So, here’s the problem I’m running into. All the true Christians go to Heaven during the Rapture. Wouldn’t the truly Christian thing be to stay behind and help your fellow man achieve salvation during the tribulations, or to at the very least ease his suffering as the Bible says you should? Sure it’s a little Boddhisatva, but I bet Jimmy Carter would stick around and build houses just the same. The people who want to be Raptured aren’t true Christians, and therefore wouldn’t get taken straight up to Heaven. Those who would be Raptured won’t be, because they’d choose to stay behind and be Christ-like, which is the essence of Christianity.

Ergo, even if there’s a Rapture, there won’t be a Rapture. That and there’s no biblical support for it whatsoever. You know, that too.

Why exactly is it everything Cox has OnDemand can’t fast forward? It’s not such a huge deal at the beginning of a show, but if you miss the last four minutes of an hour long show, it’s not on demand, it’s when they let you have it. It’s easier and faster to just pirate the damn show at that point, which I thought was what they were trying to avoid with this system.

When you DO try to do it, you get the “Enjoy this <network> program. FFWD is unavailable during this show.”

Fuck. You. If I want to skip ahead to where I was, I should get to. And don’t give me this condescending “enjoy” bullshit.

Cox Advanced TV-”Because we ignored the basics!”

Remember folks, when May 21st rolls around and people are freaking out about their imminent demise, we’ve been through this before. Some of us even ended up with yearbooks commemorating how hysterical certain segments of their high schools became.

This is a farce of the highest order,provided by Aetna.

If I went in for a physical – a full workup even, if I got a physical, a colonoscopy, a prostate check, and an STD screener and I came out clean, it’s a twenty five dollar office visit, standard rate. But if I have the clap or high cholesterol, it’s a diagnostic test and subject to the full deductible. In fact, I can have LESS tests done. I can just get a physical, but pay more than if I got all those tests and ordered up a physically impossible pap smear to boot because it showed high cholesterol or something that needed treatment. I could spend $500 less in actual money by reducing the number of testing supplies needed and used, but still spend more because of the result.

Now this obviously has one real purpose, and that’s to prevent me from seeking preventative care. It’s to keep me from going even though I should because while I can certainly afford the $25 to keep an eye on things, I can’t afford the full cost. So I can’t take the chance on a physical. And neither can most of the working poor, I’m willing to bet.

So…who’s still actually defending private insurance again? Why haven’t we gone to socialized medicine, where you save money by encouraging prevention and people get the health care they need?

I think this is a topic that really needs explored more. Op ed incoming?

Do you remember that warning about nightmares? This is what it was, and I fear that it’s inevitable. For your own sanity, don’t read this. I’m tempted to take a Dremel to my subconscious for it. I’m serious. It’s really “What the FUCK?” bad. Just think, as bad as it seems reading it, imagine having witnessed it in your brainspaces. I did. My occipital lobe was working overtime on this one.

I have seen the end of the world. It was brought about by the internet. Both the vision and the events. Well, maybe. The events bound to happen, the internet just facilitates.

Reborn dolls, newborn sized, play a factor, by the way. But you probably knew that. And the good folks at BME. Or maybe the unbirthing fetishists.

Oh, and so is synthetic oxytocin. Some of you already see where this is going. And for those of you that don’t, this (the reborn doll) is going into a uterus for some reason. I don’t quite know why, but I know what happens.

It will be someone who wants to be pregnant forever, possibly, as a body modification. Or just loved the feeling so much they’ll try to trick their body into thinking it is. They might just want to give birth to their reborn doll to make it more real or just carry it forever, particularly if it’s a replacement for a lost child, or a tragic case of infertility leading into full blown fucking madness. It could even be a man making an extreme mod who wants to look pregnant who finds a doctor willing to do it just so it doesn’t turn into a back alley thing. And maybe it’s one of the unbirthing fetish crowd, keeping a representation of their favorite character up there, or maybe a former lover, or even employer.

For nine months (maybe more, maybe less, of course, but let’s estimate the natural level) someone will have a saline pouch inserted into her uterus. Much like the ones used for skin grafting placed under the skin, this one will have be reasonably easy to access. The implanter (enabler?) will probably just leave the intake tubing hanging down through the os to make it really, really easy to access, though cervical dilators and a long syringe are possible I suppose. There might be hormone therapy, constant doses of progesterone, just to facilitate that “there’s a pregnancy going on!” response in the body.

On a regular enough basis, water will be added until the uterus is stretched enough for the doll, at which point the pouch will be drained, oxytocin administered, and birthing induced. This COULD be done by cesarean, certainly, but what doctor would do it? Well, I guess the same one willing to do this, if there even is one. With a not so gentle push, lubrication, and effort, the reborn doll, newborn or premie sized I can only presume, will be shoved up and in.

I’m assuming headfirst followed by external cephalic rotation. Feet first would be a shockingly painful reverse breech I imagine and could involve tremendous amounts of cervical tearing. And the other way just means a breach on the way out if there’s a return trip, though no risk of an umbilical cord prolapse at least. Just rippin’ and tearin’.

I don’t know how long the actual “pregnancy” will last. Someone may keep it in there forever, someone nine months, someone may push right back out, simulation complete, particularly if the implantation was done via c-section.

What I do know is this. It will happen. It could be Octomom who does it. And whatever comes out of that vagina, be it by induced labor or by clawing its way out of a corpse after this person falls dead is going to be the vessel of Y’golonac. That part wasn’t in the dream, but really, what else COULD happen? I’m sure some of you insist on Cthulhu, but really, and that’s not his style, he’s not into possessing avatars anyway.

I don’t download games, unless there’s no demo to show me if it runs on my PC (a fair thing to know before buying it, I’d think).

I don’t download music available in stores or reasonably available for sale on the net.

I don’t download books I don’t already own unless they’re not available on the new market anymore (I’m also not a fan of buying used from places that don’t get royalties to the author).

But if someone told me “Hey, guess what? You can torrent every god damn textbook around at this site”, I’d be all over that. No compunctions whatsoever, not even the slightest hint of guild.

Fuck you, textbook companies. Fuck your virtual monopoly, fuck your overpriced 90% shit books that I’ll barely get any use out of if any at all, and fuck your compulsory purchases. Out of the wide variety of textbooks I’ve had to buy, there are two I’d actually consider good books, and got some use out of in my class. There’s a reason everyone just rents them or sells them back as soon as the semester is over. They’re almost always shit, because they CAN be.  Start selling them cheaper to start with, or make the value approach that insane $120 price point you put on ‘em. I guarantee profits will go up when people actually buy the new one in a situation that isn’t under duress, and they’ll stop desperately hunting for torrents.

“You know you’re doing it right when you hear a click!” says the Perfect Situp commercial, one of the many exercise devices out there, advertising late at night. But you know what? That is NOT by design.

That’s got to be a case of “There’s a bit of plastic/metal we couldn’t manage to shave out of the design/our mold was bad and the cheap chinese workers left something overhanging, so there’s a clicking noise at the end of the motion. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!” Because if it was really a feature, they’d give it a switch, because there’s no way they didn’t find out in focus groups that a constant clicking noise is annoying as hell to their customers.

The guide function is further reduced. There’s no longer a button to change the viewed date (Edit: Apparently entering a number, 1-7, then pressing the right arrow key goes that far forward. No suggestion or hint of such function anywhere in the software), and no longer a return function. You just have to exit and restart the guide.

Annoying, if not critical. You what IS critical? 15 minute intervals. The new guide doesn’t support them, only full 30 minute blocks. Now 15 minute intervals aren’t a big deal on every station, but on any movie channel or on Adult Swim, they’re critical. Entire shows now go unlisted. HBO first looks, for example, may be skipped entirely, as is the second half of any 2 x 15 Adult Swim block. What’s on after Robot Chicken but before The Boondocks? What’s on after 12 oz Mouse? How about after Children’s Hospital?

Well, you’re not going to find out on THIS guide.

I’ve complained here in the past that the Cox has a habit of fucking everything up. They’ve had tremendously unresponsive software laden with mysterious bugs for ages on the DVRs, now. Last night, they surprise launched new software. No warning it was coming when it did, just a sudden shutoff of the TV, combined with a hex countdown in seconds from 6F0 that made me think the whole thing just broke.

Well, I suppose some parts of it did. All the added functionality, which is to say a slightly faster response time and a search option balanced out to ensure an overall rating of “dogshit.” The rewind and fast forward speeds are gimped horribly unless you use the fifteen minute skip, and half of the remote buttons have lost basic functions. No longer does pressing the arrow keys present the info banner/quick scroll option to set a recording. Now if you want to set the next program to record, or one running parallel, you’ll need to muck about in the guide, still prone to going non-responsive as ever. Edit:There’s a manual recording option I’ve found when you hit record, but it’s still extra time and steps that serve no function.

There’s a multitude of other complaints, mostly the fact that they key issues haven’t changed, but hey, maybe they’ve fixed the time again, so the whole of Phoenix doesn’t need to schedule a recording to run two minutes after the set time to avoid missing the end.

Ha! I actually thought, for a moment,  Cox might genuinely fix something. No, they’ll just do what they always do and screw the customer. Traffic shaping via modem disconnects, dropped features, drifting times, and more self-promotion by calling themselves, I shit you not, “Cox Advanced TV.” Nice name, but it doesn’t count until they can get rudimentary things right.

Arizona is the dumbest god damn state in the country, and I mean that in a literal manner. If intelligence tests were run, even an idealized version totally free of any bias, Arizona would be dead last in all categories.

Every single time there’s a ballot proposition on a tax increase it passes. Every time, I have yet to see a single one fail, no matter how ambiguous the function. If it just says “It’s for schools”, without any mention of how the money is to be distributed, it passes. Or if it doesn’t say that much. We just have bills that say “We want to raise property tax by three percent.” That’s it.

And they pass overwhelmingly. 10 days later, the same people will complain Obama is raising their taxes.

Fuck. Arizona.