This, despite the half-tab of muscle relaxant and the whole tab of Xanax last night at bedtime.
I'm not sure why I'm not sleeping well at regular sleep time. About 7 PM it feels like someone pulls the plug and I just go face down, but come midnight I'm unable to sleep no matter how tired I may be.
Well, the back was bothering me a bit so the muscle relaxant did for that, and the Xanax did for the emotional component (I really need to get a job soon) and after a goodnight call from Lemonzen around 1:15 AM I slept like a stone and woke up at 7:30. Six hours, but I needed drugs to get me there and I'm still all floppy.
* * *
When you start arguing about hundredths and thousandths, you're grasping at straws. It seems that the unemployment rate (U3) did not go up to 8.3% in July.
No: it went from 8.217% to 8.254%.
So because the unemployment rate actually increased by 0.046%, it means that unemloyment remained unchanged? How much of the employable population is represented by 0.046%?
I guess the Obama administration's next move is to issue an executive order changing the rules for rounding decimals in unemployment figures. From now on, if it's under 9, you round down. Everyone clear on that?
* * *
Melting street lamps are proof of anthropogenic global warming. Except, the "anthropogenic global warming" was tightly confined to a nearby dumpster which caught fire, so in fact these melted street lamp globes are proof of anthropogenic highly localized warming.
And it was probably caused by one of those evil tobacco smokers, who tossed his cigarette butt into the dumpster--so not only do we have to ban all carbon emissions, but smoking too.
Here is another example of anthropogenic global warming in action:
As you can see, global warming melted the door skins off this poor defenseless Saturn. Those of you who own Corvettes and Fieros had better get on the bandwagon and start agitating for Cap-and-Trade, because your car is next if we don't stop human carbon emissions.
* * *
There are more things in Heaven and Earth.... WORM talks about a guy who correctly dowsed for some buried pipes.
There is simply no good way to explain this kind of phenomenon. Magic? Sixth sense? Intuition? Whatever it is, it does work, else it would not have persisted in our culture.
This world is a complicated place, and what we see is only a thin veneer of rationality over a very intricate and complex interweaving of stuff no one on this side of the veil of tears really understands. Occasionally people get glimpses of the bigger picture, and you can't see that without being changed by it...so we say, "it's superstition" and "it's coincidence" and "that was rigged" in order to be able to remain comfortable.
Could this guy have done this in a double-blind, scientific experiment? Probably not; science is antithetical to the sub rosa world and I'd wager this kind of ability is very sensitive to skepticism--if you have someone there watching critically and disbelieving, I bet that keeps the whatever-it-is from working very well, if at all.
Which is not to say that every paranormal event is real, either. There are so many fakers and scam artists and con men involved in the occult "trade" it's the rule, rather than the exception, that it's some kind of prestidigitation rather than an actual paranormal ability at work. (See also Wizard of Oz where the would-be swami puts Dorothy's picture of her family under his crystal ball.)
I keep an open mind about this stuff only because I know that there is a limit to what science can know. Science is a powerful tool, but all tools have their uses and are utterly worthless for any use outside of those boundaries. I'm not sure science can explain a lot of this stuff, because you can't measure it, and if you can't measure it, it's not science.
But its lack of measurability doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
* * *
The main thing I want to accomplish today is to clean up the bunker a bit. As usual, the kitchen and bathroom need cleaning.
The kitchen's not too bad--mainly I need to clear the counter and do the floor. The bathroom--I need to scrub the tub and vanity, clean the toilet, and do the floor in there. Also, I need to vacuum the rugs.
Maybe an hour's worth of work, maybe an hour and a half. Perhaps find a box and dump some stuff into it to declutter the family room a bit.
If I can find the motivation. That is always the hard part.
* * *
...I watched anime once in July, not counting Borrower Arrietty and Whispers of the Heart. *sigh*
I just don't know what I'm doing that keeps me from watching anime. Am I spending that much time in front of the computer?
Well--Lemonzen and I became an item in late June, so I've had to devote time to girlfriend stuff...and believe me I am NOT complaining. That's probably what it is; and if that's the case, then watching anime is just going to have to take a back seat to everything else that I'm doing and have to do.
As long as it's not just, "Ed's sitting at the computer and frittering away time on useless crap".
* * *
...and now that I've eaten, I'm starting to fall asleep again. More anon.