Check yo' sources

Lately I've been frustrated with people bitching about things they don't understand.  How do you know something doesn't work when you haven't even researched as to how it supposedly works?  How do you know a religion preaches violence when you've never cracked open its holy text?  How do you know the hidden meaning behind something when you can't even be arsed to check google or wikipedia (let alone read an actual book on the subject).  Do you really think dismissive, uninformed soundbites from the opposition are considered good research?  Come on - don't fall for the friggin' strawman. 

I'm not going to get into everything that's been vexing me, but I will share some links that illuminate a current popular news story as that's probably most relevant to the public interest out of everything I could potentially bitch about.

Satire.  History.
and now... one more.

Blaming it on the stars

http://www.astrologycom.com/mercret.html

Thanks to RC for the link.  I've been complaining about how I can't believe Mercury hasn't retrograded yet given all the crazy occurrences (you know, like my phone turning off every 5 minutes and exes popping out of the woodwork).  I didn't realize some of the effects could occur as the planet begins to slow or pick up speed before and after the actual retrograde.  And of course everything else craptastic that's been happening to me lately can be explained by this (thanks, Jhonn) which is also touched upon in the link at the top.  Well, not the roots of the issues, but why the issues came to a head in the manner that they have.

Remember, fellas: your wife is always right.

From Keeping it real Hearth & Home in Old Ohio.

"Take your wife as your helpmate.  Husband, counsel with your wife and be assured light will flash upon your darkness.  Woman is far more a seer and prophet than man if she is given a fair choice.  If you are in any trouble or quandary tell your wife all about it at once.  Ten to one her invention will solve your difficulty sooner than all your logic; what is wrong of your impulse or judgment, she will detect and set right with almost universally right instincts."


 I am amused.

I want to believe

 So aside from almost getting Lich King down last week, recent times have been rather dismal.  OK, practically this whole month has been dismal.  That's why last week I watched the alien abduction episode of Psych (Not Even Close... Encounters) and ate homemade-ish chocolate chip cookies (Betty Crocker mixes are practically cheating) instead of attempting anything productive.   Strangely, even though things have gotten worse this week, I've been slightly more productive.  Probably because I don't want to stay alone in my head too much right now.

But despite my pervasive funk, I can't ignore the blatant synchronicity occurring.  Aside from the Psych episode, I've been on an X-Files kick (both reading and watching), found out there's a toon named after Scully in the guild, ran into an AlexKrycek in a battleground, had a friend joke - out of the blue - that the FBI was on its way to my house (please let it be Agent Mulder!), and a few other strange things that I can't recall right now*.  It's safe to say that I've got aliens on the brain.

So it was both unexpected and totally not surprising when Dee called up to say she had just seen a UFO.  There had been military planes in the area earlier, then, as the daylight was fading, the object appeared.  It was silver with a red light, and it was spinning.  Dee and her dad decided it was definitely a UFO, whereas her mom and aunt dismissed it as a weather balloon (really?!).  I asked her if it was still hanging around but she told me she'd lost sight of it.

So obviously I asked her, "Dee, I'm going to go drive around town and try to find it.  Wanna come?"  "Yes!"  And we were on our way.

Armed with a container of snack mix and our cellphone cameras, we took off towards the south and caught sight of the red light moving off into the distance.  There was a plane headed that way too so we felt confident we were on the right track.  I took a short cut on the free way but it was moving too fast and we lost it.  We ended up cutting through 2 towns, going back through ours, and heading over towards the rival town's high school.  I thought I caught a glimpse of it again, but the light was smaller and dimmer (thus much, much farther away).  Still, we headed out that way, encouraged by the site of planes once again heading in the same direction.

Sadly, we lost track of it again pretty quickly and decided to bring our adventure to an end after over an hour of driving.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't a weather balloon.

*Hurricane Alex, the Russian Spy drama, running a pug with a toon named Mullder

Anne Rice interview on breaking away from the Church

but she still doesn't allow Vampire Chronicles fanfic to be published on fanfiction.net...  just saying.