Get Ripped Fast

I have been seeing an incredible number of ads lately trying to sell me 'free' weight loss or 'muscle gain' pills.  All kinds of sites I regularly frequent have ads linking to the following sort of page:  http://www.myrippedinfo.com/?sub=ca_160_01

So here is the question:  Why do people fall for this kind of stuff?  Everyone knows how to be thin or get really cut but we don't generally make the choice to all be beautiful people.  Before you argue with me about that, just ask yourself what would happen if you took all the junk food in your diet and replaced it wholesale with broccoli, spinach and brussel sprouts, then spent 1 hour a day every day doing a really hardcore cardio and weights workout.  Obviously even someone with a really slow natural metabolism is going to drop a ton of weight and put on a lot of muscle doing this and it isn't any kind of secret.  Everyone (nearly so anyway) knows that the 'formula' I just listed will get them thin and fit, but there are obviously huge numbers of people out there pouring money into scams like the website I listed nonetheless.

I am not saying that everyone can have a supermodel body easily, on the contrary it is quite hard.  It requires discipline and a ton of work.  I should get a lot more exercise than I do and could easily be more fit, though my diet is really quite good.  What I suggest though is that nearly anyone *can* do it if they really want to, it is a matter of priorities.  In this way I think it is similar to my financial situation in that a lot of people like to talk about it like it is impossible when in fact it is just challenging.  In this case though I have decided to have the discipline to live on very little money I don't seem to have the drive to get really fit and cut.

So when people look around at their lives and decide that they aren't willing to cut out junk food and aren't willing to exercise really hard every day they are deciding that they would rather maintain the bodies they have and the lifestyle they have.  This isn't a wrong choice, but it is a choice a lot of us make and we should recognize it as one.  Once a person has made that determination though they have the choice to either accept the consequences of their lifestyle decisions or hope for a miracle.  Of course in this case the 'miracle diet' on the cover of Woman's World (funny how they have a new miracle diet every single issue... you would think some of their readers would be getting thin by now what with all the miracles) is the miracle we are referring to, rather than some kind of divine intervention.

So week after week, month after month people buy these magazines for their miracle weight cures, use internet sites to buy harmful pills to purge themselves and any other number of desperate gambles.  There simply isn't enough money in these schemes to keep them rolling if people aren't buying in over and over so clearly many people go for sucker scheme after sucker scheme trying to get their perfect body the easy way.  After the first 4 'get fit quick' schemes horribly fail you might think that the average customer would end up getting smart and stop buying this crap, but that doesn't seem to happen.

My theory is that people need some ray of hope, some reason to believe their situation can be changed.  Perhaps it is that they accept that they won't ever change their lifestyle in the ways they would need to but still find solace in the idea that things will change and that the improvement they desperately seek is just around the corner and all that is necessary is for them to find it.  It might even be that people don't accept that others have the discipline to get really fit and that there in fact *must* be a secret out there because clearly there are beautiful people who have taken advantage of it.

I don't begrudge people their lifestyle choices most of the time.  If someone wants to eat terribly and not exercise and is okay with that choice and the inevitable results then fair enough.  I would hope for their sake that they exercise moderation and find some healthy path, but it isn't a big deal.  Far more frustrating are people who refuse to take that final step and accept responsibility for their actions and the obvious, logical results.  This is particularly true when they continue to throw themselves after mirages in the desert chasing a secret cure that clearly doesn't exist.  If an easy way to a beautiful body did exist we would all be using it already.

The path to beauty is there and we all know it.  Don't eat crap, do eat green vegetables, exercise a lot.  Do, or do not, but don't complain that it is impossible and please, please stop giving these scoundrels on the internet your money.

The perfect gift

I read a very interesting book over the holidays called Scroogenomics.  It is essentially a look at how we buy presents for each other, how effective our present buying is and what we might do to improve that.  The author takes a lot of time to show that we aren't generally very happy with the presents we get and makes some suggestions centered around giving to charity to try to get around the issue of people giving inappropriate presents to each other.

He talks about how people get better presents for those who are close to them and how distant relatives and coworkers and such end up giving really terrible presents.  This is generally true, as I am sure that in my experience the presents I get from my wife and parents are more on target than those I have gotten from more distant relatives.  This year I repeated something I did a few times in the past couple years which is to send out a list of stuff I want to a few relatives and it seemed to work out great.  I think I am particularly hard to shop for because I really don't care about stuff by and large.  Presuming a buyer isn't going to purchase a new computer for me there isn't much that readily comes to mind; most people can't buy me a faster internet connection, more time, or a better game than the one I have.  The list I sent out looked like this:

Kitchen knives - steak, butcher, whatever.  Mine aren't great.

The Matrix - movie

Spaceballs - movie

Fight Club - movie

Le Havre - board game

Poker chips

Good quality playing cards

A watch

A good gaming mouse.

Portable house phone - the kind I have now, but working.  :)

I ended up getting Le Havre, some good (but not the ridiculously expensive) cards, a mouse, a phone and a fantastic set of kitchen knives.  Bizarrely enough the kitchen knives were the most exciting part I think.  I got small ones from my inlaws and large ones from my parents (without coordination, just lucky) and they are SHARP.  It is quite the joy to work with high quality tools as I had almost forgotten what a really good knife feels like.  

So by and large my Christmas presents were not a surprise.  They were great though, and I feel like all the money and time that was spent on them was spent well.  I sent out the list expecting that a few people would pick a few things off of it, and I ended up getting a larger percent of the list than I anticipated.  So here is the question:  Is this a good model for giving at Christmas?  I feel like it is a much better way to go about things than simply guessing in most cases, because honestly I would much rather get gifts that I really like than be surprised by something that I will throw in a closet and eventually donate to some charity.  Some people are surely easier to shop for than others, and for those that are close to me every day it wouldn't be nearly so challenging to find something I don't have but do want.  For those that aren't so close to me though it seems like a better situation to give some guidelines and safe bets to make sure that presents are well received and useful rather than to have them go over badly.

I am not going to make a list for Wendy for Christmas, as I am hopeful that she will get things I will like.  This despite the present I got a couple years ago when I started staying home with Elli:

If you can't tell, it is a miniature, portable vacuum.  It didn't go over so well, though I think I managed to conceal my dismay somewhat.  I won't claim to be any better myself though, as I got her a Dr. Scholl's massage pad that fits on a chair for her, and it got given away today after 4 years and 2 uses.

The options that the author of Scroogenomics was advocating though were twofold:  First, giving to charity.  Specifically he thought that the idea of setting up a website where someone could donate to charity in general and have the person receiving the present pick which charity to send it to was a good idea.  While I certainly think this is an admirable goal, swapping dollar amounts that are sent to particular places seems like a completely different version of gift exchanges.  For one, it requires nearly zero effort on the part of the giver (which some may like and some may find offputting) and does not at all conceal the cash value involved.  I think many people really want to conceal how much they spent on presents and direct charity contributions remove that.  I certainly don't mind this sort of exchange, and in fact Wendy and I had one this year with Dodgeball Champ and Wood Nymph.  That said, it is a fine thing that is not particular related to gift giving in my mind, except inasmuch as it can fullfill the gift obligation for a year without the need for more stuff accumulating.

The other option he presented was a gift card.  The twist though is that any outstanding balance on the card after a preset time period (he suggested 1 year, which seems good) is donated to a charity.  You could buy a Home Depot gift card for example and when $5.67 is left on it you can just ignore it and eventually it goes to a good cause instead of being simply yoinked by Home Depot 4 years later.  I really like the idea of gift card money going to a charitable cause instead of corporate profits because it allows people to actually get the amount of stuff they want and know that the rest of the money is being used for something they approve of instead of just desperately buying something to finish off the card.  This is all fine and well, but it presumes that a gift card is a good gift.  I think that given how little time or thought goes into a gift card and how clumsy and inefficient a way to transfer money it is that it is a poor replacement for cash.  If you want to give me money, give me money I can use, not money that is restricted to a particular store, timeframe and value amount.

So while I approve of charitable donations over acquiring more goods and I also approve of sending unused gift card money to charities I don't think that these solutions really please me.  They don't actually fulfill the niche of giftgiving to my mind.  I do like the idea of reduction of consumption, but some romantic part of me insists that if we want to preserve gift giving we can find a way to do it better without losing the best parts of it.  It doesn't seem especially efficient or practical for everyone to send around massive wishlists to everyone who might give us a gift, but for me that seems to be working out great because the number of people who buy me gifts isn't very big.

Going forward Wendy and I are going to just eliminate buying birthday presents for each other and do something nice together on birthdays instead.  This is the sort of solution I approve of, which is basically getting rid of a mutual set of obligations that are considered burdensome.

I'll be home for Christmas

I have been lax, and will continue to be.  I missed posting yesterday and will be away for the whole of the Christmas season from the 24th to the 31st in a place without internet.  As such you must learn to live without my daily dose of whatever it is that I produce until the new year.

I find Christmas to be a very interesting time of year from a psychology perspective.  It is unique among holidays because I have both very strong attachments to it and powerful ideas of how it should take place.  Other holidays are generally met with a 'bah, whatever' from me as I generally find them to be focused around commercial ritual but Christmas is different.  Even birthdays are something I would much rather just erase off the calendar (including my own) since I just don't see the point in celebrating them.  I could be easily persuaded to make an exception for children since they seem to genuinely look forward to their birthdays but most adults either aren't very interested or actually dread the ritual of recording how much older they are.

Our holidays are part of our culture and rely on the idea of tradition to continue.  Many people find a tremendous comfort in tradition and continuing practices from the past but I do not find that a compelling reason to do things.  The idea behind these continuing traditions is to perform rituals on the basis that people in my geographic region or people of similar gene pool did in years past.  Is that really a good organizing principle for our lives and celebrations?  People in my region and who are related to me did all kinds of crazy things that I would not emulate, and yet the standard is to continue the tradition of holidays and observances despite the original reasons for those holidays being completely irrelevant to my life, being actively contrary to my beliefs and principles or just being lost in the muddy waters of history.

It isn't black and white of course, and not just because very few things are.  For example, I very much approve of Remembrance Day.  War is a terrible and tragic thing and it is becoming further and further removed from the consciousness of society as more and more generations are born whose parents never knew their country to be at war.  Taking time to respect the sacrifices of those who went to war is something I deeply respect and feel to have tremendous value, particularly because the price of peace is eternal vigilance.  Remembering how bad things can be helps us to continue to work in other countries to preserve peace and freedom throughout the world.  We are not alone in the world, and it is critically important for us to remember that.

St. Patrick's Day is the opposite end of the spectrum for me.  It is a day we dedicate to a particular colour and to getting drunk.  Whatever the origins of the holiday the modern version is merely an excuse to party too hard and poison ourselves too thoroughly with recreational drugs and I cannot see the value in that.  Not that St. Patrick's Day is something evil... it is just something which I dislike.  I would be perfectly happy if it vanished, never to return.  Of course there are other holidays that are somewhat more complicated like Hallowe'en.  While I think the idea of one night a year where everyone dresses up and takes to the streets to look at decorations and other people's costumes is a fine thing indeed, the incredible mass consumption of manufactured sugary treats is terrible for our dental (and otherwise) health and leads to people focusing purely on the acquisition of said treats during the holiday.  I find it hard to really come to a satisfying conclusion regarding Hallowe'en because it has some things I enjoy and can find no fault in, and some things I wish were different.

Then of course there are the holidays that are religious in nature like Easter.  I find it frustrating that Canada has so many holidays focused around Christianity because we are so very much a multicultural nation.  We have an incredible variety of different beliefs sets, religions and customs and yet our enforced holidays are drawn from only one religion.  Certainly there isn't any good way to correct it at this point because we clearly can't observe all the holidays of all the people within the country... we would never be at work/school.  Removing any holiday with religious overtones would drive many Christians (and many people who aren't religious but like tradition) into a frothing frenzy and since we have no system to replace them with other holidays this is just not a feasible option.  Realistically we are stuck with the holidays we have until our culture changes substantially and the prevailing attitudes towards them shift and I have no reason to think that will occur any time soon.

Christmas though is not a holiday I am ambivalent about, nor one that is really religion based, nor one that has intrinsic value to itself such as Remembrance Day does for me.  Of course many people might argue with some justification that Christmas is a religious holiday, but since Santa Claus, Christmas trees, gift exchanges, snowmen, and many other Christmas traditions are all pagan holidays (or things we made up very recently) it is hard to argue that the nativity display in the corner of the room really makes this a religious holiday.  By and large very little attention is paid to the Christian religion portion of Christmas and a lot is paid to the secular portion of the holiday.  For me Christmas is about travelling home to see family.  I could be perfectly content getting rid of the present exchange, the decorations, the traditional turkey dinner and most other parts of the holiday, but going home to see my family each year is something I place tremendous value in.  The thing is of course that I could go home any time during the year, Christmas is just a very convenient time to do it because many other relatives also travel in during that time and I get to see more people.  I don't *mind* presents and decorations and turkey though.  In fact I do enjoy those things, it is just that they are completely secondary to the main event for me.  The idea of a holiday dedicated to travelling to visit one's family, renewing old relationships and building new ones is wonderful in my eyes, and whether or not that holiday comes with a specific meal or other customs isn't so important.

I did buy a tiny tree for our condo so that we would have a Christmas tree up and I am getting presents for people so clearly I am participating in the balance of the holiday.  Much like Faith though, I am constantly wondering about what we would do if these holidays were removed.  If we did not have tradition but were simply exposed to all of the various holidays celebrated around the world what would we choose for ourselves?  I believe I would choose a holiday that revolved around family gatherings, but the rest of the trappings of Christmas are really random.  Considering that line of thinking I intend to support the parts of holidays that have intrinsic value, things that I would want to have and do regardless of tradition.  I also will continue to participate in parts of holidays that have no particular downside since doing so will please other people I care about.  I will however not support holidays that either are pointless or actually negative in value simply because it is generally the thing that is done.  I suppose I was probably already doing that anyway.

Internet rock star

Here is a link to a wonderful thing on the internet:  Tim Minchin - White Wine in the Sun.

Tim Minchin is an artist/comedian who has all kinds of wonderful things posted on the web.  His style of thinking and his pointed criticisms are things I find tremendously familiar as they are usually things I have thought of myself or heartily agree with when I do hear them.  Wendy and I first saw his work last night and we sat together and just watched his performances on youtube for a good hour absolutely entranced.  You might think that someone putting on a variety of performances espousing views I generally completely agree with would make me happy, and yet I found it mostly made me sad.  I sat for awhile and thought about why this would be, and what exactly was going on in my head.

The thing is, Tim Minchin is successful.  He is an Internet rock star, the sort of person who is widely viewed on youtube, downloaded and linked all over the place and puts on huge live performances.  He has won many awards for his work.  Certainly he is not universally loved as his performances are absolutely not safe for work and have very distinct political and religious points that will certainly alienate a good chunk of the population.  That said, this is an example of someone I could be.  He is of a similar age to me and seems to have many compatible viewpoints and yet by most standards he is successful and I am not.  The things Tim Minchin wants to do are things you can get famous for doing, and he obviously has the drive to do those things in front of huge crowds and pump them for a lot of money.

So why exactly does this make me sad?  There are many, many people far more famous and rich than this man and they have no impact on me.  There are many reasons I expect, but for sure the similarity in age and viewpoints would be one as I can more easily identify with him.  The other main point would be that he is doing something he obviously cares about and is pushing the limits of his talents.  It is certainly true that people are happier when they are working on things that they are excellent at and less so when they are struggling with things they are poor at.  I think seeing someone who is in some ways superficially like myself who is able to find a way in his life to throw himself so thoroughly into his dreams is what really makes my jealous side rear its ugly head.

I *really* want that.  I have the hunger to be the best, to push my limits and to know that I can stand with anyone in the world and know I am their equal.  There are times in the past when I have been in that zone, where I knew that there was absolutely no one who could match me at the task I was performing and the feeling is tremendous and quite unmatched.  The thrill of unrivalled excellence is one many people search for, but I don't particularly envy star quarterbacks or company presidents.  It is the geeks who have a firm belief in science and rationality, those who see the world the way I do and turn that with their desire to grandstand for the masses into something wonderful that make me see what I could be.

If I wanted to I could be that person.  There are so many things I could do if I wanted to, and yet I do not.  I am quite certain I could be a force at poker if I set my mind to it.  The three things I do are understand people's minds, do mathematics and play games.  I am quite sure that I could be devastating at poker, and yet I am not.  I could write books, I could create articles and make literary works of beauty, and yet I do not.  I have the facility for music, and if I practiced for half a dozen years I am sure I could master an instrument.  The thing is, I do not do these things and I don't want to do these things.

I don't want to be a musician on tour as I think I would be miserable.  I could be a professional poker player if I really really tried, but the life of a poker professional is not one I want.  I could write books but the task of sitting down and creating such a large document does not appeal to me;  I instead wish to leap back and forth from topic to topic, hitting just the points that appeal to me and seem powerful.

I know this.  I know that these other lives I could live are not what I want and that if I did want them I should reach out and take them.  This is true and yet I still have these pangs of regret, this sorrow that I cannot share these successes that others enjoy.  In some kind of ideal world I would be able to truly internalize my understanding of my preferences and look upon other people's successes with pride and joy, untainted by any jealousy.  In the version of my mind I strive to achieve I would be able to set aside all these things as goals I am not invested in and take complete satisfaction in the life I live.  That, I think, is by far what makes these things sad for me:  The knowledge that I have not managed to mould myself into the being I wish to be.  For even if there is a small tinge of regret then I have failed, for had I been stronger, better, perfect that regret would not be there.

The mind I want to have can take happiness in my own choices and understand without regret that there are prices I have paid and options I have weighed.  The fact that that mind is almost certainly unachieveable is no barrier, I am quite happy to set standards for myself that are beyond what any human can accomplish.  I really don't know where this burning desire to achieve beyond any rational human standard comes from.  In most of my life I am quite happy with doing it well, and making it good enough.  When it comes to my mind though nothing is ever 'good enough'.

You might suggest that being sad because I have not lived up to standards that are impossible (by my own admission, as well as everyone else) is a failure in rationality.  Setting standards that are unreachable and make me unhappy on occasion seems like a poor choice.  And yet I must quote Rounders here, from the scene where the main character asks his judge mentor "Do you ever regret your choice?" and the answer is

"What choice?"

Evil will always triumph, because Good Is dumb.

The title of this post is from a movie, can you guess which one?


Where does your average person get their moral viewpoints from?  This is a question I have been pondering, particularly as it relates to religion.  I think that generally speaking people have a fairly generic, common set of moral viewpoints with a few outliers here and there, but that people's views of *where* their moral guidelines and sensibilities come from varies tremendously.   It is my firmly held belief (for reasons I will outline here) that even though people have incredibly varied ideas of how someone should decide moral issues that they pull their actual day to day moral decisions and feelings from very common sources.


So where do people think they get their morals from?  Many or most people would claim that their morals come from their holy books.  Even those who are very casual religiously often suggest that their decisions morally come from the texts their religion holds dear even though in most cases they have never even read those books.  For example, the Old Testament has all kinds of rules in it that people hold up as examples of why you should use the Bible as a authority on morality.  I will phrase them in modern terms.


- Do not kill people.
- Do not steal from people.
- Do not lie.


These are moral guidelines that every culture follows, whether or not they ascribe to the theory that their laws are laid down by some greater power.  Regardless of whether you are looking at hunter/gatherers, atheists, religious groups or any other you will find these and other similar laws.


However, there are many other laws in the Old Testament that are if not really wrong, at least extremely bizarre or incomprehensible.


- Wear tassels on your clothing.
- Do not wear clothes of mixed fibres (generally held to refer to wool and linen)
- Do not boil a lamb in its mother's milk  (there are plenty of Jewish rules drawn from this, but I honestly can't see how you can really conclude that a complex set of meat/milk separation laws is really derivable from this one phrase)


These are laws that define a culture, but are not found universally.  One of the most important points thought is that people who would list the Bible as their moral guide very rarely follow these laws.  If you really want to believe that the Bible is a authority on what you should and should not do, I would think you should obey all of it.


Here are some things in the Old Testament that virtually nobody actually believes but yet are quite clear:


- The appropriate response to finding someone collecting firewood on the Sabbath is to throw rocks at them until they die.
- When you conquer a people militarily the appropriate action is to murder every male citizen of every age, then murder every nonvirgin female, then take the virgin females for yourself.  (Moses ordered this)
- Slavery is acceptable
- Women should not be accorded rights as human beings, but rather considered property of a man


I think you would have a hell of a hard time finding anyone who actually thinks these are solid grounds for moral decisions, and yet here they are.  It is certainly true that the New Testament contains much less of the blood and destruction of the Old Testament, but if anyone is to claim that the Bible is really a source of morality it seems a bit bizarre to claim that we should only read specific portions of it to obtain that guidance.  


The fundamental issues are these:  If you go to the Bible to find support for something you believe you are not using the Bible as a source of morality, but merely a instrument of persuasion.  If you believe that any source of moral guidance is true and reliable you should go to that source and act as it suggests, not edit it and ignore anything you don't like.  A good test would be to ask "which things that the Bible advocates as moral but you personally find repugnant do you uphold?"  If in fact you do what you think is right and only quote the Bible phrases that support you then the Bible is useless, throw it out.  If you truly go to the Bible to read when you are confused and literally follow its instructions then perhaps you can claim to use it as a moral guideline... but people don't do this.


A huge component of my dislike for Bible centric morality structures is that they are often used to advocate actions I would deem immoral but are used in such ways very selectively.  For example, there are many people who are against being homosexual.  There are a huge number of people in the United States (and some, but much lower proportions in Canada) who advocate against gay rights on the basis of Biblical quotes.  To be sure, the quotes in the Bible come very strongly down on the side of 'being homosexual is bad'.  Those advocating removing marital rights from people who are gay do not act equally on all Bible moral lessons.  They do not throw stones at people who work on Sundays, nor do they openly advocate that women should be relegated to the status of 'not a person', nor do they suggest that we return to slavery.  The only conclusion that can be reached is that these people do not decide what to do strictly based on what the Bible says, but rather they decide what is right and then ignore the Bible if it conflicts and quote it if it agrees.  This is further complicated by the fact that the Bible contradicts itself in many ways, so it is possible to quote the Bible as supporting two completely opposed viewpoints.


So if even those who claim to take their right and wrong from the Bible do not, where do we get our right and wrong?  There are many options:


- What our parents tell us.  This isn't a particularly great source from a societal perspective because many parents give bad advice and there isn't going to be agreement, yet most people get their basic moral sense this way.


- What our laws say.  While obeying laws is going to generally be a good idea to make sure we all are safer, our laws have to be derived from a set of morals and guidelines we trust.


- What our cultural norms are.  Very much like obeying our parents, this is something nearly everyone does without thinking about it.  These norms can be good or bad though, and some cultural norms are considered unthinkable in other places, so there is again no consistency.


- A rational set of rules based on maximizing happiness for all members of society.  This I think is the place we have to go to for fundamental decisions.  If we assume that our goal is to maximize happiness in all citizens then we have subgoals of promoting safety, longevity, freedom, equality and sustainability.


Basic concepts like Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not lie all come naturally when you are setting up a moral framework based on maximizing happiness for all people.  You start at that point and end up setting up particular tax laws and driving restrictions but the most basic principles can simply be ones that protect people from others.  This system of deriving morals is not something new and it would not revolutionize our society.  The vast, vast majority of laws and customs are completely compatible (or close enough) with maximizing overall happiness, and those that are starkly against (women not being able to vote, slavery, discrimination based on race are examples) have generally already been struck down in most nations.  


Any time you base your moral principles on something like a particular book or a particular person's decisions you end up relying on Faith that those sources are infallible.  This is always going to be dangerous because Faith is not something that can answer questions or change based on new information or circumstances, it is accepted without question and without change.  When the world changes or we learn more we need a moral system that can respond to those changes by looking at the reasoning currently in use and modifying it should there be a logical necessity to do so.  The failure to do so prevents us advancing in our moral understanding and leaves us trapped with any mistakes that people in the past have made.  Certainly there is wisdom in old customs, old documents and tradition but unless there is a way to accuracy determine which parts are wisdom and which parts are foolishness or oppression then we must ignore them and forge onward to create new standards.


It is extremely difficult to change the way we are raised.  If someone is told their whole young life that homosexuality (or skin colour, religious choice, economic station, etc.) is wrong and a sign of evil/weakness/immorality then they are likely to believe it their whole life.  We cannot change everyone's mind, but doing so is not necessary or even advisable.  We have a moral obligation to allow people to think they way they want to think, but we have another moral obligation to prevent them from acting in ways that are wrong.  When someone advocates discriminatory or evil behaviour or laws that cannot be justified by 'maximize happiness for all' and are supported only by quotes from texts or traditions we have a moral imperative to prevent them from prevailing.  Respecting a person's right to think they way they want to is important, and preventing people from imposing injustice on others based on a piece of an ancient book that they themselves do not follow is far more important. 

The Faceroller

Quick Announcement:

I am changing the way I refer to people in my blog.  Initially I was using initials to designate various people but Wendy showed me a blog with a much better style:  Made up names.  As such I will be making up names like Sandbox Lady and The Philosopher for my friends and using those consistently throughout.  If you know me and them you will almost certainly be able to figure out who is who.

In internet gamer lingo Faceroller or Faceroll class are words used to describe things surrounding online gaming.  Specifically:

Faceroller:  A person who is so terrible at the game that their play is no better than smashing your face into the keyboard over and over.

Faceroll class:  A class (basically a job, like Mage or Warrior) that is so easy and powerful that you can defeat opponents simply by smashing your face into the keyboard over and over.

I do find it amusing that the first version implies being terrible and the second implies being amazing, but such is the randomness of internet memes.

Back in the day when I was in a WOW guild running 25 man raids in The Burning Crusade we had a problem, which was that it is very hard to find good people.  When you are doing challenging raids you absolutely need talented players who work hard to maximize their potential and have gaming talent and practice.  However, figuring out who has this without actually playing with them can be difficult.  In particular we found it hilarious that some classes had a rotation in raids that was truly, starkly simple yet people could truly suck at it.  For example, a spellcasting rotation for a Warlock:

Shadow Bolt.  Shadow Bolt.  Shadow Bolt.  Shadow Bolt.  Shadow Bolt.  Shadow Bolt.  Shadow Bolt.

You probably get the idea.  Despite the fact that only thing a warlock had to do was hit a single button over and over and over we regularly had people who did less than half the damage of our best warlocks.  It might seem unfathomable, but when the entire game consists of hitting one button every 2.5 seconds some people manage to do half as well as others.  Are they only pushing their buttons every 5 seconds?  What in the world is happening?  Because of all these terrible people wanting to play with us (and us recruiting them and then booting them out) we developed this thought experiment to determine if someone could join our guild:  The toddler test.

The idea is that we log in a warlock and map every single key on the keyboard for that computer to cast Shadow Bolt on whichever target our tank is hitting and then put a toddler in the seat.  Naturally the toddler will smash the keyboard regularly and when they do their character will shoot the boss.  All we do is invite the new player and tell them that there is a toddler playing a Warlock by smashing the keyboard and they have to defeat the toddler on the damage meters.  If they cannot defeat the toddler they will be instantly booted from the guild.  We never actually put this plan into practice, but it seemed like a hilarious (and potentially useful) way to weed out the complete incompetents.

A lot of people accuse my class and spec (Retribution Paladin) of being a faceroll class.  This is partly because we were overpowered at various points in the fairly near past and partly because our rotation is fairly straightforward for modern play.  These days no one has a rotation like the one listed above because all of the classes have been changed to require at least some skill and have some variety in what they do.  My rotation at the moment can be described as a simple priority system.  Each ability can only be used every so often, and whenever I can hit a button I do, and if several are available I hit the highest one on the list first.

Judgement
Crusader Strike
Hammer of Wrath
Divine Storm
Consecration
Exorcism

Blizzard (the folks who make WOW) puts out new dungeons and equipment and such regularly and the newest, bestest thing for me is my new Tier 10 armor.  What this does is changes the cooldown on Divine Storm from 10 seconds to a variable number that is usually around 6 seconds.  The interesting thing this does is makes the choice of abilities almost completely pointless.  I know this because I spent a hundred + hours building a huge spreadsheet that simulates combat and lets me test dozens of different rotations very easily.  Effectively my rotation becomes:

Hit something.  ANYTHING.  Just hit a button.
Now hit another button.  Anything will do.
A new button!  Or the same one as before, whatever.

So basically I go from a rotation that allows at least some thought and rewards good play to being a true faceroll class.  I can hit anything I want any time I want and it makes almost no difference at all.  Of course we know that in the old days there were people who were half as good as others so clearly a complicated rotation isn't everything.  It does make me a little sad that I will be reduced to grabbing my keyboard in both hands, repeatedly bashing my head into it and calling that strategy and play skill.  Perhaps next I should acquire a dipping bird and play WOW Homer Simpson style.  Note this change isn't making me bad, it just makes it a lot easier for me to play perfectly well while drunk or with a blindfold on.

Unexpected Consequences

6 years ago I decided I wanted to marry Wendy.  At the time we had been dating a year and a half or so and while I had no doubts she wasn't at all certain she wanted to marry again due to her first marriage ending in divorce.  I wasn't in a particular rush though and figured that I would just wait a little while for her to come around.  I never had any doubt whatsoever that she would change her mind, which will come as no surprise to those who know me as I tend to posses absolute, unshakable confidence in my ability to do whatever I set my mind to.  I waited another year or so for Wendy's mind to slowly change and occasionally brought up the topic of wedding rings and ceremonies and such to see what her thoughts were.  I ended up getting some pretty interesting information.

1.  Wendy does NOT like big raised gems.  Bad bad no no.  She especially does not like diamonds.

Hooray!  Big raised gems are expensive, (particularly diamonds) so this means I can avoid 'two months salary' type of rings.

2.  Wendy is not necessarily stuck on a ring in particular.

Cool.  I can look at bracelets, earrings, or maybe even further afield for some kind of marriage proposal symbol.  I liked the idea of such a symbol and the idea of a nontraditional type had appeal.

I set out on my quest and began secretly visiting jewelry stores.  Over the course of about 3 months I visited about 16 different places looking at just about everything they had to offer.  Since I didn't even know what kind of item I was looking at there was a lot to consider, but finally I found a tiny little shop that had a really nice gold bracelet done with 3 different colours of gold that I quite liked and thought Wendy would enjoy.  I haggled them down as hard as I could, bought the bracelet and took it home and hid it to await just the right time to propose.  I would have been willing to pay much more than the asking price for the bracelet, but I certainly am not going to put my haggling lessons from selling beds to waste!

I waited a week or so looking for the perfect time and place to pop the question, and then one night Wendy says, "I think I would really like a ring if we were to get engaged.  I don't think bracelets or earrings or whatever would work."  Argh!  Could you not have told me that 3 months ago, or perhaps waited until after I presented this bracelet to you and it was too late?!?  Now I have a bracelet I can't return and an order for a different item, which is not the situation I was hoping for.  So I go back to shopping, spending another 6 weeks or so scouring shops for the perfect thing.  This time at least I know exactly what I want though:  A gold ring with amethysts (purple being her favourite colour) that does not have the amethysts raised up, but rather inlaid.  This is a pretty specific and not particularly common request so it took quite a bit of shopping to find.  Find it I did though, and bought it and brought it home.

This time however, I was paranoid.  I decided to give her the ring that night to avoid her randomly changing her mind again.  I am not a big fan of shopping at the best of times, so buying a third engagement decoration would have been ... unpleasant.  Of course this particular night is not a great, romantic setting so I ended up just walking up to Wendy while she was playing video games and snapping open a ring box.  Thankfully I got the answer I wanted and everything was great.  It turns out she had been getting a 'going to propose to you soon' vibe from me for months and was getting a little upset that I hadn't gone ahead and done anything about it... twice accursed timing.

My state of mind in going ahead and getting married was perhaps different than most men.  I think a lot of people (men in particular, but we have no monopoly on this) really are concerned by the whole monogamy portion of marriage.  They wonder about finding another person that might be better, they think about sleeping with only one person for the rest of their lives.  I never had that issue.  I am really a one woman man, and the idea of infidelity to me is less about "that seems like a bad idea, what if she finds out?" and more about "it would be a deep personal failing for me to go back on my commitment."   It wouldn't make a big difference to the equation if she found out or not, because no matter what *I* would know, and that would make it unthinkable.  I have had at least one "Wow, if I wasn't committed I know where I would be spending the night" moment in the last 4 years, but although it is certainly exciting the temptation to actually go there just didn't exist.

There is more to a marriage commitment than just sexual and emotional fidelity though, and I did not truly understand the the sum of that commitment at the time, and probably still don't.  Through aging and making life decisions together with my wife I have come to a greater understanding of both the sacrifice I made in getting married and the associated benefits I reap.  The most important part of the marriage bond that I really failed to completely understand when I got married was this:

I must place the needs and desires of my spouse above the needs and desires of all other people.

Whether or not you choose to place your own desires slightly above or on the same plateau as your spouses' is a matter of preference and individual choice.   In real decision making I expect that virtually everyone places their own desires first, and just places great importance on their spouse's desires, above that of most other people.

This may seem obvious to everyone, but there is a difference between agreeing with a statement as printed (which I surely would have) and having a deep, visceral understanding of the cost involved (which I surely did not).  There are a couple recent events that brought me to a better understanding of what exactly I agreed to and how much it changes my life, in particular regarding three friends of mine.  I have said it before and will say it again, my friends are exceedingly important to me.  This is true because we speak a language that the vast majority of the populace simply does not.  It isn't just common experiences like SoJ farming, THAC0, moving during Flame Wreath or the Blake and Bung show, (Bung is the straight man!) it is also about mathematics, science and game theory.  It is a rare thing to find a person who can really understand all of the interests I have and as such I place high importance on the people who can.

The first two friends who gave me an understanding of this are The Philosopher and Hobo.  Hobo lived here in Toronto for quite some time and then moved away to the far east.  (Not actually the Far East, just far east of here)  It made me sad for many reasons.  When I play roleplaying games, Hobo is the Romeo to my Juliet, the Catelyn to my Eddard, the Lan to my Nynaeve.  He is also close enough to me in look that we can swap clothes for Hallowe'en and completely bamboozle our respective girlfriends, much to our shared enjoyment.  Hobo moved away for very good reasons, but it struck me that he had made a choice to follow family instead of stay with friends.  The Philosopher was a similar, though drastically less serious situation.  We lived near each other for quite some time and could visit back and forth easily.  Recently The Philosopher had the option to move into my very building but chose instead to go to a more distant part of Toronto.  Again, his priorities were not what I wished they were.

Of course, this is reasonable.  People don't place much importance on where I want them to live.  I really shocked me into thinking about marriage differently though.  For example, if I wanted to move to stay near Hobo, I could not.  I have made commitments that preclude doing that.  If The Philosopher did move near me, I could offer no guarantee that I would not just pack up and go somewhere else, and these restrictions are due to marriage.  If Wendy needs to go somewhere else for her work or education I need to follow her.  I cannot offer my friends guarantees because I have placed someone else above them, and setting all of those people who I value so much on a distinctly lower pedestal is the thing I didn't really understand when I married.  My friends cannot reasonably place their relationship with me in a place of extreme importance because I have already publicly declared that one relationship among all is ascendant.  I made a choice to live my life as part of a pair and in doing so excluded living any other way.  This may be the norm for our society but it isn't by any means the only way to organize and it certainly isn't the only way that I could be happy.

There is an upside, thankfully, which is of course that Wendy made the same commitment.  I really only understood this when I talked to Gnome a short while ago.  He was complaining about how his work sucked and I was jokingly telling him about how great being unemployed is and suggesting he try it.  Thing is though, this lifestyle I have of sitting at home writing on the internet is only possible through the bond of marriage.  There are exceptions, but by and large the average single person cannot choose the life I live.  Through marriage I have the choice to work on my projects, write my stories and do my mathematics while my wife earns our keep.  Wendy has chosen to honour my desire to be a creative slacker (someday my creations may make me money, but it isn't going to be soon) in a way that I would not have had access to otherwise.

These realizations are obvious.  You can't move across the country to live beside a friend when you are married.  It is possible to have one person work and support the other.  It is very different though to parse and accept them when written down and to have that real example in front of you.  Knowing that in future you will have to make sacrifices is not good preparation for actually having to make them.  I suppose when I got married I thought I understood it all and that it was clear what the rules were.  Like almost everything though, there is a learning curve and it turns out that this particular subject can take a long time to master.