Author Archive for CHADMAC

Bale and O’Reilly

I know I haven't been around here at all lately. I have been really damn busy both personally and professionally. I have to pass these along because they are just too damn funny....

After the release of the Christian Bale tirade on the Terminator set, I should have seen these coming. Combining the Bill O'Reilly teleprompter blow-up and the Bale blow-up leads to pure comic genius in my opinion.

First, we have the YTMND version. This one is my favourite of the two.

Second, this entry from YouTube.



WARNING - Horribly inappropriate language. And by inappropriate, I mean excessive use of the F-bomb. And by F-bomb I mean Fuck.

Cheers,
Me

Political Compass Test

My inter-friend (that would be a friend I know only through the word wide interweb) T&A posted his results for the Political Compass Test. I was going to check the results that I assumed I had previously posted and let him know how I came out with the test. Well, I apparently never posted my political compass results. So I will do so now. Also, previously I had posted my results for another online political leanings test and the results are similar to the ones outlined below.

So Here are my results



The exact numbers are:

Economic Left/Right: -8.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.77

So, I lean to the left in economic matters, which I think anyone who knows me would not deny. I also appear to quite libertarian on social matters, which is accurate and good in my opinion. My thoughts - if it's not hurting anyone else, go ahead and do it. I seem to recall getting around -6 on both scales last time I took this test..... I guess I am feeling a little more extreme in my views today.

How do I stack-up against other world figures? I'm glad you asked. Here is the answer:





Well, that is about it for now... any thoughts or comments are, as always, greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Me

Shit Piss Fuck Cunt Cocksucker Motherfucker Tits


I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. - George Carlin



Two minutes after my radio turned on Monday morning I heard the news that George Carlin had died Sunday. He was one of the few comedians who really made you think and laugh at the same time. In my opinion, the best comedy has to be intelligent, has to make you think and has to offend someone - and generally the more offensive the better. For these reasons, George Carlin is at the top of my list of favourite comedians and I am thus deeply saddened by his death.

I had never had the opportunity to see Carlin live until he came through El Paso on May 17th this year. As expected, he delivered a top quality performance, the highlight of which was actually courtesy of a member of the audience. George was working his way through a very funny discussion questioning the meaning of slogans and gestures like "God Bless America" and removing one's hat for national anthems and the like. This contained comments along the lines of "why should God favour our country over another?" and "it's just a hat."

Well, someone in one of the rows behind where we were seated did not take too kindly to the bit, which I guess would be somewhat offensive to many Americans and military families. So, this individual shouted the ever so clever phrase - "Fuck You!" - from the back of the theatre. And later, he went so far as to walk up to within six feet of the stage shouting - "Fuck You!" over and over and pointing in Mr. Carlin's general direction. He was rightly ignored by George and eventually escorted out by security.

My question is this - What the hell were expecting going to a George Carlin show? You had to figure something like that would come up at some point during the show. Hell, I am one of the hardest people to offend, and I recall thinking that he crossed the line several times that night (though I sadly can't recall the exact jokes). But that is what I want to experience at his shows - I want him to push the boundaries. If you are easily offended, I don't recommend checking out his material.

I was very excited to finally see Carlin live and when we were making the decision to go to the show, I remember thinking that George isn't getting any younger and this may be my last chance to see his show..... I just didn't realize that I would be proved right less than two months later.

So here's to you George. You will be missed.

Now I have a copy of When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops that requires another read-through.

Cheers,
Me

I Have Chosen Wisely

According to this thorough online survey, I have determined that I should get a Ph.D. in some area of science. Apparently I have chosen wisely..... I'd hate to think that I was wasting all of these years in school.




You Should Get a PhD in Science (like chemistry, math, or engineering)



You're both smart and innovative when it comes to ideas.

Maybe you'll find a cure for cancer - or develop the latest underground drug.



Cheers,
Me

Mailbag of Craziness III

So here we go with yet another bit of religious stupidity.... While I normally would provide some sort of commentary, my only response to this is - "Oh please!!!"

And yes, the pictures were included in the original email.



An atheist in the woods heard a sound behind him,

He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.



He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.

He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer.

He tripped & fell on the ground.

He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.



At that instant the Atheist cried out,

"Oh my God!"

Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.

"You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist and even credit?creation to cosmic accident."

"Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament?"
Am I to count you as a believer?"

The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian"?

"Very Well," said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:



"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."

Mailbag of Craziness II

Alright, here is another anecdotal religious email forwarded to me. This one is about references to God in graduation speeches.....

They walked in tandem, each of the ninety-two students filing into the already crowded auditorium. With their rich maroon gowns flowing .. and the traditional caps, they looked almost ... as grown up as they felt.

Dads swallowed hard behind broad smiles, and Moms freely brushed away tears.

This class would NOT pray during the commencements---- not by choice, but because of a recent court ruling prohibiting it.

The principal and several students were careful to stay within the guidelines allowed by the ruling. They gave inspirational and challenging speeches, but no one mentioned divine guidance and no one asked for blessings on the graduates or their families.

The speeches were nice, but they were routine.....until the final speech received a standing ovation.

A solitary student walked proudly to the microphone. He stood still and silent for just a moment, and then, it happened.

All 92 students, every single one of them, suddenly SNEEZED!!!!

The student on stage.. simply looked at the audience and said, "GOD BLESS YOU, each and every one of you!" And he walked off stage...

The audience exploded into applause. This graduating class had found a unique way to invoke God's blessing on their future with or without the court's approval.

GOD BLESS YOU!!!!


As I have discussed previously, I don't agree with using graduation speeches to promote one's religious views. If you are at a public school that is funded with public money, religion should not enter into such matters. But again, I wouldn't call myself an expert on the American Constitution (what with me being Canadian and all) so I don't know all of the specific rules in such matters.

With regards to the actual email..... I would like to express my disagreement with the final sentence. He did not invoke God's blessing on their future, he invoked God's blessing as a shield against the evils involved in sneezing. These are two completely different reasons to ask for God's blessing and getting a blessing for one does not entail an automatic blessing for the other.

Cheers,
Me

Mailbag of Craziness I

I was trying to think of something else to write about since I haven't written anything in quite some time. Then I remembered that my special lady friend has been forwarding me some ridiculous emails that she has been forwarded. I will not divulge the ultimate source of said emails..... Let's just say that they are from someone she knows who is uber-religious and uber-right-wing. If the emails keep coming, I'll continue to post them here to get your comments. So here we go.....

AMEN!

Have you heard about this case? Great answer from the judge!

In Florida , an atheist became incensed over the preparation of Easter and Passover holidays. He decided to contact his lawyer about the discrimination inflicted on atheists by the constant celebrations afforded to Christians and Jews with all their holidays while atheists had no holiday to celebrate. The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the long passionate presentation by the lawyer, the Judge banged his gavel and declared, 'Case dismissed!'

The lawyer immediately stood and objected to the ruling and said, 'Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and many other observances. Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah...yet my client and all other atheists have no such holiday!' The judge leaned forward in his chair and simply said, 'Obviously your client is too confused to even know about, much less celebrate, his own atheists' holiday!'

The lawyer pompously said, 'Your Honor, we are unaware of any such holiday for atheists Just when might that holiday be, your Honor?' The judge said, 'Well it comes every year on exactly the same date---April 1st! Since our calendar sets April 1st as 'April Fools Day,' consider that Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, in my opinion, if your client says there is no God, then according to scripture, he is a fool, and April 1st is his holiday! Now have a good day and get out of my courtroom!!


About halfway through this, I figured out what the final "punchline" was going to be. I've heard the atheism/April Fools comment before in all of its ridiculousness. I for one am pretty damn certain that this apparent court case from Florida didn't actually happen. And if it did, that judge should be kicked in the side of the head - using scripture to make court decisions strikes me as, I don't know, wrong and against that whole church/state separation thing. I would also like to say that I can't think of a single atheist I know who would get all incensed about not having an "atheist holiday" to celebrate.

Please let me know if you would like to see more of this craziness in email form.....

Cheers,
Me

Personality and Belief

Over at Friendly Atheist, Mike Clawson made a post discussing the relationship between personality and belief. The discussion stems from an article in the Journal of Parapsychology - Personality and motivations to believe, misbelieve, and disbelieve in paranormal phenomena. Since Mike did a decent job discussing the article, I am going to be lazy and not do it here.

Mike touches on the excerpts of the article dealing with the Myers-Briggs personality test. For those of you who pay any attention to what I write around here (all two or three of you), you may recall that I actually posted my results for this test awhile back. I decided to take the same test again today to see if my results were consistent...... and yes they were. I apparently am an INTJ personality with the following percentages of expression:

Introverted - 89%
iNtuitive - 50%
Thinking - 62%
Judging - 56%

I don't recall my exact numbers when I took the test previously, but I know they were in the same ranges. Also, I have taken other tests online, although I can't be bothered to find them right now, and I have always come up as an INTJ. As I said before, these results seem pretty accurate for me. Well, at least all of the interweb-based descriptions of INTJs seem to describe me quite accurately (to a disturbing degree at times). I have posted links to some of these below, so you can learn all about Your's Truly.

Good Old Wikipedia
The Personality Page - General
The Personality Page - Relationships
The Personality Page - Career
Type Logic
INTJ List
INTJ Central - Probably my favourite one

And here is a little something for a certain someone (you know who you are) which discusses the relationship between INTJs and psychopaths.

Apparently there is quite the lively debate regarding the validity of the Myers-Briggs test and apparently it doesn't always provide consistent results (although it appears to be consistent for me). I am curious about what some of my friends who study psychology think about the Myers-Briggs test (*cough*Ashley*cough*).

So to everyone - What are your results for the Myers-Briggs test? If you took the test before, are your current results consistent with your previous results? What are your thoughts on the validity of the test? Do you think I have an INTJ personality? Do you like people with INTJ personalities? Should I stop asking questions?

Cheers,
Me

Ricky Gervais Reads the Bible

I think Ricky Gervais is a comic genius. And the video below totally supports that opinion.



via God is Man Made

Cheers,
Me

28 Years Without Dying and 2 Years of Blogging

Well folks, today marks the end of my 28th year on the planet earth and the beginning of the 29th. Yup, Happy Birthday to me!!

Also, this marks the two year anniversary of the first blog I ever posted. You see, my first ever blog was posted around 6AM on my birthday in 2006. I had returned from drunken strip club adventures and finally decided to set up a MySpace account from which to blog (although I obviously migrated over here later). I don't know if you've ever tried to do that while drunk..... not particularly easy. About a month later, I finally decided to put some effort into producing blogs on a regular basis and I put out a sort of blogging mission statement as a jumping off point.

Now, I realize I haven't been posting much lately, and for that I apologize. Apparently working on a Ph.D. is a lot of work. On top of that, my personal time has been chock full of things to do that preclude blogging. And as much as I like you fine people, my new lady friend is far more entertaining than writing stuff for you.

I don't foresee being able to write anything significant in the near future, so I figured I would take this two year anniversary as an opportunity to do a little something to keep you occupied. I have gone through my blogs and found some classics that I either like, or that I think provide some insight into yours truly. This is an opportunity for those of you who only recently found my amazing site to get better acquainted with it. So without further ado.......

One of the early blog series I wrote was about my name. I decided to explore the intricacies of where my name came from and what it means:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Next we have one of the long running series here, my viewing suggestions. Basically, I inform everyone that they should be watching some movie or TV show. Some of my favourites are listed below:

I - Coupling
III - Free Enterprise
VI - Thank You for Smoking
XI - Orwell Rolls in His Grave
XVI - The Mythbusters
XXII - Way of the Gun
XXVI - Sicko
XXVIII - Californication

Next we have the collection of procrastination blogs, designed to help you waste some time on a Friday afternoon. Because we all know, working on Friday afternoon is ten shades of suck!

I - Ultimate Showdown & Kitten Cannon
IV - Geography, Monkey Cliff Diving and Stick Men
VIII - Boneless Girl, Bullet Time Fighting and Self-Defense
XVI - Some xkcd Favourites
XVIII - Stephen Lynch
XX - Particles
XXIII - Attraction
XXX - Adult-Oriented Games

Yet another regular series involves me telling you folks about some scientific item that I find particularly interesting. It's basically a chance for me to nerd-out a little and not feel like I'm doing it alone.

I - Dark Matter
IV - Wireless Energy Systems
V - Hubble Deep Field
X - Super Chimp Memory
XII - Dextre the Robot

On the fun side of things, I have also participated in a few of those memes that have been floating around the blogosphere:

Nearest Book Meme
Nearest Book Meme - Home Edition
Make Your Own Band
Google #1

I have made several posts about a movie game where you mix up titles to movies starring the same actor. I had loads-o-fun with it, so you may too.

First
Second
Third

Finally, I have made several interesting (at least I think they are interesting) posts on a variety of subjects including life, science, politics and religion. Rather than break things into categories, I have listed some of my favourites all together below. The ones with an asterisk I thought were particularly good.

*Surgery Gobots and Hercules..... Oh My!
A is for Atheist
On the Art of Giving a Decent Technical Presentation
An Open Letter to the Drivers of El Paso
Hookt on Foniks Wurked for Me
*A Dr. Phil Blog? WTF?
*The Four Big Bangs? WTF?
The Chase
*Anti-Intellectualism and the Value of Education
My Car, uh, doesn't exist
*Harvey the Wonder Hamster
I'm in Love with Mary Jane
Double Standard
Chad Gets Political
Answers in the Face of Death
*Grandma O's Jam
Why You Should Quit Smoking

So people, I now say unto you...... Go forth and read anything that you find interesting from above. Leave comments and they shall be replied to. I will try to write something new in the near future.

Cheers,
Me

Science is Interesting XIII

I was checking my news feeds from the BBC today and I came across this article.

Here is a little excerpt:

The biggest iPod MP3 player currently available can hold about 40,000 songs.

However, new nanotechnology could theoretically allow users to store millions of video and music tracks.

Professor Lee Cronin and Dr Malcolm Kadodwala, from the university's chemistry department, said their work could see 500,000 gigabytes squeezed into a microchip no bigger than a two pence piece.


And I was quite impressed with my 80G iPod and 1G micro SD card.

But 500,000 gigabytes on something the size of a coin...... that's crazy!

My only issue would be that I have issues filling my iPod as it is. What the hell am I supposed to do with that much data storage capability?!?

Cheers,
Me

Trust in Science

Enjoy.

Cheers,
Me



via toomanytribbles

Happy Chocolate Bunny Day!

Good day folks,

Just thought I would share a little something with you on this fine Easter morning. Because nothing celebrates the resurrection of Jebus like Easter Bunny-related funniness.



And on a slightly more disturbing note, I saw this hilarious picture over at the Church of Jesus Fucking Christ:



Cheers,
Me

Carl Sagan and The Matrix

For your viewing pleasure:



This video is, IMNSHO, pure genius.

via toomanytribbles

Cheers,
Me

A Malignant Runaway Process

Yesterday's comic over at Goats had a quality description of religion that I felt it necessary to share:

Religion is a malignant runaway process, stealing cognitive system resources and filling the empty spaces with fear, uncertainty and doubt.


Cheers,
Me

Who do you pray to?

So, I was sitting in the library merrily working away on some dynamics and spending time with a certain lady-friend, when some douchebag frat boys sat at a nearby table.

Among their myriad of conversation topics (which included smoking, the Power Rangers, Golf, some guy they know named Chad, an injured knee, Oregon Trail and the one guy's annoying and apparently text-message-crazy girlfriend) they briefly touched on religion. While I didn't catch the entire theological debate, one of them did let loose with this little gem:

Who do you pray to, bitch?!?


I don't know about you, but I find that ridiculously funny and ironic.

Just thought I would pass that along..... that is all.

Cheers,
Me