Every Topic in the Universe(s?) Science, the unknown, and the human race... and how it might all be connected. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 13103 7 2471

Articles from Every Topic in the Universe(s?)

Husband humor 1970-01-01 00:59:59 My husband and I have had the flu for the past week or so; can you believe we're both sick AGAIN? Between this flu, the prior one (see my post of 9-8-06), and the food poisoning (see my post of 11-11-06), we've been sick more in the last 3 months than in the last 5 YEARS... him especially, since it's usually just me who gets sick (he says that germs can't approach him because they don't have gas masks, lol). The really grim thing is that we'd just gotten back to normal eating and excretory functions a week before the flu hit (yes, the food poisoning knocked us out for 2 WEEKS), so it was with GREAT dismay that we faced having to switch back to "sick food" again. We didn't have much left, so we wearily started putting together a list of what we'd need from the grocery store before we got too sick to go out; this shouldn't have been a big deal, but my husband is legendary for slurping up most or all of a bunch of food items and then developing amnesia about it... which do ... Humor

Humans vs human nature 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Several years ago, I participated regularly in a chatroom, one of whose regulars was so well-known for snacking non-stop that when he logged in the 1st comment addressed to him after "hello" was usually "what are you eating?". The subject of dieting came up one day, and this man who probably hadn't gone more than half an hour without eating in 20 years broke into the discussion of how difficult it was to lose weight and keep it off to proclaim "Losing weight is easy-all you have to do is put down your fork." This man who had no idea what hunger was, much less the gut-twisting agony that accompanies prolonged restriction of caloric intake, honestly thought that you could just decide to stop eating and weight-loss would follow.You're probably puzzled, or even astounded, that anyone could be so stupid, not to mention insensitive... but wait, haven't you ever looked at an obese person and had vaguely disgusted thoughts about how they must lack any shred of self-control to have overea ...

A romantic getaway 1970-01-01 00:59:59 With Valentine's Day being adjacent to a weekend this year, I'm guessing that a record # of "special couple trips" are getting ready to commence; since my husband and I are geeks, we don't go for that sort of thing, but it can be amusing to think about.Have you ever seen the screamingly funny movie "History of the World Part I"? It contains one of the most hilarious scenes ever filmed; in the segment about the glory days of the Roman Empire, Empress Nympho needs to pick partners for the orgy to be held that evening, so, after the vestal virgins put on their "No Entry" signs (yes, they really did, it's that sort of movie), a bunch of soldiers come marching in. They line up, and we see them from behind; the camera pulls back... and we see that they're naked below the waist. The empress, who's NOT looking the guys in the eye, shall we say, goes on down the line, saying, "Yes... no, no, no, no, no, no... yes... no, no, yes... no, no, no, no, yes... no, no" and so forth, ...

The things I'm thankful for 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Like everyone else, I'm thankful for the basics: life, health, a solid marriage, loved and liked ones, freedom, the military that keeps us free, a beautiful home in a safe neighborhood, living in a wealthy country, having sufficient $ to never have to worry about missing a meal (or even a new figurine), and those things that we take for granted but that most people in the world don't have; computers, internet access and DSL. I wanted to share some more personal things that I was grateful for this year, especially since it's been a bumpy road dealing with my mother's cancer, so here's a selection of odds and ends that have been giving me happy moments:My grandmother, who's in her 90's, has regained some of her lost mental functioning: It turns out that elderly people can often get bladder infections that go undetected (because they don't have pain or discomfort from them like younger folks do), and this can cause cognitive deterioration that gets brushed off as age-related d ...

Group vs one 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I saw an episode of M*A*S*H recently in which a new nurse who'd decided to try to become a doctor had joined the staff, and the other nurses, far from being supportive and proud as they SHOULD have been, treated her like dirt for daring to try to better herself. Major Houlihan, who's as smart and tough as they come, analyzes the situation and tells the innocent nurse that, since the nursing staff had been running smoothly before SHE showed up, she must somehow be to blame, and she'd better find a way to magically make all the other nurses stop mistreating her or else... and at no point is there any indication that the Major said a single word to the actual wrongdoers about their catty, belligerent and therefore utterly unacceptable behavior, or even suggested that they should take any part in rectifying the situation (that THEY had created) as part of being "team players." Unfortunately, the way that problem was (MIS)handled on the show is perfectly in tune with how these things g ...

The year is ruined already 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Does that sound melodramatic? Silly? Do you assume that I'm upset and spouting nonsense? That I'm a drama queen? What if I tell you that I'm a mature and level-headed adult? What if I tell you that I'm speaking totally dispassionately? What if I tell you that I NEVER make sweeping statements without an inarguable reason? What if I tell you that I just found out that my mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer?In the flat, factual tone that people use to discuss issues of deep personal meaning with strangers, she told me what everyone else who knows her has known for WEEKS; that in December a lump came out just below her collarbone, that at 1st she thought it was another of the "harmless fatty tumors" (she couldn't remember the proper name for them, but I'm fairly sure from her description that they're lipomas) that she's apparently been getting lots of for at least a half dozen years and never mentioned to me, but then it suddenly began to grow rapidly, and she went ...

An interesting realization 1970-01-01 00:59:59 If you've been reading here for a while, you've grasped that my father was a sick, evil person, which makes him fairly unusual. There's another, even more unusual thing about him, though; he's been impotent his entire life. Today, for the 1st time, I started wondering if there's a connection between those 2 things.If you're wondering how I know about him being impotent, it's because my mother inexplicably felt it necessary to tell me; he'd just turned 22 when they got married, and should have been bursting with hormones like every other man of that age, but instead... my mother's line is that she was a virgin on her wedding night, and for several nights thereafter. He never improved his level of performance, and in fact it declined steadily; in the latter years with my mother, he never managed to complete the act at all. His lack of male functionality extended all the way down to the cellular level; he had such low sperm count and poor sperm motility that it's amazin ...

A sad story on eBay 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I've spent a great deal of time (and of course $) on eBay over the past few years, mostly building up my collections; my husband, to his everlasting credit, doesn't complain about the $ or that the house is blanketed by my stuffies and figurines and such... unlike most men, he's neither repelled nor emasculated by these sorts of things, and even likes many of them. I'm obsessive about my collections, and my husband, although not a collector per se (he's a packrat, which is different), is also an obsessive type and understands my desire to have everything in existence that fits my criteria; and, although he was spoiled rotten as a kid, he also understands that, because I had so little during my own childhood, I REALLY enjoy having stuff now.Not every couple deals with one of them being a collector so smoothly, of course, but, as long as the amount of $ involved isn't excessive (which is a problem far more often since eBay was created, making it possible for collectors to acqui ...

Why do we have favorites? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 What's your favorite color?Why do you HAVE a favorite color?Why do you have a favorite ANYTHING?Put another way; why would primitive humans have had a need for favorites... what was the survival advantage? I'm not talking about the rational preference for one non-trivial thing over another, such as "That valley is my favorite because it has more fruit trees than any other" or "That river is my favorite because it has more fish in it than any other"; these boil down to "That valley/river gives me a better chance of surviving than any other" and thus are useful, but things like "This flower is my favorite color" are different... what could have led to the 1st primitive human to choose that sort of favorite having such a thought, which was not only not related to survival but wasn't related to anything they were doing? (It's not like they were choosing a color to paint their cave, right?) What led to them having a favorite bird, not because it tasted best or was easiest to catc ...

2006: the year in review 1970-01-01 00:59:59 2006 got derailed for me within its 1st few days by the revelation that my mother has stage 3 breast cancer; this year she went through chemo, surgery, radiation, pneumonia, and currently a blood clot in her lung. She's feeling well enough to work, though, and we're crossing our fingers that her upcoming test to see if there are cancer cells in her blood comes out clean; thank you, again, to those of you who have been praying and sending out + thoughts for her... and thanks from her also (it amazes her that total strangers would take the time to be interested in her illness, but that's because she doesn't know the blogosphere).The stress of all this knocked out my immune system, giving me the worst flu of my life (it may have been pneumonia given the chest pain I had with it, but I never went to the doctor so I don't know) accompanied by my worst-ever case of hives; the latter continues to the present day (4 months and counting), although thankfully only 1 or 2 at a time now ...

How does the karma of evil people affect YOU? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 If you shout at someone, everyone within range will hear you. If you shine a flashlight on someone, nearby people will also be illuminated. Karma is just energy, and behaves analogously to other forms of energy, so karma flowing to someone will touch everyone near them... how could it NOT?Most folks see karma as a totally individual phenomenon, such that your karma can only affect YOU, but that doesn't make sense; not only is it contrary to how the other natural forces work, it carries the unspoken, and perhaps unrealized, under-thought that there's some sort of sentience directing karma that "makes it" stick tight to just its "owner"... but there's no reason whatsoever to think that. Karma has no more analysis, judgment or intention than gravity or magnetism; it doesn't reward, it doesn't punish, and it's not "fair"... doubly so because you can benefit, or suffer, from karma that you had no hand in creating, just by being close by when it "hits."Not buying it? One of my ...

Blogger got me!! AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Click here to register for the top-secret new blog service!!It was 3AM, and I'd just finished watching "Metal Mania" on VH1 Classic. I was wearily doing my last check of stuff on the laptop before going to bed, and a minute adjustment to my template occurred to me; being far too anal to put it off until the next day, I went to my Blogger account... and was forwarded to a page that informed me that I had to migrate to the new Blogger. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I tried every link I had, every way I could think of, to get around it and into my account, but all of them forwarded me to that same implacable page.It was 3AM, and I was suddenly wide awake. Remembering all the horror stories I'd read from people who'd switched to the allegedly-no-longer-beta Blogger: The 8-10 hours of inaccessibility while the transfer took place. The destruction of template customizations and archives. The inability to put things in the sidebar. Blogs locking their owners out or just plain vanishing. ...

The karma of rescuing 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Last Saturday, I heard a BANG on the kitchen window; despite my having hung so many suncatchers on it that it barely lets in any light, the birds still fly into the bare spots pretty frequently, so this didn't alarm me at 1st... until I looked up from the computer to see a little tweetie lying motionless on the air conditioner. I lunged to the sliding glass door to see if he was moving; usually they're just stunned and fly away after a few minutes, but sometimes they don't recover before it gets dark and have to be put up in a tree so they don't spend the night on the ground (at least until the cats show up). This bird did something I'd never seen before; he slowly rolled over onto his back with his feet in the air. Shrieking in dismay, and ignoring my husband's admonition that he was a goner, I yanked open the door, dashed out and tenderly scooped the tweet up; I saw no injuries or blood, neither his head nor his wings were at funny angles, and his eyes were open and bli ...

It looks like low-fat diets do NOT protect against disease 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From the "The Top 13 Medicine Stories of 2006" section of the January 2007 issue of Discover magazine comes the following (asterisks are mine):"Low-Fat Diet A Bust?The largest-ever experimental study examining whether a low-fat diet can prevent cancer and heart disease brought discouraging results. After following 48,835 postmenopausal women for eight years, scientists concluded that cutting fat from the diet doesn't significantly reduce the incidence of breast or colorectal cancer, heart disease, or stroke. Results of the $415 million trial, part of the National Institutes of Health's Women's Health Initiative, were reported in three papers in the Journal of the American Medical Association.Revised ideas about the role of fat in disease could help explain the murky data, notes Michael Thun, who heads epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. For example, women in the study cut their total fat intake rather than specifically targeting saturated fats and trans fats, w ...

FINALLY: How/Why evil people are shielded from karma 1970-01-01 00:59:59 This post was originally intended to be about how the karma of evil people affects those around them. I started with their souls (or lack thereof), but before I could segue into their karma it hit me: Although it seems clear that evil types aren't tied into the tapestry of karma in the normal way, the mechanism of it had always eluded me, leaving me with the unsatisfying partial explanation that, since souls, which are made of karmic energy (aka the energy of thought and emotion), are our link to overall karma, SOMEHOW evil people's lack of normal souls prevented them from being "linked"; then, tonight, when I was writing about what sort of "soul-ish" things the evil might have, that line of thought crashed headlong into the understanding that all the energies involved are natural forces, and so should act in similar ways to other natural forces, and... an answer appeared on the screen, with me barely aware of having typed it. I was so stunned to FINALLY see a way for these ener ...