First Chapter of Life is Lawful: The Memoirs of Grisham Clancy

Chapter 1

A man with wild eyes burst into the office.

"Well fuck me," I muttered and reached for my gun. It wasn't there because of a prior incident. Stupid progressives left me defenseless, I thought.

"How can I help you?" I ventured.

"They're after me," he said. He clanged on my desk, leaning toward me. His eyes were pink like he was on drugs or hadn't slept for days.

His disheveled shirt, messed up hair, and scraped knuckles gave me an idea of what he wanted. "I don't do criminal law anymore," I said. But upon noticing his Rolex and the fashionable bag hanging over his shoulder I added, "I can read up on it, though." This won't be pro bono, I promised myself.

"I don't need a lawyer," the man raved. "I need help."

"Uh, you know this isn't a psychologist's office, right?"

"Rose recommended you," he took something out of his pocket and waved it in my face. "She said you helped her with the government."

I saw my card. One of my freeloading clients decided to ease her conscience with a referral. I remembered the old lady. They'd been sending her three social security checks under different names for years and finally grew wise to the fact. Of course she couldn't pay them back. Not with all those cruises she took.

"Oh, well in that case," I said, opening a new browser tab and going to Google.com, "what seems to be the problem?"

As the man stammered about hearing voices and being followed, I typed how to get rid of crazy people without a confrontation in the search box.

"You're taking notes?" the man said.

"Uh, yeah." I scanned the search results. The sooner I get rid of him, the sooner I can get back to enjoying one star reviews on Amazon, I thought.

"Is that safe?"

"Oh, absolutely."

Google returned nothing helpful. I changed my search to making crazy people leave.

The man cocked his head, as if listening. "They know I'm here. Take this." He whirled the bag over his shoulder and dropped it on the table. It threw my pile filing system into chaos. Before I could object he took out several crumpled sheets of paper and wads of cash. He gave me a piercing stare, grabbed his bag, and disappeared out the door.

"Wait. What?" I said to the empty room.

The phone rang and I reflexively answered. "Clancy."

There was a man's voice, but I had trouble hearing him over my beating heart.

"Sorry, can you repeat that?"

"Mr. Clancy, my name is Chuck and I'm calling from Consolidated Energy. Collections Department."

Shit.

"Sir, your account with us is in arrears. I'm calling to give you one last chance to pay your bill before we're forced to cut your power."

That didn't help the pounding in my chest.

"How much do I owe you again, Jeff?"

"It's Chuck, sir. That's $4,982.26."

"What?" My wits slowly returned. "I don't use that much electricity. Do you think this is a marijuana growing operation? What do you charge per watt? Are you using some kind of 'green' technology?"

"Sir, a lot of your bill is interest and penalties. The final notice included a breakdown. Would you like to make your payment now? Since your last check bounced, I am authorized to take your credit card only."

I glanced at the unpaid bills the lunatic made a mess of. One of the threatening envelopes with a bank logo reminded me the credit card wouldn't work.

"Sir?"

I got an idea.

"Did you file form SRV 379-J with the Department for the Aging?"

"Sir?"

"Are you aware this is a law office? One of my clients is on special assistance and would suffer great hardship if you cut my power. That's Administrative Code section 3896 paragraph A subsection 29(g). Did you also—"

"You will have copies of those forms within a week," the man said with a sigh and hung up.

I dropped the phone and wiped my brow. Where are my meds? They rattled in their container as I struggled with the child safety lock. It came loose with an unpleasant grating sound. I downed two blood pressure pills with vodka and slumped in my seat. My heart slowed enough not to warrant beta blockers.

My attention turned to the money, tight rolls of Benjamin Franklins. Hundreds of them in each roll. At least ten rolls. I swallowed and decided to take a beta blocker after all.

With a comforting heat traveling down my throat and into my gut, my head moved back and forth between my unpaid bills and the wads of cash like I was saying no to one of the slower locals. After a long time my stupid middle class morality prevailed. Or maybe it was just motion sickness. Whatever the case, I decided to return the money. A decision I regret to this day.

My chair creaked as I got up to gather the money. I paused to glance at the crumpled papers—drawings of brains with a bunch of writing. The fuzzy text reminded me of the old xeroxes they used to hand out at school when I was a kid. Resisting a sudden urge to sniff the papers, I threw everything in the safe.

My secretary was busy at her computer, a phone between her ear and shoulder. "I know, right?" she said, typing.

"Hey Tracy," I said. It took me ages to remember her name. I have this condition where I forget names of regular people and things. I don't recall what it's called.

She paid me no mind.

"Tracy," I knocked on her desk.

"Hold on a sec, he wants something," she said into the phone, grabbing it and looking up. "What do you want?"

"The man who was here, did he leave any information?"

Tracy furrowed her brow. "What man?"

"The tall guy with the white hair, kind of homeless looking..."

She shrugged and turned back to Facebook. "So anyway..." she resumed her phone conversation.

"Okay, then," I returned to my office. I've never been a boss before, but I don't think it's supposed to be this hard to get people you're paying to do their job.

I almost fired her at the start, but she got all weepy eyed and begged for another chance. I gave in. Then, one day I saw her drinking diet soda. I pointed out it wasn't working. I suggested she might as well drink the real thing.

"I'm pregnant, you asshole," Tracy had said.

That was ten months ago. She's obviously grifting me, but I know if I get rid of her she really will be pregnant and there's all kinds of liability there. Plus, how's she going to support the kid without a job? Send it to public school? No one deserves that.

"Now what was that old hag's name?" I muttered as I searched my computer for the Social Security scammer's contact info.

I dialed Rose's home phone number, clearing my throat. I hoped I wasn't getting a cold. Summer colds are the worst.

Rose wasn't picking up. It appeared she didn't have an answering machine. I cradled the phone after the dozenth ring. Maybe she has caller ID, I thought. Her house wasn't far. I refilled my flask and decided I could use the walk.

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Here's the blurb:

Broke lawyer Grisham Clancy enjoys reading 1 star reviews on Amazon. When a man barges into his office, ranting about the government and voices in his head, Clancy doesn't know his life is about to change. He takes the case against his better judgment. He smells a medical malpractice suit. And having a paying client for once is a welcome change. Records go missing. Someone follows him. His client has been lying to him. Maybe he's in on it. Now Clancy hears the voices too.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories:

Dark Comedy
Conspiracies
Hard Science Fiction 

Everything's Falling Apart

In article after article in professionally edited publications, like the NY Times, WSJ, Financial Times, and so on, I spot typos and grammatical errors. This is reflective of general society, which is falling apart.

But what I saw today takes the cake. The headline in The Telegraph is "G20 finance ministers gather as time runs out." It's mostly about France. So having a picture of the Arch of Triumph (or of some other French architecture) is expected. But what are we to make of the picture with which we're presented?

What's shown in the photograph isn't in France. It's in Pyongyang, North Korea. The way we're going, we'll be there soon.

Super Awesome Zombie Conspiracy continues

"Remain Calm!" the followup to "The Heist," is now up on Amazon. It's coming to Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Sony, etc soon.

Deputy Ross returns to town without the fugitives Jake and Trevor, but he doesn't come back empty handed. He brings a new car. He also happens to be carrying the virus that causes zombiehood, zombieism, consumeritis, or whatever the politically correct term is for the disease that causes one to become a zombie. It is up to Stella to protect her granny and to get her boyfriend Jake to return and rescue her.

With 20% more zombies and 100% more nudity, “Remain Calm!” is a continuation of the unreasonably popular "The Heist."

Congrats to the Book Giveaway Winners

The House of Rejects book giveaway has ended. There were 863 people vying for 10 books! I never expected so much interest. The books will be shipped today or tomorrow.

If you still want to read the book and are a cheap bastard :) (just kidding!) it's available for free for a limited time at Smashwords in every conceivable eBook format with the code SSWSF.

Free House of Rejects eBook for a limited time and sales update

From now until the end of September you can download House of Rejects for free from Smashwords in Kindle (mobi), PDF, Epub, LRF, and PDB formats. Signing up takes about a minute, and unfortunately you have to put in a real email. But other than that, the novel is available for free with this coupon code: NW93F

If you read it and like it, please post a review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Goodreads, and wherever else you like to shop.

The novel made it to the top 10 in two Amazon categories! Can it reach number 1?

Women Read More Fiction than Men and or More Women Read Fiction than Men

The book giveaway for the House of Rejects, which ends on July 27, is going far better than I expected. With over a week left, 174 people have already signed up. I had been worried that there would be no interest at all.

"Oh, silly," said my wife. "Of course they'll want to read your book." Then she pointed to something we both thought was interesting. Almost all of those who signed up for the giveaway are women. For every 25 participants about three or four are male. The rest are female. Or so I gather from the names and pictures.

This made me think about whether there's something about my book that attracts more women than men. So I looked at the other giveaways. Same result. More women than men signed up to win the other books too. I guess I'm not special.

But now I'm curious. Are there more female readers out there, or is Goodreads an anomaly? Off to Google!

From NPR:

Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain.

Book groups consist almost entirely of women, and the spate of new literary blogs are also populated mainly by women.

From the Telegraph:

A study of reading habits showed almost half of women are 'page turners' who finish a book soon after starting it compared to only 26 per cent of men.

The survey 2,000 adults also found those who take a long time to read books and only managed one or two a year were twice as likely to be male than female.

I learned something new today. But why did it take so long to see? Maybe it was bias.

Google Makes Us Dumber?

The headline says "Google Is Making Us All Dumber," but the article is about memory loss.

The study finds that when we know where to find information online, we are less likely to remember it or recall that information. Instead just relying on conducting a quick search.*

Since when is not being able to remember something a sign of stupidity? The dumbest person in the world can also have the best memory, no? There's nothing contradictory here. And then there's the quote from Einstein: "Never memorize something that you can look up."** That sounds like the smart thing to do, at least from the standpoint of efficiency.

Stupidity is lack of intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new situations. It's also the skilled use of reason. Another definition is the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment.

Is Google impairing this ability? I'd argue for the opposite. Google is becoming a virtual extension of our brain. While scary I think that's pretty cool.

But judging from my having to look up the definitions of dumbness, stupidity, and intelligence, maybe the author has a point.

* Is that a sentence fragment? Are news articles ruining our grammar?

** A classic appeal to authority. But I wonder, why do people cite Einstein for things other than physics? Because he was a brilliant physicist he was an expert in everything else? Let's cite someone else to help me out. Dear old Nietzsche to the rescue: "If one has become a master in one thing one usually for that very reason remains a complete bungler in most other things; but one thinks precisely the opposite, a fact experienced already by Socrates. This is the drawback that makes association with masters unpleasant." But I think that quote applies much more to Nassim Taleb than Einstein. You don't believe me? Try having a conversation with him about something. And it doesn't apply to me because I'm not an expert in anything!

House of Rejects Book Giveaway

I'm giving away 10 copies of my novel House of Rejects at Good Reads. If you want a chance to win and live in the US, there's more info here.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

House of Rejects

by Devin Hobbes

Giveaway ends July 27, 2011.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The Heist -- Short Story available for free on Goodreads and Smashwords

"The Heist," a riveting tale about a criminal, his well meaning friend, and a few zombies is available for free at GoodReads (PDF) and Smashwords (multiple formats, including epub and Kindle).

A couple of guys on the run for robbery find a deserted town. The cash registers are full, and the bank's door is unlocked. Jackpot!

But what's with the army signs? And are the people really gone?

It's about 10,000 words. And did I mention it's free?

A note to readers: If you think you've encountered any misspellings, grammatical errors, or similar things, you are wrong. That's not what they are. They are improvements upon the English language.

House of Rejects

My novel is finally out in electronic form. House of Rejects is available on Amazon (Kindle), Barnes and Noble (epub--Nook), Smashwords (Kindle, Nook, Sony, PDF, and a bunch of other formats), and in a few months on iTunes and probably other places. I'm told the physical version will be out by August.

The novel takes place in the early 1990s during the first Bush recession. It's a coming of age story about a kid, Roger, who gets taken in by an eccentric family after he loses his parents.

Here's the back cover description:

Roger hates the third grade. Dealing with bullies, incompetent teachers, and tyrannical administrators is bad enough. Worse still--far worse--he loses his parents. All Roger wants is some stability and a place to call home. He gets his wish when his best friend Tommy's family takes him in. His relief is temporary, however, as the family has problems of its own.

Chaos reigns. Led by an angry Pomeranian and by a former professor obsessed with conspiracy theories and shopping, the family is always in trouble. Repo men lurk around every corner. Notices from the government clog the mailbox and court summonses decorate the front door. There is never enough money for anything--except for the weekly, circuitous tour of the outer boroughs, a shopping spree, and a quick stop at a fancy restaurant. Now the family might lose its house with no place to go.

Determined to save their home, Roger and Tommy hatch a number of schemes. There's the candy selling scheme, the organic lemonade stand, and the bank robbery. Will they succeed?

I haven't read the book myself, but I'm told it's good. If you think you've encountered any misspellings, grammatical errors, or similar things, you are wrong. That's not what they are. They are improvements upon the English language.

Everyone's a Photographer

Everyone's a photographer these days. Thanks, digital cameras.

Everywhere you go there's a woman crooking her head and awkwardly angling her body to take a picture of a sticker, graffiti on a light pole, or a puddle. Or there's some guy stooping next to a sleeping homeless person, trying to get the perfect shot.

They go home, these photographers, these documentarians of urban decay, and select out of the hundreds the one or two pictures that aren't terrible. Next, they fiddle with them in Photoshop.

From there the pictures go up on Facebook because the photographer never reads the fine print--they're not lawyers! They're artists!--or maybe they just don't care about their copyright; that's such a capitalist social construction anyhow. Then all their friends comment on how pretty the picture is. Maybe they say something about the composition's depth and profundity or use some of the bullshit theoretical language they heard in college.

After receiving enough praise to temporarily fill the void that is their core, they send the pictures out to small college and indie magazines that have an interest in publishing such things.

At these fine establishments, editors with voids of their own sift through the submissions. After several lengthy meetings at which no doubt even more bullshit theoretical language--whatever Frenchified post-Marxist nonsense is currently in fashion--is used and names of obscure academics and artists are dropped, a few of the “pieces” are selected for publication: a shadow on the crumbling sidewalk, some graffiti on a wall, a homeless guy eating, a cloud reflected in a puddle reflected in a mirror reflected in a store window.

After notifying the photographer, the editor sends the pictures to the guy who does the layout. He thinks he's the shit. He probably has a several piercings on his face and a tattoo that the girls who've contracted herpes from him think shows his sensitive side. Perhaps he's working on a theory of the internet that incorporates Martin Heidegger's ideas on technology. He's a philosopher, this layout guy. But he's practical enough to report back to the editors because their resolution is too low for printing.

The editors inform the photographer. This artist, perhaps over coffee in some a trendy neighborhood, whips out his iBook or iSomething-That's-Constructed-By-Slaves-Under-Conditions-So-Terrible-That-Even-China-Complains-About-Them, opens the picture, saves it in a different file format that takes up more disk space, and sends it back to the editor. A couple of tables over, an editor's iPhone beeps. He puts down his own fair trade beverage to check his email. Satisfied, he forwards the picture to the layout guy.

The layout guy pauses summarizing his thesis to a wide eyed undergraduate he's trying to lay to check his own iPhone. He writes back to the editor that the picture's resolution doesn't change when you make the file size bigger.

The editor forwards the message to the artist. The temporary seal on the void breaks. Thoughts of suicide, revenge, rejection and so on fill the photographer's head. Maybe he takes an extra dose of the chemicals his mental health provider prescribed him. Maybe he channels these feelings into something he thinks is positive, like going out to find more homeless people to photograph--after changing the camera settings to a higher dpi. Maybe he gives up and does the world a favor by killing himself.

What he doesn't know, however, is that published or not, all the people that would have seen his picture have seen it already.

How to Copyright Your Novel

If you're wondering how to copyright your novel, short story, poem, painting, song, or some other creative work, you probably don't know that you already own the copyright.

In the United States, anyway, as soon as you create some original work, provided it's not a work for hire, you own the copyright. It's straight from the theory of property by John Locke--the British philosopher, not the bald guy from Lost.

So what you really want to do is not to copyright your work (congrats, you already have it!), but to register your copyright. The place to do that is the US Copyright office.

You don't have to register your copyright, but the $35 fee is a small price to pay to settle future disputes.

For example, say you write a novel and let someone read it. That person might turn out to be a scoundrel who goes to a publisher and claims he wrote the novel. It's published, the guy gets rich and famous, and you get nothing. So you go to court. Among the things you have to prove is that you are the copyright holder. This goes much easier if you registered your copyright with the Copyright Office than if you didn't, because

In any judicial proceedings the certificate of a registration made before or within five years after first publication of the work shall constitute prima facie evidence of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate. 17 USC 410 (c)

 But beware, dear creator, of some potential technical difficulties waiting for you at the Copyright Office website:

Pressing the back button and not panicking usually solves the issue.

I'm Back

Six posts and a two year hiatus. But I'm back.

What've I done in the meantime? I wrote a novel, a few short stories, read a whole bunch of books, passed the bar, and got a master's degree in worthlessness (obviously it's called something else, but listing it on my resume solidifies my un-employability).

I also gave up my Eve Online addiction, where I was a space pirate. It's an awesome game and definitely worth playing (and free if you're even slightly good at it), but it takes time away from everything else. Time is the most precious commodity, or so people say.

Paranoid With Windows

I switched over from Windows XP to Linux (Ubuntu, Linux for people) several months ago. Occasionally I use other computers, those with Windows and Internet Explorer. It just struck me how paranoid I was as a Windows user.

When searching for something on Google, for example, I wouldn't go to sites that had something suspicious about them. I avoided most lyrics sites, and other pages with lots of cookies, and so on. And with good reason--after being bombarded with pop-ups and viruses, having to load Windows in safe mode to perform virus scans, and freaking out about keyloggers and that my personal files were compromised, I learned my lesson: with Internet Explorer, only go to sites you heard of. Don't download email attachments, not even from people you know.

Press alt f4 with those pop-up ads, don't close them with your mouse, or else they'll install something on your computer. Update your virus scanner (which doesn't work anyway. No antivirus software ever prevented viruses for me), reboot. Update your spyware scanner, reboot. Run a couple of firewalls. And so on. Without all those scanners and firewalls, your Windows computer is in serious peril, as that little red shield thingy on your taskbar will tell you. With all those scanners and firewalls, your computer is still in danger, but it runs real slow. Most of your CPU and RAM is used to do background scanning. Then the stupid thing crashes, or your firewall malfunctions and you have no internet access. So you have to reboot yet again.

With Ubuntu, however, I'm starting to forget all these things. I'm starting not to fear viruses. I just surf, without constantly looking over my shoulder. Software updates come daily. Having to reboot is rare. And Linux is safer, by design and because there are fewer Linux viruses. Here is a great article on the matter.

Lost

It is a magical island indeed. The women's legs and armpits remain magically shaved, and they have an endless supply of makeup. There are some 40 people. Yet, those who aren't the main characters keep changing. And no one notices. What strange, magical happenings on Lost.

Subway Insecurity

Everyone who uses the New York City subway has no doubt heard the frequent announcements that large packages and other containers are subject to random search by the New York City Police Department. They have also seen the couple of police officers who occasionally stand at a table near the turnstiles, and randomly select people for bag checks.

If the purpose of the turnstile checkpoints is to prevent terrorism, the underlying idea might have a modicum of merit. Its implementation, however, is mind bogglingly stupid.

Suppose a terrorist carries his payload down the subway steps. Suppose there are cops at this particular entrance of the station, conducting random checks. It's hard for the terrorist not to see the cops. To prevent being searched, all the terrorist has to do to carry out his mission is to go back up the steps and either enter the same subway station at a different entrance, or walk to the next stop, which is usually a few blocks away. That's it. Some security system.

Police officers spend countless hours standing at turnstiles, bored out of their minds, checking people's bags. They might catch a few drunks and confiscate a few dime bags and knives, but that's about it. Cops' time, and the city's money would be better spent on patrols elsewhere.

There may be another reason for the random checks, and that is to get the citizenry used to such official interruptions of their lives. While this second possibility shows that whoever thinks up these policies has a brain in his head, it is just as worrisome as the first possibility, if not more so.

Obviously Unethical

I started reading a cognitive psychology textbook recently. I like brains, I guess.

One thing in particular struck me. In going over the various methods that the brain is studied (fMRI, EEG, etc), the author, some guy at Yale, mentioned studies on animals. Electrodes are placed in their brains to measure neuron activity, parts of monkey and cat brains are intentionally lesioned or lobotomized, among various other invasive techniques. The author then says, "obviously we cannot use these techniques on people."

Well why not? It's unethical, right? Why is it unethical? Obvious reasons (human rights, etc). So then why is it ethical to perform such tests on animals?

The predominant view of consciousness is the higher order thought theory. Consciousness is having thoughts about your mental states. To have a pain, you must think, however inchoate this thought might be, "I have a pain." Since animals, so far as we know, don't have higher order thoughts, they don't feel pain. Sure, they squirm, yelp, and whimper, but they don't feel pain. You see, all those things that animals do when they appear to be in pain are just preprogrammed actions.

First, we know just as little about animal consciousness as we do about human (animal) consciousness.

Second, you know who else lacks higher order thoughts? Little kids until they're around two to three years old, and many retarded adults. Why is it unethical to experiment on them, but ethical to experiment on animals?

Animals are enough like us to warrant studying their brains to learn about our own. Yet, they are apparently different enough to make it ethical to perform extremely cruel experiments on them.

Since the number of neurons doesn't seem to play a role in this demarcation, I guess it's nothing but a sort of species chauvinism. Or maybe it's even less than that, for while it's "obvious" that invasive experiments on the human brain are unethical, maybe it's only obvious because of the various laws preventing such a practice. I bet the obviousness would go away quickly if scientists were allowed to treat human subjects the way they treat their animal subjects.

The Good Word

I was approached by a proselytizer and his zombie looking assistant at Borders the other day. He was a middle aged Asian man, wearing a suit and holding a worn, leather bound copy of the Bible. His assistant, a young girl with a blank look, stayed a couple of steps behind him. I don't know if they approached everyone in the store to spread the good word or if I was one of the lucky few. Maybe they saw me as more amenable to things religious, standing in front of the Western Philosophy section with my back to the Religion/Occult area, flipping through Are we spiritual machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the critics of strong AI. The spiritual thing probably got them.

The man started out by asking me if I know of the Holy Mother. "The Virgin Mary?" I inquired. Oh no, he replied, in a tone that suggested how silly he thought I was. He proceeded to lead me through a series of complicated calculations that led to the conclusion that Mary was the Holy Grandmother. So I said, ok....

Then he asked whether I was an atheist. I said maybe. He said atheists believed in God but were afraid to admit it, and agnostics were confused. I was prepared for the next question---because for some reason this sort of thing happens to me a lot---which was whether I'd like to do Bible study with him.

The first time I was asked to participate in Bible study, in my junior year of college, I foolishly agreed. Studying the Bible, I thought, how bad could it be? I was taken to a house not far from campus. We were to study Paul's Letter to the Galatians, what I call the "infamous circumcision party letter" (because such unfortunate translations make me snicker and I think there are better things to write letters about). I thought we'd read the thing, talk about it, and come to some mutual understanding.

While the house looked normal from the outside, it was really creepy inside. With bright white walls and a bearded man with an Old Testament name, blazing, gaping eyes, and battle attire. He was introduced as being "in charge." I was led through a maze of corridors to an isolated room in the middle of which was a round table and a couple of chairs. It had a large mirror on one side that made it look like an interrogation room. The guy who took me there asked if I was comfortable. Besides the cult-like atmosphere, I replied, everything was great. Then he asked me to pray. Dude, I thought we were going to study the Bible. Yes, he said, but first we must pray. I stumbled out of the room, found my way past Abraham or Jeremiah or whatever his name was, and escaped back to campus.

All this came flooding back to me, so I said to this man at Borders, no thanks. Then he said, but the Bible is important. Scientists say that the world will end in 2012, and Nostradamus predicted... and so it went. Apparently the Second Coming will take place in Asia, and Christ might return as Chinese (Taiwan or the People's Republic?). The Bible seems contradictory, but that's only because we look at it materialistically (like capitalists or like physicalists?).

We have to be saved, said the man. But why? Jesus really cares about us, he replied. He sacrificed himself for our sins. Dude, Jesus is dead. We live in our own filth in an ocean of air on a little rock in the corner of some out of the way galaxy. No one cares about us, not even us. Secondly, if Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins, then we're saved already. If we're not saved already, then he died in vain, sir.

With great sadness in his eyes, he said, no. We're aliens. We're not from here. Bewildered, I thought to enlighten the man, and started scanning the shelves for Dan Dennett's Breaking the spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. When it couldn't be found (Borders sucks), I looked for Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion, but it wasn't to be found either.

Sensing my loss of interest, the man handed me his card and again invited me to Bible study. He asked for my name and phone number. I regret not knowing my old boss' number offhand, so I said I didn't have a phone. At such times my cell phone usually rings, but I had it on vibrate. He shook my hand and went with his assistant to find the next potential convert.

The religious meme seems to be evolving. Does the Holy Mother reflect the effect of the idea of gender equality? The alien and Nostradamus stuff seems like an interesting update. An Asian Jesus makes more sense with the word's demographics. My favorite is the scientists say the world will end in 2012 part. Well if you say scientists say it, it must be true!

The use of a silent assistant is an old adaptation. (Have religious solicitors ever come to your door by themselves, or aren't they always in groups?) This person seems like she's not doing anything. But her silent, slightly judging presence does a lot of work. Think of how much easier it is to dismiss a salesman when he's by himself. With another person present, it's almost instinctual to be more polite. The wonders of gregarious living.

Hey Ray Kurweil, when machines have the computing power of the brain, will they devote much of their resources to spreading memes too?

McCain's Speech

From cable news to the scybala of the blogging world, it seems every half-wit with access to communications equipment is talking about how McCain messed up a speech on the night of Obama's clinching of the Democratic nomination. Obama, in front of thousands of people, gave an inspiring speech, they say. Energetic, youthful, hopeful, and other adjectives that make the mediocre inhabitants of the mainstream feel all warm and fuzzy inside. McCain, on the other hand, with an ugly green backdrop, looking old in front of just a few hundred people, gave a lackluster speech.

Election campaigns sometimes amuse, but mostly exasperate me. McCain's speech writer didn't do his best work. So what? What does that have to do with what kind of president McCain would be? What does that have to do with what kind of president Obama would be?

If voters were rational, no one would care about the spectacle of speeches. All we would need to know is what policies each candidate supports. Whichever candidate whose views most closely match our own would get our vote.

But voters are irrational. They are stupid. They'd rather vote for the better speaker; the better actor; the better people person. The guy who isn't stiff, or awkward. The guy who will lie to your face to get what he wants from you. So candidates visit restaurants and factories. They ride in pickup trucks. They endlessly shake hands and kiss babies. They talk about "important" issues, like abortion and gun control.

It's all a big farce. If there were any real difference between the candidates there wouldn't be a need for this condescending approach to campaigning.

So long as voters remain morons, they deserve poor leaders. I'm happy that whoever wins the presidential election will fulfill that role.