BBR (Beatles Beatles Revolution)

Nobody can show you how great The Beatles are; you have to discover them on your own.

My ex-girlfriend used to always talk about how much she loved The Beatles and why I should love them, too. I couldn't understand why someone would like music that wasn't from their generation. Three years ago I couldn't name more than two Beatles to save my life. Her favorites were John and Paul. She always talked about how great they were and how she wanted to see the Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas, Love, which features nothing but songs by The Beatles. She tried educating me about The Beatles, but it was futile. I also had a professor in my senior year of college who based his Strategic Business lectures on The Beatles. Buyer/Seller Power were likened to George Harrison because he did the grunt work for The Beatles by being an amazing guitarist, much like how buyers of companies have a knack for making good purchasing and selling decisions. John Lennon was likened to Rivalry because he stirred things up in the group and would eventually go solo. This cross-Beatles/Business education may have helped me do well in the class but it didn't help me further appreciate The Beatles.

I began my Beatles exploration three weeks ago after playing The Beatles Rockband in a Best Buy. My fascination with rock music had sprouted the weekend before from playing Guitar Hero and Rockband with some friends. I was hooked. Since my Best Buy live performance I have been learning one to three new Beatles songs a day, usually by watching a new Beatles cartoon and participating during the sing-a-long segment. It's meant for kids, but who cares.

My obsession with The Beatles is best explained through my actions. Two weeks ago I purchased The Beatles Rockband for the Xbox 360, even though I don't own an Xbox 360. I went halfsies with a friend, but still, this speaks volumes on how much I love The Beatles.

I have learned roughly 50 Beatles songs so far. Only about 200 more to go. I'm conditioning myself for Beatles Weekend '09 which is when I'll play with my friends and sing my heart out to every song I know.

~Anthans

+ $ ♥

Health, Wealth, & Happiness – to maintain a balance among them is to attain stability.

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Yesterday was a crappy day for me. I couldn’t do anything. My stomach felt like it was eating itself and I could barely lift a paperweight. Sickness strikes us when we least expect it. The cold air last night didn’t help with going to sleep either. And we’ve all had this kind of night, the first night when we become sick. The entire night consists of tossing and turning, waking up in the middle of the night, and shriveling up into a fetal position in hopes of escaping the cold. I just kept thinking to myself, “if I were in a better state of health, I could do more things with my day.” This morning I woke up feeling renewed. And what can I say, I feel like getting a lot of things done today!

I had to skip out on the gym the last few days but today I’m going back. Your health and physical state says a lot about how you take care of yourself. This is especially important with males being attracted to other females. Women who are in better shape are simply more attractive because they convey the impression that they are healthy. As males we see high replication value in a female who is healthy.

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Touching on Wealth, well, I don’t have a lot of it right now. But who cares, according to the friendly customer service in India I could defer my college loans for up to 36 months! I bet if they knew I’d take advantage of that they never would have loaned me the money in the first place.

“Before you get married and settle down, make sure you get all your toys and have all your fun.”

-My Dad

Toys are fun, but they’re not everything. I’m just thankful to have a car that can get me from point A to point B. But one day someday soon, I’ll have some form of income. However, it’s not really about money for me. I always tell people “if I made an extravagant amount of money, I don’t even know what I’d do with it all. I’d buy a new car for sure, but then what?”

Last month I started learning Japanese from The Everything Conversational Japanese Book. The book isn’t typical as far as teach a language goes. The “Making Introductions” part isn’t until Chapter 9. I recently drafted a 2-year plan for myself, which is unusual because usually I can’t think of a plan 2 hours from now. In one year I plan to take on any form of work, whether related to my dream career or not, just to have some form of income. Within that year I’m going to continue to study Japanese in hopes of being accepted to a program to teach English in Japan. Doable? Sure, I have confidence. From what I’m hearing the odds of getting accepted to this program are 3:1. Ideally in year 2 I would be in Japan teaching for a year. But by no means am I putting all my eggs into this one basket. I have a plan B, too.

♥

I met a lot of people on Tuesday, but one of them stood out from the rest. When I met this person I felt like we were on the same level right away. It’s a rare and amazing feeling. All I had to say was “I feel like you get it” and she nodded her head and immediately knew what I was talking about.

My current side gig/job requires that I approach random people, get on their good side, and have them help me make a video. This would be no easy task for anybody, but if you’ve studied human interactions enough this can be a piece of cake. That’s how I met so many people when I went to Cal Poly on Tuesday. I’ll probably do it again next week, too.

Other than that, my relationships with all of my friends and family are strong. I couldn’t ask for more than that.

~Anthans

The Value of Free Time

It's only when we lose our beloved free time that we suddenly begin to appreciate its value. Acquiring a job that you have no attachment to can have that effect on you.

There are only 24 hours in a day and we sleep through 6-8 of them. Work occupies another 10-12 hours which includes getting ready for work, traveling to work, actually working, and coming back from work. This leaves us with only 6-8 hours of free time in a day (maybe). No wonder people are so upset when they go into work on Monday.

On the weekends however we might experience the exact opposite feeling of not having enough time in our day: having too much time. This morning I woke up with a case of the weekends.

A Bad Case of the Weekends

Have you ever woke up thinking it's the wrong day? I thought it was Friday part-2 this morning and flipped out when I saw it was 9:30 AM. My heart raced fast at the thought of being lectured at or fired for being late but then my mind woke up and I realized it was Saturday. What a sad name for a day, Sadurday. They should rename it to Gladurday.

People make weekend plans during the week, not on the weekend. If you haven't made any weekend plans by now then you're probably not going to do anything at all. At this point your Gladurday is halfway wasted and you've gotten little to nothing accomplished. Oh well, who cares. Good thing for Sunday! And then you'll spend the rest of your Gladurday planning for Sunday.

Planning for the Unplanned

In two weeks my temporary employment will end. I'm going to have unlimited free time once again! But what will I do with it? I won't take it for granted again, that's for sure.

Working a full-time job reminds me of how much I dislike working for people. When you're on the clock you're on their time. One day I'll be working on my time though. That's a promise.

~Anthans

Coupon Hoopla

I used to write for my college's newspaper, The Daily Trojan, nearly three years ago. My pieces were published in the opinions section but not every piece I wrote made it there. Here's one that never made it to print. Self e-publishing will have to suffice.

Coupon Hoopla

With the added expenses of books, lab fees, rent, tuition, and other required expenses, college students often find themselves scrounging through the remains of their disposable income in order to purchase the most important of all necessities, food.

Instead of hunting for sales at the supermarket or outlining a budget for the month a college student will instead see the value menu at Jack-In-The-Box or the Dollar Menu at McDonalds as the most efficient way to spend the few dollars left in their wallet. This is unfortunate because there is so much more that a dollar could go towards in terms of efficient allocation for food purchases.

Sure the dollar menu at McDonalds will keep you fed for lunch at the low cost of three dollars for a McChicken sandwich, a double-cheeseburger, and a hot fudge sundae, but what’s for dinner? Did somebody say Jack-in-the-Box value menu; two tacos for 99 cents, “I’m there!” College students should see that these expenses do eventually add up, even when it may seem that the value menu is saving you money. It’s not.

And if you’re thinking right now that you’re past the frugality of the value menu and that Panda Express and Bistango’s Cafe are the only premium choices for you, think again; it’s from eating at these higher priced restaurants which will bring you crawling back to the value menu, the week before your next paycheck arrives.

Due to having lived in a non-university apartment without a meal plan last year as a sophomore, I was forced to provide for my own food. And with the money I had set aside for food I soon found out that the smartest alternative for sustenance was to shop at the supermarket.

I started basic in my new found independence for buying my own groceries, but then again, who doesn’t? I bought elementary items such as bread, milk, water, and eggs. It continued like this for a while, that is until I discovered the magic of coupons.

Coupons are a lot more useful than most of us usually tend to assume. The first thing that typically came to mind when I first thought of coupons was middle-aged moms hunched over clipping along dotted lines on a Sunday afternoon. Until I investigated the usefulness of coupons myself, I had always thought negative of them as I figured people would perceive me as being cheap.

I know now that cheap is the entirely wrong adjective to describe coupon users; we’re smart, not cheap, and I’ll explain to you what that is.

Every Sunday for the past six months I have clipped coupons from Smart Source, Valassis, Proctor & Gamble, and General Mills coupon booklets. These booklets can all be found in every Sunday copy of the Los Angeles Times; all of which are packed with savings. These booklets should be recognized for their usefulness in being able to acquire items from the supermarket at a significantly lower price than that which is advertised.

The message on a coupon will typically read something like “save 55 cents on any box of Eggo Waffles” accommodated by an expiration date written by a box that says “manufacturer’s coupon.” This 55 cents savings may not sound like much at first, but, when taken into the context of double coupons, there is much to be gained.

For as long as I can remember Ralphs has offered its customers the chance to “Double Coupons” for increased savings. Although often misunderstood, coupon doubling is exactly what you would expect it to be; the 55 cents off a box of Eggo’s coupon mentioned earlier would be doubled for a total savings of $1.10 off the waffle product. That’s a 100% increase in savings every time you shop with coupons at Ralphs. These doubled savings can be especially useful when Ralphs brings popular items such as Eggo Waffles down in price and even more savings are realized.

My cheapest Eggo Waffle purchase was 90 cents after Ralphs club savings and a double coupon. This lower price was a combined result of double coupons and Ralphs Club savings.

Ralphs however will only double coupons for up to the value of $1.00. After coupons start to exceed $1.00 such as “save $1.50 off any Crest Toothpaste,” the doubled value of the coupon will only be $2.50. That’s still good though, considering how much you would have paid without the coupon. In toothpaste situations I’ve spent as little as 50 cents for toothpaste that might ordinarily cost $3.99.

Coupons also allow me to try all sorts of different varieties of products that I might not have ever ventured out and purchased on my own. I’ve bought all sorts of different exotic items as a result of using coupons including purely squeezed orange juice from Tropicana, new acne treating products from Clearasil, and several flavorful choices of ice cream from Dreyers.

With using coupons at Ralphs there is also another benefit to be reaped which has been kept a hidden treasure for too long: the reality of getting things for free. It’s true, you can get stuff for free too when you shop at Ralphs and use double coupons; that is of course during the right sales week.

Items I’ve received for free include toothbrushes from G.U.M, cookie dough from Nestle, and delicious smoothies from Dannon.

By no means was this article written to cater to or promote the companies that I mention above. I just want to illustrate how real coupon usage can be and the savings that are realized from it. By applying incredible saving situations to familiar brand names I feel that my story will be more believable to others.

Some people will still laugh at me for my coupon craze, but I don’t mind. They’re probably still stuck in their everlasting downward spiral of fast food splurging.

Others won’t listen to me when I tell them about the benefits of coupons, but I can still hear them, hear them as they whisper to each other when they see me walk down the aisle of a store with my coupons in my cart, “is this guy serious?” If they should ever read this, they will know that I am serious.

I’m serious about smart and efficient spending when it comes to surviving in college. Coupons not only keep me alive but now I also have something to look forward to every Sunday morning.

It’s almost become a hobby, really, especially with the motivation in mind to save more money than the last time I visited Ralphs with coupons.

My current record holds at walking out of Ralphs with $94.25 worth of groceries while having only paid $35.47 for them, attributed to the usage of coupons and Ralphs Club savings.

I encourage anyone to beat my record.

~Anthans

Don't fear change, embrace it

"Don't fear change, embrace it"

-Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

The only thing to fear is blah blah blah, etc., etc.

I haven't purchased a new video game system since The Nintendo Gamecube came out. Despite the pressure I receive from friends to purchase a new system the only games I play now are Worms for XBox Live and Halo 3. I'm not caught up on the Final Fantasy Series, God of War craze, Mario Sports Series, or the Wonderful World of Warcraft (like I'd want to be). However, one of the great franchises I've always tried to follow is Smash Brothers.

Released in 1999 Smash Brothers was a revolutionary addition to fighting games. It went beyond the 2-D ground fighting characteristic of games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter and introduced platforms to jump on, weapons to throw, and simple attacks that catered to both button mashers and gamers alike. The controls and gameplay took some getting used to but eventually I mastered it on my own Nintendo 64. In 2001 the sequel was released, Super Smash Brothers Melee. I bought a Nintendo Gamecube just to play it and to my surprise the gameplay changed dramatically from the original. The game had evolved. The physics were different and each character I had mastered in the original had to be relearned. After weeks of sleepless nights I too mastered this Smash Brothers game.

In 2008 the most recent edition of the Smash Brothers franchise, Brawl, was released for the Nintendo Wii. My interest at the time was piqued but not enough to purchase a Nintendo Wii. Here's why. Before its release in 2008 I got a preview of the game at my friend's place. To my surprise the gameplay had once again changed and there was a new set of characters to get used to as well. My friend and I sort of just sampled the game through versus matches and I didn't spend ample time learning the new mechanics of the game. Within an hour or so of game sampling my interest had faded and my nostalgia for the last game of the series, Melee, had intensified. I didn't feel the obligation of learning a new way of playing because I liked the way things were before the new game. I was fearing change rather than embracing it.

Last night (nearly a year later) I played Smash Brothers Brawl with another friend who owns the game. He purchased the game last year and had mastered it to the same degree as I had mastered the previous games before. Because I was a veteran of the previous two games I was able to hold my own against him. He played as Toon Link and I went with my favorite for the night, Lucas. We played with three-stock lives and limited items. The match boiled down to one life each in the end. It was close but it concluded with the more experienced gamer winning, my friend.

In the end I realized that I had been avoiding change. I avoided it because I was afraid of it. My friend, on the other hand, had embraced it. He too was an avid follower of the Smash Brothers Series and had evolved with the game. I was stuck in the past. I'm ready to embrace change now though, especially with Smash Brothers Brawl. Now, if only I had enough change in my pocket to buy a Wii and Brawl.

~Anthans

A New Era

As I sit here typing, in my rearranged room, on my newly acquired computer, with a renewed optimism in life, I prepare my mind for the next era it's about to enter.

End of an Era

If you've known me long enough then chances are I've probably tried to communicate to you the idea of "Eras" in our lives. If you're not familiar with the idea or you've forgotten then let me explain.

Whether it's at work, school, or something in between, things in our lives will never feel, sound, taste, or appear the same as they once were in the past. Different classes in different semesters of college will welcome new faces, new experiences, and new memories. Relationships begin and then end, whether romantic or platonic. Everything that happens within these "eras" of time, whether sour or pleasant, will remind us of the way things once were. Music, food, scents, people's faces, and our surroundings will be ingrained in our minds as things associated with a specific era of time.

The last era of my life just ended. 

For the past 5 months I have not been working but rather hanging out instead. About 4/5 of that time was spent trying to relive my college past. Of course I looked for a job along the way, too. But in these times, work doesn't come so easy. Now that I've found work though I can sense a huge shift about to take place in my life. It's a feeling that we're all familiar with. Right before you began a job or enrolled in something extracurricular, at one time, you felt this same premonition. I'm having it right now and I'm announcing it to anybody that will read about it. 

Watch out world, here I come. 

~Anthans

Unpaid Internships: Where are they?

Anywhere you go today you'll meet some douche talking about how bad the economy is. People who continually talk about how much the country is in the shitter are not helping. Their negativity will affect you and chances are you'll go and tell 10 more people that week about the latest shitty news. We need less negative Nancy's and more positive Paul's if we're ever to recover from this slump. In times like these we need to think of the brighter side. After all, gas is half the price of what it was last summer.

Today there are over 2,000,000 people unemployed in California. This number is more than double what it was last year. I contribute to 1/2,000,000 of that number.


Experience Paying Opportunities, AKA Unpaid Internships

Sometimes people will do anything for a job, even if it means working for free. Unpaid work should only come in the form of volunteering. Although we've seen or heard about many unpaid internships, not many exist. Typical unpaid internships award you in the form of school credit or hands on training that can help you enter the industry of your choice. However, in the case where interns obtain hands on experience and are not paid for it, California labor laws are violated.

In order for an internship to be unpaid the following criteria must be met:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainee;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the completion of the training period; and
6. The employer and the trainee understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Special emphasis needs to be given to number 4. Most of the time unpaid interns DO perform activities that give their employers an advantage, such as filing, cold calling, or any other menial task that they should be getting paid for. If any of these criteria are not met then, by law, the employer is required to obey California labor law and dish out a minimum wage, overtime pay, etc. This is why few unpaid internship actually exist.


Paying for Unpaid Internships

It sounds absurd, but people actually pay for the opportunity to acquire unpaid internships. I came across this hideous concept when I found out about the University of Dreams. The University of Dreams is a program that allows students the opportunity to acquire unpaid internships in the field of their dreams! By placing the student in a popular economic region like New York, Hong Kong, or London students pay an exuberant fee (upwards of $5000) to experience the working world. The fee includes room and board, transportation, meal plan, and planned group outings. It's summer camp for older spoiled kids!

Here is the University of Dreams' mission statement:


University of Dreams is a company of Dream Enablers. Our mission is to positively change culture on a mass level by identifying and recruiting Dreamers globally so that we can inspire, equip and challenge them through our products, services, charity and encouragement to discover and pursue their dreams. It is our dream to enable 1,000,000 Dreamers by the conclusion of 2020.


You don't have to pay a handsome sum of money to dream. Even if it involves a legitimate unpaid internship I still think this program is bogus. Somebody needs to wake up these Yuppie dreaming parents and tell them to tell their kids to go out and get an internship on their own. Are people that pathetic that they need to pay for something that would have cost them nothing, just to save themselves the expense of trying on their own? I used to think working for free was an outrageous concept, but paying to work for free? That truly is an American idea.

~Anthans

Another Day

"Another day, another foot in the grave."

My dad said this to me just now. I asked him "dad, how many feet do you have?"

People shouldn't look at life this way. Another day should mean another opportunity to fulfill your dreams, whatever those may be. For me it's following my to-do list. Sometimes it takes me days or even weeks to carry out my to-do list. In fact, I need to keep a constant reminder for myself on my phone of all the things I need to do. Here's what's on the desktop of my phone right now.

-Student Loan
-Clean Room
-Clean Car

The student loan part has been on there for weeks now. The last two are the latest additions. Why is it we need to keep everything clean all the time? It's as if we were maintaining a show room all the time. When clutter and dust begin to build up it makes us feel bad. We find ourselves cleaning a lot more than we thought we ought to be and the cycle is always beginning anew.

~Anthans

Reading and Writing Styles

These days I have time to do a lot of things, if I really wanted to. I devote a lot of that time towards reading. It's funny, I never used to enjoy reading. I would only read a book if I had to like if it was for school or an assignment. Now I find myself reading for pleasure. I usually read at least one book a week now, sometimes two. After completing each novel I find my opinions and attitudes slightly more skewed than they were before. Go figure.


Reading & Writing

I used to be a terrible writer. My sentences would run on farther than a Kenyan in a marathon and they certainly wouldn't have any direction either. When I started college my papers would get marked with more red than the Red Sea. I think this was mainly because I didn't expose myself to reading enough to get an idea of how things should be written. Sure there were textbooks that I read. You're a fool if you truly enjoy reading those. But maybe I would have enjoyed them more if I had to read them for pleasure. Whenever I read textbooks it was always to study for an exam or to write a paper. Books shouldn't be read just for that though. Reading for pleasure is truly one of the best freedoms we have.

Reading and writing are closely related. You can't be good at one without giving attention to the other. My problem was that I used to think writing was innate in me and that I truly enjoyed it. The truth was, unfortunately, I was bad at it. I used words incorrectly, inserted punctuation in the wrong places, and I never knew how to tell a good story. That's what writing is all about really, telling a good story. I used to think that the semicolon was my friend and that I could use it wherever I pleased; boy was I wrong.


Influences

The last book I finished reading was Catcher in the Rye. It's a good story, there's no doubting that. I benefited most from it by absorbing the style in which it was written: simple and easy to comprehend. Not every book should be written like a medical journal (however those are written). Rhetoric and jargon are for phonies. Catcher is written in a natural voice that we can all relate to (that is unless you enjoy talking like a phony).

A few weeks ago I finished reading a book about saving the Earth. For about a week I was raving mad about saving this planet. It's true, read my past blog entries. I even dedicated a three part series to it. The world felt like it was going to end within my lifetime. I know it sounds crazy but that's how these books mess with your mind. Books like The Revenge of Gaia can really have that effect on you. It could give you such a frightening feeling you would think it was Halloween and everyone was dressed up like madmen.

I guess I'm just easily influenced by things I like, that's all. That can't really be a crime can it? Some people get influenced by worse things. You know it's true. I don't even have to tell you how many things in the world can influence you to do bad things. Cults, business scams, crime, and corruption are just a few to name. I hope reading doesn't ever compel me to try any of those things.

~Anthans

North Warea

Any “explosion-affected persons” still around after Nagasaki or Hiroshima might have gone through a relapse this past weekend. North Korea, the isolated state under Kim Jong Il, launched a test missile yesterday which they claim was intended to put a satellite into orbit. The missile was launched from ____ in North Korea, flew over the Japanese basin, and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The missile test was widely claimed to be a failure by rocket experts. It makes me wonder how fast the missile raced over the Japanese spectators as it flew above their heads.

Because news rarely comes out of North Korea the international media has always held a close observation over it. When the media announced the long range ballistic missile they were planning to test every neighboring country rose up in protest. The voice heard from Seoul in South Korea was the loudest. The two countries have been feuding with each other since they were divided after World War II. Both act stubborn with each other concerning any form of diplomacy and it is unlikely that, in my opinion, a uniting of the two countries will ever take place.


Propagander

The South Koreans I’ve met usually have a common attitude towards North Koreans: pity towards them. It’s not their fault though that they think this way. Propaganda plays an integral role in shaping our opinions; this is true whether we’re ready to accept it or not. The media portrays North Korea as a sheltered nation under the shrewd ruling of one dictator, Kim Jong Il. The only facts and findings we are fed about this nation pertain to its shaky relations with other countries and its nuclear operations (that must be halted).

North Korea is one of the most impoverished nations in the world. Its people starve everyday worse than some of those in African countries. The sanctions and trade limitations posed on North Korea right now are so binding that it’s unlikely it will ever recover from its 1980's economic collapse. The only bargaining chip the North retains is its nuclear card: as if to say “give us your lunch money or else I’m going to beat you up after school!” Since this scare tactic began South Korea and the US have provided economic assistance to North Korea. In exchange for aid the North has accepted a cease-fire at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the North and South and also to pursue nuclear disarmament. North Korea is a nation highly dependent on other nations and it will try to continue this cycle as long as uranium is in its possession.

This past missile incident is no different: they’re just trying to scare us into giving them more lunch money again. It's not rocket science.

~Anthans

Gaia (jē'ə) or (Guy-Uh) part 3

nuClear your mind about Nuclear Energy

It is one author's opinion to solve our future energy crisis by means of nuclear energy. James Lovelock, author of The Revenge of Gaia, argues that the most important features of an energy source should be its measure of output and its cost efficiency. He reviews all of the existing forms of energy that we currently produce includeing wind, biofuels, fossil fuels, hydro, natural gas, and also nuclear.

Nuclear energy is not the end of the world; it is a means to keep it lasting longer. It is safer, more efficient, and contains less wasteful byproducts than we could ever expect from an energy source. There are two energy processes that are derived from nuclear energy: fusion and fission. I don't know how either of the two work specifically but I do know that they are both somewhat related to how the sun generates heat. Imagine the power to generate the sun's energy at our disposal. The good among us would use it for the betterment of mankind, and the bad would ultimately use it for its destruction. Both have already occurred.

The easiest way to comprehend the benefits of nuclear energy is to imagine this visual:

"Burning fossil fuels produces 27,000 million tons of carbon dioxide yearly, enough, as I mentioned earlier, to make, if solidified, a moutain nearly one mile high and with a base twelve miles in circumference. The same quantity of energy produced from nuclear fission reactions would generate two milion times less waste, and it would occupy a sixteen-metre cube." -John Lovelock

Radioactivity is not harmful to Gaia. It may lessen the lifespan of an organism but it is nothing in comparison to our clearing of lands for farming and the eliminating of rainforests. Just imagine a 16 meter cube of waste compared to the mountain that Lovelock describes. I can't imagine all forms of transportation switching to nuclear power right away, but it's certainly not outside the realm of possibilities.


Gaia: a Final Plea

My plea for Gaia can be summed up in the following paragraph.

The more carbon that continues to flood the air the warmer it will get. Large amounts of carbon continue to be secreted from cow farts and racecar drivers. The hotter this planet gets the more ice will melt away. Our planet's albedo, which is its ability to reflect light from the sun, is diminishing. Ocean levels are susceptible to rise which would lead to the annihilation of major coastal cities and would result in millions of refugees around the world. The only way to put the brakes on a likely irreversible heating of our planet is to invest in the right forms of energy. Because let's face it, we rely on energy like older celebrities rely on botox. The smartest energy source to pursue further is nuclear energy. It's safe, efficient, and does not produce a lot of waste. Just don't let terrorists use it for the wrong reasons.

And so the lobbying will continue...

~Anthans

Gaia (jē'ə) or (Guy-Uh) part 2

My father is as wise as he is weathered, but he doesn’t always see things clearly. After my younger sister expressed to him her interest in saving the environment he replied with the following:

“Stop trying to save the planet. There’s already enough people trying to do that.”

Gaia, our earth, our home, cannot sustain if this is our attitude towards it. It’s a huge task to take on, saving the earth. It is a task that has been set up by our own doings. Until recently Gaia used to regulate herself just fine throughout her 4.5 billion year existence. Our 100,000 + year residence on this planet has only recently began to become a threat towards its wellbeing. The age of industry that we currently live in has only been .1% of our time here as a species, but Gaia sees it as even less than that.


Global Warning

We’re all familiar to some extent with how the planet has been affected lately. How could we not be? It’s everywhere in the news.

• The ice caps are melting
• Carbon dioxide is filling the air
• Deforestation is becoming excessive
• The planet is heating up too rapidly
• Every corporation is going green

The last topic is the most recent to come into the limelight. Everybody is going green! It’s the new and hip thing to do (only because there’s money in it). So is the nature of human beings, to be driven by incentive. We are all naively convinced however that this green movement can make a difference from the minimal scale it is being launched. While we might have stopped using materials that create waste we still continue to build while simultaneously destroying ecosystems. Once an ecosystem is destroyed others begin to suffer the same fate. We’ve all seen a diagram of a food chain. Just imagine it as a tournament bracket where all the teams at the bottom start to get eliminated as you move up the chain.

Although weve been subliminally programmed to think otherwise, this planet is not just for us. Some say it’s a miracle that life even exists on this “rock.” But the theory of Gaia goes beyond acknowledging the earth as just a rock with life forms on it. Imagine viewing the earth as a whole, complete with its own self-regulating system for topography and climate, a unique inner geology, and ability to sustain a surface biology. That is Gaia in a nutshell. She is different from her terrestrial cousins, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. They all have no lives.


Green

If there’s a strong lobby for it in Congress, it can’t be good. Here are the measures currently being pushed for in environmental legislation:

• The building of more wind farms
• Bio fuels as a renewable source of energy
• Sustainable development
• Painting the White House green

The last one wouldn’t surprise me, but it’s indeed false. The rest are still fair game.

Wind power sounds good to most of us. It appears clean, simple, and can be put both onshore and offshore. What were not told however is how inefficient and cost defective it truly is. Whether it is generated on land or at sea wind energy is two and a half to three times more expensive per kilowatt hour than gas or nuclear energy. Also, with the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) attitude of people it is difficult to determine where these wind farms might be placed. Some people think they look hideous. But besides their high cost in maintenance and their appearance I see them as a small supplementary solution to alternative sources of energy. Great Plains anybody?

When used at a reasonable rate the burning of bio fuels poses little to no threat to Gaia. However, the great amount of farming it would take to rely on bio fuels as a renewable energy source is where the real danger comes into play. Gaia did not intend to have all of its hair trimmed so we could give it tattoos on every square mile of its surface. This is exactly what we’re doing. We’re defacing the surface to sustain our high demand for food. There’s 6 billion people too many on this planet and the number will continue to grow. How are all these people going to eat if some of the land used to farm is now going to our gas tank?

As I mentioned before any new development is a problem because of the danger it poses to ecosystems. Irregardless of how “sustainable” the development is in the end a new building is being erected where once stood the habitat of one of Gaia’s children. Sustainable development entails the use of environmentally friendly materials to build (first of all it’s not very friendly to the environment to deface it). I believe that true sustainable development will come when the machines that we use to build are sustainable (i.e. tractors, cranes, trucks, etc.) Companies that now pride themselves on recycling only engage it in it because they’ve realized its cost savings. Also, because sustainable development is the latest craze a booming market has sprouted from it. There are new jobs to be filled, new things to be built and renovated, and more money to be made. I can see why the slogan “Going Green” is so appropriate.

*****

When I used to think of nuclear energy two words used to come to mind: Armageddon and meltdown. After looking into it further I’ve discovered how vital nuclear energy could be towards prolonging humanity. I will discuss this further next time.

To be continued…

~Anthans

Gaia (jē'ə) or (Guy-Uh) part 1

Gaia, who is she? She is what most of us would consider home. This is true irregardless of having been afforded a view of her from outer space. The word Gaia originates from the Greek goddess of the earth, the same whore who spawned and married Uranus only to have become the mother of the Titans and the Cyclopes. Gaia, taken into the context of today's science, is the living Earth. She is unique from her dead rock brothers and sisters: Venus, Mars, and Mercury.

Throughout human history our understanding of the world and our place in it has evolved. We went from thinking that the world was flat fearing that we could fall off its edge to one day sailing around it and realizing that there was an unreachable horizon. Newton laid the groundworks in Physics for Einstein. Einstein introduced the theory of relativity and scholars like Hawking have expanded upon it. Our knowledge of the enviornment and the way things work will never be definite and complete. The greatest of minds have formed all of the current theories that we hold true and faithful today. When it comes to taking action against global warming we have theories about theories, or as I like to call them, opinions.


Theories about Theories: aka Opinions

I used to be an ignorant skeptic on the matter of the Earth and her well-being. The world appeared to be unscathed by anything I did to it. I saw no remorse in littering, using airconditioning on a hot day, or leaving the night light on in fear of the Candy Man. I had no idea that I was ruining ecosystems, contributing to CO2 pollution, and putting pressure on engineers to develop new sources of renewable energy, all in the same day.

Since my days as a tike I have acquired a basic understanding of biology, chemistry, physics, and oceanography. When I learned about all these disciplines they made sense to me. Meanwhile I was also being pushed to learn about catholicism. I was better able to identify with mitochondria being used to generate energy than praying for strength from an invisible man. All of the above subjects fascinated me but I never performed well in any of them, except for oceanography of course. With my broad understanding of them all I can at least tell that they all came together in a mysterious and majestic way in the world of Gaia. I didn't have what it took to become a scientist or an engineer, but that's ok. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that something drastic is happening to our beautiful home Gaia.

Gaia is a theory that the Earth is a living and self-regulating system in which all forms of life we know inhabit. It surpasses Darwin's theory of evolution and perplexes us to think of the entire planet as a whole rather than just in terms of the survival of an individual species. Everything we know about geology, oceanography, biology, chemistry can fall below the theory of Gaia.

It's time to stop thinking of the planet as if it were a dead terrestrial rock. It has feelings, too.

To be continued...

~Anthans

For now, Taxes not so Taxing

I can't imagine that someday in the future I will be placing into a higher tax bracket. For the past four years my work history has been fragmented. Between on-campus jobs and internships I have never endured a job for longer than 1.5 years. Whose to say that this will ever change?

In the meantime I can enjoy a refund from the IRS because I made little to no money last year. After all, tax breaks go to those less fortunate and those that make the cover of Fortune. It will be some time until I place into the latter.

~Anthans

Like, you know, um...

In regards to everyday speech I can't think of anything that bothers me more than someone who chronically uses the space fillers of like, you know, and um. There are exceptions to using these words, but never in the context of space fillers.

"So um, like I was the movies yesterday and like there were these kids that couldn't, you know, get into the theater cause it was like a rated R movie. So then, like all the kids in their group like um, went to one of the exits of the theater, you know, the ones you come out of after a movie. And then like they waited there for a few minutes until some people, um, came out of a movie that had just ended. And then all these kids like snuck into the theater. And like, yeah."


Like

Surely you know people who speak like this. However, there are exceptions to using these words when they are used in the right context. In my previous sentence "surely you know people who speak like this" I use the word 'like' to compare my subject in question to the conversation style that was being referenced above. If it is possible to substitute the word 'like' with 'similar to' or 'such as' then the use of 'like' is acceptable. "Sure you know people who speak similar to this." This is the way the word 'like' was intended to be used, not as a catch phrase for your brain farts. If you want to refrain from using 'like' as a space filler, simply pause during your speech. You'll be able to gather your thoughts better for the next brilliant thing you're about to say.


You know

Oftentimes we become entangled in whatever it is we may be talking about and our mind is moving a lot faster than our mouth is. We'll often stumble in our speech as the rate of our mouth moving is not capable of keeping up with our mile-a-minute thinking pattern. The space filler of "you know' will often be inserted in order to retain the attention of our listeners.

"Some of these girls I meet at the bar are so stuck up, they need to get real, you know? I don't even know why I bother sometimes."

The threat of losing our peer's interest in our story forces us to regurgitate anything to keep the conversation going. I think they're called affirmatives in speech or something (like/such as) that. Here are some other affirming space fillers that allow us to link combos in our sentences:

• You feel me?
• Know what I'm sayin'?
• Ya' dig?
• Know what I mean?
• Follow me so far?
  

Affirmatives in our speech will vary from region to region but their purpose is always the same: to keep the story going without being interrupted. There are other ways to keep the story going besides using dialogue. One method which I described earlier was the pause. Another is the use of body language and gestures. This of course doesn't work over the phone. By bringing a visual image to your message you can take away the attention from the fact that you have stopped speaking and are internally gathering your thoughts.

"That cute girl who works at Wal-Mart was checking me out yesterday...(insert body language to simulate the action of scanning products at a cash register)...every time she scanned my stuff I felt like donating sperm."

Try it out and have some fun. You may become quite the bard, or what is known in today's society as the socialite.


Um

Ummmm.....do I really need to elaborate on this one? Just try not to use it and more people will be prone to listen to what you have to say. It's distracting and oftentimes reminds us of how boring you are or your incapability of saying anything meaningful.


~Anthans