You Might Be Home Schooled If . . .

18 Apr 2012 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , ,

They say that imitation is the sincerest from of flattery.  I hope you feel very flattered Mr. Foxworthy.

You might have been home schooled if . . .

  • You went into Shock the day you found out that your mother was not the great repository of all human knowledge.
  • You took so many “field trips” to Wal-mart that people thought you worked there.
  • You had to total the cost of all of the groceries in the cart plus tax (showing your work) before you could get M&M’s at the checkout counter.
  • You have more reverence for an Author’s birthday than a Catholic has for a Saint’s day.
  • Other people scream and throw holy water on you when you tell them that your School didn’t have sports.
  • You discovered the cure for Red neck in second grade using everyday kitchen staples.
  • People in town shun you when they learn that you don’t worship the local football team.
  • When someone asks you if you know of AC/DC you reply “Why yes of course these are the two forms of electricity. Alternating current and Direct current. While Alternating current is the best for sending through wires into your outlets Direct current is actually used to run most household appliances.” The person stares at you and then walks away as if you had deeply offended their religion.
  • Upon learning about pep rallies you laugh and exclaim, “Really! People do that? That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
  • When someone asks you your favorite sport you reply, “Speed reading.”

And lastly:

  • If you are outside on a warm September day and there are no other kids around then you might be Home Schooled.

Top Ten Reasons Why Romeo and Juliet is Unromantic

14 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Shakespeare Tags: , ,

Hi, Sorry I’ve been A.W.O.L. for a while. But sometimes life gets busy, I get lazy, I get writers block and sometimes all three. 

Anyway here is another random musing from me. It’s a Shakespeare one. 

Top Ten Reasons why Romeo and Juliet is the least romantic play ever.

10) Remember Rosaline? Romeo doesn’t even though he claims to love her at the beginning of the play. Romeo Falls in and out of love too easily. Would he really know true love if cupid hit him in the rear?

9) In Act III Scene V After he is banished Romeo abandons Juliet. I don’t think that qualifies as loves. Take her with you stupid. Seriously he finds plenty of time to sneak into her bedroom to consummate his marriage but he doesn’t even think to take his wife with him into exile?

8) Just like today people under a certain age needed parental consent. Juliet’s Father would have been legally allowed to annul the Marriage, though Juliet’s virtue would be compromised and she would have at best ended up in a convent.

7) A Secret Marriage means nothing if no one knows about it. Seriously, Juliet, if your Father doesn’t know you’re married then how can he know that he is causing you to sin? Yes I am sure she is trying keep her Father from annulling the marriage, but can you see how their getting married really didn’t solve anything?

6) What do a 14 and 13-year-old know about true love? They really were that young their ages are given in the play. Putting the character’s ages right out in the open like that makes you rethink the whole Marriage/Suicide thing huh?

5) Can you picture them with kids? Well can you? (See Blog Post)

4) Paris really did love Juliet. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe her parents knew what they were doing? This guy fought Rome to protect the body of someone who he probably believed killed herself to avoid marrying him. That has to be love.  At least more love than Romeo ever showed for her.

3) In what way is biting your thumb an insult? Is this some Elizabethan version of flipping the bird? (see Act I Scene I)

2) Romeo and Juliet went to Hell. I am sorry but according to the Roman Catholic beliefs they would have had as Italians: People who kill themselves go to Hell. Why is Juliet worried about the Sin of having two husbands but not about the sin of suicide? What about the sin of lying to your parents for that matter?

And the number one reason why R & J is unromantic is because of the lack of a SPOILER ALERT before the Prologue. The prologue to the play gives away the whole ending. Why Mr. Shakespeare Why? Don’t you believe in surprises at all?

Don’t believe me read the play here: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html

The Principle of First Trust

19 Mar 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , ,

They say that Trust is earned but this is a blatant lie. Trust is automatically given and expected. People expect me to trust them on our first meeting. People want trust without ever meeting them.

For example if you are selling your house you have to trust the realtor and the people viewing your house not to damage or steal any of your possessions.  If you do business over the phone you have to trust that person to keep up their end of things. When I order books online I have to trust Amazon to ship the items on time. 

Broken down on the side of the road don’t we trust that the person pulling over is a good Samaritan and not a serial killer?

On your first visit to a fantasy world you have to trust the first person you meet there. It is not possible to tell a caring Queen from a White Witch based only on first impressions.

If first trust is broken then I guess one could earn second trust. But even a chance to earn back trust is still a gift of trust from the person wronged to begin with.

Unfortunately, trust can’t be earned, it just isn’t practical. if we had to give every person we will ever meet a trust test before interacting with them all of our time would be wasted filling in dots with a number 2 pencil.

But even though you can’t earn my trust I still refuse to hand it out lightly.  So forgive me if I still lock my doors at night. Just because trust can’t be earned dosn’t mean everyone can be trusted.

St. Patrick’s Day: A Study in Irony

17 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Theological Musings Tags: , , ,

I am sorry that it’s been so long since my last post. First, I hope everyone read the post where I mentioned that I was sick. Feeling better now by the way. Second, technology can’t be trusted. I’ve had a hard time getting online recently. But anyway enough about me.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone!  What an interesting holiday we have here. No the mail doesn’t stop and we don’t get time off from work or school (except that it fell on a Saturday this year so actually we do) but people do celebrate with parades and drinking and green. Lots and lots of Green. We have turned the 17th of March into a celebration of everything Irish.

Irony= Saint Patrick wasn’t Irish. He was from Britain.

It’s also ironic that the Saint in St. Patrick’s day implies that Christianity is at the heart of the holiday yet this is rarely acknowledged by revelers.  

Saint Patrick was a Missionary with the goal of spreading the Gospel among the pagan Irish.

How appropriate that March 17th is so close to Easter this year? Very. celebrate sharing the Story of Jesus today before you celebrate the greatest story on Easter Sunday.

Irony= Would St. Patrick have converted the pagans if he had known how much trouble the Christain Catholics and the Protestants would cause each other later?

Irony= Not everyone can be Irish. But anyone can be a Christain.

So Kiss me I’m Christain.

But Wouldn’t you Really like . . . Two.

24 Feb 2012 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Star Trek Tags: , , ,

A couple of months ago I wrote a Blog post about my meeting with the fictional Sherlock Holmes and that got me thinking about other fictional characters that I might like to meet. So this post details my meeting with that paragon of Logic Mr. Spock from Star Trek.

I think that a meeting with Spock would make me feel much the same as meeting Sherlock would. Though I tend to think that the emotionless Vulcan would be more sensitive to my human emotions (go figure.) This would no doubt cause my meeting with Spock to be full of awkward silences and random comments that result in “fascinating” and “Interesting” responses from Spock.

Me: So you’re from the future?

Spock: As I have already stated.

Me: So have you ever heard of me?

Spock: You’re attempts to extract information about your future endeavors is in vain for I will not risk changing history in order to fuel your human ego.

Me: I see. That takes a lot of conversation topics off the table then.

Spock: Indeed.

Me: I noticed that you are reading something on your tablet there.

Spock: Yes I have taken the liberty of viewing your previous blog postings. I must say that they are rather interesting.

Me: Really!

Spock: Yes. For example many of them seem to take an anti-technology slant yet didn’t you tell me yourself that you earn currency by selling electronics to people? How can you sell things that you openly disapprove of?

Me: Well you see I don’t actively try to talk people into buying the items in question, usually they already want it and then I always try to emphasis the downside and they still buy it anyway.

Spock: Fascinating. So you inform these consumers that the Item they wish to buy is inferior and yet they purchase it anyway.

Me: That’s about the size of it.

Spock: The illogical  motives of humans will never cease to amaze me.

Me: Trust me I am human and I still don’t understand them.

Sick day musings

16 Feb 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing Tags: , , , , ,

This is random musings from my addled mind and my mind is never more addled than when I am sick. And I am indeed sick right now. 

 It has been a couple of weeks now so guess I should consider getting antibiotics or something.  I do not enjoy being sick but there is a part of me that just refuses to believe that my body can’t fight this on its own. Yes I take cold Meds and I use a vaporizer but every two years there is this reoccurring infection that just won’t leave without a visit to the doctor. Yea the last one was two years ago.

Why do we get sick? I can’t believe that germs and bacteria were part of Gods perfect creation. What purpose could they have had? They must have been unleashed after the fall some kind of failsafe ultimate punishment plan just incase things went south. Just like insects What good would they be in a perfect world? Poisson. That couldn’t have been part of the original program. Was it really a fall? Or was it more like a complete Overhaul?

But on the other hand this crap couldn’t have just evolved.  Multi-celled organisms would have died out before they ever got started. All it would take is one super deadly germ and there goes mama monkey. Goodbye primordial lizard too bad the black plague evolved first.

We think that we’re so awesome with our antibiotics and our immunizations but really we should be thankful that time travel is impossible.  That’s all I would need is some one bringing spanish flu back from a visit to their great-grandfather.

Sci-Fi Baseball Team

10 Feb 2012 1 Comment

The super bowl is finally over. Now it’s time to start thinking about more important things like baseball. Fantasy Baseball. But most especially what would a fantasy Baseball team be like if I recruited Science Fiction characters to play on it?

Note: I do not own the copyright to any of these Characters. And I don’t mean to offend anyone. This is just a bit of Fun.

My Fantasy Baseball team using Sci Fi Characters

Dr.  Who is on First. Though as he pointed out he could very easily outfit the whole team with all of his regenerations. So for the sake of simplicity we will specify the 4th Doctor (played by actor Tom Baker) as our first baseman.

  James T. Kirk is on Second. It was his idea actually. You should have been there when he was trying to explain to Mr. Spock why having Dr. Who on first was funny.

  Luke Skywalkwer is on third. It’s a good place for him seeing as how he is part of a trilogy and all.

  Arthur Dent was going to be the short stop but he read in “the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” that on the planet Vagas 4 The word “Short stop”  refers to a very poorly endowed male prostitute. So now he is off in right field having a cup of tea with Captain Picard. Also a very angry-looking Wookie made off with his towel and absolutely refuses to return it.

  Interestingly enough right field has been replaced with a halodeck, for the very reason that nothing ever goes out there anyway. Jean Luc Picard chose this position because he and Arthur quite agree that baseball is just not Cricket.

  In place of Arthur the angry-looking Wookie is the new Short Stop.

  Left Field is being held by William Robinson (Lost in Space). Will’s robotic companion, incidentally, turned out to be a very good cheerleader. Though it did seem a little confused, every time the ball came Will’s way it would shout, “Danger Will Robinson. Danger!” Dr. Smith unfortunately was benched; he was in too much pain to play.

  Center Field is the domain of Starbuck From Battlestar Galactica (The male Starbuck from the 70’s Not the female one)  Obviously because he likes to be the center of attention.

  The Pitcher is Alex Rogan (The Last Starfighter) because he managed to beat the high score in Wii Baseball.

  Captain Dylan Hunt (Andromeda) is the Catcher. This man survived in a black hole for three hundred years and then rebuilt a government from the ground up. If any one knows how to catch crap from everyone and then throw it right back at them it’s this guy.

  I really wanted Spock to be on my Team but he insisted that he was the only one logical and impartial enough to call the game fairly. So now Spock is the Umpire.

Let’s Play Ball!

 

Aside by C.O. Bonham

Spock’s Genealogy

01 Feb 2012 Leave a comment

by C.O. Bonham in Star Trek Tags: , , , ,

Here’s post number two. (The hint by the way was “even Vulcan Genealogy can be a worthwhile and rewarding endeavor.”)

Now anyone who has ever seen Star Trek should know that Mr. Spock is the one with the pointy ears. And they are pointy because he is half Vulcan. Vulcans are a race of Aliens that are all very logical and show very little emotion. Spock’s other half is Human.

 Now I’m sure that Spock’s Vulcan ancestry is all very interesting but what I really wonder about is Spock’s Human side. It takes two people to make least child so every generation adds an entirely new family tree on to the already extensive genealogy provided by just one parent. So it stands to reason that the family tree of Spock’s Mother would be long and distinguished all on its own.

 It also connects two 1960’s television shows. In the novel Star Trek #23: Ishmael written by: Barbara Hambly, the main plot has Spock stowaway on board a Klingon ship as it travels back in time on a mission to pave the way for an invasion of Earth’s past. After being discovered by the Klingons Spock is tortured but manages to escape unfortunately taking a bad case of Amnesia with him. Once on Earth Spock is befriended by a man named Aaron Stemple.

 Aaron Stemple is a Character from the TV series Here Come the Brides, a show about three brothers who own a logging camp inSeattle and decide to bring 100 women from back East to marry their bachelor workers.

 Now in the book Ishmael it is revealed that Spock’s Mother is a descendent of Aaron Stemple. The truly funny part of the story is that the actor who played Aaron Stemple on Here come the Brides, Mark Lenard, also played Spock’s Father Sarek on Star Trek.

 Only in Star Trek could a man in 1800’s Seattle share the same genetics as a Vulcan born five hundred years later and what’s more said alien actually marries one of his descendents.  Or should I put it more to the point and say, “only in little read fan fiction novels.”

 Very, little read it took this person 26 years to read it:

   http://doorq.com/2011/10/14/how-star-trek-met-here-come-the-brides-26-years-later/   

 The book is good but it is more Star Trek Fan Fiction than Here Come the Brides Fan Fiction. But it is still an interesting and little known anomaly in a large fan based universe. But please do yourself a favor and find Here Come the Brides on DVD if you have never seen it before you don’t know what you’re missing. Season Two comes out this spring.

Caucasia?

30 Jan 2012 1 Comment

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Well founded paranoia Tags: , , ,

 Sorry I’ve been dropping the ball lately on my blog posts I will try to get two up this week. Here’s #1 enjoy.  🙂

Where in the world is Caucasia and who are these Caucasians I keep hearing about?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Caucasia as a region in South East Europe between the Black and Caspian Seas, divided by the Caucasus Mountains into Ciscaucasia to the North and Transcaucasia to the South. A Caucasian is therefore an inhabitant of this area.

I keep seeing this nationality on applications and forms I have no idea who they are or even what their flag looks like.

The only thing I know for sure about them is that I am not one of them. I might be white but that is really just another way to say that you’re not Black or Hispanic. Actually that’s another thing about applications that I have noticed. There are like five different ways to classify Hispanics.

If there is an option to select “other” I will check that before anything else. Even if you don’t elaborate I think that “Other” is the most accurate term for an American to use anyway. We don’t really belong to those other countries, Cultures, and labels anymore (especially when you’re born here.) America was supposed to be the great melting pot where everyone was equal. We shouldn’t need racial classifications anymore because everyone is just American.

What do I write under Other? If there is room I write: I am an American of Anglo Germanic decent.
If there is very little room I write: American.

If there is no “Other” I check White. I am not offended by the word White. I am offended that these forms want me to claim that I’m from Caucasia when I am not. It’s kind of like this woman I met once, she said not to call her African-American because her family came from Ireland.

Needless to say that lacking an Other or White I will leave that section blank before I will claim myself as Caucasian.

Now don’t put words in my mouth here. By all means embrace your heritage and I am all for ancestral pride. Whether you’re Irish-American or African-American or even Vulcan, genealogy can be a fun and worthwhile endeavor.  Who knows maybe everyone has a little Caucasian in their blood.  

But until I know for sure I refuse to be counted among them.

 

P.S. There is a clue to my next post in here. Leave a comment and see if you can guess the topic before I post, hopefully, on Wednesday.

Tron: Allegory

20 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by C.O. Bonham in Random Musing, Theological Musings Tags: , ,

The other night I was watching Tron and I suddenly had a revelation. The story line is a total metaphor for the gospel and the writers didn’t even try very hard to disguise it either. I’m sure that a lot of you will have a hard time seeing Kevin Flynn as Jesus Christ, he isn’t really his character is still only human after all, but the idea is there.

 It began when the Master Control Program (MCP) saw itself as equal to, nay, even greater than his Creator and began taking over his fellow created beings in order to gain more power. The MCP sounds a lot like Satan so far.

 Flynn is a User, a writer of code and a creator of Programs. He is transformed into a program by the MPC who sees Flynn as a threat and thinks that he can humiliate and destroy him on the gamming grid.

 Satan did not make God man. He doesn’t have that kind of power. Christ chose to become human and he chose to die. This makes Christ greater than Flynn.

 As a User Flynn finds that he has special powers that allow him to alter the way the virtual world operates.  And in the Scriptures Jesus performs many miracles in order to demonstrate the power of God.

 In the end Flynn throws himself into the MCP in order to give Tron a chance to destroy him. Just like Jesus sacrificed himself in order to save us his creations.

 Then there is the character of Ram, the faithful believer who is the first one to be graced with the knowledge that the creator walks among the created. He even uses the line “Oh My User,” and not in the shocked way that we humans exclaim “Oh My God.”

Another stunning parallel is the scene where Tron goes into the input tower to speak with Alan One. The reverence and the magnitude of the moment are similar to a high priest entering the Holy of Holies to speak directly with God. Which is pretty much what Tron is doing.

 I also love the opening of the movie, when the guard program throws the accounting program into the holding cell he calls him a “Religious nut.” Like I said, the movie makers certainly weren’t trying very hard to hide the symbolism.

It all still holds up even with the addition of Tron: Legacy to the Canon. In fact if you really think about it Tron: Legacy is really just the same movie only with better effects.

 Yes I realize that there is nothing new under the sun. Especially when the sun is a thirty year old movie with a cult following. Here are some other good articles that make the same observations I just did:

 www.overthinkingit.com/2009/09/29/tron-religious-subtext

 totallytawn.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/tron-legacy-and-religion

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