Earl Cooley – RAnt(hony)-ings

Departed Friends

For Earl

As I look back over my history on Facebook, it is your contributions that still make me laugh years later. Make me laugh or make me think that maybe you understood better than I did what it was I should be doing with my life. I wish you were here so that I could tell you; you made a difference, and I miss you.

I am slowly giving up my obsession with death. It is hard to accept that life goes on when it clearly ends suddenly and unexpectedly all around us everyday. Living in anticipation of dying is a boring way to live. I almost want my death to show up in a way that I hadn’t expected. My last thought being “well, I didn’t expect that.” Almost.

As my friends and family slowly drop away, leaving me walking forwards more and more alone, I begin to wonder at the journey itself as it continues. Why does it continue? Maybe I should be trying to enjoy it more? Making more of a difference myself? Time to get back to the writing. It is one of a very few things that I can still do. Can still do and might make a difference.

Beware the Woo: Karma

Karma is about feeling comfortable, rather than acknowledging the cold hard truth: he got away with it. Sometimes, people get what they deserve, sometimes they don’t. If we value truth over superstition, only then can we learn more about how to actually avoid these problems in the future. As long as we have perspective by which is determined by probability, there is no reason to think that karma actually exist.
Josh Bocanegra

Why Coincidences Are Meaningless – Richard Dawkins (YouTube – Dailymotion)

Probability is the best avenue of attack against the concept of Karma, but the fact that bad happens to good people demonstrably defeats the notion of Karma.

Supernatural? Try zero-time quantum tunneling, for example. heh.
Earl Cooley III

Postscript

Comments from Facebook on this image I shared. I miss Earl.

Hillary the Winner?

I think she’s the frontrunner. The one to beat. I have no delusions about what is important to Hillary not being Hillary (because it clearly is) but her leadership at state proved she’s capable of doing the job of President. Please conservatives? Please continue chanting #Benghazi. It wins her case for her. What her goals will be is going to be anybody’s guess, because the polls haven’t been written that will tell her that yet.

Sing Benghazi to the tune of Volare.
Earl Cooley III (we miss you Earl)

She’s going to do what the polls tell her will win the nomination and then the election for her. It’s what Bill did when she worked him like a puppet while he was President. She’s a savvy politician. I don’t like her, but I will vote for her if she gets the Democratic nomination.

Edited to clarify what “win” meant. Barring unforeseen inclusion of some dark horse that might actually win the general (read as “someone even more liberal than she is”, because polling shows that’s the trending direction for Presidential politics) I expect to be voting for Hillary in 2016.

Hillary doesn’t stand a chance against Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush will not secure the nomination of his own party; that is how clueless he is. You can bank on that prediction. Even if he were to do that, there is no way the country will elect another Bush. This just isn’t going to happen with 80 percent of Americans still hating the last Bush.

Given the polling, the Republicans would be fools to back him.

Facebook.

Editor’s note

The only question that remains is could any other Democrat have won either the primary or the general? Because she didn’t win the election. Well, she did win the the election because she received 3 million more votes than Donald Trump. Unfortunately winning the election isn’t how you get to be president in the United States.

Bingled?

Microsoft, you are not fooling anyone. We know Scroogled is you and you are even more screwgled by Google than any of us are; because they can make money on the internet and you can’t figure out how to do that. Drives you people in Redmond nuts, doesn’t it?

Microsoft “Scroogled” Gmail ad

FWIW, I wouldn’t use Bing to find anything including my own ass, and I wouldn’t by an Xbox if it featured an exclusive for the second coming of Christ. I’m only waiting for a better OS to show up (and please don’t suggest Linux, because I’ve tried it) and I won’t be using any products with your name on it.

Facebook

Looks like those cool Scroogled coffee mugs are still out of stock.
Earl Cooley III

Addons Aren’t Just For Raiders

I was telling a story at dinner today. The people I was having dinner with were asking me why I wasn’t interested in the game they were playing now that they had given up World of Warcraft. Why won’t you come join us doing this new thing? So I went through this parable about a know-it-all player who insisted that while he had a particular add-on installed for the game, he didn’t need it for the dungeon fight we were in even though we had failed in the attempt to complete the dungeon three times already. We were failing because this player and his fellows in our pick up group couldn’t manage the mechanics of the fight. The player informed me this is my 4th 90, so I know this fight. To which I responded well this will be my 8th 90, and I should have 10 by the end of the week; and I always run and pay attention to Deadly Boss Mods for this fight. The part I left out of the dinner conversation was his riposte of well, that sounds like overkill.

Wait a minute. So four characters leveled to max level in the game is informed, but ten characters is overkill? I wonder what his response would be if I told him I ultimately want to have twenty-two max leveled characters in World of Warcraft? He’d probably be sending the guys in white coats to look for me. Never mind that discounting the higher number of end-game characters as overkill introduces some logical fallacy or other into his original argument that experience grants skills that rule out the use of addons. After all, it’s the principle of the thing.

But this story does answer the question of why I wasn’t interested in the game they were playing. Have you noticed the way I play games? I really don’t think I should start in on any more MMO’s or games that might take up my time. I simply don’t have time for another game to play.

Postscript

Another Facebook status backdated to the blog. I achieved that twenty-two character goal:

WoW – Long Quest Completed

I have never maxed out a character in a MMO; I’m usually too busy with crafting to concern myself over endgame efficiency.
Earl Cooley III

Words to live by, Earl. Now that I am focused on living, I increasingly question the amount of time I spend playing games that aren’t exercising my brain or putting me in communication with people that I love. I wasn’t focused on living when I started playing. I was focused on dying. I am slowly growing out of that obsession.