New pedalboard action!

Before:

After:

Click on them for larger versions, it is worth doing I swear to Satan!


My wife and I spent several hours dealing with this thing, and it was a NIGHTMARE. Well, no. It was a nightmare getting started and getting my head around the task and whining about not having fancy equipment and wanting to put it off for a few more weeks until I could buy more stuff. Then I decided that I was letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, begged my wife to keep me company while I worked on it, and got to work.

You'd be surprised at how much easier an overwhelming task can be when you've got really awesome company. First, they keep you from finding other distractions to avoid the hard work. Then there's the matter of having someone to bounce ideas off of. And then if worse comes to worst, they can talk about completely unrelated stuff to take your mind off of how much work you're really doing. It took me like three hours today, plus a bunch of hours yesterday without any progress whatsover, just to sit down and really just start doing anything at all. Then it was like an hour and a bit once I sat down and started actually putting down Velcro.

My wife and I spent most of the time talking about our vacation plans, which is sweet. We're doing all sorts of cool stuff, and we looked at a week-long sample itinerary involving tours and cave exploration and neat things like that. My wife says that she's found a neat fancy foodie tour where you are taken from place to place and eat samples of all the local food while a guide explains the culture and history of each meal. Good times, although I'm not eating the blood sausage. No no NO!

Before I knew it, the board was assembled. It didn't actually work the first time, but a quick snip of a cable and more secure reattachment of the plug and it worked just fine. We rearranged the man cave, cleaned everything up, and I'm really happy about the whole thing. Of course, I still need to add an acoustic guitar simulator, a tuning pedal, a noise gate, a volume pedal, and I have a bunch of boutique hand-wired pedals on order that I will get sometime between now and 2013. Waiting lists are a pain, but what can you do? At least they don't expect you to pay until they are ready to ship.

And then the fun gets to start again when I try to figure out where all that new stuff is supposed to fit!

Back on the horse, galloping forward!

Hah! Lost almost 20 pounds, gained back 4... and lost 5 again! I have the secret... no, the SECRET!

Coffee.

I swapped the milk in my protein shake for strong black coffee and a pinch of Splenda. Since I never drink anything caffeinated, I think it made a pretty big difference. Plus it makes me poop a lot! *big grins* The 30-minute walks every day sort of does something too.

In other news, I'm seriously considering sticking my amplifier in the closet to free up some room in my office. I run a short extension cord into the closet for power, and once I've got my new pedalboard set up with just a single cable sticking out of it, it will be a pinch to slide it in and out of the closet too. I really want as clean and organized a space as possible. It makes my brain happy.

What makes my brain sad is trying to get 100% completion on Dead Space 2 on XBox 360. Damn that's hard. Hard hard hard. Hard core mode is nearly impossible. The game takes 9 hours to beat, and in hard core mode you can only save the game three times. When you die, you go back to your last save spot. So you can go back 2-3 hours if you make a simple mistake. That's why I've only got 98% of the game beat. Oh well.

Speaking of man caves and video games, I want to punch Kay S. Hymowitz in her fucking face. Man-hating pseudo-feminist krakens deserve to be single and bitter, but they should shut the fuck up and stop blaming men. Here's a telling exerpt from the beginning of this misandry-laden screed:

 Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This "pre-adulthood" has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn't bring out the best in men.

Let's reword that so the sexism is more obvious:

Not so long ago, the average American woman in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, marriage and children, a nice home, and maybe a decent garden and membership in a knitting circle. Today, most women in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal mating instincts and unnatural self-reliance. This "pre-childrearing" has much to recommend it, especially for women who like their secretarial job. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young men: It doesn't bring out the best in women. 

Yeah... last time I checked, it isn't a man's job to conform to the dating standards of snotty upper-class white chicks writing books and editorials. Women got most of what they wanted from feminism: it isn't perfect, but they aren't forced by society to marry their high school sweetheart, spit out a bunch of kids, and keep house while their husbands go achieve things. So why are these sexist ball-busters insisting that men shouldn't get something out of the deal too? Or is it a man's job to rearrange his life so that the minute a woman decided that she's ready to get married she has her choice of a dehumanized collection of virtually neutered husband-candidates?

According to this steaming pile of shit, men aren't supposed to like Star Wars or video games, or hanging out with their friends. We're supposed to work too hard for too many hours so we can continue to die young, and subsume all of our own wants and needs for the pleasure of women. We're certainly not supposed to do what makes us happy, because that's childish and immature. Only women should go out and do what they want, while men should stay at home and... I'm not sure what exactly, but it is pretty clear that no sane man would get within 20 feet of these slave-driving harpies.

Fuck. Did I mention that I lost 5 pounds? I'm going to look so good in the fancy clubbing outfits I'm buying for my Puerto Rican vacation this summer. With my wife, who also likes Star Wars. :)

Reconnecting with my adoring fanbase

Hello, all 32 of you folks who follow my blog! I hope you are all doing wonderfully and whatnot, and that if you're in one of those colder places you've managed to dig yourself out of the snow.

Not much going on here. I was sick two weeks ago, and it sidelined my diet and exercise program pretty severely. I gained back a few pounds, but I'm back on the schedule now. Quick note to other people in my position: falling off the schedule isn't the worst thing ever, so long as you get the hell back on. It is doubly true if you get back on before you go back to square one. I lost almost 20 pounds, and gained back 4, which means I'm still in the plus column and with a commitment to diet and exercise I can lose that 4 pretty quickly and move forward from there.

I've also abandoned taking anti-depressants. I've been concerned that I've been doing damage to my liver by taking such a big dose, and I never did stop drinking like I was supposed to while taking the drugs. Now that I've been alcohol-free for all of this year, I started wondering if removing a depressant from my regular diet means that I can also avoid the anti-depressant. This is an experiment to see if not drinking beer combined with drinking some coffee and exercising for 30-45 minutes a day will allow the stimulants in my system to overwhelm my natural depressive nature.

Something that has always sort of made things difficult for me is excessive clutter, a constant theme of this blog especially over the last year. I'm trying to shift my focus towards positive things and being proactive about things that bug me instead of letting them weigh me down. In iJoe-speak, this means more gadgets. :) My first order of business is starting over from scratch with my guitar effects pedals. Right now, I have a disaster on my hands.

Note the giant bundle of wires on the right-hand side of the board. I've got three 20' instrument cables, three power cables, and the amp's channel selector cable all running out of my board. Plus the whole thing looks like a train wreck. NO MORE! With the money I'm saving from eating like a normal human being, I'm buying a new professional-quality board and a PedalSnake, which combines all the individual cables into a single cable that splits off at the ends. It looks something like this:

Simplicity! After that project, I'm going to put up some shelves for my bobblehead collections, especially since my wife bought me a new one for our anniversary. Speaking of anniversaries, my wife took the day off for ours last Friday. Around 9:45 that evening, she got called in to work the 11-7 shift. Since she normally doesn't do that sort of work, she didn't get home until 10AM and for complicated reasons didn't get to sleep until after noon on Saturday. Since she has to take pills at certain times for mood and in order to sleep properly, and being awake and at work for all of those hours threw off her medication schedule, she's been a wreck ever since. The upshot of this is that she's pulling herself off of the on-call rotation, since she's the boss and can't just take days off or switch shifts with people to make up for working weird hours. She doesn't want to do it, but at this point there's very little choice in the matter. A higher power than her has mandated that she not work random night shifts because it interferes with her bigger duties. Yay!

OK... so what do I blog about next? Leave comments, let me know, and the best suggestion wins a prize.

iJoe weighs in on the abortion debate!!!

OK... this is a long one, and is quoted from a longer debate, that can be found here. This was my opening, and covers pretty much everything I have to say on the subject of abortion from an ethical standpoint. Enjoy... or not, as suits you.

My argument will rest on the following ideas:

• There is a sliding scale of morally correct behavior with regards to taking a life, human or otherwise.
• The existence of that sliding scale shows that different deaths carry different moral weight.
• One large part of that weighting system rests on various aspects of the concept of personhood.
• While an embryo is technically alive, and technically human, it is not a person.
• Because an embryo is not a person, the needs of actual persons must take priority.
• Therefore, in cases where harm to a person can be prevented by the termination of an entity that is only potentially a person, it is less immoral to terminate the pregnancy than to allow it to continue.

Philosopher (the screen-name of the guy I was debating)  has already conceded the point that there is at least one condition in which abortion is not only not the most immoral of all possible choices, but is also in his words "morally permissible." In the case of imminent risk to the life of the mother, Philosopher and I both agree that the termination of a pregnancy is at least morally neutral if not a positive moral action. To make my case, I intend to show that there are other cases where the termination of a pregnancy is a morally superior choice when compared to the alternative. 

Much of my position depends on the definition of personhood, and the difference between being biologically human and being a human person. While Philosopher defines the differences between a person and a fetus in terms of "difference of degree"(size, dependency, etc.), I define the differences to be "differences of kind." That is to say, an embryo is a fundamentally different kind of thing than a fetus, and a fetus is fundamentally different from a child, although the distinction becomes less pronounced as the fetus develops towards being viable outside of the womb. 

Those differences are best laid out be philosopher Mary Anne Warren's definition of personhood, which involves five traits:

• 1. Consciousness (of objects and events external and/or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain;
• 2. Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);
• 3. Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control);
• 4. The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics;
• 5. The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both.

That is not to say that all five traits must be present to allow someone to be called a person. The example of "locked-in syndrome" where a person is completely unable to move yet conscious shows that #4 is not required to confer personhood. However, the lack of most or all of those traits means that the entity in question is not a person in a moral sense. This is where the "difference of degree" argument falls down. An embryo doesn't just have a lesser level of consciousness, reasoning, physical autonomy, communication skills, and self-awareness. It doesn't possess those facilities at all. A fetus just a few weeks before birth generally does contain some level of these things, which is why late-term abortions are rare and heavily restricted. However, as we've seen earlier, the abortion exception to protect the life of the mother shows that even at this advanced level of development, the full moral rights associated with personhood are not extended to the fetus at the expense of the mother, whose personhood goes unquestioned.

Beyond these points about personhood, the acceptance of an exception to the moral argument against abortion reveals the fact that all lives are not equal. The life of a fetus is simply not as valuable as the life of the mother. I don't think it is a stretch to say that this means that, rhetoric and idealism aside, Philosopher does not really consider a fetus to be a full-fledged member of the human community, with all of the moral rights that come with it. This makes perfect sense, of course, because all lives are not equal and more weight should always be given to those lives which carry the most value. 

This can be seen in our interactions with other living beings, not just humans. We have no emotional qualms about killing plants or bacteria. We generally have little concern for the moral rights of insects, mollusks, or other invertebrates. As we get closer to our own species, we begin to become concerned with the moral rights of beings, not coincidentally based generally on how closely they conform to the definitional traits of personhood. We don't care much about fish, we have a little more care for birds, and mammals get the best treatment from us. Even the animals that we breed to eat are seen to possess at least limited moral rights like protection from unnecessarily cruel treatment. Those animals we keep as pets are closest to us when it comes to those rights, in large part because we see them as having personalities that we bond with. Personality, and limited personhood, in ways that an embryo or fetus simply does not in any sense possess. 

I'll end this section of the debate with an observation: there are over 600 pet cemeteries in the United States alone. I have never heard of a funeral service being held for a miscarried embryo. 

Sources:
On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion by Mary Anne Warren, from Biomedical Ethics. 4th ed. T.A. Mappes and D. DeGrazia, eds. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. 1996, pp. 434-440.

International Association Of Pet Cemeteries & Crematories website


**** and then the rest of my argument****

I've explained my reasoning for the first five points. All life is not treated in an equal manner, from the simplest single-celled life all the way through up to human beings. The sliding scale of the way we treat different types of life shows that there is a difference in moral rights depending on what sort of life we're dealing with. A major factor in making that determination comes from our practical definition of personhood. We don't mourn the death of things that have no feelings, no awareness, no reasoning ability, etc., and those things define personhood. An embryo, while it has the potential to someday have the traits of personhood, it does NOT actually possess those traits in the womb. Because it does not meet the requirements of personhood that I have laid out, the sliding scale puts an embryo somewhat lower than the mother as far as rights are concerned. As the embryo develops into a fetus, and the fetus nears completion of its full pre-birth development, it begins to gain both the characteristics of a person and the moral rights that go along with it. This is why we don't treat a first-trimester miscarriage of an embryo as being equal to the death of a fetus in the last weeks of pregnancy where it might under better circumstances be viable outside of the womb.

Now, having laid all that out, we can discuss situations where an abortion is not only not the most immoral of all choices, but also could be seen as being morality-neutral or even a net positive from a moral perspective. These situations include:

• When the life of the mother is at risk.
• When the mental or physical health of the mother is at risk.
• Where the birth of a child puts an undue strain on the life and future prospects of the mother.
• Where that birth would put an undue strain on the family as a whole, including other siblings.

Protecting the life of the mother is something we both agree on, but for different reasons. You claim that if the choices consist of two deaths or one death, it is better for there to be one death. I agree, but I also hold that the lives are not equal. The mother of a potential child has formed bonds with family and friends, is a contributing member of society, and has memories, thoughts and emotions, which are all of value. The embryo or fetus has the potential to someday have all of those things, but potential doesn't trump actuality.

For that reason, the general well-being of the mother also trumps the life of the unborn. If the woman has any preexisting condition that could be negatively affected by pregnancy, even if there is no guarantee of death, then the woman's rights trump the life of a potential person. For instance, if a woman takes medication for a chronic physical or mental illness, and pregnancy would require her to not take that medicine, it is a completely moral position to abort the pregnancy at the first sign. If the pregnancy is due to rape, and carrying the pregnancy to term would exacerbate the trauma to a degree unacceptable to the woman, then her needs trump those of the embryo. 

Taking that even further, if having a child would cause serious harm to the life and future of the potential parents, abortion is also justified. If a poor child gets pregnant, the cumulative negative effects of having a child herself far outweigh the harm done in removing an unfeeling, unthinking, unknowing non-person from her womb. The potential harm to the potential child doesn't even have to be considered in either case, since the girl's rights have supremacy. In other cases, a woman may be in a position where she would lose her financial position or future job prospects if she has a child at that point in her life. A single woman working her way through school and who has no insurance or family to help her should not simply drop out of school, maybe be forced to quit her job, and put herself into financial ruin for the sake of a non-person that has the potential to maybe someday become a child.

Women in other similar circumstances have the same considerations, as do the people who depend on them. If a woman is in a position where she will be financially harmed by a pregnancy, those who depend on her also face harm. Dependent ACTUAL children have more moral rights than POTENTIAL children. Other people should not have to suffer real harm for the sake of an entity that does not have the capacity to understand harm, or the level of development where its rights automatically win out. 


Pretty solid, if I do say so myself... and I do, because I wrote the damned thing!!

The sun is shining, the bunnies are running... damn damn DAMN!!!

So I step outside this morning, and it is a beautiful day. The sun is warm and bright, Ginger gets to chase a bunny first thing, the sky is blue and the grass is green...


...wait...

... the grass is green? FUCK!

This means I'm going to be mowing before March, and probably until October. Yay. Every week. Plus dragging out the weed whacker. And ants and spiders to cope with. And the heat earlier this year than last. I guess it isn't the worst thing in the world. I need the exercise, and the tan. Plus I could really use the heat acclimation before my June Caribbean vacation. I sure don't want to sweat through my fancy clothing while I'm on my Segway tour.

Speaking of which, I'm thinking about diving. Just because everyone should go diving at least once.

Why pets are better than children

Yeah, that's right. I'm going there. This is my own personal list, based on my observations after having adopted three cats and a dog over the past 4 years. First off, let's look at my 'kids':

Randall, aka Boobie, the Boobster, Boobie-licious.

Ellie, the Cat from Outer Space

Ginger, the Great Brown Bunny Hunter

Lucy, who doesn't have a funny nickname

Better than human kids, for all sorts of reasons. Here are the ones that come to mind as I'm putting this together:

• It costs me about $30 a month to feed them all really good food, and as they get older they don't eat any more food.
• It won't be weird if they still sleep in the bed when they are six years old.
• At no point will any of them get pregnant, get someone else pregnant, wreck my car, get arrested, or otherwise cause me the sort of problems that kids cause their parents.
• When I want them out of my hair, I can lock them in a room and no one calls the cops on me.
• They love us unconditionally, and will never scream "I hate you! You're ruining my life" the way teenagers are prone to do.
• Potty training was a whole lot easier, and really the only thing they needed to be taught.
• They will never ask me for a computer, a car, an iPod, clothing, money, or anything else except for snacks occasionally.
• You can tell them to shut the fuck up and/or throw them on the floor without having to worry about the cops showing up.
• No fancy day care, preschool, high school, college, boarding school, troubled kid boot camp, or anything else.
• You can leave them food and water and go out to dinner without a second thought.
• You don't have to fight them for the TV remote.
• In the case of the dog, she sees trips to the vet as a treat... plus we're allowed to dope her up with sedatives so that she doesn't freak out when they take a blood sample.
• No dentists!
• They don't need their own rooms, or even their own beds. A towel on a chair works as well as a bed you buy from the store, or maybe even works better.
• No colds to deal with, or chicken pox, or ringworm, or whatever else nasty shit kids bring home from school.

My kids are better than your human kids. The only downside is that I'll certainly outlive my kids, but even that contains an upside, because I can make sure that they are happy, taken care of, and don't get hooked on crack cocaine for their whole lives. Except for Ellie... she might be snorting alien coke.