Chads are everywhere. My brother first introduced me to this idea after hanging around with some frat guys, then noticed some patterns. According to him, every fraternity has a guy named Chad. Chad has many roles, from being the drunk party guy, the asshole jock, or just that cool dude you go to bars with.

I noticed it as well. First, the idea that guys with names like “Chad” might want to join fraternities just made sense for some reason. Second, I found that the number of Chads I knew was mostly proportionate to the amount of fraternities I had acquaintances for. On occasion, a house would have more than one Chad, which threw off the numbers a bit.

To this day, every single person I’ve asked has confirmed that yes, Chad was in their frat.

Today, I decided to reverse the question to see if I’d get the same results. I work with a Chad and ran into him while he was outside having a cigarette. I interrupted his conversation with his boss to ask “Will you help me confirm a theory?” I then asked if he was ever in a fraternity and y’know what he said?

You guessed it.

Another guy who works there started shooting the bull with Chad about their frat experiences. So I turned to him and asked,”was there a Chad in your frat too?” Sure enough, he had one. I swear, you could go into any frat house in the United States and say,”hey, is Chad here?” and you’d get a response like,”Oh yeah, Chad’s upstairs.”

Why? Because every frat has a Chad.

Friday

Finished Catcher in the Rye.  Not my favorite book ever, but a fun read.

Remember that thing I said a few weeks ago about the shithead attitude that SUV drivers generally have in common?  NPR confirms it:

Poelstra says back in the good old days when gas cost $2.50 a gallon — last year — he was spending $100 a month to fill up his pickup, just to travel to places like the grocery store. The cost of electricity for the Xebra is $10-$12 a month. He loves the car and loves telling people about it.

A passerby outside the grocery store inquires about the Xebra. Poelstra says the car is totally electric and requires minimal maintenance.

“Right on! That’s pretty cool,” Clay Dierdorff exclaims. Poelstra says he gets such inquiries all the time.

“Every time we park, somebody wants to talk about the car,” he says. Poelstra’s 12-year-old son Alex says that drivers in large SUVs occasionally aren’t so polite.

“A couple of people yell when they see it,” Alex says. Sometimes they use “words you would not want to say — especially on national radio.”

Told ya so.  Fucking assholes.

Saturday

Didn’t do shit all day.  I took my wife to work, played with the boy, then played Lord of the Rings Online all night.  I don’t get to do this often, so it was a nice break.

Sunday

Went to the Old English Faire, added a few new bottles to my blue bottle collection, picked up a leather-bound blank book, then got harassed by some medieval fundies selling absolution.  They were play-acting, of course.  But it is sad that after hundreds of years, the real fundies haven’t changed much.

Found out George Carlin had died a little past midnight.  I knew it was coming eventually (the guy was a dinosaur), but I didn’t know I’d be so damn depressed about it.  The world really is a better place because he was born, and we’re sad to see him go.

Since rejecting theism it took me quite awhile to warm up what we called “Darwinism,” which was our way of painting the other side as a bunch of fanatics who worshipped Charles Darwin and were out to destroy Christianity, so oppressed were we. *snort*

Since then I learned what evolution is, its impacts and the science that has come from it. Since Christian biology class mandates that you learn a Christian-filtered critique of “Darwinism” than hold any real discussion on the theory of evolution, most arguments supporting the theory (outside of the theory itself) have been formulated independent of others’ opinions. In the past year, I’ve been learning more about what others say about it via blogs and topical websites, as well as discussion forums.

Two topics I’m interested in: learning more about the theory of evolution as it pertains to origins. The topic of human origins is where are the controversy is. It’s the topic that really pisses off the fundie circus known as the religious right. I’d also like to learn from people who are more outspoken against the fundamentalists. For that reason, I went to Barnes and Noble.

Lucky for me, they had what I was looking for. There was a small section dedicated to Richard Dawkins, and “The Singularity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil. That’s another thing, bio-singularity. I was first introduced to it by following the Dresden Codak webcomic and forum. I haven’t made up my mind on the matter one way or another, but it definitely piqued my interest.

However, I didn’t buy those books. The reason: I’m already in the middle of several other books, and Barnes & Noble didn’t have ‘em in hardcover. That’s just how I roll.

However, I did pick up some others that were on my literary To-Do list. They were on a shelf marked “buy two get one free.” Y’know, like cigarettes:

• The Arabian Nights
• Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
• Candide - Voltaire
• The Federalist - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
• Paradise Lost - John Milton
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
• The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin

Total cost: $45. All are in paperback, save for Douglass, which I found in the bargain bin.

In anticipation of my Composition 2 class this fall, I’m working on my sorry-ass writing skills. I have a copy of “The Call to Write,” a textbook for a similar such class at the University of St. Francis. Also working my way through “The Everyday Writer,” another one sold at Uni of SF. I ought to be done with both of them (or close to done) by the time I start this class in the fall. It has been 6 years since I passed my first Composition class, so I’d like to be prepared.

More so, I feel that in order to master the art of writing one must read constantly. I’m almost done with The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, which has taught me a thing or two about the narrative style. It makes me think of a sober version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Next on my list is either going to be Dante’s Inferno, the Life of Frederick Douglass, Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) or The Hobbit. I’ll let you know when I make up my mind.

Some filler for the transition:

“While we may never know the answers, Scott McClellan alone will have to wrestle with whether it was worth selling out the president and his friends for a few pieces of silver.” - comment from Republican Lamar Smith to Scott McClellan over his book chronicling the corruption of the Bush Administration during his time as a White House aide.

The important phrase here is “for a few pieces of silver.” This is what anchors the whole statement–a biblical reference to the betrayal of Jesus by his disciple Judas for thirty pieces of silver.

I’m not bothered by the comparison of McClellan to Judas. From the Administration’s view that one is easy to understand. What I find troubling is the equation of Bush to Jesus in the same reference. WTF?

People, this is the kind of batshit mindset we’re up against.

—————-

Things are coming along with the redesign. Once I get a handle on this whole theming process, everything else should fall into place.

So yesterday I awoke to find that my basement had flooded overnight. I called work and told them I wouldn’t be in. Ten minutes later, my wife came home and told me she’s pregnant.

What a day! Though now I’m sort of depressed, as it means I must chop off the ol’ yarbles. Despite being on the pill, my troops still captured the enemy base.

I’m optimistic though. We tend to make friggin’ cute babies:

The fundie’s shed bit the dust. I think I’ll be a good neighbor and offer to help when they clean it up.

Ingredient: Random Internet Amusement

Last night while the boy was napping, I visited my neglected myspace.com page to check messages. In the bulletins panel, I see something which says something like “Chat Live NOW!”

“Oh great” I thought,”I’ve accidentally added a porn spammer.”

So I click on the name with the intentions of removing the person from my increasingly exclusive friends list and instead feel a flash of recognition of the person in the profile. After browsing through a few pictures it dawned on me who it was: soon after the iPhone was released, a customer named Justine posted a video showing her bill from AT&T.

The bulletin was linking to a live blog. Despite being a connoisseur of internet culture, I had never bothered with video blogs and hey, it was worth trying once.

The blogger was sitting in a coffee shop talking to her laptop. Occasionally a random person would come to say hello or she’d get a phone call. Meanwhile she was responding to the constantly-scrolling text in the sidebar which was being moderated by several people. There were just over 100 users present at any given time.

It was obvious that some were trying to get her attention, while others made random commentary on what she said or what she was doing at the time. Then there were the occasional dweebs who hadn’t figured out that “OMFG U SO HOTT” is not the most effective way to address an attractive woman.

It was interesting, to say the least. I don’t think I’ll be back often if at all, but now I think I get what it’s about. “Type something random/funny and see if the person in the video responds.” For the 15 minutes or so I spent watching this thing, I got two responses: one was saying “NOM NOM NOM” after she started chewing some gum, the other was after asking about the moderators. Win? Win.

Ingredient: Heartburn.

Last night I discovered the upper limit of steak seasoning and overcooking (read: burning) expensive red meat.

Ingredient: Drama.

I would call it “needless drama,” but why be redundant? All drama is needless. This particular area of Dra-Mart is far worse than others–it’s in the internet department in a clearance aisle full of shit nobody ever wanted to begin with.  Maybe the trolls are in heat and their mating call consists of angry, bi-polar rants on internet forums. Or, maybe they caught the crazy.

Sometimes that spills over to other sites, as it has on ours or here at BlargenBlog. Preventative measures are being taken.

After using a standard and well-working anti-trolling policy over at the forum for awhile, I’ve applied the same standards here to my blog and am sure to achieve stellar results despite losing three quarters of all my comment activity (you guessed it: generated by a single person). In addition to weeding out run-of-the-mill trolls, this will also limit the amount of drama that splashes on the site the next time some stalker wants to take his misguided little grudge to the source. People are freaks.

Ingredient: Addiction

Specifically: the political one. I’ve done better than I expected in avoiding the topic on the blog, which is to say that I’ve failed horribly and therefore must extend the proposed hiatus. To be fair, I’ve mostly stuck to my intentions in this regard, which is why politics is not being mentioned in this post at all.

Wait… damn!

Dressing: Withdrawment

Tonight, due to weather, I will not be attending the Louie-Fest thing tonight. However, plans for tomorrow are still on.

I never thought I’d need a rules page for a blog.  People friggin’ amaze me:  linky.

Every now and then it’s good to rest and refresh yourself.  It gives you an opportunity to step back and observe things as they happen.  You’d be surprised how much you miss when you’re mixed up in the fray.  So for the time being I’m going to stay away from politics a bit (except I might finish up one blog/random pondering that I started weeks ago) and go on with regular blogging.  Unless something big happens, I’ll be content with focusing my attention elsewhere.

I do this once in awhile.  After a certain point, I eventually catch myself sounding like the belligerently closed-minded hacks I complain about.  When that happens, it’s time for a break on the topic.  That, and since the primaries are basically over, the subjects of Hillary Clinton and Operation Scumbag are more like irrelevant nuisances than wellsprings of ire.  When she is finally out of the picture and Obama/McCain starts getting more attention, we’ll see what happens.

I actually put thought into this one:

Actually, I’m lying.