Nostrajason's Predictions For 2013

—My unmedicated mood disorder will lead me to be overly emotional and swear a lot on Facebook.

—Taylor Swift will make a song about boys.

—Hipsters will start going out in public wearing orthodontic headgear and nothing below the belt but Speedos, socks, and sandals. The fact that it’s meant ironically will not make them look less stupid.

—A real book will continue to be superior to your Nookiefire.

—Judd Apatow will release a movie that’s pretty funny, but 40 minutes too long.

—Adrian Peterson will break his spine, spend the offseason rehabbing like an inhuman mutant, then rush for 5,003 yards in the ’13-’14 season.

—Firefly will remain cancelled. FOX will still be stupid.

—People will camp on sidewalks for three days to get the new iPhone. The only difference between it and the old iPhone will be a 4-pixel difference in screen width.

—Chris Brown and Rihanna will do a cover of The Go-Go’s song “We Got the Beat.”

— Michael Bay, in a moment of clarity, will blow himself up.

—Sushi will continue to be awesome. And expensive.

—Rush Limbaugh will be an insufferable, insensitive prick about pretty much everything.

—I will continue to yell at my computer like a crazyperson when I get annoying emails from coworkers.

—PETA will continue to ignore the fact that, technically speaking, eating most veggies and grains is murder, too. Which is worse, really, since that murder is nowhere near as tasty as bacon.

—Lindsay Lohan will die of an overdose while visiting Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Visitors will marvel at the life-like replication of a 20^th century junky prostitute, until the smell of decay alerts them to their mistake.

—Bioshock Infinite will be far better than Bioshock 2, but not as good as Bioshock.

—David Lynch’s body of work with continue to make absolutely no sense. Arthouse nerds will continue to call him a genius.

—After a 4-game season, the NHL will go on strike again.
—Justin Bieber will perform a new song. No less than 50% of said song will consist of the words “baby” and “girl.”

—People will kill other people with guns, leading to an increase in gun sales. Half of the country will fail to see the irony in this.

—The Grammy Awards will be held. With luck, approximately 20% of the winners will actually have talent.

—Breaking Bad will continue to be just about the best thing on TV.

—Portlandia will continue to be overrated.

—You will get a popcorn kernel stuck between your teeth. Your futile attempts to dislodge it will abrade your tongue.

—Kristen Stewart will somehow get another acting roll. She will continue to emote less than a department store mannequin.

—Meanwhile. Christopher Walken will pause. And emphasize at odd moments while. Talking. And it’ll be great.

—Damning her diabetes, Paula Deen will eat a Butterfinger slathered in actual butter.

—You will feel extremely satisfied after taking a poop that makes you feel 10 pounds lighter. You’ll feel an urge to tell someone about the great poop you just had, but won’t.

—Reality TV will continue to drain the intelligence and life force from the people of Earth and any extraterrestrial species unlucky enough to happen upon our broadcasts.

—A-Rod, Cam Newton, Jay Cutler, and Tom Brady will form Crybabies Anonymous, the first pro athlete-specific support group.

—Kesha will claim to have had a threesome with aliens, just to see if anyone’s still paying attention.

—A nerd will feast upon Mountain Dew and Cheetos during a five-hour online gaming session from the confines of his parents’ basement.

—In a surprise move, Tyler Perry will dress up like an old woman. Only African Americans and the English will find it amusing.

—Something in the Middle East will explode.

—Zooey Deschanel will act zany.

—Lady Gaga’s ill-conceived poison oak dress will go horribly awry.

What Do You Value More?

We've heard plenty of excuses for gun ownership. You need to protect your home. The Second Amendment says it's your right. Making them illegal won't make them go away. There's a seed of truth to all of this. The Second Amendment certainly does give you the right to own a firearm. Guns probably make you feel more secure in your home than you actually are, but--in theory, anyway--gun ownership allows you to fend off all but the most determined and well-armed of miscreants. And no, making guns illegal won't make them disappear.
All of this misses one crucial point: There is no logical reason for anyone in this country outside of the military or law enforcement to need an assault rifle, handgun, speed loader, high capacity magazine, body armor, or anything normally used in combat. All these things are made for one reason: To help you harm a lot of people in a small amount of time.
Think about the context in which the Second Amendment was created. A cursory search of the Internet reveals that the main weapon during the Revolutionary War was a flintlock musket. A well-trained soldier could fire once every 20 seconds or so. Rifles were more accurate than the musket, but took far longer to load. And flintlock pistols were laughably inaccurate. Killing sprees were effectively impossible, since the time it took to reload was time enough for unarmed bystanders to subdue the would-be killer.
Now think about modern weapons. An automatic AR-15 (basically a civilian version of the M-16) is capable of firing 800 rounds per minute. The most common magazine size is 20-30 rounds; the largest appears to be 100 rounds. Now let's pretend that it's just a semi-automatic, and that you can only pull the trigger once per second. With a 20-round magazine, you can potentially kill 20 people in 20 seconds. Let's pretend that the shooter's a moron, and it takes 20 seconds to switch out the empty magazine for a full one. Remember, that's how long it took a trained soldier to reload his musket 200 years ago, so odds are good that it'll get done much faster. But let's assume our modern psychopath takes 20 seconds to reload and doesn't get subdued. Let's assume he's a lousy shot and only a quarter of his shots hit the mark. That's still a lowball estimate of 10 people wounded and potentially dead. In one minute.
Now add body armor to the equation. And multiple handguns, with magazines that hold anywhere from 8 to 30+ rounds. Now put our modern psychopath in a packed theater, or the 500-seat lecture halls that you can find on nearly any college campus of a decent size. Or, god help us all, one single kindergarten class of 30 kids. Think of how much damage one disturbed person can do.
Do you honestly think this is what our forebears had in mind when they created the Second Amendment? Do you honestly believe that they wouldn't be horrified at the prospect of tens or dozens of unarmed civilians being laid low in a matter of minutes? This is a situation not dreamt of on their worst night. These men were thinking in terms of attacks by unfriendly Native Americans and foreign military forces, or just hunting to put food on the table. These are things of the past. Yes, there's a depressing amount of crime that takes place in this country, but how often does someone fend off an attacker with a gun? How often does anyone's personal safety come down to gun ownership?
Not often enough. Not often enough to justify twenty 6- and 7-year olds being gunned down in a classroom.
It's time to take a stark look at the world we live in. This ain't Mad Max. The gestapo isn't going to break down your door in the dead of night and take you away. The Commies aren't going to take over your town. And I've lived nearly 34 years without myself or anyone I know being raped, tortured, murdered or otherwise harmed by "Them," whoever the hell they are. If these are truly concerns for you, I suggest you take half a Xanax and join the rest of us in reality.
You want to hunt and kill your own food? Fine; I believe in your right to put food on the table the old fashioned way. Have a single-shot rifle or a shotgun. You wanna cower in fear inside your home and stroke your precious gun to feel safe? Fine. Have a single-shot rifle or a shotgun. There is no need for assault weapons. There is no need for handguns.
You may think that single-shot rifles and shotguns are still capable of doing damage. You're right. But they're harder to reload, so any rampage would likely be short-lived. You may think we should concentrate on mental health, on identifying and helping these people before they snap and take people with them. You're right. But that's only part of the equation; people will always slip through the cracks. You may think that banning these weapons won't make them disappear. You're right. But it'll make them harder to obtain, especially for someone who's presumably not in his right mind. And the harder it is to perpetrate a monstrous tragedy like the one in Newtown the better.
I've fired handguns. I've fired rifles and shotguns. I've even fired an assault rifle. It's a hell of a lot of fun. But I'm willing to give up that fun if there's even a chance of making this country and its people safer. We should be attacking this problem from all sides, not spouting useless platitudes and then passing time until the next tragedy. They may be well-intentioned, but your thoughts and prayers are meaningless to the kids and adults felled in these incidents.
The right to go out in public without being murdered by a hail of bullets should trump the right to own weapons that serve no useful purpose. And if you honestly think that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the Second Amendment, then you're just as deluded as the gun enthusiast who was shot in the face. By her own gun. Wielded by her son.

A Slice of Pi

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I went and saw Life of Pi and I enjoyed it, but I’m left with the same question I had after reading it: Did I truly understand it? I’m about to let the cat out of the bag (or the tiger off the boat, as it were), so if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie and care about spoilers, now’s the time to bail.

The story is really two stories. The first encompasses most of the book and movie, and features Pi and his battle for survival after a shipwreck. He shares a lifeboat with a zebra with a wounded leg, an orangutan, a hyena, and the tiger, Richard Parker. The hyena kills the zebra. The hyena kills the orangutan. Richard Parker kills the hyena. Pi and Richard Parker then spend innumerable days on the Pacific, fighting for survival, until ultimately making landfall in Mexico.

The second story is simpler, shorter, and much more gruesome. Pi shares a lifeboat with a sailor with a wounded leg, his mother, and the cook from the ship. The cook kills the sailor. The cook kills Pi’s mother. Pi kills the cook. Pi then spends innumerable days on the Pacific, fighting for survival, until ultimately making landfall in Mexico.

Unless I’m much mistaken, the latter story is the “truth.” The former appears to be something that Pi invented because the truth is too painful to face. And, perhaps, because it makes for a better story.

And here’s where my confusion lies. In the film, the adult Pi says that both stories feature him losing his family, and both stories feature him suffering, and then asks the visiting writer which story he prefers. The writer says he prefers the tale with the tiger. “And so it is with God,” says Pi.

Forgive my lack of subtlety and insight, but what is the implication of that line? Is he saying that life is full of loss and suffering, and that, all things being equal, we might as well believe in God, because it makes for a better story? Or a better life?

If so, I wonder about the truth of that. I’m agnostic, and while I allow that there are indeed aspects of existence that I don’t understand and can see the appeal of religion, I’ve never experienced something to make me Believe, with a capital B.

It feels disingenuous to go through the motions of faith simply because one wants to believe. That feels like a lie. Isn’t it more honest to push on through life without faith than to pretend to have it? Wouldn’t God, if he (or she) exists, prefer your honest dubiousness to you comforting yourself in the dark by clinging to the tatters of a less-than-genuine faith?

These are not rhetorical questions, by the way. I’m honestly curious as to what you think, especially those of you who are religious, who do Believe with a capital B. Maybe you’re seeing a side of this that I’m not. Or maybe someone out there can inform me that I’m grossly misunderstanding the point of the story, and that I’ve blazed a trail off into left field and beyond.

Regardless, the story moves me in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. It did so when I read it, and the film had the same effect. It feels like a sliver of something special, of some greater truth.

And that’s another thing that strikes me, especially with regard to the film: Pi travels through the Pacific, seeing wondrous phenomena. Terrible storms, bioluminescent seas, flocks of flying fish, carnivorous islands inexplicably filled with meerkats when he’s in the Pacific and the nearest wild meerkat population is half a world away in southern Africa. He witnesses these things and is overcome with awe in the face of God. I see those same things, and I too am filled with awe, but I am in awe of Nature.

Does it matter whether that awe is inspired by God or Nature? Is there really that much of a difference? Is Nature merely my secular surrogate for God? I don’t pray to Nature. I don’t expect guidance or strength from it. But I’ve studied it pretty extensively. My love of biology and affinity for its many sub-disciplines could be seen as something akin to a secular sort of Talmudic piousness, I suppose. And there’s nothing quite so humbling as standing on top of a mountain and looking out over the world around you; or seeing the stars from the countryside, unspoiled by the city’s light pollution; or hiking deep into a forest and knowing that you and your companions are the only human beings around for miles. These things fill me with awe every time.

It seems to me that what really matters is the awe, the appreciation of something outside oneself. It’s a surrender of sorts, an acknowledgment that we are adrift on the sea, powerless to do anything but fight for survival. And maybe dream up an unbelievable tale or two.

Murderloving Jackass Says What?

I got into a brief argument last week with a militia-style psycho. I know, I know; I just wrote a blog about being less of an asshole and not arguing with crazypeople, but it was fairly innocent. I saw someone comment on a friend's Facebook post, calling Obama a murderer of woman and children, and I couldn't resist cracking a joke about how I'd just seen him run a woman and child down in the street last night. No personal attacks, no direct response to anything he'd said, really. Just a quick little bit of absurdity to go with this guy's absurd comment.
His response was to call me a "murderloving jackass" for voting for "Obombya." The guy's attitude was hateful and toxic without provocation, all while he asserted that he had moral superiority for "voting with his conscience" against the "genocide" Obama has been perpetrating with drone strikes. I suggested that it was naive to think that a Republican president would endanger fewer women and children (given their penchant for bellicosity), and that Obama had likely endangered as many as any president has, and less than quite a few. He, of course, wasn't buying it, and threw more insults my way.
I said that the world's a shitty place, and there's little an average person can do about what our military is up to half a world away. I then suggested that instead of vilifying people for voting for six of one or half a dozen of the other (there's less of a difference between the two parties than most people would like to think, in my opinion), that he instead concentrate on what he could control, and start being kinder to the people he interacted with. I may be a murderloving jackass, but I don't go around attacking complete strangers at the drop of a hat. And I really don't think I could go around acting like a hateful asshole while simultaneously claiming to be morally elevated above the people I was attacking for no reason; I think the irony would make my head explode.
I spent a good portion of my 20s concentrating on how awful this world is. How selfish and greedy and willfully ignorant people can be. And do you know what that got me? It exacerbated a pre-existing penchant for clinical depression and made me genuinely wish for release from this shitty world. Only when I stopped staring into the abyss and started trying to fix myself did things get better. I've still got plenty of work to do, but I'm a hell of a lot happier now. And I'm damn sure you're not going to make this world better by being a dick, no matter how strong your convictions are.
Start small. Be a better person. Be kind to the people around you. That'll make more of a difference than calling someone online who disagrees with you a fascist.
Then again, what do I know? I apparently enjoy the deaths of innocent brown people.

Wait...What?

Ok, I admit it. I was trolling a little on YouTube today. I didn't go there with the intent of doing so; I merely followed a link posted on Facebook, and then made the mistake of reading the comments below the video. You know how it goes...you watch a video that amuses you, you scroll to the comments to see what other people thought of it aaaaannd...people are bashing Republicans. Or Democrats. And the video had nothing to do with politics at all.
It's obnoxious, right? Am I the only one who jumps into the fray out of mere annoyance? I doubt it. That doesn't excuse my actions, of course. I admit it; this is me debasing myself. But dammit, sometimes it's fun to screw with small-minded people that have to make everything about bashing someone else.
So I was watching the bashing unfold, not yet having joined the melee, when someone veered off into left field. To give a little context, this was in response to a call put in to a radio morning show. People were arguing whether the call was real or whether it was a bit. And then there were the people saying stuff like this:

Actually, I think this is precisely the sort of thing that got Obama elected. This is a hoax where the public perception was shaped by other people initially supporting the authenticity of the lie to shape public perception. Isn't that exactly what took place during Obama's election bid and election? What was presented in 2008 was a lie and an illusion, backed by the media, which helped shape social perception of Obama. Those who think this is real are more ones likely to be Obama voters.

Pretty kooky, right? I thought so, but I rolled my eyes and let it slide. But then the same guy posted this in response to another's assessment that the call was indeed a hoax:

I go one further. This was so bad, I'd bet there was an expert in mass psychology with a clip board who came to the radio station and pitched this as part of a research experiment that they were conducting. I wouldn't be surprised if you see this in a documentary on the subject of groupthink. The comments here are probably being collected as data points.

Jeepers, that's pretty out there. At this point, I felt the overpowering urge to chime in. And I have to admit, this isn't exactly the most shining moment in my life, but at this point I just thought the guy was a rabid right-winger. So my inelegant response was:

Wow dude, your tinfoil hat is showing. I think it's time to get back on the meds.

Not attacking, per se. Just pointing out that his views were a bit like those of Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory. Or Mel Gibson's views in real life, for that matter. As in, "Ground control to Major Tom! You're needed back on Earth! Come back!"
Then came his response:

Wow dude. Your ignorance is showing. Didn't you know that tinfoil hat is used as a pejorative to describe people who complain about human rights abuses that are occurring inside the United States, whereby local law enforcement and community watch groups are participating in and running cover for military grade psychological operations against citizens in conjunction with torture with microwave weaponry and other electromagnetic frequencies? Didn't you know that death squads are operating here?

This earned a hearty belly laugh from me. Clearly I'd misjudged this guy, and he was putting me (and everyone else) on. My response to this was the only one I could think of through my tears of laughter:

LMAO

Best. Response. Ever.

Or maybe not. Still rolling with my initial tinfoil hat comment, he then posted this:

Didn't you know that the standard operating procedure that is taken for someone who gets wise to the fact that they are a target is to use what is known as a psychiatric reprisal on them, a tool that was used by the repressive regimes that existed in the U.S.S.R. and in East Germany under the Stasi? Didn't you know that the DHS is eerily similar to the Gestapo and is torturing people inside their own homes, while violating their privacy through illegal and unconstitutional surveillance?

Ok, he was taking this schtick a bit far, wasn't he? Was this second bit of nonsense really necessary for the joke? Maybe he just had a Kaufmanesque devotion to staying in character. He didn't actually believe this crap, did he?
Hard to say, but he finally noticed my "Best response ever" comment and replied to it:

I thought you'd find it amusing. It's probably almost as amusing to you as Polish partisans being forced to dig their own mass graves before being lined up and shot.

I'm at a loss. This guy has left me speechless. I went from thinking he was a sorta-nuts right-winger to thinking he was a subversive wit to thinking he might actually just be certifiable. If he was joking, then his method acting was dizzyingly convincing. If not, then I've basically been making fun of someone who's literally mentally ill. Shit.
I slowly backed out of conversation, doing my best to save face if he was indeed joking (if so, he got me good), and yet trying not to be an unempathetic dick in case he wasn't:

I can't decide whether you're going for tongue-in-cheek Stephen Colbert-style humor, or you actually believe this stuff. For your sake, I hope it's the former.

Regardless, I wish you a long and happy life, free of microwave-irradiated testicles, good sir!

Yeah, that's the ticket. A little humor, a little empathy, mixed and served. If he was putting me on, he'd likely enjoy that irradiated testicles comment, and if not, hey, he'd probably still like it. No one wants irradiated testicles, right? His response:

Well, once you have been targeted by it, then you know the realities of it all too well. It is not my job to help the sickos running the program keep it quiet. By the way, I find it interesting that you'd then refer to a very real aspect of the program, which is the attempted forced sterilization of members of the population at a distance by irradiating their sex organs. Since I have moved to a new location, no one has been able to hit my genitals, you compassionate soul.

I...still don't know if he's joking. That last sentence alone could be taken in at least three ways:
1. He's fucking with me, and that's his *nudge nudge wink wink* to me.
2. He's serious, and he's genuinely thankful for my regard for his testicular welfare.
3. He's serious, and, worst of all, thinks that my testicles comment was condescending (which it wasn't meant to be), and this is his sarcastic response.
It's hard to say. There's a very real chance I've been screwing with an unmedicated schizophrenic. The fact that I've got a psych degree and should know better makes me feel extra shitty if that is indeed the case. I've got my own issues with depression and anxiety, so I know full well that laughing at someone else's mental health issues is the height of douchebaggery (although you've got to laugh at your own at some point, or they'll eat you alive--at least, that's how it feels to me). Granted, I wouldn't have laughed or poked fun if I'd genuinely thought this guy was mentally ill, but that doesn't change the fact that my schooling and personal experience should make me more attuned to this kind of thing.
Regardless of this guy's true mental state, I learned a thing or two today. First, I learned that the "crazy" people on the Internet may actually be crazy. It's probably best--for my conscience, if nothing else--to just assume that they are and treat them as such, not as the under-educated bigots that they sometimes appear to be.
Second, I really need to be less of an asshole.