meh, fuck the central topic idea. This has always been a blog for babbling about whatever. I'm not really out to gather a lot of readers anyway, just keeping an archive that might exist for a very long time.

I wonder, if everything written here on blogger could be saved for a millennium? Maybe longer? Sometimes I think about people reading my online journal from the far future to study their primitive ancestors.

If so, then hello future people, I hope things are going well.

So I've always wanted to camping out in the wilderness. Even though I grew up in the woods, I can't remember actually going out and setting up a camp.

Since I had to bring my cat out to my parents (landlady asked me to get rid of her), I thought, might as well do it this weekend. Instead of dropping her off, I went out to where I was thinking of setting up (my dad's quarter section, off in the boonies.)

I wasn't sure exactly what would happen when I let her out, but I felt like I've been holding her in a box for the years I've been living in the city and thought that she should have the opportunity to be truly free.

At first, she stayed around the truck. I started looking around for a camp site, which was next to impossible in my dad's land. The place is normally a swamp, and with the rain we've been having, the water is pretty high.

I was going to drive further down the road to inspect for more places, but the road was getting pretty thin. I've gotten stuck on roads like that before, usually when trying to turn around, so I decided to turn around first, where it was more open, then back in. I opened my window to see where I was going and then all of a sudden the cat jumped out. This time, she took off.

"shit."

I thought to myself...

At the time, I wasn't totally sure I was going to camp at all, but after she didn't come back, I thought, "might as well just wait for her."

I eventually did find a suitable area in my dads land, but it was pretty far from where the cat took off, so, I set up on the road. (It's a dead end road, mostly over grown)

It wasn't too bad for camping in a ditch next to a swamp. I gathered a bunch of dead wood, made a fire, and made some hot dogs. The cat must have smelled the food, or maybe was just cold. By the time it got dark, she was back. She was a little scared of me, almost like the feral in her was coming out. Or she was scared I was going to take her away. Eventually, she warmed up to me, and chilled out by the fire.

It was a pretty cool experience. For the first time in a while, I got to see the stars in vivid detail.

In the morning, I let the cat out of the tent and boom, she was off having an adventure. I really want to find a tiny webcam that I can attach to her. She probably seen a lot of cool shit. She must have had fun avoiding the water by climbing things.

I ran out of water and tried a few survival methods to get clean water from the swamp. I tried distilling it with a pot and a plastic bag, but I couldn't get it quite right. I tried running it through cloth to filter it out, and I drank a little, didn't get sick, so I guess if I was ever really desperate, that method kinda works. I was really proud in the morning after I made my own coffee filter out of a piece of paper and a napkin. Best coffee ever.

Before I went out, I found an old tool kit that I wasn't using. I decided to label it "Macguyver Box", and put a whole bunch of random shit in there. A lot of stuff, like a broken light bulb, I put in there with the hope that I'll figure out what to do with it eventually. After camping, I think I want to get rid of a lot of the useless stuff and just have survival gear in there. I put the multi-tool and tape to the most use.

I think I'd like to go out to my Dad's land and build something. He got the land for a song, and while it is swamp, it could be a cool place to live. I picture putting up a bunch of board walks and having a very Caribbean swamp style home, like an old voodoo lady is going to jump out and scare ya, lol.

Anyways, the cat did come back during the day, she slid out from under the tent after she wanted to take a nap, I guess.

I put her in her cage, and although she probably would have liked it if we stayed out there, I brought her to my parents where she'll have all sorts of other animals to interact with and a lot of cool land to explore.

It's pretty lonely in this apartment without her, but it'll only be a month and a week.

I've got to clean this place up.

evolution and games

I've been thinking about sticking to a central topic in this space.

Video games have always interested me more then anything in this life, and I think, like soccer, it's a global phenomenon that we all take part in. Some people spout off stats from the NFL, but an acronym that's a little more worldwide might be SC3, or, Starcraft 3.

What is it about video games and games in general that captivate us so much?

I'm a FPS gamer, lately, I've been getting back to my roots with Team Fortress 2, and I was thinking about how a group of scouts can sometimes act like a flock of birds, especially when they're all focused on the same target. There are a lot of aspects to the game that remind me of the wild, like hording health packs reminds me of animals protecting food. There are many "fight or flight" moments. While, respawning is always available and the game never really matters like dying in real life does, watching a match play out reminds me of evolution.

Especially on a new map. Sometimes I think about how each round is a generation, the players that failed, adapt, and do something else to try and survive, they learn from the other players that live on, and try again.

There's a game that came out for the Wii called Dangerous Creatures. I don't own a Wii, but it looked pretty interesting. It tried to make realistic settings in the wild, where you play as different critters. As we study animals more and more and profit from bio mimicry, it makes sense to me that modeling them on the computer in more and more detail is a really good idea.

2255

2255 <- the year I'll turn 100,000 days old.

273 years old

A million days is 27379 and some change

How fast will our life expectancy increase?

3 months every year?

what happens if that number one day becomes 4 months per year, and exponential increases in technology manages to continue this trend until it's one year per year.

Imagine being 99, and they say that the average life expectancy is 100, then the year after they announce it's 101, and so on. If the trend continued, it would out run you.

I can't imagine how, but it certainly would change the way we look at things. Accidents, murders.... would have much more impact if people had the ability to live 100,000 days

2255...

I was thinking to myself the other day. Growing up in a christian conservative household, I was taught that the end of the world was going to come one day, and the righteous would be taken to a much better alternate existence and the sinful would suffer for all eternity.

On the opposite end is science, who argued that our ignorance to our environment and passed history states that we will destroy ourselves or, the earth will face another mass extinction.

99% of all species that have ever existed on this planet are extinct.

What bothers me now is that both sides seem to be arguing for the same thing. That we're all fucked.

I wish there was an alternate, and strong view that everything's going to be fine. With the way we look at time, we have a very large amount available to us. With the way we've advanced in the last 100 years, that amount should easily be enough to preserve life and continue our species for as long as the universe exists.

It's not impossible, we just need to divert our energy from destruction and put it in to health, science, education, and technology. The strongest defense is not an offense, but a message. One that says, "we don't need an army, we're going to space. We're going to preserve the human race"

\o|o/

10101

Weee

Another day in the life of Caleb.

Packing up some stuff today, getting ready to move out. Found a shirt in my closet, brand new, very fancy. I have no idea where it came from, but it's a mans shirt. Someone must have bought it for me or something, I can't remember, it's so strange. I've never seen a shirt with a whole bunch of needles holding it together. I tried it on and it seemed to fit, reminded me of one of those Asian movies where there's that silent dude in the corner wearing a really nice black shirt.

Anyways...

I have to get rid of my cat. The landlady said shes going to get someone to replace the carpet that she tore up and that it's a good idea to get the cat out for when she's showing the place to other people.

So, I'll probably head out to my parents this weekend and drop her off there.

It's going to be pretty lonely without her. I don't know exactly why, but I spend most of my days completely isolated from everyone. I still socialize on the internet, but have become very introverted lately.

I don't have a lot of money, so I kind of keep things low key I guess. Trying to scrape by. Well, I guess if I'm living with my parents, the money thing should pick up.

I'm thinking, after I drop off the cat, to go camping and figure what I want to do with my life.

10101 days in, _____ days out.

I feel like getting in touch with nature and living with the bare essentials for a little bit might be a good way to gain some perspective.

A friend offered to rent a room out to me, I might take him up on it. I really want to meet the right woman, and it's going to be next to impossible if I'm living with my parents in Hadashville. Still, a little time out in the country would be the fastest way to get out of debt...

Will have to see how it goes. I've been putting this off for a while, was thinking about subletting, but since I'm really unsure on where I want to live, it's been hard to get things in gear.

But, it looks like, I'll move everything out to my parents, then take what I need from there.

I really don't need anything.

A trip through the wilderness should be good for me.

4 things I hate

Hey, guess what, people like lists.

Let me rant for a bit as I count down 4 things that really bother me in today's society.

1. Bottled water

Water is everywhere. When we designed cities with water included, we went through the trouble of running millions of pipes to every single household and business. This is common. Every major city has it's own water system. The water is safe, clean and healthy. Yet some people don't think this is good enough for them. For the sake of convenience, or just because of the slight taste difference, they would rather pay far too much so that trucks can physically carry the water in a multitude of plastic containers over miles and miles, even as far as Fiji! This is fucking insanity. We are already standing on a much smarter system, where pumps bring it through pipes in a much more efficient manner. The people that sell it are making money off of your stupid fucking ass. Why the fuck are you buying water. Just get a goddamn reusable container and find one of the many taps around and get it for free.

2. So you think you can dance

How many fat fucking people sit down and watch this show as they gorge themselves? Why don't you take that fast food money and go get some dance lessons you overweight piece of shit.

3. Junk mail

Holy crap, why the hell are we wasting so much energy on cutting down trees, converting it in to paper, printing out millions and millions of ads just so people can inform me on the price of apples at the local supermarket?! A much smarter way of doing the exact same thing is to simply create a website for when someone is actually interested in buying whatever the seller is trying to sell.

I don't want to receive a million different ads that are irrelevant to what I need or want at the cost of cutting down more trees.

4. Repetitive commercials

Speaking of ads. I watch a lot of Discovery. If I'm going to watch TV, I might as well learn something. The problem is that every 10 minutes, they barrage you with the same ads over and over again. It almost feels like whatever useful information I'm getting from the educational content is dwarfed by the repeated garbage in between. I don't mind getting free shows at the cost of an ad once in a while, but when it's the same fucking ad over and over again, it drives me crazy. One good example is nicorettes new method that allows you to get your nicotine through a device that you hold like a cigarette. First, I don't smoke, I don't care. Second, they show this one guy holding a pen in his mouth because he's craving a cigarette, and he gets ink all over his face. This disgusts me, can't he fucking taste the ink?! And third, when I did quit smoking, the last thing I would want is to be constantly reminded that I'm craving a cigarette. This commercial is on constantly. Lastly, isn't this just another expensive cigarette. They're just giving you nicotine anyway, now it's in a smokeless form that you can use indoors.

What's so wrong about wearing a headset?

I stumbled on this article about wearing headsets in public. I've heard this again and again, that you just shouldn't leave one on. I really don't understand this. I find it strange that if you wear a golden hoop or put a metal piece through your eyelid, that's totally fine, but if that item has a function, an actual USE, then holy shit, that's just douchebaggery!

I personally don't have any piercings or tattoos. I don't see the point. I'm not going to decorate my body with holes and permanent ink to impress people. In the article, this is exactly the reason why you shouldn't wear a blue tooth headset in public. That it's saying, "hey, look at my cool gadget!" When, in my opinion, it's more of a convenience. Since I'm not allowed to talk on the phone while driving, a headset is just more practical and why should I feel like I need to take it off if I step outside of my vehicle. I don't care about what people think about me.

That being said, I don't actually have a bluetooth headset, but I use the old school method of ear buds with the microphone on the wire which leads to the phone. Of coarse, this is a little different because people are more comfortable with wearing ear buds since walkmans/discmans have been around a long time.

So I ask myself, why is it totally fine to walk around with some wires dangling to your pocket but it's not cool to use a wireless setup?

my reasons

Why would anyone want to become an agnostic/atheist?

It's an interesting question. With religion comes a lot of good things:

1. A community of people that you meet with once a week (or more). This can be a way of making friends that share your common beliefs. There is also a support system. If you just like to sing, they have that in church as well.

2. There are a lot of things you don't have to worry about. For example, death, purpose of life, man destroying itself. When you put your trust in God, you can expect that He will tell you everything you need to know after you die, and humans can't possibly destroy themselves since it was written that God will bring about the end of the world, not humans. A lot of people that convert feel a great weight lifted off their shoulders.

3. One of my main reasons for believing in God was that if you don't and the bible is true, well, you die and suffer for eternity. If God doesn't exist, then believe or not, you still end up in the same place. It just seems safer to go ahead and believe in God. It made sense to me that if you don't know where you're going, you might as well believe it's someplace good, so the time here is more enjoyable, less worrisome.

Now, I don't believe in God. Or rather, I'm one of those agnostics that's totally comfortable with saying, who knows?

I'm not going to sign on the dotted line out of fear. Sure, I might be more comfortable with believing in God and that I'll have eternal happiness after I die for doing so, but in my mind, the truth is the truth. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. There's no point in believing in something just because the belief makes you feel better when it might just be a complete falsification.

When it comes to worrying, sometimes it's good to be aware of the danger ahead of us. Sure, I could feel better by believing invisible unicorns will keep man from destroying ourselves, but that belief will only cause me to allow us to keep harming our planet. If I believe that all the knowledge in the universe will be given to me on death, why should I bother learning things here and now, where I can pass that information on to the next generation? Sure, if I believed in God, I would have a lot of anxiety removed, cause I really have no clue what's going on and I'm bothered by it. It's that lack of knowledge and uncomfortable feeling that drives me to discover more.

I hear that, statistically, more non-religious types further their education.

I really do miss having a large group of people to interact with on a regular basis. Maybe going to school would be a good replacement for church.

It's too bad that church is free and school is not. Maybe somebody should take the same donation based church model and just make free schools.

Lastly, on the topic of heaven. Somewhere at some time, some person was either told by God or simply made up the notion that if we do not have faith in God then we do not get to go to heaven. This idea may have come up long before the Jewish religion ever existed. Since then, people have added or tacked on more beliefs to this idea. For example, Mormonism is a fairly modern religion. Am I to believe that God sent out a new set of instructions for humans to get in to heaven?

If God is all-knowing and if there really is only one true religion then it must have been the first one to come up with this concept and every other one has just tacked on to that original idea. Why would God need to continuously update what he said if he knows all?

Now I know that the reason why so many religions say they are the only one that is real and if you don't believe then horrible things will happen is simply because that's the best way to get people hooked.

I refuse to be threatened to believe anything. I choose to believe the truth, even if death means I do not get to walk on streets of gold.

(why would they be made of gold anyways, material goods still have some value in heaven? And why streets, I thought everyone was given wings on their arrival, lol)