Trunk Monkey

DAMMIT! I WANT ONE!!!

Part 1


Part 2

Look man, seriously.

okay, okay… i know… the mood here as been kind of a downer and i have been a little preachy lately (a little?! Lately?!). in my defense, the blog was originally set up to be my sounding board/soapbox anyway… i didn’t actually believe anyone would actually read the stuff (i was gonna say ‘mental excrement’ here instead of 'stuff' but I thought that was too crass don’t ya think?) i posted here. as such i can’t bring myself to actually apologies for the tonality here as of late. this is, after all the crème de la crème of my twisted reality made flesh.

anyway i kinda let it get away from me for a while… but it’s all good now. it’s nice to put your thoughts down on paper (paper? Seriously? How old are you grandpa?) sometimes. it looks, feels different outside of your head .

anyhoo…

we had a great weekend: relaxing, fun, everything really. friday we got to have dinner with friends on an old paddle boat on the lake. the food was good, view was great, the company perfect. saturday and sunday we spent doing not much of anything. monday was nice too, we both got out of work early and got to finish putting the baby’s room together.

i don’t … well, i can’t quite yet comprehend how to verbalize the emotional bungee jump that is my experience of this pregnancy yet so i’ll stave that off for another day. till then enjoy the pics from the weekend. (the first two are from the boat, the las is the skyline at the back of my house at dusk)

~m

My Moral Compass Keeps Pointing South.

so here is the thing: i watched tim burton’s the corpse bride again yesterday. if you haven’t watched it then skip this post and go do something productive because i am going to ruin the ending for you. it is a pretty good movie and i highly recommend it if you have some time to kill.


at the end of the movie, helena bonham carter’s character has a massive change of heart as she realizes that that ‘right thing to do’ is give up her pre-death ambitions of marriage and let johnny depp’s character marry someone else.

The Right Thing to Do.

kinda crappy isn’t it? in order to do what’s right, she forgoes her own happiness for someone else’s. this led me to think about all the other self-sacrificing acts that are deemed as ‘the right course of action’. a cursory evaluation of my own moral compass (or lack thereof) led me to an interesting discovery.

in fact, i predict that if you examining your own moral compass or your understanding of the nature of ‘Doing the Right Thing' you’ll discover a pattern similar to that of mine:

(let:
A. My Happiness/Comfort/Safety/etc. = x
B. The Happiness/Comfort/Safety/etc. of Others = y)

1. If x > y
AND
2. The above is an INVERSE relationship (for the most part, go with me on this for a bit...)
AND
3. You can, within means, control x
THEN
4. You should try to increase y because it is the right thing to do.

of course one could argue for a corollary stating that if by my actions (through control of x) y increases, and this increase is measurable by me, then x also increases. i would thus be forced to retort with the speculation that whilst (that’s right! I said WHILST!) there may be and increases in x, the total value of x is now still less than before my initial interventions to increase y. (ha! take that you imaginary discourse person you!)

additionally, it appears that most of my actions to increase x results in (at least partially) a decrease in y, and if this decrease is observable my me, THEN x DECREASES ALSO!!! How unfair is that?!

the question now becomes: if i perceive the above as unfair or ‘wrong’ (which i do, of course.) does this mean that my moral compass is broken?

~out

Dude?! You know what?! Just forget it...

ok so the updates and maintenance i wanted to do on the site is causing me more trouble than it is worth...

if i get some time to burn and i actually want to deal with mx exchange tables, i'll take a look. otherwise this site seems to work just fine.

~m

Down Time

i may be taking the site down for a bit... nothing definite yet but maybe.

~m

Awesome

ok maybe it is me, but either the guy who puts the signage together for this cinema is totally awesome or he's "special".

still, maybe i'll take the hint and watch pirates this weekend instead of shrek.

~m

Nair. Melvyn Nair.

hahaha got this from Mo's blog...

thought for sure i'd be neo....

hmmm.

~m

You scored as James Bond, Agent 007, James Bond is MI6's best agent, a suave, sophisticated super spy with charm, cunning, and a license's to kill. He doesn't care about rules or regulations and somewhat amoral. He does care about saving humanity though, as well as the beautiful women who fill his world. Bond has expensive tastes, a wide knowledge of many subjects, and his usually armed with a clever gadget and an appropriate one-liner. James Bond, Agent 007 83% Batman, the Dark Knight 71% Neo, the "One" 71% Maximus 67% William Wallace 63% The Terminator 63% Captain Jack Sparrow 58% Lara Croft 50% Indiana Jones 50% The Amazing Spider-Man 38% El Zorro 17% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Nostalgia...

this evening i talked (chatted with actually, over gmail) with two old friends. they are not old per se, just that i have been friends with them for a while.

Alvin and i have actually known each other since kindergarten.

nostalgia is weird.

it was nice to catch up with them so i decided to email another old friend i had not spoken to in a while... haven't heard back from them yet... but nice to thinks about all the crazy stuff we used to do, looking back i really does seem like it was not so long ago.

then i went on line and grabbed some music from (not really) that long ago and gave it a listen... here is the list:

Ace of Base - The Sign
Arrested Development - Mr. Wendal
Big Mountain - Baby, I love your way
Blessed Union of Souls - I Believe
Color Me Badd - The Earth, The Sun, The Rain
Diana King - Shy Guy
Inner Circle - Sweat (A La La La La Long)
UB40 - Can't help falling in Love

not any thing that i would really be caught dead listening too... just the stuff that was playing in the background in the memories that this current case of nostalgia was amalgamated with.

if any of them are familiar to you, i recommend an experiment:

go to youtube and give em a listen and try to remember where you were when that particular song was playing in the background. what you were doing. who you were with. immerse yourself in the experience for a few minutes.

see? nostalgia is weird, isn't it?

~m

pt.2: that which I Believe

Ok… so I sounded kinda defeatist in pt.1 … these are the thoughts that have been plaguing me but they are not necessarily that which I believe or how my mindset is in terms of my spirituality.

so I’ll start of on a different foot… but before I can, I need to point some things out:

1. I am not a theologian nor do I play one on tv.
2. I am not professing these thoughts to be anything more that which I believe.

a. Corollary 1: Anyone who assumes that I am professing these to be the Truth are dead wrong.
b. Corollary 2: Please proceed with your assumptions at your own risk.

3. While I always consider myself an expert on everything about everything, I readily admit that I probably know less about this topic that that weird guy on the bus who kinda smells like rotting papayas does.

Ok …

I believe that there is a path for us all. I believe that there is a purpose for my existence, that there is a Reason that I am alive on this planet in this dimension at this point in the Space-Time Continuum.

The trick for me then becomes… how do I discover my path… how do I come to know my purpose. And if there is a reason for everything, then there must also be some corresponding purpose. This is tough though because it implies that there is a reason and purpose for even the really, really fucked-up, twisted bad stuff.

(at this point in the mental exercise my train of thought usually gets into a pretty horrific Amtrak-esk accident causing it to derail and consequently killing off several passengers. The liberal media is all over it and I am forced to explain myself back to my Prozac like placidity like so:)

When I was younger my family use to do those really big jigsaw puzzles. I don’t know, fifty thousand pieces or some other equally obscene number like that. Anyway, the puzzle would be on the big table and people would sit down to work on it intermittently. I remember trying a few times and, with piece in hand, would often wonder if someone in the factory had ‘accidently’ put a couple pieces from another puzzle in our set. I mean really, the color of the pieces I was working on were all wrong… and even the shapes seemed to be kinda different. However, it was only after the puzzles were completed that I was able to see how the misfit pieces played their part in the whole.

I don’t know, but maybe that’s how the bad stuff fits in. I may never like it, hell, I may never even like the final picture but that does not discount the fact that those pieces (the crap in life) had a part to play in the puzzle.
I realize that this is a cop-out, lazy answer but that’s all I have for right now. The next part will detail my justifications for my beliefs.

~out

[please notice how I have neatly stepped over the whole issue of the existence of God. See…? Expert. On Everything. ]

~m

The Imperfect Nature of God

i recieved this email from a buddy and want to share it to gauge the responses...

I think the concept of a Benevolent, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent Deity, is incompatible with free will. This leaves us with less than perfect God.

If we make the assumption that God exists, then the real question is:

What is the nature of God?

The "design" of the world we see around us is imperfect.
The imperfect nature of the universe suggests that God cannot be simultaneously be Benevolent, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent.
God is, in a word, imperfect.
If God can be surprised, then he's not Omniscient.

What are the possible answers to the question:
"Why does God allow good things to happen to bad people?"
If God couldn't stop it, then he's not Omnipotent.
If God wouldn't stop it, he may be malevolent or lazy (the latter is still sin, right?).
If God was busy doing something else and couldn't help, he's not Omnipresent.
If he didn't see it coming, he's not Omniscient.

Let's suppose God could stop "Bad things" and chose not to for the greater good.
Doesn't this imply that God is operating within some kind constraints that are beyond his control?

At this point in the discussion somebody usually chimes in with:

"Expecting people to understand God is like a expecting a worm to understand string theory."

The people who make this argument never explain how they are exempt from their own argument.

hmmm...
~m

Background

i know this is a diversion... but i wanted to get to it in case i forget (which happens alot apparenly...) the new background was made by yours truly using cs2 and some funky brushes i found online. you can grab it off my flickr page here.

if you are versed in photoshop and want these brushes... search for some here

~m

Hmmm...

a couple people emailed me in response to the previous post and raise some interesting points that has made my next post somewhat incomplete. i need to think about the issues that were raised whilst in a more contemplative/reflective mood. the 21 year old liter bottle of Chivas Regal ‘Royal Salute’ that my friend Bob so graciously bestowed on me may help with this…

till then...

~m

pt.1: that which I think

It is really the combination of predestination and free will.
Here is how it goes:

1. God is Omnipotent, Infinite, Eternal and Unchanging. The Alpha and the Omega.

a. Being Omnipotent, Infinite, Eternal and Unchanging, God knows ALL. EVERYTHING. All that has ever happened, is happening now and will ever happen in the future. God knows every possible combination of every event, every possible action you/I will make, even the ones we think about but never do.

2. God made us in his/her image and gave us FreeWill

a. Having FreeWill, we decide and take actions based on our own choice… we decide whether we do Wrong or Right, additionally we can change our ways in order to be forgiven, gain salvation and go to heaven.

The problem arises when we look closer at the two definitions: i.e., can FreeWill and a supreme, eternal being co-exist? Here is a question to help us better understand the problem: Can you, by your actions, surprise God? The way I see it is there are two possible answers:

1. YES, you can surprise God (Example: A sinner sees the error of his ways, changes and devotes his life to god’s work, helping the sick, feeding the hungry, etc. ). But if this is true that God doesn’t know everything… and doesn’t have all the answers. But this opens up a huge can of worms, I mean if God doesn’t know all the answers, does he/she really have a great plan or is everything in the world random. Or maybe God knows some things and not everything… but this answer kinda sucks too dosen’t it?

2. NO, you cannot surprise God (Example: God has a 2 list, one with all the names of people going to heaven and one for all the people going to hell. Since god is eternal and has seen the end of time, he know for sure the lists are correct). But if god already has two lists and my name is already on one of them then I am not making any choices. Events and environments will conspire (divine intervention?) to force me to take the actions that will eventually lead me to one of the two divine lists. But is this answer is true the not only does FreeWill not exists…none of us can be blamed for our actions… divine intervention FORCED us to take the actions we take (extreme example: the priest that molests young boys had no choice… he had a mental illness).

Either way you look at it… something has to give… or can both be right… I don’t thing so…

back in a few...

Hello, my name is Mel and I am a Catholic. [ALL: Hello, Mel.]

this last week my family back home got into some pretty heavy discussions on the nature of religion, spirituality and … well… god.
a lot was said in terms of how our views on religion/spirituality have evolved over the years as we have all grown. additionally, and in light of the tragedies problems in the world, how anyone could hold onto a view of an all powerful and loving deity.
these next 3 posts will detail some of the thoughts that i shared, a.k.a. my .02 cents.
***
these are some thoughts that i have been struggling with for some time now, right after i started being really involved with the church right after form 5 actually...
i tried several times to talk to someone i considered more knowledgeable that me in religious matters but always chickened out.
however with my impending fatherhood looming ever nearer, i must take a page from my aunties who have had the courage to put down their pregnancy and/or child-rearing experiences and bare it for all to read … hear goes, please bear with me as i try to string them together in a (relatively) coherent stream.

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Happy Friday or Woo! Hoo! We Have Been Living in Our OWN House for 1 YEAR Now!!!

Happy House Anniversary to Us... 1 YEAR!

wow it seems strange... sometimes it feels like we have been here for forever, other times it feels like we just moved in. still kinda cool though.

in other news: smell that? ... yup.. friday baby!

we have alot planned for the weekend and hopefully we'll (bridget too) get a post in too. still have a lot to do on the house, some painting and yard work but as i have been told by all the other homeowners we know... stuff like this never ends... when we moved in we decided to renovate the basement to a second livingroom/ entertainment room and that turned out great. next summer we may even remove the existing deck and replace it with a larger one if we can save enough for it. everything costs so much man... even painting can be costly (aside from the new room downstairs we have only 2 bedrooms painted... the other one, well, we are in the midst of getting it done...)

so till then... have a great weekend!

~out for now