Ironic

Since I've been without a steady source of income I usually go out to eat once or twice a week. Helps keep the spirits up, after all, mac & cheese, ramen, and bologna sandwiches can grate on you after a while. Today it was Panda Express, and the fortune in my cookie read "Be careful of extravagance." I found this strangely ironic as the meal that I was eating was one of the few extravagances that I've been indulging in for the past few months. Also, this struck me as odd because this is quite possibly the closest I've seen to a "bad" fortune in quite some time. This is one of the reasons that I don't place much faith in modern forms of prognostication, the mass market stuff never says anything bad. Since bad stuff happens to people all the time, then why not mix in some bad ones. Same for the horoscopes in the newspaper (yes mom, I'm talking to YOU), why is the worst you ever get a kind of "this WON'T be the greatest day of your life." Why not go all out and say something like "might as well give up and go back to bed now," or "be wary of buses today, they're gunning for you." I would look upon this as a breath of fresh air, and a quite entertaining way to start my mornings, but that just might be my grim sense of humor.



Speaking of bad luck, this has been a terrible month for celebrities... David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Billy Mays. And, we've still got two days to go before the month is out. Granted, given the total number of "celebrities" and the lifestyles that many of them lead, it's really not all that statistically significant that 5 die in the same month... Must just be a slow news month that this is what the media is focusing on.



News that's a little closer to home, my dog seems to have some kind of problem with his eyes, or he might just be really tired. This is a shot of him paying attention to me. A little odd to say the least. He still opens his eyes a little when he's moving around the house, but if he's not looking at something, they're closed. Have to give it a day or two to see if it gets better, then go spend money I don't really have on a visit to the vet. Hopefully he's better soon.


I did give the whole super heroes question some thought. I believe that my preferences are probably a reflection of my own aspirations. While I can aspire to be the super heroes who don't have any extra-human abilities, the suspension of disbelief goes right out the window when you start talking about magic, invulnerability, laser-eyes, etc... Plus, if I had super powers, I think the temptation NOT to help others would be just a little too strong. Not neccessarily become a super villain, using them for the detriment of others, but just giving myself the occasional leg up. Think about how awesome a construction worker Superman would be, lifting girders into place, welding them with his heat vision, able to detect structural defects with the x-ray vision, don't have to worry about getting killed by a falling brick or getting accidentally cut on the band saw... So in conclusion, I tend to like reading about the super heroes that I could become without any serious bending of the laws of reality.