Common Sense

i'm not yet quite pale enough to be a real programmer.

2010-10-07T18:58:00.000-07:00

So I've taken up programming. I'm learning to be a java programmer. Why? I don't know. It just sounds fun.

I'm pretty excited, actually

2010-09-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

So, recently, my boyfriend has made friends with a guy who does e-waste stuff. This e-waste guy accumulates a ton of electronic equipment that doesn't work, but COULD work with some fixing. The only problem is that he doesn't have time to fix all this stuff. That's where I come in.

Most of what needs fixing is to simply replace bulging capacitors. Which I have done. And I'm getting paid for this stuff. I'm quite thankful that I worked a job for almost four years where all I did was solder all day.

If anyone has any LCD monitors that aren't working, get in contact with me. I'll fix capacitor issues for $8. You pay shipping.

More black magic?

2010-09-13T13:56:00.001-07:00

I was checking out my stats page. It turns out this page: http://blackmagicremoveswithquran.blogspot.com/ has some traffic directed my way.

This blog is loaded with all kinds of fear-mongering about black magic. Maybe I'll start a campaign analyzing the posts.

Maybe.

wow. i'm making a lot of posts today. what's wrong with me?

2010-09-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know. I took the day off of work because I hate that place. So, lucky you, you get to look at a ton of updates today....

I'm on twitter now.

feel free to follow me

http://twitter.com/sueblogspot

Its Mario's birthday!

2010-09-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

Today marks 25 years since Super Mario Brothers was released. I'm older than Mario????

Happy birthday, Mario!!!

OH NOES!!1 ITS PEDO BEAR!!!

2010-09-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

I guess someone at MSN doesn't understand internet memes.

Or maybe they're joking. I don't know.

Pedobear!!!

Seriously? Pedobear?

Toast

2010-09-13T12:25:00.001-07:00

Remember when that guy had a piece of toast and it looked like jesus was on it and sold it on ebay for almost $30,000?

Well now you can have jesus toast EVERY DAY! if you wanted, that is.

Why not?

Common Sense on Facebook

2010-09-13T12:19:00.001-07:00

If you so desire.....

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Common-Sense/146502818720287?v=wall

Charity

2010-09-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

I received an email the other day. From "water-aid america". They're wanting me to team up my blog and twitter with other users who want to help to build wells for towns who don't have clean water. Because children are dying. And I could help save 1 million children every year.

I don't believe in charity. Of course, people dying isn't good. But people have to die. How and when are just details. The fact that someone is 2 years old or 105 years old should make no difference. Newborns have to die sometimes. That's just the way it is.

Please stop expecting me to want to save someone's life for free when that person will die eventually anyway. I'm just trying to be practical.

Whatever happened to survival of the fittest? If a certain area of the world is making too many babies to feed and water, shouldn't they stop making so many babies? I'm not going to try to feed and clothe these children when the parents were irresponsible enough to make them.

I'm a horrible daughter

2010-09-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I think that my mom is just about dead. But I don't feel anything. I'm indifferent towards the whole situation.

A few weeks ago she learned that she has stage three kidney failure, among other things. She's been ill for about a week and a half. Some kind of stomach virus or something. She's been having 'accidents'. And not the urine kind.

I've been having to do her laundry for her and hang up her clothes because she can't do it. She can barely get out of bed. I even had to put pants on her because she couldn't do it.

And through this whole thing, I don't feel the way I think I should. I'm actually ready for her to be gone. I think I actually don't love her. I've felt that way for quite some time. Years. Its that I feel obligated to do these things.

I'm still here

2010-06-23T19:27:00.001-07:00

I'm still here. Getting some things together in my life. I'll update soon/eventually.

Comments

2009-08-28T17:38:00.000-07:00

I've received a couple of comments in the last couple of days and since I have recently broken up with my boyfriend of six years, I now have a ton of free time. I guess I'll be updating more frequently.

But I want to take some time to respond to these comments.

So I guess we'll go with the first comment first.

The first comment is from this post about the ancient black magic website.

Attica said...
Spells are REAL. There are witches and warlocks. There are those who can cast some horrendous spells that do extreme damage to the person targetted by the evil spell.

I am a living example of this and I will fight it in anyway I can.
It is a matter of finding authentic practictioners to REVERSE the effect.

AUGUST 26, 2009 7:06 PM

So, Attica, I will agree with you that spells are real in that people can write them down or say them aloud. Please explain to me what makes a word magical? I'm not asking for your personal experience. That means nothing to me.

I will also agree with you that witches and warlocks exist in that anyone can say they are one. But what, exactly, other than one claiming to be a witch or warlock, makes one a witch or warlock?

Now for the second comment from this post where I had an email exchange with Kuma Hassan:

Silvia said...
I don't know how you can decide someone is a fake based on your OPINION of a few emails.

You asked insincere questions and expect enlightenment from that?

Kuma Hassan cast a spell for me and it worked, just like he said it would.

Those who claim they have tried Kuma's spells and not had the results they wanted either are complete liars who never had a spell cast by him, or did not heed his instructions and warnings which are easy to follow, but foolishly ignored by so many.

AUGUST 27, 2009 10:05 AM

So, Silvia, the fact that no one has EVER been able to prove to anyone that spells or magic even exists is quite enough for me to decide that someone is fake. The emails were just more evidence for this.

I actually did not ask insincere questions. Every question I posed to Kuma Hassan was a question I genuinely wanted answered. I'm still waiting for the answers to the questions I asked. I did not receive answers, I got the runaround while he was trying to direct me to his website where he wanted to take my money.

Kuma Hassan may have cast a spell for you, or he may have just taken your money, sat back and did nothing, while the events in your life played out on their own. You will never know. Good thing you shelled out your cash for that.

If Kuma Hassan's spells are so terrific and there's no way they can't work, as you have stated in your last paragraph, why isn't everyone asking for his assistance? Why isn't he the richest man in the world? Why hasn't he taken James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge?

I got you your favorite thing: DISAPPOINTMENT!

2009-08-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm on Facebook. I have been for a while now. I'm not giving out the link yet, though.

I was going through the posts my facebook friends have made today and I see that my uncle has added a 'cause' to his facebook. I'm not going to link to the cause or give its exact name, because it doesn't need any more attention than its already getting. But its a 'cause' to 'educate' people before vaccinating children.

And as you can imagine, its about autism and vaccines.

Now I wouldn't even be making this post, except I commented on my uncle's joining this cause. I said, "please tell me you don't buy into vaccines causing autism."

I went off and did some stuff, made dinner and what-not. I came back, and the comment had been deleted. So I'm not sure if this means he DOES buy into it or he just didn't want his other facebook friends to see my comment. Why he wouldn't want them to see it, i don't know. But I'm leaning towards that he does buy into it.

Just doing a quick search on google and you can be pointed to numerous links about how a federal court says they don't cause autism. link

I'm very disappointed with my uncle right now.

I'm not the one being a douchebag here

2009-08-05T00:53:00.000-07:00

So last year, 2008, once at the end of january and again around the beginning of march, I happened to hit some deer in the road. In january, this was the first large animal I had ever hit. Well, now that I think about it, I did hit a coyote, once. It was horrible, the coyote ran out in front of me. I hit his hind end with the driver's side of my truck. It spun the coyote into the oncoming traffic lane where he was hit by another car coming the other direction. I felt horrible. I cried.

But anyway, back to the deer.

So in january of last year, I hit a deer. This particular deer wasn't very smart, but most of them aren't. There were two of them standing in the road. They were spaced far enough apart that I could have driven perfectly between them with no problem. And that's what I tried to do since there was no way I could have stopped in time. But just before I got to the deer (keep in mind that I had slammed on the brakes and was slowing down) one of the deers spooked and ran in front of my truck. I didn't kill it, it got up and ran away.

Almost the same scenario in march. Except this time there were three deer and they weren't standing in the road, but running across. I hit one deer, possibly two, I'm not sure. They were all able to run away. I was very pissed about this second deer-hitting incident. It had only been a couple of weeks since I had gotten the damage fixed from the first deer.

But to the point...after this second deer in march, I began having problems with other drivers. Only at night, though. It seems that the place that fixed my truck both times had put some super bright headlights in my truck. Maybe to help me see the deer?

About 40% of the drivers on the road at night have a problem with my headlights. Some of them are serious douchebags about it. Lots of times the drivers will just flash their lights at me and be done with it. But a few will turn their bright lights on to let me know that they think I have my bright lights on. With these guys I will flash my brights at them to let them know that these are my normal lights. They'll usually turn their brights off at that point.

Then there are the real douchebags. The ones who will turn their brights on...I flash mine...they'll turn theirs off, but when they get closer to me, they'll turn them on again and blind me and I have no way to do it back to them because they've already passed me.

I'm not going back to the auto shop to have them put in different headlights. That's going to cost me more money. Plus, I can see everything with these headlights! And I haven't hit any more animals since getting them.

So if you drivers don't like it, you can bite the big one and just keep being a douchebag, but I'm going to keep my headlights and you can just keep not liking it.

in case you hadn't heard....

2009-07-12T20:51:00.001-07:00

Michael Jackson died.

Your favorite people on the internet

2009-05-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

So I'm really liking Twitter.

Between Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, I'm connected to a myriad of people. People I know in real life, people I only know through the internet, people that I have no idea who they are, and people I wish I knew in real life.

I'm so thankful for these sites because now I can stalk my favorite celebrities and bands. Well, they're celebrities to me, anyway. Most people don't know or don't care...but I'm going to take the time to list them here.

Twitter:

Goatwhore
Soilent Green (yes, I have the hots for Ben Falgoust, just like almost every other metal chick)

P Z Meyers
Phil Plait (Gots the hots for him, too)

Myspace:

Brendon Small
Jeff Dee
King Diamond

Facebook:

Matt Dillahunty

So I'm not going to be satisfied until Ben Falgoust actually gets on twitter or myspace or something. But I really love being able to be somewhat connected to all of these people and bands. The internets is definitely good.

I guess its time...

2009-05-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

to make some more updates. I see I've got some new subscribers, so I can't let them down! So I guess you can expect some more entries from me in the near future.

Thanks for subscribing!

Ancient Black Magick....again

2009-04-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

Wow. I just can't seem to get away from this guy.

So anyway, I'm still pretty busy with my life right now, but I felt the need to make an update concerning Kuma Hassan and the Ancient Black Magic website.

I've gotten quite a few comments on the post with the email exchange I had with Kuma Hassan. Or someone claiming to be him.

The latest comment is from an anonymous user who says he lost money from the website. Hopefully his/her story will convince others to save their money for things that are actually tangible.

I especially like one of the last lines of his comment: "BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH A BROKEN HEART? DEAL WITH IT, AND DO NOT CALL A "SPELL CASTER" TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOU!!!"

Thanks, Anonymous.

Break time

2009-02-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

Well I've got a ton of crap going on, working on websites and trying to start an atheist group so i'm going to be taking some time off from the blog for a little bit. I'm sure I'll stop in from time to time to post updates, but it will be pretty few and far between.

So, I'll see you again soon.

Woman forced to watch her child's murder

2009-02-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

Or, Woman went to clinic for abortion and received said abortion.

So there's a lawsuit about this. And they decided to name the baby Shanice.

The case explains Shanice's mother learned she was pregnant in July 2006 and decided to have an abortion. She went to the Miramar Woman Center and was referred to abortionist Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique.

I'm going to go ahead and say that I haven't had an abortion, but I can't imagine its a pretty sight. With that out of the way, I'm going to continue.

So this woman found out she was pregnant in July of 2006 and in the same month, went for the abortion in Florida. The article doesn't say how far along the woman was, but it does say that the child was BREATHING after it came out. So, we can conclude that the child's lungs were somewhat developed. Now according to Wikipedia around 8 to 15 weeks the lungs of the child are developing and movements that mimic breathing and yawning are taking place to help build lung development. Then at 16 to 25 weeks, the alveoli are beginning to form in the lungs. So I suppose we could conclude that this woman was somewhere around....lets say....a nice round number, 10 to 20 weeks along. That sounds fair to me.

So ten weeks...that's about two and a half months. I can see how a woman may not know she was pregnant yet. Especially if she is like me and doesn't have regular menstrual cycles. The wikipedia article says women can feel their baby moving around the 18-19 week period if she has not had a baby before. This is well within the range that I had mentioned before. And this sounds good if she was around 20 weeks pregnant and this is the time when she discovered she was pregnant...when she could feel the baby moving. So 20 weeks. That's what...4 months conservatively. Almost halfway through her pregnancy. It sounds a little fishy to me. Of course this is all speculation. We don't know how far along she was. But if my logic is correct, she was quite a ways along before she decided to get the abortion.

Ok, so possibly the child was pretty far along when it came out. I wonder if the woman had found out how far she was before she decided to abort. If she knew how far she was, she may have been prepared for what might have happened.

I don't know how abortions work or the laws, but I did look up Florida's abortion laws. I'm not going to discuss them or anything, but there's the link and you can look at them yourself.

I can't imagine an abortion clinic would have equipment to keep premature babies alive, and the medical examiner's report states:

the baby had been breathing after birth and before death but blamed the death on "extreme prematury" (yes, that's how its spelled in the article).

So, I would be willing to say that even if the baby had been breathing, but incredibly premature, the clinic wouldn't have been able to save the child and get it to the hospital anyway.

The lawsuit also claims that no one at the clinic at the time the woman arrived actually had any kind of medical license but that she was given a labor inducing drug anyway. I guess we'll find out all the details when it goes to court or whatever, but I think there is a lot of lying going on here.

Talking religion at work

2009-02-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

I don't like to do it. But I did a couple of days ago.

I don't quite remember how it exactly started. But the girl next to me asked me why I didn't believe in god. I told her that I hadn't been presented with any evidence that would lead me to believe any god existed.

"The bible isn't enough?" she asked.

I shook my head 'no'.

"Why not?" she asked.

Now, before I go any further, I have to mention that the woman who I've mentioned in previous posts about bigfoot and Sarah Palin sits very near to us and was listening.

Anyay, after she (I'm going to call her Shawna) asked me why the bible isn't enough proof that her god exists, I ask her why she doesn't believe in allah since the qur'an is also a religious text.

At this point, we got interrupted by the girl who sits across from me and I used this as my out so I didn't have to talk about religion anymore, but she jumped in and started talking about religion, too. So I put my earphones in and listened to a podcast while they were talking.

Shawna then gets my attention and says that I didn't answer her question. I didn't hear her ask me any other questions, so I asked her what she was talking about. Apparently she asked me where I think we came from. I think she thought I was trying to ignore her (which I was, because work is not the place to be having this discussion) but I really didn't hear this question.

But we got past that little bump and she asked me again. I told her that I believe in evolution.

"You mean that we came from apes?" she asked.

"Well, that's not EXACTLY what evolution says, but yes." I replied. I then explained to Shawna that evolution says that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor. This seemed to quiet her for a few minutes. I only put one of my earphones in this time in case she wanted to talk to me again so I could hear her.

She didn't talk to me again, but I did hear her talking to the woman from the bigfoot post (I'm going to call her Gaye).

Shawna turns around to Gaye and says " I don't understand!"

I couldn't hear the entire conversation because they were speaking very softly. They knew I was listening to a podcast (!!! I remember how the conversation came up now. Shawna asked me what I was listening to and I told her about podcasts and that I was listening to a science based podcast....I had to explain podcasts to her because she didn't know what they are. I know she isn't interested in science because of previous conversations I've had with her, but I told her that there were religious podcasts, too and I think that's how the religion conversation came about).

Ok, they knew I was listening to a podcast and probably wasn't paying attention to anything else that was going on.

But I could hear a little bit of what they were saying. Shawna says she doesn't understand and then her voice gets too low for me to hear. Gaye says something and the conversation goes on for a little bit. Then I hear Gaye say "Jesus is the son of god...." and that's all that I could hear. They talked for a little bit longer and then that was the end of the religion conversation.

We worked the rest of the time as if nothing had happened. We talked about normal stuff we usually talk about. And I'm happy about that since when I usually talk to people about religion, I never talk to them again because they don't want to talk to me. That's fine, too, but not at work.

I decided to not go to work today...

2009-01-27T14:55:00.000-08:00

The weather here is pretty bad. My shift was sent home from work yesterday about four hours early because of the ice making the roads bad yesterday. The town I live in is only ten miles from the next town over. By the time I left work, the roads were blocked and traffic was backed up from the other town INTO my town because of accidents.

I was informed to call up to work today to see if they were going to be working today. I don't go into work until 12:30 in the afternoon so I called up there around 10:30. There was someone answering the phones and I said "So you guys are working today?" The receptionist said yes. So I asked to talk to the lead of my line. I wanted to ask her how bad the roads were. She didn't show up to work. So then I asked to talk to my supervisor...she didn't show up, either. So I decided since my lead or supervisor didn't show up, that I wouldn't either. (My lead and supervisor are people who almost never miss work. I've been there for two months shy of three years and I would say between the two of them, they may have missed ten days...)

I decided if the roads were too bad for them to show up to work, that I wouldn't either. So, I had some free time today and took some video of the weather. Its snowing now and I took this video about an hour and a half ago.

This is my second video uploaded to youtube. You should check out my other one. It was when my bump made it onto [adult swim]. :D

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

2009-01-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

So I turned my satellite subscription off just before Thanksgiving and I've been watching the local channels and the public television lately.

I was flipping through my seven or so channels when I came across Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on Ozarks Public Television.

This particular episode was titled 'End of Life Dilemmas'. It focused mostly on Alzheimer's patients and whether or not to use a feeding tube to keep them alive when they are no longer able to feed themselves.

I have a couple of issues with this story.

First, here's a quote from the episode:

ROLLIN (to Mr. Davis): If you had to make the decision again, would you have the tube put in?

Mr. DAVIS: Yeah.

ROLLIN: You would?

Mr. DAVIS: Sure.

ROLLIN (to Mr. Davis): Because…? Just to keep her living?

Mr. DAVIS: That’s right. If you believe in God, a miracle might happen. But I just don’t think it’s right, you know, to choose whether a person lives or dies.

It seems to me, Mr. Davis' God was trying to kill his mother but Mr. Davis IS CHOOSING to keep his mother alive. And that goes against what he just said. Am I correct?

The other issue I have with this:

SHARON NEWELL (Daughter of Barbara Kinley): She was in intensive care for 28 days; on a ventilator for 14, and at that point the doctors and nurses and even other family members were like, “You need to turn it off and let her go,” etc., etc. That is just not — wasn’t an option. We are a religious family. My belief is in God and that we are all in his hands.

If Sharon Newell believes 'we are all in his (God's) hands', then why wouldn't she wish her mother to be with her god as soon as possible? Why keep her mother alive in an almost vegetative state for an indefinite amount of time? If her concept of heaven is a place where her mother could be with God and not be suffering, why not let her go there?

Religious people don't make a lot of sense to me.

The doctors and nurses in this episode were also interviewed and they all said they would rather NOT prolong the life of patients who cannot do anything for themselves by inserting a feeding tube because of all the complications that come with it. Why won't the families take the advice of the doctors?

I'm back...again.

2009-01-22T21:06:00.001-08:00

Well.

I ran out of money to pay my internet bill. My plant was closed for a week and a half during the holidays so I wasn't able to work. So I couldn't make any money...but its taken care of now..so...I'll start posting again. :)

I'm back..

2008-12-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

I was out of town visiting family while I had a week and a half off because my plant was closed for the holidays and I couldn't work.

So, the first order of business....

While I was out, I received another email from the ancientblackmagic.com guy. He very politely asked me to remove his email address from the conversation I posted...so I'm doing that now.

I was surprised he was very nice about it. Usually the internet breeds horrible rudeness and outright hostility, but to his credit, he was neither rude or hostile.

I don't really have much else right now, except that I had a wonderful time not having to work.