“You must all of you have noticed the advertisements in the papers, telling you that ladies and gentlemen can easily earn two pounds a week in their spare time, and to send
two shillings for sample and instructions, carefully packed free from observation. Now that we don’t go to school all our time is spare time. So I should think we could easily earn twenty pounds a week each. That would do us very well. We’ll try some of the other things first, and directly we have any money we’ll send for the sample and instructions.”

– E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, 1899

For the past few years, the media has been conducting periodic polls of the US population, trying to find out what the general opinion is about gay marriage. One interesting fact to come out of these polls is that people who identify as Catholic are more likely to approve of same-sex marriage becoming legal than those who identify as Protestant. (Particularly evangelical protestants.)

There’s been some speculation that people may identify as Catholic on the poll but actually be ‘lapsed’, which is possible, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I think there’s another reason, too.

Basically, as a lot of people have pointed out, our society is currently using the word ‘marriage’ to mean two different things. The first, the one the government has control over, is the legal contract between two people that bestows all sorts of convenient rights and benefits on them with just a single piece of paper. The second, the one the government has no control over, is the spiritual melding of two souls into one life as mandated by god or buddha or allah or whoever it is you follow. The problem stems from a large number of people having these ideas confused as being the same thing and thinking that what affects one will affect the other.

But why is that? It is true that people with liberal social beliefs tend to see this break very clearly. But it seems indicated by the polls that people who identify themselves as Catholic — typically thought of as a socially conservative group — are able to see this break as well.

One thing I was surprised to learn during this time of debate is that most Protestant sects only have two sacraments: baptism and communion. Having been raised as a Catholic, this was a shock to me, since that church has seven: baptism, communion, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, anointing of the sick. And this is where I think the difference comes in. The Catholic church has a lot of rules and regulations surrounding who can and cannot receive the sacrament of marriage in the Church. They have their own separate system for determining whether a marriage is valid or not. With all of this ceremony surrounding the sacrament — and the official recognition that it -is- a sacrament — the Catholic marriage ceremony feels complete in and of itself. And, in fact, the church views it that way as well. A legal separation or divorce does not render you unmarried in the eyes of the church and you are not free to marry again within it unless your spouse dies or you receive an annullment. (This system, of course, invites abuses of its own. But that is neither here nor there.)

So I can see why Catholics might feel as if permitting same-sex legal recognition would really not affect them at all. And if you didn’t have all of this church supported separation? Maybe that’s where all the paranoia is coming from — lacking any clear central authority other than the government, they can’t see the difference between their church ceremony and the legal contract. They’ve become too intertwined because the religion itself doesn’t offer enough native support.

Setting: Advanced Algorithms class. Prof. C has stated a version of the so-called perfect marriage problem.

The problem: Arthur has 100 knights and 100 ladies. He’s decided that since he’s sooooo happy with Guenivere, they all have to get married too. So he asks the ladies to each make a list of the knights she’d be willing to marry. The knights are all chivalrous and obedient so they will marry whomever they’re told to marry. Arthur hands off the lists to Merlin and tells him to come up with a list of pairings so all the ladies are satisfied.

So Prof C draws a picture of the situation on the board.

Knights| o o o o o . . . o o o o
Ladies | o o o o o . . . o o o o

She starts drawing the appropriate lines between the two groups, then pauses and looks at the graph with a slight frown.

Prof C: We are, of course, talking about heterosexual marriages only here! We’re not going to get into any of the more modern interpretations of Arthur and Lancelot.

XDXDXD

Had PBS on today while working on the computer.

After Grover got done quoting from Jabberwocky, they proceeded to another bit.

UN falls from the sky.
Voices: UN!!
F falls from the sky.
Voices: Fff!!
Voices: UN!!
Voices: Fff!!

K: …

(It turned out to be fun. But for a second there…)

I don’t usually write about dreams. Reason One: Reading about other peoples’ dreams v. dull. Reason Two: Memory v. bad if not quick to record.

Last night’s was amusing, to me, so here it is for posterity.

I was roleplaying. It didn’t seem to be online, but rather was more of a LARP type setting, as I felt I was physically in the room with the other players. I do not know what character I was (I’m rarely involved in the action of my dreams; bystander and observer is my typical role.) but I remember thinking that two of the characters were Molly and Arthur Weasley. Except it was not them, it was Cliff and Claire Huxtable. Cliff/Arthur had a device he called a dynamo, which he claimed would control the weather, and was very anxious to try it out. Everyone else was getting angry with him for behaving OOC.

This was a very interesting article about late term abortions. She makes a particularly valid point that neither side in this debate is really attempting to address the issue of why someone would be having this procedure. And that the reasons are probably as important as anything else…

One subject notebook: $5
Advanced Algorithms Text: out of stock
Computer Graphics Text: $104
Being ripped off by the college bookstore AGAIN: priceless

suffice it to say, purchases were not made. Grr. Off to find things online.

This is a rehashing for everyone who actually reads this thing, I expect, but I wanted to put this in a more public forum.

Why is Best Buy the suck?

Not for the most obvious reason I could come up with; no, the reason they suck is because of the bully tactics their employees continue to use on my mom virtually every time she goes up there to purchase anything more technical than a DVD.

Where is this? The Best Buy located in Newington, NH.

My mother is not a technical person. She is intimidated by computers; the vocabulary associated with them is unfamiliar to her and consequently has the ability to confuse her when someone’s speech is filled with jargon. Though she may go into a situation armed with the exact name of what she wishes to purchase, usually that is all she has — when the employee who is supposedly “helping” her argues in favor of something else (usually a more expensive something else) or tells her that she needs additional items, she does not have any ammunition with which to counter.

Incident #1:
In early September, my mother purchased a new computer for my brother through Best Buy. I had gone through a customization program on the HP website and come up with the minimum specifications that I thought he ought to have; unfortunately she preferred to order from the brick and mortar store rather than direct from the manufacturer. So, armed with the printout, she went up to Best Buy without me to get the order placed. All seemingly went well. The computer arrived, fully loaded with all of the standard software — Windows XP, Norton, lots of random HP crap, etc. The salesguy (and I find it’s nearly always a guy) proceeded to inform mom that she needed to purchase Antivirus software. She meekly attempted to suggest that a new computer might already have some on it, but this was brushed aside. SHE NEEDED TO BUY SOFTWARE OR HER COMPUTER WOULD BE ATTACKED BY VIRII AND DIE AUGH~!!. Frightened and not certain of her own position, she gave in and spent $40 on the antivirus flavor of the week the salesguy was pushing.

(Postscript: She returned the software unopened after I pointed out that her computer came with a 6 month subscription for Nortons. They did refund her money.)

Incident #2:
The new computer, which my brother uses primarily for video editing purposes and IMing his friends, needed an upgrade to the graphics card and more RAM. Having purchased the computer at Best Buy and being suspicious of online retailers at best, mom returned again to the store to make her purchases. The salesguy suggested that she should have Best Buy install the two items. Mom attempted to deflect the attack by telling him that my brother had previously installed soundcards and other items into the computer without difficulty. But salesguy would not be deterred; he frowned and insisted that such installations were VERY COMPLICATED and were better left to the hands of the professionals. Not sure that RAM and a graphics card weren’t substantially different from a sound card, mom capitulated and pre-paid for the installation of both. Salesguy happily added $70 to her bill, neglecting to mention to her that it was not a single installation fee, but rather a per-item fee which varied by item type.

For some reason, the card was not what my brother wanted and it was returned to the store without ever being installed. However, though Best Buy refunded the price of the card, the conveniently failed to notice the installation charge on the same receipt and refund that as well. Mom hadn’t looked closely at the receipt, so didn’t notice this.

Incident #3:
This is actually a continuation of #2, but takes place some time after. While I’m over, mom mentions to me that my brother has new RAM for his computer, but they haven’t had a chance to take it up to Best Buy yet to get it installed. I return a puzzled look; I’m fully aware that Jeff has installed things of this nature himself. They’re designed to be easy — they simply snap into place! Mom relates the story detailed in #2, then shows me the receipt.

I boggle at many things on the receipt. First, the two installation charges, which, when she sees them for herself, horrify mom as well. (A secret: mom doesn’t like to wear her glasses, which she really needs for reading. So half the time she can’t read the small print on anything, which is no doubt why she hadn’t looked closely at the receipt in the first place.) But there’s more. The price of the RAM looks odd; it looks like a price I would have expected 3 years ago for that amount. So we go to the computer and I hit the manufacturer’s site: they sell the same exact item direct for less than half the price. Other online retailers have a similar price for this item.

Fortunately, this was not opened either. When I left, mom was planning to return the RAM and make a stink over the not-refunded installation charges as well.

But the point is, she shouldn’t have had to deal with this situation in the first place. She is fully aware of her ignorance with respect to computers, which is why she generally goes into the situation with as specific an order as possible: if the employees would simply let her purchase what she wanted to, rather than pressuring her, scaring her or outright lying to her about it, everything would be nice and smooth.

I decided this morning that I’m not going to take Japanese this semester. Truthfully, I will admit that this decision was prompted by the fact that the class is at 9:25 — which would require me to sit in Rt3 rush hour traffic 3 days a week and force me to leave at around 7:30. This is something difficult enough when it’s a nice warm day; when the weather remains around 0F, it becomes almost unbearable. (This is not speculation: I departed the house every day at 6:15am the winter I worked for Digital River, scraping the car in the subzero dark Minneapolis morning and sliding along the roads until I got to the highway. By the time I quit that job, I was as close to a nervous breakdown as I’ve ever come, and this was very definitely one of the factors.)

So, in other words, the temptation to skip class would be irresistable much of the time.

And, because I knew that, I cannot justify the money. Because, unfortunately, Japanese is not free to take; because it’s not part of my major, the tuition grant doesn’t cover it. I get a 50% discount — putting it into the realm of affordable, but not while Bob is still job hunting. (Interestingly, UMN did NOT have this policy. You could take whatever the heck you wanted.)

Which means I have to go on Monday and try to track down the professor so I can drop it.

Unrelated to this, I found Something Awful’s discussion of LiveJournal absolutely hilarious.

I don’t have a cat to walk across my keyboard for me, so we’ll just have to put up with my banal ramblings.

The IRC Bible now joins the fray previously peopled by The Brick Testament and The Bible According to Cheese.

And a worthy entrant it is.