Let’s go camping!
Campers are the worst pile of ass ever.
All your camp belong to us.
Everyone knows about campers, right? They are the lowest of the low. Lower than pig shit. And now, I is one.
A camper is, of course, someone who finds a safe spot to hide and gibs poor little innocent players who stray into his line of fire. (Eat my pineapple!) Back in the early days of Quake, campers were considered scurrilous maggoty scum. Unfortunately, camping was often the only way I could kill my old buddy Raiko, who had me seriously outclassed and …
Wait one.
I think I’m talking about the wrong kind of camping here. Please never mind all of the above.
Let’s Go Camping
Three out of the last four years my wife and I have gone camping. Yes, that camping. Out in the woods. No internet. No bed. No electricity. Sleeping on the ground. Mosquitoes up the ass. My wife thought camping would destroy me. I guess we were both surprised when I manned-up and turned into a completely different guy. I go all wild and shit. I collect and break wood. I start fires. Me Tarzan. I think it still shocks the shit out of her.
The plan was a three-day weekend. We both took Friday off. Thursday after work we jumped right in the car we’d already packed and headed out of town. We had to pick up firewood then go back to our house because I forgot my coat. I didn’t think I’d need the coat but the wife made me do it. So we finally got on our way about an hour late.
We were about five minutes from the house when our first disaster struck.
BOOM!!!
We were driving on a two-lane road and, just when a pickup truck passed us, something hit our car. Loud. Simultaneously we both shouted, “Motherfucker!” as I pulled the car to the side of the road. I jumped out and watched the truck driving away. He wasn’t stopping.
“That son of a bitch,” I hissed. “He either deliberately threw something at us or kicked something up onto our car.” My money was on the deliberate throwing.
Our adrenaline flowing, we inspected the car, expecting to find something like a smoldering crater of devastation.
“Ah, here we go,” I said. A lounge chair had been tied to the rack on top of the car. That lounge chair had a flap that blocked the sun. That flap had been blown up by the wind and smacked down on our own car.
Yeah, that’s the way we roll. That’s how we started our expedition to the woods. I took it as a good omen. “This portends well for us,” I said wisely.
This was the last sign of civilization we saw on our way to the camp site. Then I heard dueling banjos.
Without further incident, we finally arrived at the campgrounds. The same one where we camped the last two times. The same spot was still open, too. “Let’s take that one again,” I said. Yeah, I’m not big on change.
My wife wanted to keep looking. There’s a spot she’s always wanted to try. It was taken. But she did find another spot that looked promising. “How about this one?” she asked.
“I’m down for whatever.” But inside, I was thinking, “Old spot, old spot, old spot.”
“OK, this one then.”
Dammit!
Thus began the unpacking of the car ritual. We had to get the tent set up and we were already an hour behind and it was getting quite dark. We made quick work of the task and soon I had a fire going. I plopped down in a Coleman chair. It was time to relax.
My wife grabbed a flashlight. “I can’t find the water. I’m going to go look.” And just like that, I was all alone, in the dark, surrounded by scary animals. And probably a grue.
She came back and shared the bad news. “We got no water here.”
Apparently the campgrounds were divided into two areas. The older original sites all had water. The new sites (like the one she had chosen) didn’t. No water. I quickly calculated the odds of surviving on nothing but Jack Daniels. I thought they were pretty food.
Thus began the weekend of me carrying shitloads of water to our camp.
To be concluded in a post entitled “The Fire Incident” coming soon…
Theoretical thoughts of theological tsunami truths
No, Glenn Beck. I haven’t forgotten about your recent douchebaggery. Not by a long shot…
Remember the earthquake in Japan? The one that led to a tsunami that caused problems with nuclear power plants?
Oh wait, that’s not quite over yet, is it?
I still remember what Glenn Beck had to say about the earthquake. It was just a little over a month ago circa March 15, 2011:
“I’m not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes. Well — I’m not not saying that either. What God does is God’s business, I have no idea. But I’ll tell you this: whether you call it Gaia or whether you call it Jesus — there’s a message being sent. And that is, ‘Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.”
I decided to try to think logically about the sneaky assertions in this statement. (I’ve already written about the snarkiness of phrasing crapola in the form of a question, unless one is playing Jeopardy.)
His little statement packs quite a wallop. I will try to break it down:
- There is a God
- God caused the earthquake
- The earthquake was a message
- The “messages” will continue until and unless we change our evil ways – the aforementioned “stuff we’re doing”
Remember, though, he presented most of this in the form of questions. We can stipulate he fervently believes the first one. Either that or he’s the best faker of all time, something decidedly not outside the realm of possibility.
The first assertion is one I ponder often. I tend to think of it in binary terms. It’s a true/false proposition. I believe it is something that is either true or false. To me, that seems fairly axiomatic.
One of my favorite lines of reasoning goes: “If there is no God then a lot of people are sure flaming assholes.” Mostly the ones who run around telling everyone else they are going to Hell, cashing in on religion, and stuff like that. On the other hand, there are a lot of devout and good people who truly believe, too. I can’t really find it in my heart to fault anyone for trying to live the best moral life they possibly can. Just as long as they aren’t flaming hypocrites about it, they’re fine with me.
No one can prove there is a God, nor can they prove there isn’t. Thus, I suggest we look at the probability of each possible outcome (true/false) as equally likely. (Personally, though, I’m certain there isn’t a God. But that’s just a belief.) So, in mathematical terms, the odds of each outcome is 50 percent. It’s just like flipping a coin.
Heads. There is a God. Tails. There is no God.
Let’s consider the next statement. God caused the earthquake. Again, I suggest we look at this as true/false, with each outcome equally likely. That means to get to Beck’s position that there is a God and God caused the earthquake we have to flip a coin and get heads twice in a row.
Next, we add another true/false condition for the earthquake being a message.
Lastly, we add on final true/false condition for the idea that the messages will continue unless we stop being evil. I assume this means stuff like fornication, homosexuality, etc. He’s a little vague about what “stuff” he’s talking about.
What we’re left with is a model a four true/false possibilities in a row. You can break down the odds of acheiving a particular chain of outcomes like this:
- 1 in 2
- 1 in 4
- 1 in 8
- 1 in 16
In other words, the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads four times in a row is 1 in 16.
This probability of this can be represented mathematically as: .5 x .5 x .5 x .5. That equals .0625 which is exactly what you get if you calculate 1 divided by 16.
If you look at it this way, there’s only a 6.25 percent chance this particular serpent’s statements are correct. In my book that’s what we call a long shot. Or maybe “snake oil” would be a better term.
This is my “T” post for the April 2011 “A to Z Blogging Challenge.”
Shouts from the Abyss 
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