Bruce Almighty

Watched Bruce Almighty this weekend. While this may not seem to be typical of the sort of thing an atheist might want to watch, I really enjoy Jim Carrey's work and wanted to see their take on this premise.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead

Most of the movie was OK, but it ended up getting a bit preachy. The primary message of the movie seems to be that you have to turn you life over to god and let him decide what's best for you. Strangly enough this is contradictory to some earlier points in the movie where the God character (played by Morgan Freeman) seems to be telling Bruce that people need to be responsible for their own lives and not depend on him so much.

During Bruce's turning point, he breaks down and starts praying in the middle of the street. After getting hit by a truck, he dies and talks to God in heaven. There he turns his life over to God and in the ubiquitous "single selfless act" that seems to be a prerequisite in all of these types of movies, Bruce requests nothing more than for his ex-girlfriend to have a happy life (ala Bedazzled). This prompts God to send Bruce back to Earth where he is now a changed man, get's back with his girlfriend, and becomes and all-around much nicer guy.

On the plus side, the movie's got some funny gags and jokes, but overall, I didn't really like the movie because of the "message" it tried to put across.

On another note...

Science has given us a great many technological advancements, and taught us much about ourselves and the history of our world and universe. But there's one thing that I'm not sure science will ever be able to explain.

Before humans started building houses with eaves and overhangs, where the hell did wasps build their nests?

Eeeeek! A box of spiders! (potentially)

I was evil this weekend. Terri had me bring in her "summer wardrobe" which consists of 3 large suit cases. Since these were in storage for several months you've got to understand that some critters will make their homes in and around them.

Anyway, Terri had been unpacking the cases and packing her winter wardrobe into them. After she'd packed up one of the cases, I went over to haul it back out for storage. I then noticed that an old spider egg sac had come off the outside of the case and was now on the bedspread. I really didn't care to go to bed that night with an old egg sac on the bed, so I picked it up. About that time, Terri came back into the room so I held it out to her.

Not knowing what it was, she accepted it into her hand. That's when the fun began. She started making "eeep eeep" noises and promptly sprinted for the bathroom where she flushed it down the toilet.

I've really got to hand it to her. She didn't cuss or throw a complete fit. I attribute that to the fact that Dee was in the room with us.

Once she got back form the bathroom, she was rubbing her palm and doing the "freaked out" dance. She says, "do you want to tell me why you just handed me a sac of spider eggs? That's like handing me a whole box of spiders... potentially."

Ah, yes, it's the days like this we'll remember forever.

Immigration

Right now a lot of people seem to be going on and on about the immigration issue out in New Mexico.

Granted I may be a bit distanced from the problem, but I feel that anyone who's willing to fill out a change-of-address form and pay taxes should be allowed in. Instead of grabbing these people and putting them in jail or forcing them to go back to Mexico, register them, sign 'em up for civil service, give them a SSN and let them be on their way.

Some people say, "that'll overburden the system and take benefits away from the rest of us." If that's the case, then the system isn't stable enough and needs to be reworked. This is kind of like the power company refusing to accept any new customers because they're affraid of the extra drain on their power stations instead of building new power stations to handle the bigger load.

"But they won't pay taxes," other people say, "that's why they're illegal immigrants." Poppycock! There's plenty of legal citizens right now who don't pay their taxes. I don't see anyone rushing to deport them. Besides if they buy something, they pay sales taxes. If you give them a SSN, the IRS will know about them and if they don't pay income taxes, it's the IRS's job to take care of it. most of these people are illegal immigrants because it's currently a long involved process to try to immigrate into the US. US immigration only issues 50K greencards a year. Most of them, they do by random lottery.

This all goes back to the whole Us vs. Them mentality. While this may have served it's purpose at one time in out evolution, it's doing more harm to us as a whole than it might be aiding any particular us.

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

I guess people just don't believe that anymore.

This is TOO FUNNY!!!

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Let's go ride "The Pope!"

I've taken a look at the people lined up to see the dead Pope at the Vatican. I must say that they don't appear to be mourners. In fact it looks more like they're standing in line for a ride at Disney World.

On another note:

Last night I was cooking dinner and Dee was sitting on the floor playing. Terri walks through and says to Dee,"Are you playing with Daddy's shoe strings, sweetheart?"

I looked over and noticed that Dee was in fact playing with a pair of Terri's shoes and that Terri had continued on past Dee into the den. So I called out to her, "actually those are your shoes." So Terri comes running back in and takes the shoes away from Dee and puts them up.

"So now I see how it is," I say, "when you thought they were my shoe strings she was undoing, you were happy to just walk on by, but if they're actually yours, you'll come back and take them away from her!"

She had a response, but frankly I don't really remember what it was.

April Fools

How much wood
would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck
smelled like team spirit?

By the light
of the silvery moon
I want to spoon
with a big baboon!

The hardest part about growing up is remembering to take out the trash.
No, wait... that's the hardest part about dating!