Christianity, Life, Foreigner... Gosh!

So, a fellow tried to convert me to Christianity the other day... and by the other day I mean at 130 am on Sunday morning. It was, needless to say, an interesting time. The conversation was civil, yet compelling, and I appreciate the chap's willingness to share his faith with me. But, in responding to his invitation, I found myself expounding on my as-yet-still-very-confused philosophy of life rather lucidly. Which, in all honesty, was horribly surprising. I still need to fine tune it but what the heck, here's a sneak preview, only available at The Foreigner House:

So we all didn't come from nothing... there was something at the beginning right? Socks, sandy beaches, whatever. Where did those socks and sandy beaches come from? God knows. Point being, man didn't come from socks and sandy beaches. Man came, even if you believe the whole evolution thing, from something living. So there had to be something living to start it all. And something living can't come from something inanimate, or not living. So, something living had to come from something greater than something living. So God. Or whatever our concept of God is. So there was God.

And God ordered the world somewhat. You know, night and day, life and death, Naomi Watts being a little too old for me etc etc. BUT, as He was ordering the world, He said to Himself, "Hmmm, so if I order the world completely, the rest of eternity's going to be pretty damn boring, what with all this order and crap. Much better to leave a little disorder and add 3 tablespoons of free will (before mixing, otherwise the batter will get lumpy)." So now we have God with an almost ordered world and some semblance of free will.

Now the whole free will thing suits us humans (when we finally manage to kill off the dinosaurs and the crazy aliens that built Stonehenge and whatnot) just fine. There's drinking and dancing and orgies and very limited accountability (kind of like a corrupt third world government). And God thinks, "This is bad. The whole free will dealio isn't working out the way it should. Oh well, time to send some prophets." And the prophets came, and they told people that what God really meant by free will is that they should commit "random kindness and senseless acts of beauty," not the silly rubbish they were indulging in.

And the prophets were persecuted and killed. With good reason generally. Try to tell a bunch of drinking, dancing, orgying, unaccountable chappies that they're not supposed to be enjoying themselves so much and, chances are, they'll smack you upside the head with a debauched goblet of some sort. SO, God sent prophets to an almost ordered world to encourage people to stick to what He figured were a decent set of rules.

We humans are smart people. As the rules came from God, we modified our societies to fit those rules, but still managed to find loopholes that allowed us to have a little fun. But then there were those who disregarded the rules altogether. God persevered though, and finally, He figured He had come up with an pretty damn decent code of ethics, which Muslims (and those who like to think they're Muslims) like to call Islam.

Now that the pretty damn decent code was there, there was only the problem of making sure that people followed the code. Of course, He didn't want a bunch of machines because that would be boring. If you remember, that's why we're in this whole free will mess in the first place. So God decided to let the people try to figure things out themselves, but send reformers and stuff whenever He felt like it anyway.

So I figured I'd go with the latest... you know Islam 1.0, or Christianity 2.0, or Judaism 3.0, call it what you will. It makes sense to me, most of the time.

So here we are today. People all over the place looking at different versions of the same message. Oh, and killing each other.

Oh Abraham, if you had only known what chaos your seed would spread...

2 Terri Cents and Humvees

For crying out loud, put the damn tube back in and let the woman and her parents live in peace. I'm so sick and tired of Terri this, Terri that (ironic that I should choose to write about something I'm so sick of, eh?). Michael Schiavo is a low-life creep and I can't believe a bunch of judges give him more credibility than they give the parents of the girl. Now I know why Florida keeps going to a bunch of "We're-pro-life-but-we-love-killing-people-in-wars" Republicans. Even their judges are stupid. Good job to the Democrats at least for taking a stand. Somewhere. On something. Damned if I know where and what.

Anyway, on to more pleasant topics. I just found out that the US Army intended to control the entire country of Iraq with 235 Humvees when the stupid war started just about 2 years ago. 235! Why, you could count that on... erm... 47 hands! Anyway, they realized that they underestimated slightly the amount they would need so, by this Friday, they'll have increased the number a smidgen. To 22,000. Seriously now. TWENTY TWO FRICKEN THOUSAND. To be fair, the number is only 21,765 more than they had originally intended. This must be a part of the "miscalculations" that the ever-understated Defender Of Peace And Liberty The World Over (When It Suits Him) Donald Rumsfeld keeps referring to. It makes me laugh. But its not one of those hearty belly laughs that you might produce during an exceptionally funny episode of Whose Line is it Anyway? It's one of those mirthless "Dear-God-Why-is-the-strongest-free-est-and-friendliest-country-in-the-world-run-by-a-bunch-of-MORONS" laughs. It makes me cry.

Prince William

So, today on my way to class, I tripped on the stairs outside my building and fell head first down a flight of six stairs (I really didn’t but if I hadn’t started out in this fashion, the entire post would cease to exist. So work with me). I was (thank God) uninjured, psychologically stable and willing to put the whole incident behind me until I realized that no one had videotaped the incident and hordes of polo players weren’t making their way towards me to make sure I was alright...

Yeah, so the future heir to the throne of England is inept enough to take a small tumble off a horse during a game of polo and it becomes and international incident. I have yet to see a major news source that has had the testicular fortitude to NOT carry the story and maybe use their valuable column (or virtual column) space for some real news that would be of interest to more than William’s worried daddy. Poor Willie-poo fell of a horsey and almost had a boo-boo. Thank God for the well-padded posterior that cushioned most of the impact.

To William's credit, he did what would be expected of a future Head of State and got right back on the horse. I can think of other Heads of State who would probably have lain on the ground for several minutes. Rumor has it certain Presidents do that after failing to chew pretzels properly, never mind falling off horses. But I digress.

There is news. And there is news-only-your-near-and-dear-would-care-to-know-and-often-not-even-them. Our news providers need to concentrate more on the former and less on the latter. Much less. Leave the poor celebrities alone. They’re just like everybody else, only famous.

Chicago, MJ and Communism

Sorry for the long absence. No, I’m really not. I felt like it. So deal with it. It really hasn’t been a blogging couple of weeks for me, but it’s about time I gave in to the demands of the starving-for-blog-entries-of-substance populace. So here you are. This is kind of a clip show, except not really. These are miniblogs packaged neatly into one large entry. I’m so talented.

Chicago
I went to Chicago a week or so ago. Nice city. Except the women there have some sort of sunglasses fetish (or is it sunglass fetish? No, that can’t be right.). I tell you each pair I saw was more obscene than the last one. One girl (I assume she was a girl because she had an annoying, high-pitched voice, smelled like an accident in a perfumery, and got on the subway right by DePaul University’s Lincoln Park campus) sported a MASSIVE lime green number. I could barely see her face, I tell you. Frankly, I think she had some sort of disease. Why else would you allow yourself to be seen cavorting on a subway train with a hideous lime green accessory perched on your nose? I leave you to ponder this deep question of incredible philosophical import.

Michael Jackson
Honestly, this man was better off black. Think about it. Parents of white children wouldn’t leave their kids overnight with a black man now, would they? And then we wouldn’t be in the middle of all of this molestation instead of PlayStation business.
And yeah, coming to court in pajama pants? Bad idea. That’s going to make the jury think you just got out of bed. And since you’re in court basically for a lot of crap you allegedly did in bed, your bed is the last thing you want jurors to be thinking of. Unless you like one of them. And she really likes you. And the two of you think you may have kids together one day. Yeah. Snowball’s chance in Hell. I know.

Communist Text Messages
Russia’s Communist Party is turning to text messaging as a means of drawing people into the party fold, says Yahoo. I’m not posting the link to the story because the links are dead in a couple of days anyway and then my blog looks bad. We’re all about appearances here at The Foreigner House, you see.
Anyway, so the Commies think sending text messages back and forth is going to revitalize their dying ideology. Pretty hilarious what? Imagine what those conversations would be like.

Vladimir: Communism forever! Da?
Boris: Da! By the way, I’m all out of toilet paper. Can I borrow some of yours?
Vladimir: Nyett! I’m all out too. Don’t worry. Only 14 moons till the next distribution.
Boris: Thank God. I’m down to the last 3 strips of my wife’s wedding dress.
Vladimir: We’re so fortunate to live in a State that can’t provide its citizens with toilet paper!
Boris: Communism forever!

I’m not sure they use the word “moons” in Russia so much. But still, nice Native American touch, wouldn’t you say?

And I’m done.