Brian’s Brain On Drugs

Hammond – Day 3

Yesterday we drove to Ponchatoula because the ladies wanted to do a little antiquing at a place called CJ’s Antiques and Collectables. While they were poking around, I was doing the same thing, only in another section of the store that had more of a guy vibe, automotive signs, license plates, NASCAR car models, etc. When I went to catch up with them, I stumbled on an open cabinet that was five feet high and six feet long that was sectioned into 6 x 6-inch segments that was stuffed with old postcards. Very few of them were already used, but that left hundreds of blank ones to pick through.

Before I left Oregon, I bought a couple of small packs of Thank You that I planned to send to everyone who mailed me a Christmas card in 2024 because I did not send out any cards for Xmas (the only card I did send, was a Hanukah card to my sister & her husband.) While perusing the plethora of vintage postcards a light bulb appears above my head, skip the thank you cards, let me send out my gratitude on old postcards of America and the world beyond. I bought 10 at a dollar each because that was my recollection of how many Christmas cards I received, but when I checked the address spreadsheet, I had highlighted a dozen. That number, plus the one I promised a neighbor back in Fairview, meant that I was three shy.

Fortunately, CJ’s was only a little less than 10 miles away, so Sally and I went back today to pick out 3 more cards. I took those purchased Thank You cards and traded them with the manager for three more postcards. While sifting through looking for three new old cards, I came across more than I needed, but wanted, so I paid for the three more. When I said a dollar, it really was $1.10 with tax, man I miss Oregon’s no sales tax.

If you would like to be sent one of those three remaining postcards, comment below with your name and address you will get a weird or obscure old postcard with a witty bon mat or your money back. Below is an example that I’m sending to a friend that I served with on CV-41, the U.S.S. Midway, back in my stint in Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club.

God

The way I’m feeling this may or may not be your bonus post for today. There may be more, way more.

One of the times I got up in the middle of the night I wandered over to the PC, and looked over my Google News feed for distractions. After scanning the headlines and looking at all of the crap that is going on here, there and everywhere it caused me to think of God. Your God, his God, their God. There are a lot of different religions in this world with their own corresponding deity. How the heck does that work? Is there a God Boardroom where they gather and divvy up all the creatures of Earth?1

But a God Collective can’t work, because there has got to be some being making sure nobody gets out of hand with the plagues and pestilence stuff. And all the religions I know about, the one big Tennent is I’m the ONE God, don’t be worshiping anyone else. Hey, maybe that is the way this whole thing works, all the little individual Gods can’t let anyone outside the board in on the secret. Kind of like Fight Club: Both rules #1 & #2 are: You do not talk about Fight Club. But I digress.2

Why would a benevolent god let all this bad crap happen? And from there I spent the next indeterminate minutes discussing God in my head. Well, today on my lunchtime perusal of my Google News feed I came across a headline that got me to click on it: Creationist Ken Ham Blames Atheists For Ark Park Failure. You can click on the link to read the actual article if you want, I found it entertaining in that this fellow is blaming the lack of success on the 3% of America’s Atheists teaming up with America’s new Enemy of the People (mainstream media) to damage the reputation of his big ol’ boat, the Ark Encounter.

I then wandered to the bottom of the article to read the comment section because this is almost always where the fun stuff really resides. It didn’t take long either. Four or five views down the line someone takes a slight dig at atheists and claims he, a mainstream Christian, is the harmed party by being lumped in with the Ark Encounter charlatan3 And then proceeds to state emphatically that the universe we all live in “is just not possible that universes don’t exist that have a ‘God’ of some sort.” And the reply to this is, which I’m going to copy below, is the sort of answer I would like to memorize so I could spout it at the opportune time when confronted with someone making that kind of statement to me.4

i don’t rely on science to justify not believing in god, just as i don’t rely on science to justify not believing in thor or my disbelief that hitler and elvis are living on the dark side of the moon planning an invasion. Your comment seems to suggest that ‘the existence of a universe’ has one of a set of answers in a multiple choice scenario – a. god b. aliens. c. science. d. computer simulation. The correct answer may not be in that set, it may not be something you could even understand at this point – but that does not mean you get to make up an answer or run with one these when the correct answer is “i don’t know, and neither do you”. You’re running with a god of the gaps explanation. The god concept is refutable because there is no evidence to support the claim – if there was, you’d have a fact, not faith. trying to support it by claiming it is ‘the only answer “that makes sense” to you’ regarding ‘why is stuff here instead of not stuff not here?’ no more supports your version of god than it supports thor or magic beans. So, i doubt anyone is “relying on science to justify not believing in god”, if they are that isn’t a very good reason. We don’t believe in god(s) because there is no evidence to back up that claim

For the record, I’m not a believer, nor am I a disbeliever, I consider myself an agnostic.

Well, I Missed Posting a Day

So as a bonus, today you will get two and because it is the Summer Solstice (AKA the longest day of the year) I will have plenty of daylight to accomplish them.

I’m blaming it on the ‘roids. My synapses are firing all over the place, trust me, the stream of consciousness that is going on it there is deafening and somewhat alarming.

My lovely bride has to except a little of the fault for the ‘no post’ too though. When I got home from work she was already a bit hungry, so we did the evening meal an hour early. Compound this with the fact the FRS are playing ball in the mid-west, so their games are starting an hour later, I now had 2 extra hours to kill until I had something to occupy my brain enough to tamp down the cacophony.

I tried reading a book I’m partway through on the Kindle and I couldn’t concentrate on the sentences because all I could think of was poor Jeff Bezos who is just missing out on being the richest man in the world with only Bill Gates left to catch. I wanted to help, but didn’t think running down to Whole Foods and buying a gallon of milk that the money would get back to him yet.

I tried watching a Season 6 Episode of VEEP, but it had already started to lose it luster before my head got this N20 shot. I’m just watching now out of morbid curiosity to see if body man Gary ever gets to hook up with Ex-President Selina. Sort of like I keep reading the Beetle Bailey cartoons hoping for Beetle and Miss Buxley to do something besides casually date.

With still another hour to go, I thought maybe plugin some headphone to Radio Paradise and just close my eyes. Well that worked. Only too well. I fell asleep. Donna went inside to accomplish some stuff, clean up after dinner, etc. and when she came back an hour later I was snoring peacefully. Thinking I needed more rest, she suggested taking a shower and going to bed early. This sounded like a great idea. So, about the time the Red Sox came to bat in the top of the first inning in Kansas City I was pulling the covers up to my chin and exhaling slowly. Perfect.

Until about 12:23 AM this morning when my eyes snapped open. Suffice to say there is another 10,000 words I can write here to tell you all about the machinations I tried to get back to sleep and all the random, tangential thoughts that developed in my head, but you’d be exhausted reading them. And frankly I think that they exhausted me enough that I did manage to fall back sleep about 3 hours lateranyway…