This is a common sense fail, pregnancy fail, racism fail and biology fail all rolled into one. This sort of “genius” should be bred out of the gene pool, not into it.
It starts with a bit of raging against Authority.
Sooner or later, they’re being arrested for minor crimes.
And eventually, move up to major crimes…
Pay attention to the warning signs!
For whatever reason, the house I’m in now has some pretty bad wiring. It’s a relatively new house — built in the 70′s, perhaps early 80′s — and shouldn’t have the problems it does.
Unfortunately, that’s one of the things you’ll always get into when you own a home. There are quirky things about most every house. In this one, the fuse box may even be a bit overloaded…
Last Friday night, I had an overwhelming sense of dread. I felt like someone close to me was in trouble, and there was nothing I could do. I was distraught, and I couldn’t shake that feeling. My car had messed up the night before, and just everything seemed to be going the wrong way. And what should happen but every time I came into the room and sat down on the bed, the ceiling fan would begin this eerie whining, and shake violently back and forth.
But it only happened when I came back into the room and sat down on the bed…
I tested that theory seven or eight times, and finally decided to pull out the voice recorder and leave it running in the otherwise silent room for a few minutes… I mean, a little EVP never hurt anyone, right?
And so, two things became obvious:
This really made me give a lot more thought to the whole EVP phenomenon.
Sure, you can make recordings in silence, and end up with all sorts of noises. Ambient and background noises, wind and air pressure changes and other miscellaneous sounds that you wouldn’t normally notice become amplified. Since the dynamic range of most microphones is significantly wider than that of the human ear, and the fact that the final recording becomes compressed to fit into an audible bandwidth — not to mention the problems of noise from the internal mechanism on tape recorders and sounds created by digital processing on voice recorders — you end up hearing all sorts of noises that can sound rather ghastly. It’s the perfect illustration of the old saying, “ghost in the machine.”
You simply have to take a scientific approach to this sort of thing, otherwise, you’ll end up convincing yourself of all sorts of crazy stuff. As another old saying goes, “Enough research will tend to support your theory.”
Inspired by movies like Stir of Echoes, Sixth Sense and White Noise, and entertainment television shows like Ghost Hunters, I know too many people who run around recording EVP. Most of them are convinced that Ghost Hunters is real, as they’re unable to distinguish the difference between science, pseudoscience and entertainment.
These types also totally buy into most of the crazy conspiracy theories going around.
But, like they’d assuredly tell me … I’m just too cynical… *rolls eyes*
As for that “feeling of dread” I had Friday night (and through the weekend), I was more than right — in fact, I was dead on, right down to times. As cynical as I might be, there’s still the fact that I perceive things that I shouldn’t be able to.
You either get used to that or you don’t.
Yah. I’m back home and totally enjoying the comforts of my OG and my happy little office. It’s always nice to get to travel far and wide, but even nicer to come home… especially since I had only been married a scant week when I had to leave on that jetplane. But that’s another story all together ain’t it?
So, OG and I have been known to have some pretty interesting conversations in the last 7 years that we have worked together. No holds barred. Really. We talk about anything and everything. Which brings me to what we are talking about here.
At lunch, we generally find some kind of magazine full of gossip or short, yet hilarious ditties. The conversation turned interesting when I found a short article about an ape who doesn’t dig girl apes…. Read this… you’ll love it.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Sibu the Orangutan has miffed his Dutch keepers by refusing to mate with females and showing sexual interest only in tattooed human blondes.
Apenheul Primate Park hoped Sibu would become its breeding male when he arrived two years ago, but orangutans aren’t his type.
“He chases them, or ignores them, but he doesn’t do what he should do,” said a spokeswoman for the park.
Instead, Sibu fancies his female keepers, especially blondes. That, the spokeswoman said, was common for orangutans but Sibu has a fetish for tattoos, harking back to a heavily tattooed keeper who reared him.
“Orangutans have special interests in special subjects. Sibu happens to like tattoos,” she said.
So, this brought up the question of whether orangutans have a penis bone like most other mammals or if their penis gets hard like a human penis does. Yah, I know what you must be thinking… perfectly acceptable, lady-like lunchtime conversation. So, we finished up our lunch and google’d it, as we google every sick and twisted thing we can think of. And we found out that an orangutan does, in fact, have a penis bone.
OG has decided that I, being the blonde and tattoo’d chippie that I am, should stay the hell out of Amsterdam.
Just thought I’d share that tid-bit with you kids. Cheers!
(Article Copyright 2007 Reuters)
A couple of years ago I had a physical and the doctor found that my cholesterol was a bit high (234 I think). So, being the nerd I am, I started reading all I could about this. I read one long article on WebMD and it had an interesting final sentence that said something like “there is no statistical link between high cholesterol and heart attack.” Hmmm.
I got my blood tested again recently and was thinking all would be good. I have been on a low carb diet for months now, lost lots of fat and was thinner and eating much better. Well, my cholesterol was now 269 and all the results were in the “very high” range, except for blood glucose. I have not had any sugar in a long time, so, that should be low. Now the doctor is saying that I may need to get on medication for my cholesterol.
So I did more reading and now I am fairly convinced it is a lot of crap. I read this article which sums up a lot of things. Basically, the cause of heart disease and heart attack and stroke isn’t cholesterol, but stress. The emphasis on cholesterol is perhaps more about selling you a drug you must take every day for the rest of your life.
Study after study shows no link between a low fat diet and lowered risk of heart disease. Study after study shows that lowering cholesterol does not lower the risk of heart disease. But it sells a lot of pills! If cholesterol was bad for you, why does your body make it? New studies are showing serious risks with the extremely low cholestrol levers due to statins. Low cholesterol used to mean under 400.
Stress causes heart disease. That seems simple right? The C Reactive Protien is the better indicator. It also explains the “French Paradox.” This is the fact that although French people eat way more fat and have higher cholesterol, they have a lower incidence of heart disease. The cholesterol obsessed Americans decide this was due to their consumption of red wine. The real truth is that its due to their relaxed lifestyles. Two months of vacation a year. Shorter work weeks. More sick leave and fully insured. Less stress is the answer. The simple and obvious answer.
The other thing that was interesting to discover is that the optimum amount of exercise to strengthen the heart is 8-12 minutes. That’s right 8-12 minutes! Exercising a lot more is stressing your body, which is harmful. But that’s the American way. If 10 minutes is good 3 times a week, 2 hours twice a day is better! Wrong!
I am not going to worry about my high cholesterol. Unfortunately, this myth is so prevalent that my life insurance policy ended up at a much higher rate due to my cholesterol level. I wish I could get a lawyer to sue them over that! Class action!
