Kids These Days

Any child born after 2000 stands little to no chance of ever getting a sprained ankle on a playground. They're too safe now a days.

When was the last time you saw a real metal slide, my guess would be 1998 or around then. Today most slides are the safer, shorter, less slippery plastic that is meant to reduce injury. Now let me tell you something, if you did something stupid on a slide (i.e. let your shoe drag along the metal) you would fall off or perform some painful acrobatic maneuver, but the chances are you'd never do that again. Kids today never learn these lessons, they never learn how to slide down a slide while avoiding buttocks burn. No, these slides are perfectly safe, and they are so gently sloped that you need an act of god to actually give you enough of an initial push to get you to the end of the slide. Metal slides were hot, dangerous, and fast. They were a lot of fun, and they taught kids cause and effect.

Also, the merry go round or the spinner is another awesome invention. The entire concept of this toy is to make kids dizzy. Although this may not be okay for the delicate kids of today, the kids of the past learned to hold on to the spokes tightly and not to let go. Kids today have little to no way of understanding centrifugal force unlike previous generations. Indeed these toys were dangerous, but honestly if you weren't strong enough to hold on, then you shouldn't be on the ride. It's like a natural selection system.

Another thing is the short monkey bars. Personally, I found quite the thrill from dangling 10 feet off the ground. There were still times when I hurt my ankle, but the experience of hovering that high off the ground gave me a sense of accomplishment. Kids today only know the feel of painted monkeybars 5 feet off the ground. That's nothing. As a matter of fact, that's not even a single story. Midgets are 5 feet tall.

Playgrounds were so much more fun when they are dangerous. They can provide hours of entertainment, and far more lessons pertaining to life situations. Screw safety. Let us have our fun.

Nerd v. Geek

Nerd

Nerds truly arose in the 1950s with their "mommy dressed me" fashion, pocket protectors, and horn rimmed glasses. While the times and general styles have changed, the attitude hasn't Being a nerd is a lifestyle cultivated by a childhood spent reading encyclopedias and avoiding sunlight. Nerds are often friendly, however, once removed from their caves (aka their rooms) they can seem very awkward and ungainly. Nerds are very cerebral and are more than willing to show you their working replica of the Large Hadron Collider made entirely out of marshmallows and toothpicks. Nerds are fun to play with, but they need adequate sleep, video games, their favorie sci fi series, and challenging school work to be happy.

Geek

Geeks are the groupies, the WoW players, and the fanfiction authors. They scour the internet for quirky trends that only geeks would know. Geekdom is the more free spirited and computer hacking type that can tend to get a bit rebellious. They are far less innocent than nerds, and have really blossomed with the rapid internet expansion. Geeks often congregate, swap evil plans, and form WoW guilds. To become a geek requires quirky clothing, a good computer, and a lot of time. Most of the geek friends are online, and most interaction that could be face to face is switched to some sort of chat function. Geeks freaked out when Gchat announced it's video option, because then they actually had to learn to pay attention to one thing instead of chatting, looking at 3 blogs, and playing Wolfenstein. Geek style has often been copped by fashion designers. Converse shoes, black framed glasses, and fitted band tees are all too common on today's runways, and it was because the geeks started wearing that combination of clothing and accessories.

Death Penalty

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/23/utah-man-chooses-firing-squad-for-execution/

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So of course this article raises some interesting questions. The first one being the fact that this man was allowed to choose his method of execution. It is sort gristly choice, and this man seems to be making the best out of it by choosing one final message to convey. However, this also raises the question, "should death row prisoners be allowed to choose the method?"

By allowing the prisoner to choose the way that they want to die it is only another acknowledgement that these people are human and capable of somewhat of a rational thought process.

The purpose of a penitentiary is to rehabilitate prisoners, and the death penalty is to be used when the person is unable to be rehabilitated. However, "A 2002 study survey showed that among nearly 275,000 prisoners release in 1994, 67.4% were rearrested within three years and 51.8% were back in prison". (US Department of Justice). This is a fairly good indicator that our legal system really isn't doing a good job at rehabilitating inmates.

As a matter of fact, prisons are riddled with crime and violence. They attempt to reduce medical care in order to increase their profits, and as a result they are keeping ill people confined who could otherwise receive better medical care outside of the prison.

Indeed, the crimes themselves are not right, but if the prison's themselves attempted to be more like a "correctional facility" and less like a time-out corner maybe the judiciary system would benefit. Initially it may take more effort to counsel prisoners, but if it reduces the imprisonment rate then it just might be worth it.

There may be some prisoners who can't be "corrected" by being sent to prison, and these are the people who deserve the death row. The people who need slightly more effort do not deserve the death row.

Food Combos (To Honor The Day)

Ok, seriously. Who puts pepper, ginger, and cinnamon into an iced chi tea latte? That has to be the spiciest cool drink I've had in a while. It was good though, so that's a plus. It was a weird feeling knowing that something so cool and icy was so spicy.

Other weird food combos that either I enjoy, or my friends enjoy:

Ketchup, Tabasco and Scrambled Egg

Scrambled Egg (very plain) on a Peanut Butter Sandwich

Hot Sauce and Popcorn

Soy sauce, Parmesan, and Popcorn

Peas and M&Ms

Pineapples and Salt

Milk and Pepsi

M&M's on top of Pizza

Baby Carrots and Peanutbutter

Hope everyone has a great day!

Short and Lucky

You never realize how short life is until something reminds you that it is certainly not infinite. Nor do you realize how lucky you are until you nearly lose something.

Please, do not drive drunk. You might make it home okay, but there is no sense in taking that chance.

Justice and Tragedy

So there is really no thing as justice. It's a fairy tale. A myth. An illusion. The real question is, why do you thing it's supposed to be? Who started that idea? The Bible? Society? Boston Legal? We just do not know.

Justice sounds like a good idea because it is an equalizer for pain. I get hurt, so you get hurt in return. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But, that's just not the case. there's more land than ocean, more salesmen than prophets, and more roaches than roach motels. Things aren't meant to be equal. suffering and happiness are not weights in some cosmic Weight Watcher's balance; their relative proportion is unpredictable. Just get over it.

Here's the deal, tragedy may be unequal, but it isn't random. Yes, there is meaning. Bad things usually happen to snap us out of whatever haze we are in at the time. We are supposed to start questioning our beliefs, try to figure out what is important to us, and try to figure out why we go on living. People don't usually change unless they feel sufficient pain to overcome their natural resistance to change. Change takes energy; it's a Simple physics concept that applies to day to day living. Tragedy energizes, and what suffering is supposed to encourage us to do is girue out how to avoid suffering in the future. It's evolutionary. Find out what happy people do and imitate them. It's not rocket surgery.

This Will Never Happen Again

Nothing is going to stay. It isn't a new concept in philosophy, and everyone knows it.

In every second, everything around us is constantly changing.

Websites That I Frequent

Websites that take up a fair amount of my free time.

Stumble Upon

http://www.stumbleupon.com

My roommate got me hooked on this site, and honestly it is really cool. Basically you sign up (which takes 2 seconds) and then you input your interests. Stumble Upon then directs you to off beat websites that can be quite a lot of fun. If you don't like a site, you hit the thumbs down button and it removes that type of site from your browsing options

Post Secret

http://postsecret.blogspot.com

I may or may not check this site religiously every Sunday. It has a lot of compelling secrets, and the books are great.

Wolfram Alpha

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Wicked awesome information site. I use it when I want to know random facts about an object, company etc. Also, it helps with chemistry and calculus.

Sporcle

http://www.sporcle.com/

Far too addictive. I must thank M for making this site a favorite. It is a trivia site that has quizzes ranging from "Name the Disney Princesses" to "Name All The Popes in Alphabetical Order"

Lala

http://www.lala.com

This is a great music site that is free. I usually keep it running in the backround when I am working because they have pre-made playlists.

Texts From Last Night

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com

Crazy funny site that is very quotable. Maybe it's because most of the things aren't done in the usual state of mind, but they tend to be hilarious.