Whiskers and Toonces

     Whiskers and Toonces were my cats. At age 12, my aunt Jane and uncle Fred found a cat near or on their property. She (Whiskers) was malnourished and less than 2 years of age. I knew Whiskers from my ages of 12 to 28, for 16 years.

     Whiskers was put to sleep in March of 2005, due to cancer in her right eye. Here's two pictures of Whiskers, taken on 8-10-2003:

WHISKERS

1987-2005

 

     I knew Toonces from my ages of 14-33, for 19 years. Her kidneys failed in September of 2009 and she was put to sleep. Here are some pictures of Toonces, also taken on 8-10-2003:

TOONCES

1990-2009

 

 

 

 

     This last one of Toonces was taken on 12-23-2004:

Movies in 2009 so far.

     I've seen the following 2009 movies so far:

     Watchmen - This is based on a graphic novel I had naturally never heard of, since I have no interest in those things. However, the superhero antagonist (or protagonist, depending on the POV) is the most powerful I'm aware of, as he, Dr. Manhattan, can control the electromagnetic force.

     X-Men Origins: Wolverine - This movie partly explains the origins of Wolverine. I mention 'partly' because the actual mutation is not explained. Actually, there are two mutations. Wolverine has the extending claws and accelerated healing abilities, like an advanced amphibian. A possible explanation for the healing abilities can come about through pluripotent, or stem, cells. Amphibians revert the cells in a damaged area to stem cells.

     Star Trek - One can think of this in similar terms to X-Men Origins, since it focuses on the incipient days of our familiar friends in Starfleet. My only complaint was the lack of explanation for the red matter.

     The Uninvited - This is a remake of the Korean movie, A Tale of Two Sisters:

     Both the Uninvited and A Tale of Two Sisters are exceptional horror films, but I feel the Korean original is superior.

     Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen - Goodness, this was a load of crap. The computer graphics were amazing, but the story left me annoyed. Even the original cartoon from 1984 provided one with more cerebral material.

     District 9 - Wow! Finally! Something to blow my ass away! I loved the hyperviolence, along with the original story. I liked the way the origin of the aliens was not explained, leaving the viewer to speculate.

     Pandorum - I would not want to be stuck on The Elysium, the spaceship. While this movie hasn't given me a nightmare yet, it has given me numerous uncomfortable thoughts. Based on sheer terror, Pandorum ranks right with Alien. While people are calling the ending a 'shocker', I feel other parts of the story were more shocking. This is also similar to Event Horizon, Sphere, The Descent, and Sunshine. Except Pandorum is more terrifying and more realistic. In other words, the events that transpire in Pandorum are more likely to actually happen than the events in the other movies I mentioned. This movie is not 'far-fetched', and that's what adds to the terror.

 

Consequences of immortality explained.

     Immortality is a common topic in science fiction, notably covered by Robert Heinlein, Philip Jose Farmer, Greg Egan and Wil McCarthy. Heinlein dealt with immortality by creating a character named Lazarus Long and wrote of his boredom after just 2,000 years of life. Farmer wrote extensively about it in the World of Tiers series. Greg Egan covered the consequences of living on a computer chip in Permutation City. But I feel McCarthy has covered the implications of immortality the best, in this series of novels:

 

 

 

      The above quadrilogy is called Queendom of Sol. In those books, the characters are immortal. Not just the main characters, but everyone in our solar system. All I can really say is that if immortality interests you, then you need to read these books. And the 'hard' science, well, it goes way beyond anything I've read in a Clarke, Niven, or Asimov novel.

     In real life, McCarthy also holds a patent on wellstone, which is a substrate for artificial atoms. He wrote a nonfiction book titled Hacking Matter, which explains wellstone. He got the idea for wellstone from quantum dots.

Philip K. Dick Novels

     My cousin Ben first told me about Philip K. Dick nearly 10 years ago. I had never heard of the guy and I shortly discovered the movies Blade Runner and Total Recall were based on his writings. Those are cool movies indeed, so I decided to check out his material. Ubik was easy to find, so I picked that up and found myself in a strange world, stranger than the movie Brazil. I loved it! Here are the PKD novels I've read so far, over the past 7 years. You can click on the images for larger versions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     Everything above is science fiction, with the exception of Voices From the Street, which is actually his first novel, written in 1953. It wasn't published until 2007. Lies, Inc. is an expanded version of The Unteleported Man. I've also read maybe 30 of his short stories and I plan to read all of his novels, eventually.

PHANTASM II

     After waiting for 30 trillion years, Phantasm II has finally been released on DVD. It's important to understand I wasn't waiting for some new-fangled blu-ray transfer, but the very first release on DVD, in the year of 2009. It is available in other regions, but they are PAL and I don't like PAL because it looks funky, even with a PAL converter.
     Here's the front cover:

     And here's the back cover:

     Phantasm II was released in 1988 and I didn't see it in the theaters; I had never heard of it. I occasionally found it on TV when I was a teenager, and while I never managed to watch the whole thing from start to finish, I remember being impressed.
     So when I got home from work last night I watched it. And I watched it again when I woke up. None too unsurprisingly, the movie is simpler than I remembered. I can now watch it in much greater detail than when I was a teenager. Back then I used my parent's 20 inch, 4:3 ratio, glass tube television, with a mono speaker. Nowadays, I use a 50 inch, 16:9 ratio, flat-panel plasma, made by Panasonic, with stereo speakers. But I rarely use the speakers. My primary audio device is the $2100 headphone system, which reveals everything, from toothpicks hitting the floor to drops of spit spraying on one's face.
     I watched the movie last night using headphones and paid careful attention to the music, which I had remembered. But I had never listened to the entire ending theme before; it is a strong composition, like video game music. This morning I watched the movie using the built-in stereo speakers. Even with the volume up high, I couldn't hear the soundtrack as well, and even missed some dialogue. Headphones clearly provide one with a superior listening experience. I don't live in a house, so I can't use a good surround sound system. I would simply make my neighbors very angry, so I have to settle with high-end headphones.
     The main advantage to owning this DVD is the same as with all the others. No commercials - no interruptions. The movie plays from start to finish. And this DVD is perfect, by the way. There are no previews. The title screen loads immediately, like most Asian DVDs. (Korean DVDs have me spoiled, since they obviously don't have FBI warnings, nor any copyright warnings at all. They load the movie rather efficiently.)
     Phantasm II is not a great movie. However, I can't tell you why I love it so much. Maybe because it's so simple. There are very few actors and not much happens, but there is the Tall Man and the Spheres, which are unique. No other horror movie I've seen uses a 'tall man' as the antagonist, and I have certainly never seen metal spheres that fly around and drill into people, like the cerebral bores from Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. I would imagine the makers of that video game got the idea for cerebral bores from Phantasm.
     Back when I was a teenager, this movie gave me a horrifying dream. I was walking around in one of the mausoleums used in the film and a tall man with a long white beard was spinning around violently, like a tornado. Of all the things to carry while spinning, he happened to be holding an ax. He chopped my head off, cleanly, as if my neck were made of paper. I died in the dream, which is something that rarely happens.

Abortion

ABORTION

    Abortion is when a human is killed before he/she is born. This is due, almost entirely, to impulsive behavior and poor planning (which are about the same thing). I have trouble understanding why some people become so emotionally charged and often, violent, about this issue. I have read reports of people killing abortion doctors and bombing abortion clinics. I will attempt to unravel this mysterious behavior of humans.
    When it comes to abortion, only 2 people should have ire directed at them - the mother and father. It's their fault for not thinking clearly and having sex without considering the outcome. The abortion doctor is doing his job. The abortion clinic exists to make money. One must consider the point of view of the abortion clinic, which is guilty of nothing. If those people that choose to bomb abortion clinics, kill abortion doctors, and walk around with signs against abortion would only start to think, they would realize they are attacking the wrong people.

LOGICAL SOLUTION

    If those that opposed abortion were capable of thinking clearly and truly vehement about the survival of fellow humans, then they would do the logical thing. If a woman wants to get an abortion, the opponents would take the woman in, care for her, and see to the birth of the child. They would then take care of the child for the woman. This is because they feel so strongly that abortion is wrong. If the opponents would not be willing to take care of the child, then their feelings are false and dangerous behavior unwarranted. NOTE: this solution was inspired by a quote from a science fiction novel:

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

EXCEPTION

    If a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, then the child is not the product of poor planning. The woman should not be responsible for the life of that human because she was raped. Also, the "father", having demonstrated dangerous impulsive behavior, should not be allowed to raise the child. So, if a raped woman does not want the child, she can choose whether to abort the child or let it live.

REALITY OF ABORTION

    The reality of abortion is that it does not hurt my life, nor yours. In fact, I would argue that it's beneficial, since it cuts down on the number of humans, which will become more important as medical technology improves. Until we leave the planet, we will have to control the population by some means. In case you were unaware, the space available on Earth is finite. The space available in the universe is also finite, but the harshness of space would slow our growth. The issue of crowding is far more serious than abortion, because it will hurt you.

JUSTIFICATION
 

     Now, I'm going to justify why abortion could be beneficial. Very few people understand that the resources on our planet are limited. Our planet can literally be thought of as a spaceship, since we have a limited amount of air, water, food and space. It would be very easy for the population of humans to be so great that we would die in our own waste. This is pretty much already happening and explains why China allows couples to have only one child.
     When medical technology improves greatly, people are not going to die easily, if at all. Where will all those people go that aren't dying? Where will the food come from? How can we support a population that does not die? I would guess that future governments will make abortion mandatory or sterilize large amounts of people, so they can't reproduce.
     Right now, we can't really see this problem. Our population hasn't gotten to the point where we're all starting to starve. Once we realize we can't eat 3 meals a day, then we'll be forced to control the population by some means.

ALTERNATE SOLUTION

     Another way to solve the abortion problem is to starve the abortion clinics. This can be done through education. If people stop needing abortions, then the abortion clinics will cease to function. In my mind, there is no reason to directly attack in order to solve problems. I much prefer indirection, that is, identify the elusive source of the problem and attack from that angle. The reason why abortions happen is because the parents are uneducated. If they were educated, then they would've considered the outcome of sexual activity before tumbling. It makes no sense to educate parents in the teenage years. Rather, such education should start in grade school. All the costs and responsibilities associated with raising children should be well understood before one is allowed to graduate from 4th or 5th grade.

BIOLOGICAL SOLUTION

     As an alternative to the alternative, biologically enhanced humans, via biotechnology, could have sex without producing offspring. Using nanotechnology, I imagine it would be possible to annihilate each sperm cell. So there would be no need for pills or condoms. Well, maybe condoms, if diseases are still prevalent when biotechnology starts to radically change us.

Freedom Of Inspiration

     It may seem on the surface level that I'm referring to a freedom associated with stimulating the mind to a high level of mental activity. In fact, the title of this page has an unwanted psychological effect. Inspiration, among other meanings, means the act of drawing in air, or simply - breathing. Those of you that have taken some Latin already know this simple fact. Those of you that don't believe me can refer to a standard English language dictionary.
     The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees U.S. citizens freedom of speech. It may appear that freedom of inspiration and freedom of speech are not related, but they are almost precisely the same thing. All people, everywhere, are allowed to breathe freely. There are no restrictions on the amount and type of breathing that one may engage in. If, for instance, one wishes to breathe underwater (without any type of SCUBA - self contained underwater breathing apparatus), one may do so. However, there is a penalty for breathing in certain places, such as underwater. Just like one may breathe anywhere, one may talk anywhere.
     Freedom of speech is precisely that. We all have complete freedom to say whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want. Just like there is a penalty for breathing in certain places, there is a penalty for talking in certain places and times, and saying certain things. The freedom cannot be violated and anyone that thinks otherwise needs to remember their place in things. Freedom of speech not only applies to YOU, but to everyone else. If someone decides they don't like what you are saying on TV and cuts you off, your freedom of speech has not been violated. Remember - we all have freedom of speech. Even the censors. If someone censors your words, they are merely exercising their freedom of speech.
     So, there are 2 main types of freedom of speech...

1. Freedom, but with penalty.
2. Freedom - with no penalty.
   

     The first type of freedom is the one that we, along with the rest of life, experience. It is the same in every country. Whether one lives in North Korea, Cambodia, Russia, or the United States, the freedom of speech is precisely the same - the kind that has a penalty. To explicitly state that Americans have freedom of speech is no different than stating that we have freedom of breathing. This type of freedom is not an illusion, as one may suspect, although it is deceptively contradictive. The second type of freedom, actually, is the illusion.
In order to realize the second type of freedom, humans would need to form a single mind or live in isolation, singly. Neither situation is palatable nor allows life to flourish; thus, freedom must carry
a penalty.
     The seemingly contradictory nature of freedom is so problematic that the definition ought to be heavily modified. But this is reality, not an illusion.

NOTE:

This post was originally written sometime in 2007.