My Prayers Answered

This article made me laugh almost throughout reading it. I found it entirely too funny to not post here (full disclosure: I am me, sleep-deprived delirious, and Atheist Plus).

Basically a group of American scientists, led by Dr. Herber Benson from the Harvard Medical School, asked three Christian groups to pray for specific heart surgery patients. The prayers were given first names and last initials of the patients and were asked to pray for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for each patient starting the night prior to their surgery and continuing for two weeks. The scientists then studied what effects, if any, there were in 1,800 patients being observed over 30 days.

I started chuckling in the second paragraph, where Dr. Benson "emphasized that they looked only at the effect of prayer on the patients in their study and could not address questions such as whether God exists or answers prayers." But what really takes the cake is the conclusion; the results showed that prayer had no effect on the patients' recovery, and the kicker is that there were actually more complications in patients who knew they were being prayed for!

Okay, so it's funny enough that this study was done - let's not rely on the scientific resources that are required to cut open your chest, muck around in there, sew you back up, and load you up with drugs to heal it all up. No, I think chanting incantations to an invisible being in the sky is what will make for a successful surgery. In this study at least, it appears the latter option is not where you should be putting your faith for recovery from surgery, since apparently the prayers to God resulted not in better surgery results but increased complications. As a result, this Atheist Plus can't help but laugh her ass off at the prayer monkeys.

Overheard In New York #3 (kind of)

I was walking down some street in Manhattan when I ran into a crush of humans bottlenecked between sidewalk vendors. As I was weaving my way through the crowd, I watched women grabbing at the fake designer bags being sold off the pavement. One woman picked out a bag as I was approaching her and asked, "How much for this one?" The seller replied, "Forty-five." She didn't want to pay that much and stood there blankly saying, "Oh. Hmm." Quickly the vendor said, "Okay, how much you want to pay? You tell me how much." The lady answered, "Ahh. Hmm." So he repeated, "How much? You tell me!" By this point I was directly in her blind spot, and as I slid past behind her, under my breath over her shoulder with my back to the vendor, I whispered, "Say twenty." And continued to walk past her. I didn't look back, but I heard her movement and could feel her looking to see who had spoken in her ear. Then I heard her say, "Um. Twenty?" and the seller answered, "Yeah, okay, twenty dollars!" I smiled to myself and disappeared into the crowd.

One Reason We'll Be Stuck With The Conservatives For Awhile

Ashley MacIssac wants to be the new leader of the federal Liberal Party. Seriously.

On The Spot Parody

Often when somebody says something, it reminds me of a song, either because they've said the exact lyric out of one or because it's similar enough to a lyric. My instinctual reaction is to immediately sing it back to the person, much to their confusion. In Psych class we've talked a lot about 'memory', but the one time the prof referred to the plural form 'memories', I instantly started to sing "Memories, like the corners of my mind, misty water coloured memories, of the way we were, etc." Why? I don't know. Can't help myself. But many times nobody has said a lyric I know, just something close, so I simply write a new little ditty on the fly. These little impromptu songs are maximum silly since they come off the top of my head (or back of my neck if you prefer). Last week I was at my aunt's house for dinner, after we ate she started loading dishes into the dishwasher and said, "Looks like it's going to be a three load day." So obviously, I turned and replied by singing the tune of 'Three Blind Mice' with new words.

Three load day,
Three load day,
She went after them with a scrubby brush,
They cowered under the faucet rush,
Three load day,
Three load day.

Office Works

There are many quirky things about working in the unique environment that is the office. A few weeks ago, the absurdity surrounding the travels of some newsletters across the country captured my imagination and my laugh chords, so I must relate the story here.

I work in the BC/Yukon Division of my program and our head office is in Ottawa. Occasionally we get a box of pamphlets, newsletters, booklets, etc. sent from the Ottawa office to us, which we in turn distribute to everyone in the office, and our sites all over British Columbia and the Yukon. Once or twice a year, we'll gather all of our excess information packets and send them back to Ottawa. Sometimes these will get sent right back to us a few months later and we'll either invent a creative list of new people to send them to, re-send them to the same folks as the first time around, or wait a little longer and send them back to Ottawa again.

One of our regular mailouts is a seasonal newsletter updating everyone on what's happened since the last season. We get them four times a year from Ottawa and then send a few copies to each of our sites. About a month ago one of the sites, likely not realizing who was sending these out to them, sent a thick stack of the newsletters to our office as if they were relaying the information to us. I just sat there in disbelief holding this stack of newsletters. Was I supposed to send them right back to them? Send them back to Ottawa? So I decided, fuck it, and just stuck the whole thing in the site's file. What's even better? These files are all available to the public under the Access to Information Act. So if you put in a request to see this file, you could actually see for yourself the stack of newsletters that travelled from Ottawa, to Vancouver, to Northern BC, and back to Vancouver - just to be stuck uselessly into some folder. Now if that's not a ridiculous waste of time, energy, and resources to the point of absurd, I just don't know what is.

Is It The Piercings?

Yesterday I was asked for my ID when I was purchasing lottery tickets. At 26, it's interesting to know that I can apparently pass for 17.

Spageism #4

Wookiee and I were talking about a mushroom that grew through the foundation and up out of the carpet in the living room at one of his old basement apartments. It looked like big lasagna noodles with red sauce in the layers. It was disgusting, but we don't actually know what kind of growth it was. A word slid into my mind that I thought it should be referred to as. I said that is was "Funger. That means; fucking angry fungus."

Greetings

As I was walking past a cubicle the other day I witnessed a telephone call that was nearly identical to the ridiculous fictional phone call that Louis and I laughed at in Waterloo (#65 on The List).

I watched Mary pick up her receiver, dial a number, and pause for a response. As I passed by her, she said into the phone, "Hello? It's me. Is that you?"

Plant Tip Of The Day

Never grab hold of a freshly bloomed bird of paradise. They're insanely sticky. Trust me.

Protecting My Title

Yesterday one of my co-workers was telling me how she is all about putting things off. She asked if I agreed but I had to counter with, "Putting things off is my domain. I rule the Land of Procrastination with an iron fist of apathy."

The Expected Response

In a shocking move today, the United States government has rejected the UN's call to close down the human rights violations cesspit that is the prison at Guantanamo Bay, release the prisoners, or at the very least charge them with a crime and put them on trial (article). No kidding, the US doesn't want to do that? America really doesn't give a shit about the UN, and they certainly won't want to shut down their little shop that conveniently works outside the law. Did this development really surprise anybody?


In personal news, I've been off the blog for a little while due to two mid-terms, deadlines at work, and a business trip to Victoria earlier this week. Updates and pictures will be presented soon...I hope.

Cartoon Violence

I wasn't sure if I was going to post anything about this, but after the escalation today I just have to. So now we're killing each other over a cartoon. Yep. A fucking cartoon. Are humans just looking for any excuse to be violent? Trying to get out that primal aggression that modern society has no place for? What is the most insignificant thing you can start a war over? If you don't know what I'm talking about, here are a couple of articles with some details that I won't reiterate right now. (1, 2) One of the arguments presented by Saudi Arabia's Al-Riyad is, "Freedom of expression does not justify insulting people's feelings and beliefs." Um, what? So every individual on the planet can demand punishment and retribution if their feelings get hurt? I can sit here and say that an editorial cartoon hurt my feelings and then threaten to cause bodily harm over it and then burn down international embassies? People have really got to relax and just calm the fuck down! Seriously, there are millions of people who get offended/pissed off/irritated by any number of things we read/see/hear regularly, things that are probably more significant than a cartoon. Should every one of those annoyances be outlawed and condemned? Of course not! I like what these two had to say about it (from cbc.ca):

France Soir defended its right to publish in an editorial, saying religious freedom gives people the right to practise their faith, but not to impose the rules of their religion on all of society.

Berlin's Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.

All I can really say at this point is that I'm glad the newspapers are refusing to apologize for running the cartoons, I'll be extremely disappointed if they are forced to by government or by violence. It's bad enough that France Soir was fired for running the cartoon, in fact, that's offensive enough to me that I should probably threaten the guy who fired him and demand a personal apology. Of course, the cartoon critics should be free to disagree, but they should not be able to put themselves on an international stage by rioting and threatening lives. What do they think I will find more reprehensible?

Unmatched Irritants

I really hate over-the-top 'unmatched' levels of customer service that are supposed to make me love a business. Good customer service does not mean you have to be this perky ball of excitement and get right up in my face about everything. Have you ever gone into an Enterprise car rental shop? It's like dealing with caffeinated aliens.

The Sneeze

I've been enjoying a blog called The Sneeze lately. I was intro'd to it through the Steve, Don't Eat It! page, and I think it was a good place to start. After that I read the three most recent posts on the main page; Captain Indifferent, iDisappointed, and Taste the Rainbow of Frustration. All of which were awesome, so if you want, go for it! Here it is again: The Sneeze.

Magnetic Poetry #3

In case that's too hard to see, it says:

protect the exotic blue beer from the moist harsh old fruit roll