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coolmonkey
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Name: Eric
Birthday: 12/20/1983
Gender: Male
Interests: ...zzzzzzzzz
Expertise: I am a good procrastinator. I usually fall asleep when I...zzzzzzzz...
Occupation: Other
Industry: Other
Message: message me
AIM:  sirmonkeearss
Member Since:
2/10/2003
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| When one thinks about the War on Christmas, thoughts of Bill O'Reilly, Focus on the Family, and a variety of other other militant Conservative groups come to mind. This phony war is just a gimmick to attract moronic followers and cause unnecessary controversy for the sake of cheap ratings. During this season, they go on an all-out attack on malls and companies they deem to "secular" because they say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." If a GAP commercial on TV doesn't praise the baby Jesus, then they impose a Christian boycott on GAP. If Wal-mart has candy canes instead of crosses, then boycott Wal-mart! If it were up to them, every business would have a nativity scene in their storefront, no matter if their customers are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Kwanzanist (is that what they call them?), etc. To them, this time of year is for CHRISTMAS ONLY. One would only hope that these are all done in jest, and perhaps in the beginning, it was, but this has grown to Teabagger Party proportions with whackos and conspiracy nuts taking this trivial situation like America depended on it.
But now, a new Christian movement has entered the fray. This one is led by pastor Rick McKinley, member of the Advent Conspiracy. This group of churches is disgusted at the way this War on Christmas is going. It is ridiculous that the followers of Christ now worship consumerism and materialism over Christ during this time of year. Not only that, but they fight to have Jesus's name in Best Buys, Targets, malls, TV commercials for winter wear, etc. The Advent Conspiracy movement is trying to separate Christianity from corporate greed. I mean, why would you want Christianity marketed in shopping malls? Why would you want to celebrate Christ in the same place you buy a washing machine? The aims of this movement is to steer good Christians away from the idea of gift-giving and focus more on being thoughtful to one another. Instead of buying your nephew an X-Box, why not donate some money to help give clean water to villages in some 3rd world country? If this season is so holy and sacred to you, then why not put your money where your mouth is? O'Reilly and the Religious Right are fighting the wrong fight. Instead of helping their religion, they are perverting it further than any Atheist could. I'm an Atheist and even I know that.
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| Feeling like your blog isn't performing as well as it should? Does it come up short of your expectations? Worried about flaccid ideas? Having trouble getting it up? Well, you're in luck, pal. Since I'm in a generous mood, I will share some secrets to boost your traffic and increase your writing pleasure. Here are some guaranteed ways to enhance your Xanga experience.
***Disclaimer: This post is not directed at any particular user out there. If you think this is about you, then you're a vain bitch. And if results last longer than 5 hours, consult a doctor immediately.
1) Put a picture of yourself in the profile pic. It helps if you have some prop, like a fat cat.
2) Suggestion #1 didn't work? Then I'm sorry to break it to you, but that means you're ugly. But that's okay, I have a remedy for that. Simply switch out your profile pic with a cute Asian girl to see an automatic spike in page views overnight!
3) In some point in your Xanga career, you should mention something about Asians at least once, it's a surefire lightning rod. Since a large portion of the online community is some kind of Asian, any issue you bring up will definitely stoke their interest. Start with an eye-grabbing title like, "How to Get Asian Girls!!!!" Or you can go with stuff like, "Why Do Asian Men Suck When Compared to White Guys?" In the words of the Human Torch, "flame on!"
4) Don't write about your day, because that is a game killer. It's fine if you want to write for yourself, but if you want to get attention, that is not the approach you want to be taking. Quite frankly, none of us really care about what you ate for breakfast, how you did in class, or what your friends did. Unless your life is f'ing fabulous like Tucker Max, then don't bother.
5) Stop with the poetry. Seriously, just like your life, chances are, 99% of it sucks. Sure, you can have a cute profile pic, but if you don't leave something of substance for somebody else to respond to, then you're just getting blank views. And the only thing worse than crappy poetry is copy-pasting song lyrics from an established artist. Jesus, at least go the extra mile of linking to Youtube so we can actually hear it?
6) Quit it with the relationship talk. There's already a Datingish site dedicated to those "my boyfriend is a jerk, should I take him back?" posts. At least try to do something original or have something more interesting to talk about other than "P,E, N and I are avoiding S for now. S keeps calling and texting me, but P, E, and N say I shouldn't respond. But I don't know." You know what, we don't care! Just break up with the guy and stfu! Little people gossip, big people talk about ideas.
7) Don't make vague, one-liner posts. How are supposed to respond to something like, "It's all my fault?" Uh...can you be more specific? Why even bother wasting the time to enter in something like that? It's not long enough to be a personal journal or an actual attempt at attention, so why do it?
8) Mention another more popular Xangan in your post. Stoking the ego of a super-Xangan can do wonders for you. Ideally, this would be the starmaker himself, Thetheologianscafe, since I'm fairly convinced he screens Xanga every minute to see how many times his name pops up in the blogosphere. One simple rec from him pretty much redirects LAX into your site. People from all over will be pouring into your post like it's always been their business. The sudden barrage may startle some bloggers, so be careful not to be overwhelmed by the eprop bomb he drops on you. Don't be surprised if you get more hits in a day than you have all year simply from his blessing.
9) When all else fails, write a blog about how to write blogs.
10) Profits.
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| In the beginning of a relationship, it's very important to share similar interests with your partner. In fact, that's probably what brought you two together in the first place. Joggers might have met each other at a marathon, writers might have sat next to each other at a creative workshop, alcoholics might have hooked up at a bar, etc. However, I believe liking something in common is only half the battle. The other key ingredient most couples overlook is that they must also hate similar things as well. For example, if one person hates talking on the phone, yet the other calls 20 times a day, that relationship is doomed to failure. Maybe one loves Korean food and the other can't stand the smell of kimchee, how's that going to work out?
Finding someone that shares an interest with me is relatively easy. I can adapt to someone else's passions pretty quickly and seamlessly. If I couldn't, then I wouldn't be hanging out with them in the first place. I've followed people into cooking, yoga, FOB music, wine tasting, etc. But the hard part is finding what people hate, because most try to hide that side of them for the sake of making a good first impression. For instance, who's going to say "I hate babies," or "Chinese food tastes like crap" on a first date? We are too busy wrapping ourselves with positives and we shove all the negatives under the rug. The problem with this is that by the time you discover that your likes and dislikes don't synch up as much as you had originally thought, it's too late. I try to counter this human instinct by laying out my hatreds up front. I will tell a girl I hate talking on the phone so she won't call me all the time. I will tell the friends of my parents that I hate kids, which is why I don't want to hold their baby. I will tell my buddies that I'm not an outdoors kind of guy, which is why they shouldn't take me on their mock homelessness trips (I think they call it camping?). I will tell my own grandma that I hate the homemade toxic sludge of a creation she calls a "health shake" just so she doesn't have to waste food or time making it for me.
I think the world would work better and relationships will avoid unnecessary hardship if we just kept it real and fully disclosed what we hate. Loving the same things is good, but hating the same things is better.
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| Earlier this week, a good friend of my father passed away. I didn't know him personally, and under any circumstance, I wouldn't have cared. But it was the way that he died that troubled me, because apparently the guy literally dropped dead. I believe it was some rare, aggressive and spontaneous form of leukemia. He suffered a sudden severe fever and was pronounced brain dead in a span of 2 days. Up until his sudden death, he was a perfectly healthy, early 50s, good family, etc. I never knew someone can just die like that out of nowhere. Sure, there's car accidents and death on battlefields, but this is a completely act-of-God kind of tragedy more akin to being struck by lightning on a clear day where nobody is really at fault. It never occurred to me how easy and randomly a person could just die. Now you may be thinking that this is another cliched post about how we should "cherish life because you never know when it's going to end," and to that I can respond: Kind of.
There's this pervasive belief some religious folk have that Atheists don't cherish life. They assume all sorts of nasty things about us, like how we have no values, no honor, can't be trusted, and we enjoy performing abortions on the weekends. Occasionally, there will be a religious person that is feeling particularly clever, and will ask why, if we don't believe in an afterlife, that we don't just kill ourselves since there's no point to life. Unfortunately for them, they happen to be confusing "Atheism" with "Nihilism." In a nutshell, Nihilism is the belief that, since something is going end, then it has no real meaning and there's no real point in doing it in the first place. It gets pretty complicated and could fill an entire class curriculum, but for arguments sake, let's just keep it at that. Atheism is simply not believing in the supernatural. The two are not synonymous at all and is just comparing apples and oranges. I don't think most people in this world are nihilists because, quite frankly, I think they have short lifespans. The rest of us that continue to live are obviously doing it for a reason. Just because something ends doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I mean, a chess game ends, so should we stop playing chess? Ice cream melts, so should we stop eating it? We will lose our loved ones eventually, so should we stop caring about them? It all boils down to our perspective on life.
Since religious folk love to use analogies in their arguments, let me attempt to use one as well. Let's say you were put at a table and told that in front of you is a nice, juicy steak (or tofu for you vegetarians). The catch is, this can either be the very last steak you will ever eat again, or there is a bigger and juicier steak behind a curtain and you get a lifetime supply of it. You can't smell it, see it, or detect it in any way, but the guy assures you that there is one behind that curtain. You can't prove it's there by any means, but you either believe it's there or you don't. The person that believes deep down in their heart, without question, that the better steak is behind that curtain will naturally devour the steak in front of him in a hurry to get his prize behind the curtain. However, the more skeptical eater, who believes there is nothing behind the curtain and this is surely the last steak he'll ever eat will treat his food that way. He will take the time to savor the juices, the texture of the meat as it squishes as he chews eat bite, and he'll even enjoy the chewy fat part that never seems to break apart no matter now much you chew at it. He will even lick the plate clean of all the sauce, bits off the bone, and even that red muscle juice. It will be the best steak he ever had.
So while religious people are busy anticipating the afterlife, which would be that better steak behind the mystery curtain, us non-believers believe that this is the one last steak we'll ever have. If you are right, okay, you get a better steak. But if you are wrong, and there's nothing behind the curtain, then you just wasted the last steak you'll ever eat. If we are right, then at least we had our moment before losing it forever. We both ate the steaks, but we both had vastly different experiences. I know this sounds like a reverse Pascal's Wager, but that's how I perceive things to be. I firmly believe this is the only life I have to live, and so I just live it. I don't Carpe Diem it every day because it's unrealistic and I don't think the average human is capable of sustaining that level of optimism physically, psychologically, or financially. I just continue to live because I find life interesting. Why die and go into nothingness now? I can do that for an eternity.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get me some steak!
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| Throughout my life, I had always known that I did not want to get married. But society has been pounding it into our heads that marriage is a necessary and logical next step in everyone's lives. If you don't get married, you are perceived to be defective in some way. I firmly believe that there are four types of people in regards to marriage:
(1) People that want to get married.
(2) People that get pressured into marriage.
(3) People that don't marry by choice.
(4) People that don't marry not by choice.
A recent story I found suggests that marriage may not be for everyone after all, and that the long held myth that married people are healthier may not be entirely accurate. It turns out that the rare people that opt out of marrying on their own accord actually live quality lives comparable to married people. It's the fact that bachelors get clumped into the same category as other "single" people such as divorcees, widows, and losers (see #4) that skews the quality of life charts negatively since they are single for all the wrong reasons. But if you are comparing someone that voluntarily chose to live a single lifestyle, then you'll find that most tend to be highly self-sufficient and in-control of their lives. Also, the more personal mastery a "never married" person has, the better their emotional well-being is, even when compared to a married couple.
Is this lifestyle for everyone? Of course not. This only applies to people that high sense of independence, self-awareness, and high level of control over your life. Most people probably need another life partner to complete some "other half," but some of us were born in one piece already, and so there's no need for us to find a "missing piece." If you don't like the feeling of interdependence, it's important to know that there's not something wrong with you. Marriage and relationships simply aren't for everybody. In my case, I can't stand having a longterm girlfriend. I absolutely hate having to check in every night, asking permission to hang out with my friends, talking on the phone, being "thoughtful," etc. I am at my happiest when I can go into a bar with a clean mind and conscience. I also know several people that feel the same way, and I suspect there are a lot more like-minds out there,yet they submit to societal pressure to tie the knot just to fit in with everyone else. I suspect this is how the majority of divorces occur.
It has been imprinted into our brains since pre-school that marriage is a normal step in life, like birth->school->work->marry->retire->die. But if we examine those steps closely, you'll see people that drop out of school, some go into law school, and others stay longer for a PhD. Some people can have 1 job for the rest of their lives while others may have 100. Some people make a billion bucks and retire early while some never retire at all. Yet, marriage seems like the one step that is set in stone and "the way things should be." How come nobody questions this ritual? If the other steps can vary in individuals in an acceptable manner in society, then why is it that people get flak for not wanting to get married? The only real things we have to do in life is live and die. Everything else is negotiable.
I suppose I'm writing this because I'm tired of explaining my Zen to puzzled enquirers. I live perfectly well on my own, it's just that I have the stones to admit it and live with my decision. You know all those people that whine and gripe about their marriages or those divorced fools that can only talk bitterly about their exes? Well, that's not going to be me because I'm not going to cave into that trap in the first place. I would recommend to all of you to think very hard about your true reasons for walking down the aisle. If it is mostly for the sake of others and not yourself, then don't do it, because it will eventually come back to bite you in the ass. After all, you're only never-married once.
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