2PhatGeeks.com » Humor & Sarcasm

Arguments in the key of 2GP

Melissa — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:12:26 +0000

“I don’t understand how you do this. ”

“Do what?”

“This! This kitchen thing you do. There were EIGHT THOUSAND bowls in the sink and seventeen knives. What do you need EIGHT THOUSAND bowls for!”

“Really? Really. Eight thousand? Whatever, Mister Flour ALL OVER the sink and the counter and some on the walls and ooooon the flooooors and socks by his desk and glasses on the desk and never cleans the surface of the–”

“That has nothing to do with the fact–”

“–cabinets or the cabinet doors or the fingerprints on the refrigerator or sweep and mop the floors or vacuum or do the wash or–”

“…that you can’t seem to cook one single meal without–”

“–make the bed or put the toilet seat down or–”

“…using EVERY DISH IN THE HOUSE FOR ONE MEAL!”

“EIGHT THOUSAND BOWLS, SHAWN, REALLY. I MEAN REALLY? EIGHT THOUSAND?” I partner this statement by standing in my kitchen and becoming a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man.

“YES. AND SEVENTEEN KNIVES AS WELL, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’D MAKE TO NEED THAT MANY KNIVES!”

“WE DON’T EVEN OWN EIGHT THOUSAND BOWLS. THAT’S A LIE. YOUR FACE IS FULL OF LIES RIGHT THERE! BESIDES, WAS THE MEAL BAD?”

“I DON’T…well, of course not. Nothing you’ve cooked in years has ever been bad.”

Smugly, “Then you’ve nothing to complain about.”

“EIGHT THOUSAND BOWLS!”

Three hours and episodes of Supernatural later, I leaned over and quite assertively stated that we do not own eight thousand bowls, thus, starting the entire argument all over again. Which neither of us were very heated about and both of us ended up laughing at one another profusely.

I may be the oddest woman on the earth, but its these small things that let me know I’m also the luckiest.
(To be alive. AND loved. That too. Yes.)

♥

For this, you will have to poop diamonds & gold nuggets.

Melissa — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:16:34 +0000

I am a fat woman.

I have rolls, people. I have saggy, huge rolls and giant breasts that are registered in fifty one states as concealed weapons and they’ve got a law now where I can’t run anymore because the last time…Well. I just don’t want to talk about the last time. The images are still too fresh.

I am a fat woman who now has daily access to a pool and her old bathing suit, a one piece with little in the way of holdin’ the girls back? Is tired. So very, very tired.

It doesn’t hold my flap-jack stomach back. My boobs wearily sag toward my feet. My butt looks like re-animated cottage cheese. So I decided to start checking out what’s available for me, swim suit wise. Given that I pretty much hit the pool every single day, I thought maybe I could afford to squeeze in an extra bathing suit. I mean, just how much could they be? Really?

I started yelling within two minutes of a Google search.

That cute little empire waisted black number with the fantastic hide-the-cottage cheese skirt for one hundred bucks?. Are you fucking kidding? That had to be a joke, right?

Nope. I went to all the brands I knew and trusted, starting with Layne Bryant. Ridiculously expensive. I then checked out Catherines. Same. Then off I went to all sorts of other sites and eventually found Fashion Bug. Surprisingly I found a fantastic little black number with a stripe of bright pink. It was perfect. and one-piece with a little skirt and extra tit-slinging support for thirty-seven dollars. JACKPOT, right? I bookmarked it and set it aside for when I thought we’d actually have the $37 for it. (It’s not a MUST HAVE after all, I still have my stretchy blue shame-rag I can hide under a shirt.)

So today I go and check on it, because I like to stare at it longingly and then pet it. Maybe call it Hilda–when I noticed that it doesn’t come in my size anymore.

CUE RAGE.

You can’t tell me swimwear for fat chicks costs to much more because we need more fabric. These are probably made in some horrific sweat-shop somewhere for 9 cents an hour, so don’t go cramming your $150 for a piece of stretchy fabric meant to be worn in the water that covers my hoo-ha and boobies, leaving everything else pretty much on display.

$150 nets me almost three weeks of food, or an entire bill paid off, or 1/3rd of my rent or an amazing haul of clothing from Good Will/Walmart.

For $150 in a swimsuit I expect it to make me miraculously non-fat, my tits look like they were when I was 22 and an ass to DIE FOR.

Seriously, all I want is a one-piece with a little chesticle support so that people don’t mistake my mammary jiggle as an auctioneer’s call and a bit of a skirt to hide my curdled butt FOR a reasonable amount of money. Reasonable.

$150 is not a reasonable price for a swimsuit unless you poop diamonds and gold nuggets!

♥

Happy 1st Anniversay you marvelous geek.

Melissa — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:10:13 +0000

Today marks the first year of being officially married to Bariguy, my other half here at 2phatgeeks. We’ve been together for years, so long that everyone who knew us simply assumed we were already married. So it was a shock that early last year I revealed that not only were we not married; but that I had to return to Canada to get my paperwork in order for us to get married.

Luckily, everything turned out alright. And here we are, 1 year later and official in paper work.

To be honest and cheesy, though, we were already official in my heart–years ago.

I’m a lucky woman. I have a husband who not only understands my Star Wars quotes, but joins in with his own favorites. Who understands when I reference an internet meme and who not only gets my jokes? But laughs at them.

In celebration of our 1st year anniversary let me share with you some of our most embarrassing and geeky moments!

I love you, Shawn!

A collection of our most embarrassing and/or geeky quotes from all times in our marriage at this link! Click it to read them on my personal journal!

♥

Swingin’ my big stick.

Melissa — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:24:59 +0000

Our little notebook investment arrived yesterday. A little sleek black Asus meant to simply help us store the wealth of information I will be shoving into it this March because Shawn and I are spending four days at Disney.

Originally, we were simply going to buy a lot of storage cards for my digital camera, cell phone and video camera. We realized this plan was not-so-brilliant and Shawn, my one true geek went shopping around for other options.

The little notebook is perfect. It’s all shiny black with that New Computer smell and nothing delights me more than watching my husband come skipping home when we have new gadgets for him to play with. He literally spent the entire night setting it up, removing programs, installing the ones we use, customizing as well as tweaking. During all of this he generally kept up and entire line of conversation excitedly extolling the add ons, features, and wonderful uses this new notebook will bring. He might as well have been four years old again–skipping through the Star Wars toy section. His eyes were bright and his hands expressive, he’d stop for five seconds to press a button here and there or type something then continue telling me of dis wondrous shiny device we had purchased.

Sadly, my excitement only ran as far as, Neato! A new thingie to type on and decorate with the added bonus of being transportable! and to name it Piddles the Notebook.

I had an even more difficult time focusing on anything he had to say. As he was babbling happily away about what programs were installed and what weren’t, he was fiddling with a removable stick of ram the entire time. It’s on a long, long string meant to be worn about the neck. He’d start spinning it to the right and winding it around his fingers until it stopped short. Then, in mid-sentence, he’d start swinging it to the left until the string was fully wound around his fingers just to immediately switch directions and repeat.

After about six minutes of being entranced by this as if I were a three-week old kitten, I shook my head abruptly and demanded, “What are you doing?”

He stopped in mid-speech about being surprised how fast it was, given how small the notebook was, eyebrows quirking upward. “With what? Huh?”

I fluttered my hands absently in his string-spinning direction. “What are you doing with the swinging and the thing and the–wtf?–is this some sort of weird geek sexual strip routine I’m not aware of? Like a routine featuring a feather boa except–”

He interrupted me entirely calmly and as if he’d been waiting all his life for this moment to say a single line he’d been saving for decades.

“Don’t deny it. You find it sexy when I swing my big ram stick.”

And it is in those moments when I’m done staring agog or laughing my fool ass off, that I realize each day I love him more and more. Big hard drive and all.

♥

A Good Year

bariguy — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 07:14:26 +0000

It’s been a busy year here at the Pence household.

Like most people, I’m busy celebrating with the better half and quite definitely “nicely relaxed.” this year, I am “nicely relaxed” (ie obliterated… so please excuse the typos) on a steady stream of Mooing Irish Pepsis (Bailey’s, coke and milk) and rum and cokes, but made with this awesome Black Cherry rum. It’s very rare that me and the other half of 2phatgeeks.com actually get a chance to drink up and enjoy. We’re either too poor or too occupied or I’m too tied up with work.

But tonight? No way… Tonight we celebrate one hell of a year, as far as I’m concerned. Tonight we’re gonna tie one on because I can afford it (sort of), because we’ve earned it and because, for once, we don’t have any major crises hanging over my gradually increasing forehead. So let me tell you what we both accomplished this year.

We were finally, legally, without a doubt and without legal issue completely married. We’ve been together seven years this year and we finally made it through, what for us, was a major international hurdle. It was also something I’ve wanted to do since we met and it is more than an major relief, it’s like I’ve finally managed to finish off a major life’s work. It would not have been possible without the continual support of my family, her family and… most importantly, her.
Hell, not only that, we made it through reams of international (though largely US) red tape. Sure, it put us in debt beyond my wildest imagination and involved an enormous amount of stress, but as of this October, we officially made it through the first and most difficult portion of her naturalization. I’d like to throw out a special and very heartfelt thank you to our lawyer, Fernando Palacios. This kindly grandfatherly figure made a significant portion of our dreams come true and we’ll always be indebted. If anyone on the east coast of Florida needs an Immigration lawyer, find this guy… he’s the best.
The credit union I work out announced it’s intention to merge, and absorb, one of the largest credit unions in south Florida. This was a huge deal and resulted in the next item, in addition to essentially securing the future for my family.
I received a promotion to Assistant Manager. I’ve been a Senior Call Center Associate, basically the person you get when you ask for a manager or a supervisor, for over two years. It’s the longest I’ve ever been in a position. I figured, like most folks, that I’d be in this position another year or so. Thanks to the merger, the support of my managers and no small amount of hard work, I managed to claw my way up sooner than expected officially as of this November. This was an awesome surprise and the opportunity I’d been waiting for. It’s a lot more work, but I do find myself loving it. It, along with the above, has lead to the next item…
Finally some relief from having to rely on credit to make our way through every plan and holiday. As 2010 begins, 4 out of 7 credit cards are shut down and in payoff and we’ve still managed to have nearly enough money set aside to pay for the entire awesome Disney Vacation we have planned. It may not seem like such a big deal to some folks, but moving away from Credit and moving into paying for things directly is a huge deal for me. As much as I might miss having the cards to fall back on for extra little surprised for the better half, it’s just awesome knowing that I’m paying these things off and closing them… eventually.
While all of this craziness was going on, we both participated in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. While many of you are very familiar with this it’s honestly the first I’d heard of it. I’ve never considered myself much of a writer. With all of the focus I’ve had lately on work, I used to play saxophone regularly, in several jazz bands and ensembles, but I haven’t had any actually creative outlet in a long time. So this year, when Mel mentioned this novel writing thing, I figured, “What the hell. I’ve got nothing else to do.” To my immense surprise I actually finished… and finished early. It feels like I won a fucking marathon and I certainly count it in my highlights of a year already filled with goodness.
My better half opened and made some real, no-foolin’, people money on the intarwebz! Her Etsy shop took off more than even I expected, and I had high hopes, and she continues to show me just how talented she really is each and every day.
Last but most certainly not least, every member of my family made it through the year still alive and still kicking; mom, dad, grandma, sister, mother and father in law (hang in there guys!) and my brother-in-law not to mention my non-human family: cats, bird, hamsters and all! Sure, some of my family are kicking a lot less strongly than before, but they’re still out there and they make it all worth doing, no matter what a pain in the ass it is.

It was one hell of a year, for sure. After what is sure to be a couple of frenetic months, 2010 will start off with me and my better half finally taking a long discussed and dreamed of vacation at Disney World. Instead of running through two parks in a single day, we’ll have four full days to enjoy it all. For those of you that don’t fully appreciate what this means, let me just say that I will have more fun watching her at Disney than I will actually being there myself. 2010 is already looking up.

To all of you that I’ve argued with, dealt with on the phone, annoyed, pissed off, amused or in any way touched your life, thanks for being a part of making this awesome year even more awesome. I wish each and every one of you as good a year as we’ve had and hope nothing but the very best for all of you and your families.

Happy New Year, Internets… I love you guys.

♥

Pinkopalypse

bariguy — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:19:29 +0000

When it comes to computers, there are pink components, and there are good components, but there are scant few good pink components. While for most geeks this is not a problem, for me it is as the better half loves the color pink. So, in addition to doing every odd job I could think of to fill my time, I decided to right a serious geek wrong and make the pink computer I know she wants.

I am not a case modder; not by a long shot. I put computers together in preassembled cases. I’m pretty handy when it comes to putting things IN computers, but I am not known for my vast case modding skills. So while this was intended to be a welcome home gift for the better half of 2PhatGeeks, It was also a learning experience. So, I began.

First, we had to modify the cover. The case was originally black and silver and designed around a nicely geeky RPG/Medieval theme, complete with a shield on the front. Unfortunately The XBlade Design wasn’t going to work for the pink happy box idea I had in mind, so I had to do something. I pondered long and hard, several weeks before she left, in fact, deciding what to put on the case…

This brilliant design, of course, required I cut aluminum approx ¼” thick. I needed firepower. I needed… my first Dremel! It is an amazing machine that I am not at all good at using. But I managed to accomplish what I needed and lined it with a little bit of rubber tubing and hot glue to cover some of my many imperfections… wow, it’s a metaphor for me!.

Next there was a BOATLOAD of painting. Every peripheral that I could properly paint (as well as some I couldn’t) got a coat of candy pink, white or pink fading to white.

One thing you won’t see in this next picture is a fancy pink keyboard. While I knew it would be a challenge, Mel had literally worn her keyboard almost out, half the letters were gone, so I figured I had nothing to lose. If things didn’t work out, well, she was due for a keyboard anyway. Good thing I had planned for the possibility of failure! While the keyboard looked awesome, it just didn’t work. The Microsoft ergo that she prefers is made to pretty dang exacting standards that my painting is not up to! I bid it a fond adieu and replaced it with a new one. Anyway, here we can see some of the peripherals. The mouse looks and feels awesome!

Next I turned my attentions to the case. Every surface was repainted. The chassis frame is completely white, inside and out, while the outside of the case is pink in the front fading to white at the rear. It was far from flawless, as a first attempt, and some minor touch ups were needed, but when I first saw the case front repainted and reassembled, I started to get excited. I think it looks awesome and girly!

Lastly, as I assembled the case, I couldn’t just let the blue lights and fans stay, so I replaced them with white lights and filled the heart in with a pink bit of plastic from, of all things, a girl’s notebook from Wal-Mart.

Behold… The Pinkopalypse! It looks so light and airy and girly I think I just grew an ovary.

So ended my first real attempt at (admittedly very minimal) case modding and I hope the returning princess likes it! I really believe she will. I learned several good lessons for the future… including that 1. The Dremel is the coolest power tool ever, but that they require patience and that 2. I really suck at painting. By the time you are all reading this, she will be on a flight home and will be seeing it by sometime around 8PM this evening.

WELCOME HOME BABY!

♥

That’s the Burger King Flavor!

Melissa — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:29:50 +0000

On April 15th, 2009 and I stepped on a bus to travel from Florida, U.S.A, to Alberta, Canada. It would take me until April 18th to reach my destination. While on the bus, I did my best to keep sporadic notes about my experiences and trip. Come with me on this long journey of smelly people crammed into tiny seats, share my pain.

April 15th, 6:30 pm. 3 hours on bus.

Sitting in thin, cramped uncomfortable greyhound bus seats, the Melbourne Florida international airport already seemed like a distant memory with it’s garish green palm tree and blooming red flow carpet, white walls and skylights.

It was my first bus, and although it wasn’t yet crowded I had already picked up a few interesting characters which boarded with me three hours ago at Melbourne.

The first noticeable fellow bus traveller was a young man who I immediately deemed “Fifteen cent.” Fifteen cent was a pasty pale, golden blonde haired southern white boy who I firmly believe thought he was terribly gangsta. He showed up at the airport wearing a black t-shirt that fell to the tops of his knees, covering his pants which were belted somewhere around his thighs. On this shirt, cheerily in neon colors of sunshine yellow, screaming pink and baby blue were patterns in the shape of brass knuckles. Stylin‘.

He wore his hat sideways and had a lovely pencil thin neck-beard. His moustache was also pencil thin and looked like it was sketched on his upper lip with a supremely fine calligraphy pen.

Fifteen cent started talking outside the Melbourne airport and had not stopped the entire time while on the bus. He chatted with a young woman who had blonde hair fried from the bleach used to turn it platinum while her roots of her greasy black hair crouched tell-tale at the top of her head. Fifteen cent often started his conversations, loudly –so the entire bus could hear–with such world-shattering phrases as, “I was working with the crew that built that,” pointing at what seemed to be everything as we drove by it, and, “One time, when I was so mother fuckin’ high.” According to Fifteen cent, he built half of Florida and did so while being higher than a kite. (I don’t know about you, but I think from now on I’ll be eyeballing up several of the structures around where I live suspiciously for years to come. )

The girl he spoke to and hung around ( for I suspect, the free cigarettes she kept giving him) had her own quirks. She kept getting cell-phones calls from what I assumed to be her ex, as for the first four calls she would open her cell phone to only yell into it: FUCK OFF, then hang up. This was jarring to me at the time, because the impression I had of her was one of mousey-ness. She was small, a touch chubby wearing a white shirt decorated with little pink flowers as well as pink scroll work. I thought she looked more like the type to collect My Little Ponies instead of barking things like, “I don’t give a shit! I don’t fucking care anymore, you’ll be charged for aggravated assault and that’s fucking that, fucker! Don’t call me anymore!”

While I half paid attention to their conversation which was inane and strewn with profanities that made me sound like a good christian church going girl in comparison, I realized that I had no clue what-so-ever in how to adjust the paper thin, hard-as-a-frozen-nipple-bus seat in which I was sitting in. Whom ever had sat in it before me had left the seat in half recline and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where the dohickeymabob thingie to fix it, near the window seat, was. Instead of doing something logical, like ask or move over the aisle seat where I could easily find the handle to adjust the seat–I decided to sit and suffer.

During these moments of feeling intensely idiotic and making a further note to investigate how this weird scorcery that is my greyhound bus seat, I hear Fifteen Cent exclaim, “That’s the mother fuckin’ Burger King Flavor!”

I remember sliding further down in my seat and putting my head into right hand.

This was only the first day of a four-day long bus trip. I knew at that moment of Fifteen Cent’s brilliant exclamation that this was going to be the longest ride of my life.

I had three more days to go!

This entry is part one of several entries documenting my trip to Alberta via greyhound bus. Like what you’ve read so far? Feel free to hit the subscribe button here at 2phatgeeks to get entries updated via your favorite feed reader, or if you’re from live journal, feel free to add me as a friend!

♥

Um… What?

bariguy — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:00:33 +0000

Every day on my trip to work I pass by a carwash right next to the gas station I usually hit . Out in front, it has one of those “insert the letters” marquee type of signs, allowing the message to be changed. Usually it has some sort of pithy little saying related to whatever holiday is closest. For the past week this sign has said the following:

Congratulations to
Tom Falcone
Employee of the
Month!

Not unusual in itself, and way to go Mr Carwash Manager for putting your employee out there.

One problem: This is a 100% automated car wash. No employees… ever. Huh?

♥

Pic Dump #1!

bariguy — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:00:22 +0000

I decided to clean out the images on my phone memory card last night, in a desperate attempt to give me something to do. I’ve always loved stumbling across pic dumps and a couple of these gave me a chuckle, so I figured I should follow kindergarten rules and share! You’ll have to forgive the quality of some of these, my camera phone is just one step above a daguerreotype.

Breakfast Time?

Well, you didn’t think we weren’t going to have at least one picture of an animal, did you? Flora’s morning kitchen shenanigans now include table top supervision.

The Mileage of the Devil!

It’s time for the Oil Change from HELL!!

Schindler's Lift

Alright, I find this hysterical, but I’m not sure who else will. This is my elevator at work, made by the Schindler company. Schindler’s Lift! HA HA HA HA HA!

Hi, Grandma!

This is my Grandmother. As you might be able to guess, she would probably kill me if she saw this picture. I snapped this one while helping her out one day. She’s waving at Melissa in Canada.

Living in Florida is so hard!

I took this pretty much just to brag. I took this about a two-and-a-half weeks ago. This is a shot from the table where I usually eat lunch when I get a chance to go outside. Obviously it’s looking back into the parking lot, but it;s under a great open concert shell like covering and those aren’t just random woods back there, that’s a nature preserve here. We have Owl, Dear, Hawk, Sandhill Cranes and pretty much every small bird in the area. When I took this it was about 78 degrees (25.5 C for you metric folks), dry (for Florida) and with a nice breeze. Yeah, it might suck in the summer, but it is freakin’ awesome the rest of the year!

A Delicate Princess!

This awesome pic is also my current Cell phone wallpaper. This is what happens when you leave your phone unattended at your desk while you’re working on your wife’s computer. Love you, baby!

THIS is Customer Service

And last but not least: yours fatly. The next time you feel the need to unload your frustration on some poor, unsuspecting Customer Service Rep, remember this.

♥

Darkest Before the Dawn

bariguy — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:00:35 +0000

There has been a lot of great pro-atheist/secular press lately. Among the good news is a recent study showing a vast increase in the number of people calling themselves non-religious, and the decreasing numbers calling themselves religious. While I am heartened by this news and proud that the admitted non-religious now make up the third largest religious demographic, something in this report raised my eyebrow.

While virtually every single religion has lost ground, one group, the evangelicals, are gaining ground. Evangelicals encompass the so called “charismatic” churches. In your face, door-to-door evangelism to spread the viral meme that religion has become. This is the Rockin’ for Jesus crowd. These are the people waving their hands in the air while listening to bad 80s rock about fairy tales. The people that hold up signs about god killing soldiers because we don’t stone homosexuals; these are evangelicals.

So while the religion is very slowly getting smaller, (and thank god for that, ha!), it’s becoming bolder and more dangerous; concentrated idiocy.

As a people, we should be proud. It’s about time we’re able to say, out loud, that we don’t believe in this nonsense and that it just doesn’t make any sense. I believe it’s likely that the numbers of atheists have been up around 10% for some time and that people were simply afraid or too embarrassed to say anything openly. It speaks highly of us and our country’s development that this barrier is slowly lifting and that atheism is finally expanding.

Of course, the United States is still way behind much of Europe when it comes to accepting non-believers as equals. There are plenty of people in this country that have admitted they’d rather live next to a Muslim than an atheist, as completely idiotic as that is and despite the fact no atheists have ever bombed a government building or flown planes into sky-scrapers. There are likely even more people that are proud as some idiot redneck at a prize pumpkin competition that we lag behind Europe in this area.

The problem is, that the more evangelical we become as a country, the father behind we fall in the maths and sciences. Europe is making major headway into the physical sciences and is quickly beginning to upstage us. Japan is famously technologically advanced and is essentially always on the bleeding edge. All this technology has it’s roots in the educational system, science and academia.

Not surprisingly, evangelicals aren’t really fond of academia and learning. Evangelicals aren’t interested in anything other than, as they would likely put it, “The Word.” Unfortunately for us, however, the Word doesn’t keep the power on or put satellites in orbit or anything that’s actually useful. We are essentially losing our place as the leader of the free world because these backwards bumpkins, and those that enable them (I’m looking at you, Catholics and Lutherans), breed like rabbits. While they’re breeding, they make sure to breed in a healthy lack of respect for anyone that disagrees with their fanciful little worldview.

As I watch and read news and reports on the internet, I fear that the worst is yet to come. The fact that the most progressive president in history will still not endorse gay marriage because of idiotic religious objections to a private matter indicates just how far we have to go. The more we push out the envelope to making sure we are properly represented, which we simply are not, the more these backwards people push back, and they outnumber us. As we become more of a political force, you can bet that the full political power of the churches, who have never failed to butt into politics despite that tax-exempt status, will be brought to bear on us. The attacks will become more personal. People like EvilTomte will feel the need to defend these idiots out of some misguided attempt at fairness. In doing so they will only risk endangering their own rights in their countries. The religious are not interest in fair, they are interested in following their religion first and foremost.

From my perspective, it has become the most important issue in my life, save my family’s safety. With the recent assaults on non-Christians becoming a much more prominent I have found it necessary to cut ties with my Christian friends, after realizing they will put their inane mythology ahead of my rights. It doesn’t matter that I’m not gay, had I been so, every single one of my close friends would have voted to take away my right to marry and I find that unconscionable. I consider it a matter of self-protection for myself and my family that I no longer associate with these people, in addition to being the only real action I can directly take against the planned erosion of my rights.

So the next few years, maybe the next couple decades, could be very interesting and will get darker before the next enlightenment hits us. The Dark Ages followed the fall of Rome, when neediness and a lack of education caused people to fall on old mythologies to make themselves feel better about their horrible lives and low standard of living. Religion has always preyed on those that need their lives to mean something, especially if that life is a hard one. The irony is that religion represses scientific advancement thus ensuring people’s lives remain hard: it’s a self-propagating system.

Atheism and secular society is entering the feisty teenager stage as it begins to understand it’s just as important and even more valid than these ancient mythologies. The old-school, all-controlling, oppressive religions are heading into their death throes… well, hopefully, anyway. The two are bound to butt heads directly and it wouldn’t surprise me if it did so physically. Perhaps when these archaic religions stop seeing their belief as a reason to wage war on other beliefs, I’ll be more like to associate with them. Until then I’ll remain wary of religion and its motives and will be sure to keep them at a safe distance.

♥