Saturday, May 30, 2009

My dead uncle on YouTube



I was Googling my mom a while ago, to prove to someone she did voiceovers for a famous anime series in Japan.  And I accidentally came across an article about my uncle dying from cancer.  He himself was a voiceover actor, much more famous than my mom.

Well shit.  I'll be damned.  My uncle's dead.  

Ah, uncle.  I hardly knew ye.

I rarely saw him growing up.  He was busy, for one thing - his voice was in commercials, talk shows, dubbed movies and what not, every day.  Like literally, every day.  Also, he was more or less estranged from our family.  I don't blame him.  My mom's side of the family's weird.  Dad's side's just as weird, actually.  I mean look how I turned out.

I recently Googled him again.  I had no idea he dubbed for James Bond and The Holy Grail! There's a ton of clips of him on YouTube now.  So I spent a day watching him on YouTube.  There's one from the 70s where he's on a well-known talk show.  The host says she's always respected him for his candor.  They talk about how he opted to manage himself rather than hire a manager - a very unusual and expensive option.  

No way!  He sounds totally cool.  Complete opposite of the rest of my family, who, as far as I knew, deemed candor and individualism to be vices.  No wonder uncle blew them off.  I can relate, I don't like them much, either.  So I defected to the other side of the planet.  Best life decision ever!

Cancer, huh.  That sucks.  I hope he didn't suffer too much.  There are tons of better ways to die.  There are also tons of worse ways to die.  I hope mine will be relatively benign, but you never know.  Ah well.  I'm not sad.  Loss and suffering sadden me, but not death.  

I don't much believe in posthumous "legacies", either.  When you're dead, you're gone.  You don't "live on" through legacies (let alone afterlives or reincarnations!).  People with prominent legacies don't "live on" any more than people who are nobodies.  Ha!  Silly humans.  Always trying to come up with belabored fantasies of immortality.  Don't they know denying death just makes you even more afraid of death?

So, yes.  My uncle's dead. I see death on the news all the time, but this hits home a little closer.  It reminds my of my ultimate goal in life - to be completely ready for death, and embrace it when it comes.  Thanks, uncle, for reminding me.  Even though you're like, dead and everything.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Homophobia makes you fat

Are you fat?  Well, maybe you should stop being so homophobic.

This is a scatterplot of U.S. religious groups, plotted by % of people that are obese (BMI 30+), and % of people that "agree" or "strongly disagree" with the statement "Same-sex relations are wrong."

Interesting.  Looks like if you're homophobic, you're more likely to be fat.  Homophobia seems to explain a quarter of the variance in obesity rates.  

Ah, I knew it.  It's clear that God hates homophobes, and is punishing them by making them fat.  Or maybe God hates fat people, and punishes them by making them homophobic.

No, really.  Anyone have an explanation for this homophobia-obesity connection?

I do.  It's really simple.  

Obesity is related to poverty.  Poverty is related to low education.  Low education is related to homophobia.

Low obesity is related to wealth.  Wealth is related to high education.  High education, to less homophobia.

It's the economy, stupid.


Sunday, May 3, 2009

If some douchebag hadn't burned down the Library of Alexandria…

The iPhone would've been invented by at least like, 20 years ago.  And I would've had one in high school.  Aaaaargh!  Stupid douchebags.