The Flying Spaghetti Monster (also known as the Spaghedeity) is the deity of a parody religion called The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its system of beliefs, “Pastafarianism” The religion was founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson to protest the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution. Because intelligent design
implies the existence of an intelligent, but not necessarily omnipotent
or omniscient designer, some, like Henderson, argued that this designer
could, in fact, be anything imaginable. (Source: Wikipedia and  Haochi)

Cole had his First Communion this past weekend.  It brought back many memories of my own First Communion as well as some of the more ritualistic things I actually enjoy about the Catholic Church.  Coincidentally, on the way home, NPR‘s weekly religion show “Speaking of Faith” departed from their usual format to “listen to a spectrum of lay Catholic voices on the force of vast and ancient tradition on their lives, the way they struggle with it, the sources of their love for it. Even to be a “lapsed Catholic,” we hear, is a complex state of being.“  It was really interesting, and helped me understand some of my current struggles with religion a bit better.  At any rate, it was a beautiful day, and Cole seemed to have a great time!

Mapping the landscape of Catholic voices

We went to Cole’s Little League game tonight, and I’m a heck of a lot more sore than any of the players!

  

Lisa, Joel, Tommy & Andy met me at the Discovery Science Center today, which was hosting the World Cube Association 2008 competition.  Since Tyson is moving to New York next week, this was my last chance to see him for a while.  He competed in the blindfold solve (see video below) and did great as usual.  Tommy really took a liking to the whole “cubefreak” phenomenon.  When asked if he would rather go to the dinosaur exhibit or go meet Tyson, he opted for meeting Tyson.  At one point afterwards, he said to me, “I’m the luckiest kid in the world.  I just got to meet Carey’s famous friend.”  (I had explained to Tommy that Tyson was on Beauty and the Geek and had taught Will Smith how to solve the cube for The Pursuit of Happyness.  That really impressed him!)  After they got home, apparently Tommy donned a blindfold and gave it a try.  LOL.  He was also infatuated by the video of Macky I had on my iPod where he solves the cube with one hand, while juggling 2 cubes with the other.  See for yourself:

Tommy has now proclaimed himself, “Tommy the Science Nerd”.  It’s going to be an interesting next 12 years.  LOL.  Best of luck in New York Tyson!

BTW, the movie “Cubefreak” is premiering next Saturday at the Newport Beach Film Festival.  If anyone wants to go, let me know.

Most of the family was busy tonight, but Lisa was nice enough to bring the boys to meet me at Fuddruckers after work.  I got there a little early and struck up a conversation with a young marine named Frank.  He was there with his wife and step-daughter and his pet iguana, Smeagol.  Since you don’t see an iguana on a leash every day, I asked him if I could take a couple of photos.  He graciously obliged, and gave me his email address to send them to him.  Later, we all talked as he played video games with the kids.  At only 20 years old, he was really just a kid himself, and had already completed one tour of duty in Iraq, and was about to leave on his second tour; leaving his wife, step-daughter, and presumably Smeagol, behind.  (I doubt he got the iguana in Iraq, I embellished that part, to make the title of this post more dramatic.  LOL)  He was limping, and I asked him if he had been injured while serving, but he told me it was a skateboard accident.    “No fucking hadji is going to hurt me.”, was his response, which was remarkably similar to how the kids in the movie Stop Loss spoke.  Nearly verbatim in fact.  (I asked him if he’d seen it, he hadn’t.)  I’m troubled by the hate of other cultures we’re breeding in our military.  It’s probably nothing new though.  Nonetheless, he was a charming young man, who like James and Jimmy, I’m glad to have on our side.

From www.lewrockwell.com:

This
nation, its political leadership and the vast majority of its religious
leaders, have thrown away their moral compass and replaced it with
a rabid nationalism unseen on the world stage since Germany in the
1930s. Torture and murder of hundreds of thousands are readily accepted,
as long as it is done for the graven image called the State. Eventually,
unless we take a different path, the number of those tortured and
murdered will include those in this country who refuse to submit
to the State as it pursues its “mission
from God.” The venom readily spews forth from the shills
for the State now, building a hate and resentment in the masses
for any who would challenge the official position of perpetual war
for peace.

Since
our nation and its civilian leaders have lost their ability to judge
right from wrong, why should we expect anything different from our
military?

On a side note, my crazy neighbor, who I blogged about a while back, finally moved out.  But not before leaving this note, on my other neighbor’s door!  (Not mine, thank goodness.)  I would love to know what it said.  LOL.

Our weekly family dinner was at the Irvine Spectrum tonight.  The kids had a nice time.  Here a few shots.  I’m still experimenting with the new camera.

Complaint Department

Is anyone else as annoyed about this as I am?  Maybe I’m being too hard on the good folks at Xanga.  They’ve been trying really hard this year.  I can be a bitch.  Is it just me??

As you read this, keep in mind, it could be worse.  I like Xanga.  I didn’t like efax:

Carey Anthony

From: Carey Anthony	Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 8:56 AM
To: Natalia – Xanga Support Team
Natalia,  Is there a way to disable the “Subscribe to get updates from this site” pop-up that appears for non-members who come to my site?  It’s deceptively annoying!  Why not let people subscribe to the RSS or Atom feeds like Blogger does?  95% of the time people don’t want to be forced to sign up for something just to read or receive updates on a blog.  If you simply allowed them to enter their email addresses to receive updates, and be done with it, that would be fine.  But if they do enter their email address, they’re brought to a Xanga sign up page which is EXTREMELY annoying and presumptive. If you’re not the person I should be bugging about this, let me know.  I can send it to Chris or John or whomever you tell me to.  Thanks Thanks, Carey From: Natalia – Xanga Support Team Date: Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 12:15 PM To: Carey Anthony Hola. Hope the new year is finding you well – haven’t heard from you in a while. The pop-up is IP based, so it shouldn’t show up as long as your visitors aren’t clearing their cookies each day. It is deceptively annoying, yes, but it takes two seconds to register and we’re hoping that more people will take advantage of doing exactly what you said – receiving updates by email, even if that means they don’t update their own personal blog. So far, it’s actually been very effective, so . . . yes. And by the way, I almost didn’t email you back because I saw your “goodbye Xanga” post today – [faceplant]. Have a good one. Can you drop Ben a line? From: Carey Anthony Date: Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 8:50 AM To: Natalia – Xanga Support Team Cc: Ben – Xanga Will do.  Thanks. Sorry to be a pest about this, but I don’t think Premium members should have to pay for a site that’s basically unusable until people choose to sign up or not.  Again, the way it’s done is very deceptive and shady.  If you just allowed people to enter their email addresses in for updates, that would be one thing, but to then trick them into signing up for something they have no intention of ever using, is entirely another.  Ben, please advise. Thanks