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Wut?

Speaking of NASA…

Okay NASA, what the fuck is that thing in the lower right corner of this photo from Mars Curiosity?

“It’s a twig.” LIFE

“It’s an insect leg.” LIFE

“It’s a piece of dangling wire insulation from the rover.” NO LIFE ON MARS. NOPE. NEVER HAS BEEN. MAYBE SOME WATER ONCE, BUT NOT NOW. WE WON’T HAVE A DEFINITIVE ANSWER UNLESS YOU FUND ANOTHER PROBE. AND ONE AFTER THAT. AND ANOTHER ONE AFTER THAT. BECAUSE IF WE ANNOUNCED LIFE ON MARS, SOCIETY WOULD COLLAPSE!

Any guesses which explanation they’ll provide—assume they even address it?

Original NASA image here.

And while we’re on the subject of things that need to be addressed, WTF is this? 

“OH, IT’S JUST A TRICK OF LIGHT AND SHADOW.”

Original NASA image here.

Um…yeah. Something that looks totally out of place, is a completely different color and shape than the surrounding rock, and for all intents looks organic. Whatever, NASA. Whatever.

 

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Oh NASA…

overlyobsessedfanqueen:

I’m fucking pissing myself.
You know how all of Jupiter’s moons are named after his lovers and affairs?
Yeah. NASA is sending a craft to check up on Jupiter.
You know what the craft is called?

JUNO.

Who’s Juno?

JUPITER’S WIFE.

NASA IS SENDING JUPITER’S WIFE TO CHECK ON JUPITER AND HIS AFFAIRS AND LOVERS.

FUCKING NASA

This is pure awesome.

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Why We Look

We look because it’s there. We humans look towards violence in order to define it, to decide where we must run (or if we should stand and fight). We are fascinated by suffering. There is a cognitive bias towards the terrible. Many complain that there is not enough “happy” news. The problem is that there is happy news all around us, we just don’t notice. A baby smiling or someone offering someone else a spot on the bus doesn’t go viral because most humans experience little kindnesses and forget them. But we don’t forget violence.

We look because it’s always available. There is a moment, as you watch a violent video, that you feel you need to fast forward. ISIS fighters in front of ragged flags, knives out – fast forward to the death. Gunshots on a pier – fast forward to what thousands of live viewers saw. The destruction of culture, of lives, of futures, of belief in the decency of mankind – we look because in the end we want to see how far we’ll fall if given the impetus. We want to see how thin the spiderweb veil of sanity really is, how deep the well truly goes until we hit rancid water. And we look to feel superior and to give the amygdala that tickle of surprise we crave. Broadcasting is not new. We learned to sing so we could make others feel strange things, we learned to orate to raise the blood of soldiers, we learned to repeat horrible stories to outrage and distract. From the Lives Of Saints with a pierced St. Sebastian to the latest LiveLeak link, we need violence to feel whole. And that’s why we love these videos. We love them. We share them – “OMG” “#prayers” – we post them, the news organizations replay them over and over. They are our reward for staying out of trouble.

more…

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Word.

Some alien conspiracy theorists posit that this is the whole reason for the Roswell Crash and subsequent alien technology retrieval/exploitation.

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THIS.

From Dave at Blogography, copied in full because it was just too good not to and perfectly sums up what I’ve been feeling myself lately:

Jared Fogle, the Subway Sandwich Whore… whom I loathe, but tried to treat fairly when he was dragged to the police station for questions regarding child pornography(because, hey, innocent until proven guilty, right?) is, in fact, apparently going to plead guilty to not only possession of child pornography… but also of having sex with at least fourteen underage kids… THE SICK FUCK! What a piece of garbage. He used his millions in sandwich money to prey on innocent children… and continued to do so even after his best friend got caught producing kiddie porn for him? As much as I loathed him before, he has managed to sink even lower. Holy crap what a repugnant asshole. Fuck Jared for making me watch his idiotic commercials and listen to his pathetic lies all these years. Hope you like the sandwiches in prison, you disgusting pig.

Josh Duggar, the “Family Values” Douchebag… whom I loathe, but tried to treat fairly when he was crucified for having sexually molested five girls (including four of his sisters) as a teenager (because, hey, growing up in that dysfunctional shit-hole of a family was bound to screw him up, right?) is, in fact, not only a teen pedophile… but also an allegedly unfaithful husband who has been outed as a “Life is Short, Have an Affair” Ashley Madison member. That’s right, all the while he was dictating morals to people on how they should live their lives… he was apparently living his life contrary to his own standards. Like the fucking pathetic hypocritical piece of shit he is. As much as I loathed him before, he has managed to sink even lower. Holy crap what a repugnant asshole. Fuck Josh Duggar for making me even be aware of his parents’ idiotic clown car vagina reality show all these years. From the depths of your very own belief system, hope you enjoy rotting in hell, you disgusting pig.

George Zimmerman, the psychotic asshole that stalked and killed a kid for being Black “in the wrong neighborhood”… whom I loathe, but tried to treat fairly… as in “they-should-have-hanged-the-fucking-murdering-asshole-fairly” because HE WAS CLEARLY LYING AND GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY is, in fact…

Donald Trump, the misogynistic pile of shit (and hairspray)… whom I loathe, but tried to…

Pat Robertson, the bigoted…

Scott…

Jan…

I give up. I just give up. If I were to write up all the assholes, idiots, and clowns that are pissing me off today, I’d be here all week. Holy crap are there a lot of repugnant pieces of shit in my newsfeed lately. Some days I think I’d be much better off with my head stuck in the sand.

Knowing what’s going on in the world isn’t good for your sanity. Not anymore.

There are days that after reading one or two posts, I simply “mark all as read” in my newsfeed now because I just can’t.

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Life is Weird

One of the strangest—and most unexpected—effects of being back in Phoenix is feeling the profound absence of my father. While my mom had passed before we moved to Denver and I still feel her loss, my dad died while we were there, and my involvement with his passing was minimal and long-distance (something that has caused a continued rift between myself and my sister). Being back here now it’s smacking me up the side of the head and I have to keep reminding myself that he’s no longer just a few minute’s drive away as he’d been before we left.

Ironically however, when I look into the mirror I’m seeing more and more of him staring back at me, and perhaps more disturbingly I’m finding more and more of his well-known stubbornness and general temperament rearing itself in my personality; something I’d just as soon do without if truth be told.

When I was younger I didn’t look like either of my parents, but as I’ve aged, his genes are starting to assert themselves. While I don’t resemble him completely at this age, there’s much more of him showing through than my mom, so hopefully his genes will maintain their supremacy and guard against the onset of Alzheimers that plagued Mom and so many others on her side of the family.

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Factoid

The surface area of the planet Mars is almost identical to the surface area of dry land on the Earth. What this means is that even if we begin human exploration in my lifetime, it will still take hundreds—if not thousands—of years to properly explore the entire planet; a commitment in time and resources I cannot see humanity making, short of being faced with its own extinction.

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23 Emotions People Feel, But Can’t Explain

  1. Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
  2. Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
  3. Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
  4. Énouement: The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
  5. Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.
  6. Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
  7. Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.
  8. Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
  9. Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
  10. Chrysalism: The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
  11. Vemödalen: The frustration of photographic something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.
  12. Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening
  13. Ellipsism: A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out.
  14. Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
  15. Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.
  16. Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
  17. Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.
  18. Rückkehrunruhe: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
  19. Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.
  20. Onism: The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.
  21. Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.
  22. Altschmerz: Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.
  23. Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.

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Legal!

One of the tasks I was dreading upon returning to Arizona was going to the DMV. While compared to Colorado (where drivers’ licenses and vehicle registration are administered by two completely separate entities requiring separate visits to different offices) Arizona is heaven sent; it’s a one-stop-shopping experience.

It turns out that it wasn’t all that bad. I had feared that because I did not have my Title, it would turn into a major hassle to get the car registered. (I paid off the car a little over a year after we’d moved to Denver, and the finance company mailed the Title to my old Arizona address after the USPS forwarding order had expired, so I never received it.) Turns out the only issue I had was needing a smog certificate before getting a duplicate Title from Arizona. Once I had that in hand, it was a breeze. I got the Title, re-registered the car in Arizona, and even got my AZ Driver’s License in about 30 minutes.

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Pluto in Full Color

The latest and greatest from New Horizons:

Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this global view of Pluto. (The lower right edge of Pluto in this view currently lacks high-resolution color coverage.) The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away, show features as small as 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers), twice the resolution of the single-image view taken on July 13.

The best is yet to come!

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“Because You Can’t Evangelize and Antagonize at the Same Time!”

“Amazing delivery, and refreshing message! But, the core of his message is homosexuality is a sin and a shame, but we shouldn’t judge that sin because we’re all sinners. I reject the idea that homosexuality is a sin or a disorder at all. But he can’t come out and say that without admitting the Bible is wrong. And if it’s wrong about that, then the whole ball of yarn unravels.” ~ Crewman

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Delightfully Strange

That’s the phrase I have to use to describe our return to Phoenix. Things are familiar—yet different. I find myself straining old, unused neural pathways to remember where things are and what the best route is to reach them.

That being said, my first impression upon being back is seeing how incredibly easy it is to get around. Compared to Denver, even having to go completely across town is a breeze.

Have I mentioned that I can breathe again? It’s funny, but it seemed like the altitude had only started affecting me within the last year or so, and it wasn’t simply because of being out of shape and having to climb two flights of stairs to get to our apartment multiple times a day.

Most—if not all—of our old haunts are still in business, although as one can imagine, subtle and not-so-subtle changes have occurred over the past four years. It’s also fun seeing how memory has played tricks on me; things that I could’ve sworn were in one location are actually somewhere totally different.

When I was in Phoenix briefly two years ago to attend to my dad’s end-of-life affairs, Phoenix felt alien; it wasn’t home any more. Driving past my old apartment felt like I was viewing it through someone else’s eyes.

That’s different now. Not only does Phoenix now feel like home, in many ways it feels like we never left. But then I’m confronted with something that has wildly changed since our exodus, and I’m reminded that Denver was not, just a bad dream.

Okay, I’m not being fair. We had some very good experiences there, and the first winter was kind of fun. Because of its location, we got to see several things (Devil’s Tower, Mt. Rushmore) that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise. But on the whole, I’m glad to be gone from the place. It was time. Cosmically speaking, I tell myself the entire reason we went there was to get Sammy.

And speaking of the lovable little furball, he’s adjusting to life here more quickly than I could’ve imagined. He loves having a yard to run in and doesn’t seem to mind the toasty temperatures. He does seem to have developed a garden hose addiction, however.

If I have any regrets about leaving Denver, it was that we didn’t get a chance to take advantage of the relatively quick drive up to Yellowstone. It’s still a bit of a hike to get there from Denver, but nothing compared to driving from Phoenix. Then again, the west coast is so much easier to get to now.

Fingers crossed on the job front. I had what I consider to be an excellent interview with a state agency yesterday (as well as meeting with a placement agency that was a complete waste of my time). They liked me, I liked them, but I am up against one other candidate. I’m not going to stress; I know in my heart of hearts that we’re supposed to be here and work will be forthcoming.

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