be a witness for the signing of the marriage certificate. I replied, "heeell, yeah", but no-one got the Dr. Dre reference. A pity.

Just this afternoon I was in Borders with Huda. He asked me if I had any money, so I took out my wallet and asked an attendant if they accept cards.

"What kind of cards?"
"Keycard?"
"Yep."
"Visa?"
"Yep."
"Go up a level?"
"Nope."

And yes, I did have a 'go up a level card' on me. Munchkin ftw!

That's all for now. I'm gonna watch some Buffy and go to sleep. And before either of you complain about the lacklustre blogging, remember that AaronJ hasn't bolged since the 22nd of May, and Simmons: you don't even have a blog. GTFO, go punch someone short.

A Question of Vanity

Today it pushed its way to the front of my mind again; that old acquaintance, the question of Vanity.



I went into a hair-loss clinic to have myself checked up, and, irritatingly enough, I am going prematurely bald. I don't look like a mange-ridden tauren just yet, but give old Male-Pattern Baldness a few years and he can do great and terrible things.



The treatment is ridicuously expensive. Something in the order of $4000 for the initial 8-month course and $2000 per year for maintenance thereafter. And so, the Vanity Question shows up.



Is it worth it?



More generally stated: How important are looks? Does substance trump style by merit of its authenticity? Or does the tedency of perception to shape the world around us ultimately bear witness to a state of things in which a solid bluff really is just as good as pocket aces?



I have 2-4 years before the damage starts to become irreversible. If you could figure this one out and get back to me before then, that would be great.

The Joys of Ambush Philosophy

I love ambushing people with philosophy. Why, just tonight I noticed that someone had a personal message on MSN that read, "a wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left".

Like a crocodile hunting gazelles at a Serengeti waterhole, I drifted slowly, almost aimlessly towards my prey . . . then struck!

Yitzi says:
i disagree
Yitzi says:
that's not a wise girl, that's an overly cynical girl
Unsuspecting Victim says:
do you have any experience?
Yitzi says:
one whose joie de vivre is all but sapped
Yitzi says:
in which field?
Unsuspecting Victim says:
in the field of the mentality of women?
Yitzi says:
ohhh
Yitzi says:
my expertise is not so much in female psychology; i'm more talking from the epistemological side of things
Unsuspecting Victim says:
i'm sure..
Yitzi says:
lol
Yitzi says:
i mean to say, a girl who does those things protects herself from getting hurt
Unsuspecting Victim says:
sigh
Unsuspecting Victim says:
why are you still talking about it?
Unsuspecting Victim says:
you're only discussing it with yourself.. i didn't put it up there so that people can discuss it with me..
Yitzi says:
but she also prevents herself from feeling some of the greatest joys of life. the thrill of intimacy, the mellow pleasure of loyalty
Unsuspecting Victim says:
that's your oppinion, you're entitled to it, but you don't have to share it with me..
Unsuspecting Victim says:
i didn't put it up so that people would comment it
Unsuspecting Victim says:
i put it up because it's wise
Yitzi says:
"One seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another someone to whom he can be a midwife: thus originates a good conversation." - Nietzsche
Yitzi says:
i often have arguments with myself; typing my thoughts to others allows me to clarify them
Yitzi says:
how is avoiding the greatest highs of life in order to escape the risk of pain in any way wise?
Unsuspecting Victim says:
for fucks sake
Unsuspecting Victim says:
write your thoughts down
Yitzi says:
i am
Unsuspecting Victim says:
it's kind of annoying having them pop up, when i'm trying to do assignments
Unsuspecting Victim says:
well write them on paper or to someone else
Unsuspecting Victim says:
fine! i'll put them on my blog!
Yitzi says:
so there!


And I did.

The Fate of Angels

Behold! A mildy heretical argument for the injustice of God.

Compare, if you will, the actions and wages of two prominent angels in Jewish myth: Gabriel and Satan. Both are servants of God. Both do exactly as He commands, to the letter. Yet at the end of days, Satan gets slaughtered (Mesekhta Sukkah 52a), while Gabriel, one assumes, continues to bask in the radiance of the Lord. Which sounds quite fun. Kinda like The Eternal Solarium. I wonder if you can catch cancer from the radiance of the Lord. . .

The challenge here, for the believers, is to justify the vast difference in treatment between two equally devoted servants of God. Non-believers, all you gotta do is try not to swallow your little novelty umbrellas as you sip your pre-ordered victory highballs.

A short note on the acquisition of 1337 skillz

I learnt how to ride a bike this week. And not just any bike. One with two wheels. I felt that I'd like to move past tricycles before I turned 20, and time was rapidly running out.

Riding a bike is pretty fun. I felt like I was six again. I often feel like I'm six. Apparently, it's noticable to observers too.

It was a big step for me, and I'm happy my dad played a part. He came out of the house to scream at me for riding too close to parked cars. He later claimed that a more appropriate verb would be 'advised', but I think it's a trick.

Big props to my friendly neighbourhood Gavriel for helping me out. The guy knows more about bikes than Chuck Norris. And to qualify an ambiguous sentence, I mean that Gavriel knows more about bikes than he knows about Chuck Norris. No-one knows more than Chuck Norris about anything. Ever.

Sleeplessness

I have had trouble sleeping of late. Truth is, I've never been a good sleeper. Unless I am brutally exhausted, I usually lie awake for ages before I drift off. This gives me an inordinate amount of time to think.

Thinking, it must be said, is a double-edged sword. When things are up-up-up, you can lie there for hours with a grin on your face, running through wonderful events in your head, and planning in infinitesimal detail glorious plans for the future. Those are the good nights.

The bad nights are somewhat curious. It's not so much depression that gets to me, as restlessness, boredom, and a vague sense of disappointment.

Tonight, in my mulling, I discovered all at once the source of all my troubles, the core problem from whence all my irritating cognitions stem.

You ready for this? I wonder if I should charge. The reason for all my unhappiness, very possibly all your unhappiness, is quite valuable. How do four installments of $49.95 sound? Really? How about if I threw in some steak knives? Where the sun don't shine, you say? Dear gods, that would be painful. Alright, alright, I'll tell you.

Impatience. Cool, huh? That's it. The frustration that I feel at not being exactly where I want to be subsides as soon as I realise that someday I will be there. I'm but a youngster. There is so much in front of me. Someday I will have that talent, I will have that fame, and I won't feel so lonely. So the only reason I have to feel bad is that I don't have all that stuff today.

And really, a little impatience is nothing to lose sleep over.

Is impatience the source of all your worries?

Soulja Boy - a defense

Soulja Boy - no other hip hop artist in recent times has so strongly polarised opinion. On the one hand, you have the 16 year old girls, who like the dance. On the other, the rest of the world's population, who have little patience for another talentless shmuck with a repetitive chorus who makes far more money than they do.

First off, I give him mad props for putting the dance tutorial up on Youtube. Sure anyone could have done it, but he's the one who did. In the same vein, any eccentric Italian with fetishes for electricity and dead frogs could have discovered bioelectricity, but Galvani was the one who went out there and did it, so he gets a battery named after him. Do you have a battery named after you? No? Good. So shut up.

I have zero respect for him as a linguist; he certainly can't compete with the lyrical genius of most rappers, East and West. But his music is FUN, and I don't require ALL of my pursuits to be intellectually stimulating.

Only most.

Sex n Scrabble, anyone?

An Introduction

Testing . . . testing . . . is this tha intarwebs?

This is my second attempt at blogging. My first atrophied from lack of readership. This time, I'll write because I enjoy writing. I also enjoy reading what I wrote. I tend to get the in-jokes.

So this time I won't quit, even if my only reader is AaronJ. Big shout out for my #1 creric!

I have grandiose plans for posts involving philosophy, history, comedy and why everyone I raid with is a ninja asshole.

But I shall begin, more ignomiously, with a defense of Soulja Boy.