“General Megatron: Defender of the Galaxy, Saviour of the Human Race, Hero of the Human Resistance” – Chapter 1

Yay! A children’s story! There are no bad words in this, and it should be suitable for all of the ornery little Calvins in the world (yes, this is a bit of an ode to Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes).

CHAPTER ONE: The Doom Lord

 General Megatron heard the gnashing of teeth and froze in the middle of his latest scheme to escape the forced labor prison camp he’d been trapped in for more than six years. The roar of rage echoing through the twists and turns of the cell block’s corridors from below made him shiver. It was a noise that was far too familiar to his ears, one that he’d unfortunately encountered far too many times before. The creature’s heavy, clawed feet scraped and crashed into the floor in a succession of minor earthquakes, punctuated by the enraged bellowing coming from the galaxy’s most feared tyrant: The Doom Lord.

“SPACEMAN!!!” howled the monster as it reached the prison deck of the ship. “I’m coming for you!”
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Stop Rape Culture: Teach Your Sons That NO MEANS NO.

Parents, teach your boys/young men that NO MEANS NO. Stop blaming women/victims.

It doesn’t matter how much she’s had to drink.
It doesn’t matter how short her skirt was.
It doesn’t matter how much of her tits were showing.
It doesn’t matter if she initially said yes then changed her mind.
It doesn’t matter about anything other than when she says no, it means STOP.

If you think this is a bunch of bullshit, imagine your mother, your sister, your wife or girlfriend, someone close to you being sexually assaulted, and tell me you still think rape isn’t a ‘big deal.’ Imagine the rage you’d feel, how you’d want to probably go murder the rapist, or at the least, put him in the hospital.

If you know this is going on and you choose to do nothing, you are just as guilty as the person committing the actual crime. Again, think of your mother, your grandmother, sister, wife, girlfriend, niece, any female that you are close to. You’d want to beat the shit out of someone for rape/sexual assault without even knowing if it was true or not when it involved someone you care about.

Why should someone you don’t know or don’t care about be subject to such a crime when you could have prevented it?

Fuck Patriarchy.

Fuck Patriarchy.

Teach your boys to not rape or sexually assault or even pressure anyone. Any other reply/answer to this other than “okay” means you trivialize women and the horrendous act of rape.

In fact, don’t counter with any other argument unless you want everyone to know that you support rape culture and refuse to teach your boys how to be real men instead of rapists.

How would you feel as a parent if your precious boy was arrested for rape/sexual assault? Would you blame it on the victim?

And while you’re at it, maybe teach them that if they see some shit like this going on, to STEP UP and be a man and put a fucking stop to it. Too many stories involve a bunch of dipshit dude-bros standing around egging someone on, or just not doing anything to stop it.

This isn’t society’s fault. This is the fault of parents not teaching their sons that this is an abhorrent crime that should NEVER be committed,  and it should NEVER be tolerated if they know it is happening.

God & Science Can Co-Exist

I saw a meme today that said:

“Atheists say that no one can prove the existence of God, and they’re right, but no one can disprove that God exists.”

I agree completely, but we shouldn’t limit exposure to science which is tasked with answering hard questions by using faith to try to explain the universe around us.

If it comes to supernatural things, like Jesus rising from the Dead, God sending plagues, that’s all essential bible lore. Using Genesis to explain the creation of the universe, and being unbending, unyielding in the face of so much scientific evidence to cling to old beliefs that are meant to be a moral guide, not a history or science lesson, is detrimental to the advancement of humanity.

For me, science is a long-term research project that has the ultimate goal of proving whether or not God truly exists. Each advancement through science to make our lives better, like running, clean water, breathable air, shelter from extreme environments (Arizona / North Dakota haha), medical advancements to prolong our lives and to make our lives better, each one of these things is real, is tangible, and as a society, an entire civilization even, we shouldn’t put our fingers in our ears and chant “I’M NOT LISTENING!” just because some real and tangible conflicts with a long-held faith. Especially a faith that has been passed down for at least fifteen hundred years or more.

It’s okay to admit that while your faith has always taught one thing, science has proved it to be wrong, or maybe not even wrong, just immaterial. Human beings have to keep growing, to keep moving forward, or we’ll begin a decline that will keep humanity from reaching its full potential, which is to be one with God, and in a sense, to prove the existence of God.

If God truly did create the universe, why wouldn’t it be something like the Big Bang? The physical laws of the universe that we know and can prove (and yes, there are many we can’t prove yet, or don’t even know about) show that the Big Bang theory is very accurate. But my question is, who out of people who are reasonably intelligent, would think that God made the universe like we make things?

I can’t picture a supreme being going to the Home Depot to get planetary nebulae, hydrogen gas, quasars, and bringing it all back to the universe and start putting it together like he was building a house. Continue reading

We Are All Responsible For Public Education

(This is my response to some people in a Facebook thread who think their tax dollars shouldn’t be used to provide others with a public education)

My wife teaches in the BISD (Boise Independent School District). I’ve met hundreds of teachers. I’ve met maybe two out of hundreds that probably shouldn’t have been teaching kids (go figure, both were male coaches).

There aren’t many professions that work harder as a whole than teachers. When you take away from the public education system, you hurt teachers (boo hoo, right?). Teachers have this dreaded word they use, you might have heard it used in other instances, and that word is “attrition.”

Attrition in education is when the public school system continually gets underfunded, or talking heads on cable news shout as loud as they can how terrible teachers are, how rich they are, how lazy they are, how ineffective they are.

Attrition is when new teachers that went to college, passed all of the tests (and they aren’t easy, don’t ever let anyone tell you becoming a teacher is ‘easy’) and started their career in the public education system, KNOWING they were going to make very little money for the first ten years, and even after ten, they’d never be making these ridiculous numbers shouted by talking heads like “$100,000 a year! to work for nine months!”.

Attrition is when these new teachers begin to realize, some in their second year, some their fourth, each teacher is different, that as much as they love their career, it is no longer economically viable, nor is it a career that holds the prestige that it used to, and in a lot of cases, the politics at all levels, from the Statehouse down to the local county commissioners, is so negative that it makes these new teachers begin to dread having to deal with it on a daily basis. Continue reading

My Wife Does Not Exist (and Yours Might Not Either!)

My wife, Carly, is a nerd. I just read a discussion elsewhere from some ‘dude’ who claimed since he didn’t game with females and never saw them in any of the gaming stores or such, they didn’t actually exist. Apparently the ‘women’ online are just us dudes pretending to be women because it’s our fantasy or we just don’t like how it seems to be a one-sided sausage fest.

So since she doesn’t exist, then I guess she isn’t someone that will kick the %#@$@ out of you in Team Fortress 2 round after round (as a medic too, haha, you n00b).

There was never a time period of time where she would blow your ship up in Eve-Online, capture your life pod, then force you to pay a ransom because she was a feared lowsec pilot in a damn good pirate alliance. And if you didn’t pay it, you could kiss your life pod and all those precious, expensive implants goodbye. Hello clone vat!

She’s never been ruthless enough to repeatedly wreck her poor, defenseless spouse with shells or stupid stars in Mario Kart (all versions) just so she can always win. (Dr. Mario, Tetris, and Carcassonne also).

She’s not the type of enigma that knows what a ‘replicant’ is, as well as knows what cylons are, the Ark of the Covenant, Jimmy Olsen, Cortanna, wtf a ‘WAAAAAAAGH!’ banner is, what ‘chummer’ means, fell in love with Alistair, cheers Ripley on, still loves Ewoks (remember, she’s a she, so we can forgive her this one transgression), and still hates that Terry Goodkind spent almost 9 of the 12 books re-explaining the story EVERY SINGLE TIME. WE GET IT MR. GOODKIND. She, me, and three others never 5-manned Deathwing. Continue reading