Fun Experiment: Take an Atheist. Get Him High. Place Atheist Inside Church.

Wow, I thought, bracing myself against the freezing cold wind as I exited the car, I'm really doing this. I'm going to church. Church. I walked in to the same Catholic church that I attended (on a very infrequent basis) as a youth (but never before with the ol mj in the system) and as I passed from the hall to the main part of the church itself, skipping the 'holy' water anointing station and hoping I didn't look like an extra on the set of Half Baked I entered what felt like an entirely new dimension- a sense of deja-vu mixed with a rather strong feeling of I don't belong here and they will know it immediately. I mean, for one thing, the place was packed and so trying my hardest to not feel completely out of place standing in front of what looked like 200 people, all of whom I was certain were all thinking the same thing (*hiss* an interloper *hiss*).

....And then there's the fact that I was stoned. Not exactly the most comfortable place to be when you're high but man did it amplify the experience. I'll get to that in a bit though. My cohorts and I took a seat. I hadn't sat in one of those seats for years, and it was a church of all places, but I did experience a small sense of a faint whiff of welcoming. My ass recoiled and sighed with familiarity at the same time, but I digress.

We were a few minutes early so I took the time to look around and take in the scene. Like most catholic churches, the place is a strange mix of welcoming and foreboding. The architectural design is aesthetically pleasing and it's clear that the workmanship was solid and finely detailed, but I cannot deny the fact that it did strike me as also being intentionally designed in such a grandiose fashion that it ventured beyond "look how grand this is" to perhaps a small (and possibly imagined on my part, sure) hint of "and look how small you are." It could be simple cynicism on my part, but as you will soon read, the mass itself also seemed to be designed with the intention of engendering in those in attendance a sense of less than. There certainly was a lot of prostrating oneself involved in the actual mass itself.

HILARIOUS!!!! Bill Burr promotes Shari's Berries

The World Would Be a Better Place If We All Studied Psychology

I'll (briefly, for both your sake and mine) present my case and you then tell me if I'm deluded or onto something here (it can't be anything else; I like my thinking black and white, like a coffee made by a supernatural barista):

Psychology as an academic discipline deals with many things. A few of those things are pertinent to this discussion, the first of which is introspection, the art of internal investigation. A process through which we examine our own minds and come to learn about and then manage, if we so choose, our reactions, emotions, thought processes, and even, ideally, our biases and our pride. Our ego. I could spend hours talking about how terrible a role the ego plays in this world on a daily basis, but I digress so let's move on.

Psychology deals with interpersonal relations. How we deal with others and why we do so. How we relate to them- and they to us.

So basically you study psych and you learn about us, humans, and yourself, both as standalone entities and in relation to others. Well, it seems like a good time to ask what it is in life exactly that these things are made relevant by? Hmmm....emotions, biases, thought processes, pride, relations with others....oh ya, how about damn near everything? Relationships with family and friends, dealing with people at school. People at work. Dealing with loss, success, competition, grief. How we handle and react to day to day life. How we assess the, as we see them, motives and desires of others? Hell, how about diplomacy?! And I don't mean as a mediator in a divorce. I mean foreign f'n policy!

All of the above is heavily related to the psychology of humans and their understanding of both themselves and one another. Yet almost none of us receive education in the field of study that deals with this- psychology. I only got the opportunity to do so in university. Now imagine if everyone on Earth that received a primary education studied psychology as part of their curriculum? Ah.....better relations, better understanding of ourselves and one another.....better everything. A better world.

Call me crazy but I really am concluding that I think if we studied psychology throughout our formative years we would be more adjusted and in control of our emotions, our thoughts....our minds. Ourselves. And if this were the case, then it would naturally follow that things made up of people, like say corporations, or even *gasp* governments, might function at a higher level than they do now, with a net effect of more positivity in this world, and consequently, less of the opposite.

On The Contrary - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Throughout my life, I have been a gaming connoisseur of every genre and platform. I've loved countless games and franchises, and hated countless more. A fact that I find rather amusing is that, more often than not, my preferences and favorites in the gaming industry are very different than most other people. I thought Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure was a rather great game, I've never liked the Final Fantasy series, I am the biggest fan of Mirror's Edge, and I think Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a piece of garbage. Those are just a few of the things that set me apart from the general consensus

But one recent series has raised my ire for far too long, a current-gen game long heralded as the best on its console and even one of the best video games ever. I would be remiss to allow my viewpoint, no matter how objectionable it may be to others, to go unspoken. There are many people who attest to the quality of this game, and yet I find myself with an opinion contrary to the overwhelming majority, as I usually do. To put it simply...

I fucking hate Uncharted 2. I hate it so fucking much. The first Uncharted game is just run-of-the-fucking-mill, yet the sequel is the same shit but it gets accolades up the ass! Fuck this game!!!

Ok ok, I promised myself I would dispense with my usual vulgarity, and attempt to discuss this somewhat
sensitive topic in an intellectual manner.

Honestly....How Can Anyone TRULY Believe in a Soul?

There are 2 obvious things that basically discredit the idea of a soul (and, by extension, an afterlife), and I do not see how thinking people can say they honestly believe in a soul.

1) Eyes. If souls can look down on us from heaven. that means they can see. So why do we have eyes? Isn't that rather redundant? And why is it that blind people are blind? They should still be able to see, even if their eyes do not function, since our souls can see. The existence of eyes and damage to the eyes resulting in blindness or at least some degree of vision impairment is said by most people to be because the eyes are quite simply the only mechanism through which we humans can take in visual stimuli which our brains can then process. Pit that against the idea that there is a soul and things like vision and consciousness (see the next point) are received by the brain rather than generated by it and apply Occam's Razor. I think it is pretty clear which of the two ideas is wishful thinking/nonsense.

2) The brain. Our souls are supposed to be us. Who we are. Our personality, our identity.......yet, changes in brain function alter our personality. It can change "who we are." Brain damage can make someone forever unrecognisable to even their families. How could this be? Some people, in response to this query, will posit the "transistor radio" hypothesis of consciousness, which, for those who do not know, is the idea that the brain acts as a receiver of consciousness rather than the catalyst for it. So according to this conception of consciousness, brain damage would alter behaviour not because the structures and electrochemical activity of the brain is responsible for said behaviour but rather due to the fact that the brain acts as a receiver for consciousness signals, and if a radio is damages the signal reception will be altered.

The problem with this idea, other than the fact that it is clearly just a way to rationalize away the evidence that runs contrary to the idea of a soul is that it doesn't explain things like dissociative identity disorder.

Fuck Winter

Vegetables Killed James Gandolfini

On June 19th, 2013 Tony Soprano James Gandolfini died suddenly while on Vacation in Rome, Italy. The 51 year old actor and notoriously heavy breather had dined on a (presumably) gigantic meal earlier in the evening before retiring to his room for the night eternity. The autopsy confirmed the suspicions of basically everyone either involved in the story or aware of it; the actor/heavy breather had died of a heart attack. This conclusion has not been challenged by anyone and it has therefore never been investigated further. One could assume that this is due to the fact that there were no pieces of evidence at the scene to suggest an alternative cause of death. There were no signs of forced entry or reported disturbances (like arguing or fighting) emanating from his room that night, although four people on various floors both above and below him did call the concierge to report the sounds of laboured breathing coming from a room somewhere in the hotel (they knew which room it was but they also knew who was in there and knew better than to name names. Nobody rats on T. Nobody). The toxicology report came back negative. There was no blood, no wounds (defensive or otherwise). Open and shut case, right?

Eh, maybe.....or maybe not.

See, I have come across some rather disturbing evidence that his death, while it was in fact a heart attack, was actually the result of an absolute unwillingness, on his part, to eat vegetables, and this cause was actually known to the coroner and others involved in caring for Mr. Gandolfini but the truth of the matter has been suppressed by pasta and meatballs industry. Lobbyists from the industry descended upon Rome immediately upon the news of his death going public; the goal of this was of course to put pressure on those involved in the investigation to ensure that no mention of pasta, meatballs or vegetables (the presence of the former and regarding the latter, a lack thereof) was made in either any official reports or any press conferences or interviews.

I cannot reveal how I cam across this disturbing information but suffice it to say the fact that vegetables tasted less like pasta and meatballs and more like, well, vegetables, was the cause of death and this fact was forcibly kept from the public due to the presence of and pressure by the pasta and meatballs lobby.

Those bastards.