Ranting

Disclaimer:

Note, dear reader, that this blog is primarily just me doing some therapeutic (which incidentally was a difficult word to spell..) ranting, just so your warned and don't expect anything particularly exciting and edifying...

Reading a book about climate change (this being a negative, but possible true, book about global warming. Negative that is in the sense that it takes a pretty bleak outlook on the future. Which is rather fine by me, right now I have a rather bleak view of the future as well, so were kinda linking on some level or another, me and the book..) called "Requiem for a Species" by Clive Hamilton, somehow linked to climate change he makes this statement, or possibly he quotes someone (talking about growth and the fixation thereof) :

It would be a society in which we nurture things the things that really do improve our wellbeing, rather than dreaming evermore of the things we that only money can buy

Now I sort of agree with him, but the thing (and I can't exactly find the quote so I'm not sure if my slightly gloomy mind invented it all by itself) that annoyed me is when he allures to the fact that we instead of buying stuff should focus on the things that really matters. Well, that is fine, but often what may "really matter" that money can't buy are things we cant have. Or at least I can't have. I apologize profusely, I should not generalize (bloody american spell checking and their Zs) and assume you, dear reader, are like me. So I buy stuff, not necessarily because I think buying stuff is all that fantastic and I really need this random thing I found that "will change your life from grey to sparkling red and orange!" is of all the much interest to me, nor that I think my life somehow will become all sparkling or red and orange. No, I buy it because it's a substitute, it's something I can have, all I have to do is type some numbers into a little box on the computer and click a button, or give a little plastic card to some person in a shop. Easy. What I really want isn't that simple to get. So, to say I'm somehow a slave to consumerism...??

It's the same with a lot of things, porn for example, crappiest piece of shit ever, gives you nothing, degrades everyone involved, but it's an easy substitute for something that we as humans tend to want. Crap. I think it's the same with, hmm, chocolate, I bet it's a substitute for something as well, mangoes perhaps? You know you really want a mango, and you know that a mango is good for you, but can you get a mango? Yes, you can, so crap example.. But still, when you go to the shop where they sell both mangoes and chocolate, by some reason it's much easier to justify paying $4 for 200g of chocolate than for a mango.. And the mango is heavier than the chocolate.. Nor does it pollute the environment quite as much (unless of course you live in ripe chocolate growing country, with no mangoes anywhere within 10000km and the only way to get the mangoes to your remote part of the world [that have heaps of chocolate factories] they have to travel, one by one, on an oil tanker) or make your throat all sticky and yucky.. Weird.

Wonder if were just (including you somehow, see how I sneak-illy used the, possibly to interpret as first person, "you" earlier?) weird as humans? Why do we do the things we do? Why do we think the way we do? Why do we say the things we do? Why do we say things we later regret? Why do we take ourselves so seriously? Why do we have hair on useless places? Why do we believe in things we can't see? Why don't we believe things we can see? What would happen if we could see everything, like bacteria etc? Why do we like to see others get hurt, or hurt others? Why do we want more than others? Why are we so terribly short sighted? Why do we have emotions? Why do we fear? Why do I write all these things right now?

I do wonder about these things though, not all of them all the time, but at various times I do wonder about them. I also wonder stuff like "what happens if I were to jump from this very high building? Would I manage to miss the ground?" and "am I a product of my environment?", mostly though I wonder about what to eat, what to wear, what to say to someone, what to do on the weekend, what to do at night, how to score that important goal? And, how to somehow for the moment forget I'm feeling very sorry for myself? Drugs? Have you ever tried them? Useful are they? Strongest drug I have ever tried is, hm, coffee I think, or possible one of those green sticks the ambos give you.. I like those sticks, makes you happy.. But figure it would look a bit silly going around sucking on a green stick all the time...

I may have somewhat lost my thread, although I have a feeling there never was much of a thread to start with so if that is the case I cannot have lost my thread. I'm good at loosing things though, one of my strengths. And forgetting things. Another one. Being somewhat absent-minded is also one of my strengths. Pretty awesome skills to have these. The things you can do with them! Forget to lock your car, forget to close the sunroof of the car, forget you wallet, forget your keys, lock yourself out of the house, forget to do something else that may or may not have been important to a third party. Somehow get surprised by the fact that you did all these things, and suddenly forget about it as a cow was chewing grass..

Eh, maybe should stop here.. Even though this being somewhat creative is good for my mind and helps me do something else than brood.. Still, there is only so long you can write about very little. I could write about our minds.. How they trick us into all sorts of things? No, that would be bad of me as I know very little about how our minds actually work, except from some book I have read on the subject that most probably are very populist..

Out.

Why Space travel is important

So, blog, your still here hey.. Quite kind of you to wait all this time for me. Rather touching actually. Who or what else would wait faithfully on me (or possible you, whoever you may be) for months and months, just in the hope that you one day will grace them with your presence? Anyway, this have nothing to do with space travel.. but it's ok, I'm sick (no, not like that). Which neither have anything to do with space travel, or it could..

So, you may wonder. You got nothing about this space travel thing (apart from writing it over and over) it's not important. Well, you could be right of course, but I think your wrong. There are a couple of reasons, neither of will be particularly well covered in this post, but may and may not be mentioned. I just like it.

But, as "I just like it" may not be a particularly compelling argument (or convincing for that matter) in your eyes, I will try to explain what I mean.

The first reason for it is: Exploring!!! Thing about all those guys back in the days, setting sail to unknown lands (or known lands, but just happening to stumble upon the wrong one). Think about their adventures, hardships and (sorry) general manliness. What can I explore? The internet? Or somewhere where someone else have already been exploring? What's the point in that? Where is the excitement? Think if we had the opportunity to boldly go where no man has ever gone before find new, unexplored places, where we can slap down a flag and say "I, clam this for for all time!". And think of the thrill of getting there before those evil other country/company people! Now people would have much better things to do than being bored and having to spice up their lives with unproductive stuff as blowing them self up, growing tea, drinking to much XXXX Gold etc.

The second reason is: Extinction, unless we figure out a way to travel from this little (albeit very pretty and dear to me) rock somewhere in this vast thing called space, well, one day this rock will not be so pretty and habitable any more. So, we need to be able to move somewhere else. "Bah, this is millions of years away" you say, but.. Who knows? You could be right, but stop being such a selfish bastard.. Think about those great-great-great-great-great-fairly average- great-to be hones quite rubbish-normal-great-pretty old grand children you may have. They deserve somewhere to live!

The third reason: What else? If were not spending money on space travel, what should we spend it on? Were going to write something about cancer, and it not being so important as many more people die of hunger each year.. Admittedly that is true, something like 25,000 people (although figures vary quite drastically) die of hunger each day. Which is about 9,125 million people each year. While 7.9 million people die each year of cancer.. Now there would probably be more people than 9.124 million that indirectly die due to lack of food.. Then it is possible as well that people that die of cancer are much older than those that die due to lack of food. Either way, cheap to give food to people.. But gosh many people die of cancer.. So, well, there are other things to spend money on, but spending money on stuff like space travel should in theory create more money to spend on other stuff. As we'll have much more things to make money of.

The fourth reason: Trickle down effect, lots of really good stuff will be invented that can be used in other areas of life. If we come up with some kind of propulsion system for space ships, well, it will have to be pretty amazing so we can most probably use it to generate electricity in a very efficient way here on earth as well. And, well get more useful stuff like Teflon!

Convinced?

Those things...

So, a little "facts from life blog this time"...

Car Rental Companies and Banks, could be the sub heading..

So (I like So, nice little intro.. can not be over used, So, it can even change to Soooooo, and be a kind of question, meaning lots of things. Useful word. So.), I went to Canada late last year, and rented a car. Had rented this nice little Dodge thingy through my travel agent. Got to Vancouver, went to pick it up, and oh, it's one of those "similar" cars! A Toyota Yaris! Super excitement! Oh, and we don't have winter tires, they are illegal in Vancouver. And, no, you can't put snow chains on a rental car... Oh, your not allowed to drive to Jasper without snow tires or chains. But you can rent a 4WD, only another 3-400 dollars.. So (did I say I liked that word?), a couple of hundred dollars poorer, but, hey, a Jeep Grand Cherokee thats gone 15ks!

Later were driving along a road, littered with small pebbles (as they put those on the roads the Canadians..) and CRACK! one of the little pebbles hit the windscreen, leaving a nice little mark. %$#$^%#$% we thought, but, me being Swedish (and not learned my lesson with the winter tires) thought, well, that SURELY have to be classified as wear n tear.... WRONG!

You'll have to pay for that, you do have an insurance, so you only need to pay CA$250 for that and the weeny tiny scratch we found that you didn't see..

Oh, well, my travel insurance will pay for the excess, no worries.

A month or so later:

You will need to pay us CA$250, let us know if you have any questions, if not we'll take it from your card.

No worries.

2 months later:

Bank lady: Your card has been compromised!

Me: What, how where?

Bank lady: In Canada!

Me: Oh, that may be legit, how much did they take?

Bank lady: Eh, what? Your card is compromised

Me: Yes, you said, but it may be legit.

Bank lady (bit annoyed): The transaction may be legit but your magnetic strip have been compromised. The security department told me.

Me: Ok, but..

Bank lady: You want to cancel your card or not?

Me: Ok

Bank lady: Good, we'll send you a new card. Anything else I can help you with?

Me: No

So, card cancelled.

Then, yesterday:

YOUR DELINQUENT ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PLACED WITH OUR COLLECTION DIVISION FOR IMMEDIATE COLLECTION ACTION

PAYMENT IN FULL TO CREDIFAX ONTARIO LIMITED IS REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY

FAILURE TO PAY WILL RESULT IN FURTHER ACTION BEING TAKEN AGAINST YOU WHICH MAY REFLECT ON YOUR CREDIT HISTORY

GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY

MRS POWELL

Very nice I though, especially the use of all CAPITALS.. So I wrote back:

I got a letter saying:

YOUR DELINQUENT ACCOUNT HAS BEEN PLACED WITH OUR COLLECTION DIVISION FOR IMMEDIATE COLLECTION ACTION

PAYMENT IN FULL TO CREDIFAX ONTARIO LIMITED IS REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY

FAILURE TO PAY WILL RESULT IN FURTHER ACTION BEING TAKEN AGAINST YOU WHICH MAY REFLECT ON YOUR CREDIT HISTORY

GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY

MRS POWELL

Disregarding why I get this letter and it's kind words, how do I pay it? It kindly says to

*** PLEASE DETACH AND RETURN TOP PORTION WITH YOUR PAYMENT ***

Return where? Ontario? I have no problems paying it, as it was always my intention to do so. The only reason I haven't do so far is

that I was waiting for Thrifty to take the money from my credit card as that was how I understood the letter sent to me. Two weeks ago

my bank calls me and tells me to cancel my credit card as my magnetic strip had been "compromised" in Vancouver..

My question is, how, as I live in Australia, do I pay these CA$250? Credit card? Bank transfer?

Regards,

Karl Mattias Carlehall

And figured I better call my bank again:

Me: Hello, I'd like to check on why my card got cancelled.

Bank Chap: It got reported as stolen

Me: Eh? Stolen? I didn't report it as stolen

Bank Chap: So you have the card?

Me: No, it got cancelled so I cut it up and threw it away

Bank Chap: ..

Me: I just want to know why it got cancelled, if someone tried to take money from it and how much that was

Bank Chap: Ah, I'll check it up for you

Me: ok

Bank Chap (after a little wait): I'm happy to say that your balance is only $2 so nothing got taken

Me: Yes, but that wasn't what I asked..? I want to know if someone tried to take money from my and that was why my card got classified as compromised

Bank Chap: Rest assured, no money got taken from you account. And we'll send you a new card in the mail. You only need to give us a call when you get it and we can activate it. Is there anything else I can help you with?

Me: ...

Useful phone call.. Also, I forgot, I called them on Sunday as well, asking when my card was supposed to come.. when she said it will be at yours at ABSOLUTELY latest Wednesday.. Which, was yesterday...

Anyways, got a reply from the Mrs Powell:

Karl,

The funds are in CDN. Forward the payment to Credifax Ontario Limited

1064C Hargrieve Road

London, Ontario

N6E 1P5

How? How do I "Forward" money? I pass them on? I tell them, hey, mr Dollar, when your in the neighborhood, can you give Credifax $250 from me? I admit I'm probably being rather stupid here, but what is wrong with a bank account? Or even a pay pal account??

Checked my travel insurance, and got a bit worried. But got all sorted by giving them a call, although I did my best to confuse the poor claims lady. Only worry I have now is.. my insurance is in Mattias, while dear Credifax prefer to call me Karl.. May there be some complications there one wonders?

Sin

So, two posts in a not very long period time.. This will be a rather boring (I sort of hope) blog, with me trying to nut out , or no, not nut out, more write down, some theological thoughts of mine. Not sure if they are heavily anchored in the Bible, but I'm no theologian so that is ok, I leave that for those who are.

So, you see, I were thinking; What is sin? And why are somethings talked about as being no no's in the Bible important? I mean what is wrong with some stuff? Why do God care? For example, why is it wrong to have sex before your married, why was it wrong to wear braids of two different materials, why is it that men are supposed to be the head of the household? Why was it wrong to eat pork? Why does what is right and wrong change? What was so bad with this fruit that Adam and Eve ate?

I have heard quite a few explanations to it, which for the most part goes something like "It is bad for you, and God knows what is good for you, so you have to trust God in that" which, for some may be a satisfying explanation. But for me it doesn't really cut it, sure some things to, such as you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall have no other gods, and so forth these are rather straight forward things. But some of the other things?

Then, somehow, recently I started thinking; What, actually, is sin? And the answer that we, sort of, are told over and over again is: Rebellion against God

Cool, but, I don't really rebell against God... Well, you do people then say. But how do I rebel against God really? You don't have God as the ruler in your life.. How do I have God as ruler in my life then? You follow his commandments.

Typical, sort of back to where we started there... But.. If I instead of looking at it that way, look at is this (circumspect)way (I'll get to my point eventually):

In the beginning we have God.

God for some reason unknown to me, but most probably known to "him", decides to create a world.

God creates this world to be a good world.

God creates fishes and plants and insects and animals and planets and suns and stuff (Whether or not this is done through a massive explosion or on God's 6 day holiday is unknown and unimportant).

All these things are good.

God is not quite finished yet though, there is one thing that is missing, things similar to himself, things that can think and imagine and talk (and, eventually, write on computers).

So, enter humans (again, an improvement of the ape, or molded dust is irrelevant).

God creates humans to have a relationship with them, to talk to them, to be worshiped by them, to care for them etc. Thing is, there need to be a way for humans to somehow obey God. And how can something obey something else if there is nothing said that could be obeyed? So God gives the humans a very difficult command: You can do whatever you want, but, don't eat from that tree.

The humans then, wonder of looking at the tree thinking. It do look pretty good that fruit don't you think? Yeah, it sure does. Wonder why we shouldn't eat it? Lets ask this serpent thingy, they are supposed to be clever, the serpents...

And so, they do.. And you know what happens after that. Clothes, No tree of life, Toil, Crushing of heads and so on and so forth.

Now, coming to my point here, think back to earlier when I asked why eating this particular fruit was bad, is it because this fruit was very bad? (admittedly, the Bible do say that God said by eating this fruit they would become like us) I'm not so convinced about it being the fruit in and of itself, I'm more inclined to think that they;

disobeyed God by doing the only thing God told them not to do.

which brings me somehow to what I think sin is:

Not obeying God.

And, how do we obey God? Well, we do the things God tells us to do. These things don't necessarily have to be in and of themselves bad for us. In fact, if I were to ask you to not stab yourself in the eye with a blunt screwdriver.. Now, unless your rather mad, you would not stab yourself in the eye with a blunt screwdriver, but it would not be because you think so highly of me and really really don't want to disobey me (you could of course, but not very likely) but it would be because your not a complete idiot. If, instead, I asked you to mow my lawn, or give up using the internet for a year.. These things are things you don't particularly want to do, but if you did have a high opinion of me and wanted to show that, well, you'd do this (possibly). Now this is what I think many of the laws and stuff in the Bible are for. Opportunities for us to show God that we respect and love him. Sure, God knows that we tend to be naturally destructive so some laws are for our benefit.

If I look at it this way many things make sense to me. For example, we tend to want to put "sins" in some kind of hierarchical order. But it seems like God don't. Now, if the sin is to disobey God, well, then it makes sense that not eating pork, and not killing people would be on the same level of seriousness. But, the impacts for you and me here and now are rather different. If I eat some pork not much will happen, but if I decided to kill someone I'll go to jail, and won't exactly be the most popular guy in town.

So, having this as a base, when someone says:

Why is it wrong to have sex before your married?

I can say:

Because God asks me not to. And, because I want to and can't see anything inherently wrong with it, it is a great opportunity for me to show God that I love and respect him.

Not sure if I built this argument up particularly well or anything, but, take it for what it is. Me writing down my thoughts.

Till next time

Inspiration, where art thou?

18th of March 2009, that is the last time it was seen.. my dear inspiration, some would say muse, but I only associate (tricky word to spell) that with a music group.. And as I can claim no musical ability what so ever, nor any ownership over said group, well, I can't say I lost my muse.. as it was never mine in the first place. Inspiration though, I used to own once. Not exactly sure if it was a particularly good inspiration, but it was mine, and it is now missing. And, I have found (in loosing) that the thing you have, but then don't have no more (even if said thing wasn't particularly fantastic) you somehow miss. It's a little bit like a sock, for the most part you wonder around being rather uncaring about your socks (well, most people do I think. This allegory may fall somewhat flat if you chaps and chapettes all care mightily about your socks..) and then one day, you happen to be in a hurry for work, run to the sock drawer, and grab a sock. We'll you probably grab two socks. But, you get two left socks! (now, left socks [unless you have toe socks, and nothing negatively about toe socks, they are really good if you have toe shoes] is symbolism for "different type of sock") And no matter that there are 29 socks in your drawer, they are all left ones! That did fall somewhat flat actually.. I'll move one.

Inspiration

Not here!

What you say?!

I can't hear you!

Eyeh! How can you respond if your not here??

Blasted!

Oh, I can almost catch you if I use very long words!

Bah! Long sentences, turd head!

We'll, if it wasn't for you being my inspiration being missing I'd use very long words and therefore catch you!

Sentence... And to long this time

^$%^$#%&#^%&$^%&^%#&^%$#^%#$^%$#^#$%^%$#^% you caught me!

Ah, it is good to be back!