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 |  Radio Steve, broadcasting the latest news and gossip from the asylum |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** What you read here may seem shocking, and it might even be true, so please make a comment... and then the next headline will be YOU! Mwahahahaha! |
| Listener question... "What do you mean when you say I love you? I am interested in the positive thinking as well as the strategic and cynical answers..  "Thanks for asking, Thea  . Here's your answer...Meanings of "I Love You" Positive - I wish you well. I hope you thrive. Your health and joy is of supreme importance to me. I want to be with you and benefit you in every way. Strategic - I need regular sex and I don't want to waste a lot of time looking for it every time the mood strikes me. Cynical - You'll believe anything. When you become unattractive to me, then I'll be off to make a new conquest.  |
| Consider a major hurricane like Katrina and the question is "Should you evacuate?" It's not enough to ONLY be a "positive thinker". That might tempt you to ride out the storm in the belief that you will survive. You also have to be a "critical thinker" and evaluate which life path is better. The path with a giant obstacle - Katrina. Or the path with no obstacle - leave New Orleans and seek shelter. Will I ever stop talking about positive thinking? Help! Suggest a new topic! |
| Are cynicism and positive thinking mutually exclusive? Wikipedia says cynicism generally describes the opinions of individuals who maintain that self-interest is the primary motive of human behavior, and who are disinclined to rely on sincerity, human virtue, or altruism. Wikipedia doesn't know what positive thinking is but another Google quote says positive thinking has a very high view of human nature and ability and that advocates teach that the human mind has the power to turn wishes into reality through optimism. So no, I would say cynicism and positive thinking are not mutually exclusive. Having positive thinking doesn't necessarily mean you are a "good" person. It just means you understand that your own thoughts are the key to your destiny. If you think you will get sick, then you will. If you think you will be healthy, then you will be. Therefore you can be a positive thinker and still have self-interest as your primary motivation. So if you are afraid you will have to give up your cynicism to be a positive thinker... fear not! Are you a positive thinker?  |
| Positive thinking isn't about smiling all the time. It's still sad when people get hurt or die. Haven't you ever been watching the news and seeing people kill each other in the Sunni-Shi'ite conflict or the Israeli-Palestininian conflict or any of a number of conflicts and thought: That's just so unnecessary. It's stupid. It's silly. I can't even tell a Sunni from a Shi'ite and yet apparently they can sense the difference and decide to kill because of it. Each side has their own concept of reality. The other side has a different concept. Therefore, they threaten our concept and we must destroy them. But those who understand that reality is an individual experience for each person, that it's simply a mental picture in their minds, can rise above all that and once everyone does, then there will be peace and harmony in the world. I suppose if you truly have a desire for negatives (and many people do) then a world without war and killing might sound too boring. Have you ever experienced a completely happy day? A day when everything just seemed to fall into place, things went right, goals were accomplished, people were happy and satisfied? That's what positive thinking helps to achieve. It's why a wedding day is usually a joyful experience. Because no one stands up and says: "This is absurd! Over half the marriages end in divorce! Why even bother? Chances are this marriage is doomed!" Positive thinking is believing things will work out well and that obstacles will be overcome. But a more subtle application is making sure there are no imaginary obstacles created. Why are so many of us dissatisfied with George Bush right now? He's a positive thinker BUT he has created imaginary obstacles to overcome and that frustrates those of us who see it that way. That was why I ranted about Writers Block a couple of entries ago. Help stamp out imaginary obstacles! |
| Young people always say: Things are crappy now but they will be so much better in the future after we change them. Old people always say: Things are crappy now but they were so much better when I was a kid. And by "always" I mean from ancient times right up to today. At least we all agree that things are crappy now. |
| It's a pet peeve of mine - writers who say they can't think of anything to write. But that's what a "writer" is supposed to do - find things to write. Otherwise he's not a writer, he's just a scribe or a copyist or a secretary. Part of the job description of any job is finding what's needed to perform your job. A mechanic has to go to where there are cars needing fixing. A farmer has to have a farm. A doctor has to find patients. And a writer has to find something to write about. Yes, it's true there are days when a writer doesn't feel like writing. The same holds true for the mechanic, the farmer, and the doctor. And there are also days when more mistakes are made, the work doesn't flow easily, etc, etc. However, the concept of total blockage is bogus. Anyone deserving of the label "writer" should be able to meet the command: "Give me 500 words NOW!" with a hearty "Yes, SIR!" and whip out his pen, pencil, keyboard, whatever, and after a few frantic minutes of scribbling hand over 500 readable words. The real problem is writers who prejudge their output, writers who are already thinking: "This won't amount to much. This is worthless. This is just the incoherent ramblings of a very ordinary boring person." Unfortunately... very unfortunately... those worries may well be true! But if you want to be a writer you just have to keep writing anyway and hope that somehow you will improve. One thing is for sure. a writer who says he is blocked and can't write will NOT improve. He will get worse. And one day he will say "Me? A writer? No... I thought so once, but no, I'm not a writer anymore." |
| Yes, it really is fun for one big reason. When stuff first comes out of the oven it is DELICIOUS! I guess it's because the heat is making it release all it's flavor and smell. Tomorrow it will just be a cold piece of cake, but right now fresh from the oven it's SUPERB! Even things that will be obvious failures when they cool down are STILL GOOD HOT! It's a little like sex isn't it?  |
| If you want to keep a conversation going, either live or email, then end your contribution with a question. It's not hard to do. Just a simple "What do you think?" works as well as something more specific. It's unlikely you will ever meet a person who doesn't want to tell you what they think. What do you think? |
| Yaayyyy! Women in power! It's about time, isn't it? Our leadership has been unbalanced for too long. Too much "male stuff" like fighting for territory and dominance and not enough effort put into making daily life better for everyone. |
| I'm a super pack rat. My natural tendency is to save everything. Even here at WdC everything I ever put in my port is still there. If you are not already a pack rat, you will become one. Everybody becomes one eventually. It starts the first time you need something that you just threw away the month before. After a while you get this feeling of "I better save this in case I might need it later" and before you know it you have a closet full of old tax forms, bills, checks, notes, letters, cards, etc, etc... And then all the stuff you buy with your hard-earned money... Can you just toss it out? My biggest problem is books. I could be satisfied with the public library if it wasn't for the damn thrift shops! They sell books for 25 cents and it's easier just to own a book myself than it is to check it out of the library. But then one day you find yourself owning thousands of books!  Are you a pack rat? |
According to a usually reliable source (Aria) the Panda Bear female is in heat only one or two days out of the entire year. And they wonder why they are becoming extinct!  Actually this is my problem, too. I am only in heat one day a year and thanks to Murphy's Law there is NEVER a female around at that crucial time. So Radio Steve will become extinct right along with the panda and the dodo bird and all of Nature's other magnificent creations that were just too beautiful to survive in a world full of indestructible cockroaches and rats who just breed, breed, breed all the time, scattering their DNA everywhere. Thank God there are no rat/roach crossbred mutant things... yet... but with all the radioactivity in the air there probably will eventually be some super-reproducing creature that just eats everything else and then finally has to turn cannibal to survive and eats itself into extinction leaving a barren world where life once flourished... but maybe flourished just a little too well... over-flourished. Yes, it's possible to be too successful. But me and the Panda will never have that problem so HA! |
| Question: Why do you think 'liberal' is a 'dirty' word in this country? It's not a dirty word for ME! LOL! It's a dirty word because you have to be a liberal to say pornography is okay. There is an old Southern saying that "If you lie down with the dogs you get up with the fleas." I myself reached the conclusion that true freedom would have to include the freedom to do evil, so maybe it's our foundation ideas of liberty that are inherently paradoxical. Is freedom with limits still freedom? If there are no limits then you have no civilization, just chaos and anarchy. If you have too many limits then you have no freedom even though you might have a very orderly civilization. The most desirable civilization would seem to be one poised halfway between total chaos and total order. Conservatives lean toward order, liberals lean toward chaos. In prosperous peaceful times liberals will seem to have the correct philosophy. In dangerous threatening times conservatives will seem to have the correct philosophy. So the politics of the nation will be forever shifting back and forth as history unfolds and the mood changes. |
| Do you give a lot of thought to the first few words when you write? I read a lot of novels and I buy them at the secondhand bookstore by browsing. Like most people I read the first page to see if I might like the book or not. But after doing this so many times for so long... now I can reject a book before I even finish reading the first sentence! For instance, if a book begins On a warm spring day in... then it's a REJECT! If the book has a "prologue" then it's an automatic REJECT because the author is probably a windbag. On the other hand, I am a sucker for books that begin I didn't know who I was or where I was... Sometimes I reject books just because they are written in the first person voice. Those books can all sound like they were written by the same person... I sat down in the chair exactly the way I always do because I am always me and I am never anybody else... I think the secret of a good opening is to raise a question in the reader's mind. To answer that question he needs to read a little further... and if you can just keep raising interesting questions with the sentences that follow, then you have written a book people want to read. |
| The following is edited from an email conversation about the psychological process of projection..... STEVE: Projection? You mean criticising others for faults that we are afraid we might have in ourselves? FRIEND: Exactly... like Mark Foley did... he led a committee on anti-pedophile legislation... S: Foley. Yes, and he's not the first one. Remember Bennet with his "Book of Virtues" and his gambling addiction? Or Limbaugh and his drugs? This is why I am always suspicious of self-righteous people who leap up onto a soapbox to lead a moral crusade. I think the average non-crusading person is aware that we are all mixtures of good and evil and crusades are both foolish and a denial of the truth. The projection thing is very interesting. I remember first hearing about it in a psychology class and ever since whenever anyone criticises me I always wonder if the topic of criticism is something they are worried about in themselves. It does help explain some of the odd things people sometimes say. F: Yes, it does explain the odd things people say... I agree... I also look inside when I have this sudden feeling of envy or jealousy to try to figure out what's going on with me... you know? But it's strange to me that people can go hop on these bandwagons and not see their own failings... weird that... S: Do you take it that they hop on the bandwagon ignorant of their failings? Hmmm... I took it the opposite way. They feel guilty about their failings so they figure if they come out vigorously AGAINST that particular failing then no one can possibly suspect THEM of having that failing. This is quite common among men with homophobia. They feel an attraction to another man that shocks them and then suddenly they are spouting "let's kill all the queers" rants and making anti-gay remarks. F: Ahhhh yes... now that's a good point... projection so they won't believe it's inside me... I like that... now that's something to write about... S: The unfortunate thing about projection is that once I know about it I can no longer feel comfortable about being critical of others for fear that I will be revealing my own fears, failings, sins, and biases. So now I have to be this smiling "easy come, easy go" type of person who doesn't get very upset about anything. But now that I also know that people who know about projection may appear to be smiling, relaxed, friendly, and uncritical, then I must become suspicious of THOSE people as well. Life is so unfair, complex, and difficult.  But you'll never hear ME saying that!  |
| I had a weird experience after moving to a new apartment. The new kitchen is identical to the old one so I just put everything in the same cupboards to take advantage of already knowing where everything would be. That way I could just reach for things without having to think about it. But I found myself constantly looking in the wrong cupboards! I would go to the left side of the kitchen when I should have gone right. The only explanation I can think of is that the new kitchen is rotated 180 degrees from the old one as far as North/South goes. That's a new one to me - that we can detect magnetic fields! I haven't Googled it yet to see what others have said. But I do know they have theories that animals can migrate for thousands of miles because they sense the earth's magnetic field so I suppose there is no reason we couldn't have that ability as well. Maybe it explains why some people have a better "sense of direction" than others. It's interesting that I can't manifest any conscious knowledge of North/South so that I could actually use it to navigate, but apparently it is there operating at an unconscious level when I form habits of movement. Have you ever had any experience where North/South sensing might have played a part? |
| From the GOOGLE Terms of Use Disclaimer section.... GOOGLE MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT (i) GOOGLE SERVICES WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, (ii) GOOGLE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, (iii) THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF GOOGLE SERVICES WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, (iv) THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, INFORMATION, OR OTHER MATERIAL PURCHASED OR OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH GOOGLE SERVICES WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS, AND (V) ANY ERRORS IN THE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED. Let me see if I understand this... GOOGLE services may not be something you can use. If they are something you can use, they might be late, interrupted, or have errors. The results you get could be inaccurate and unreliable. The quality of anything you get using GOOGLE services could be less than you expected. What a great idea. I have adopted my own disclaimer... Steve Ellen might not be someone you want to know. Even if you want to know him, he might be late, easily interrupted, or full of errors. The quality of anything you get from Steve could be less than you expected. How about you? Anything to disclaim? |
You won't believe how incredibly trivial this is, yet I take it to be indicative of the malignantly petty personality of Fate. I normally drink decaff instant coffee, but there was a jar of Nescafe Clasico, a regular instant, in the store and I liked the shape of the jar. It was squat and made of glass and looked useful for storage of leftovers. So I kept the jar of coffee in the refridgerator and over the course of many months I managed to use up 99 per cent of the coffee so that I could finally use the jar as a storage jar. Then, as I was scraping out the last bit of coffee, I accidentally dropped the jar and it hit the floor and cracked. *sigh* |
| It's too hot too blog... What do you think? Will this be the hottest summer ever? Will a giant hurricane wreak destruction? Let's see whose predictions come true... And I have two freaky little predictions. 1)It will be in the news that there is an excessive number of rats in the USA this year, maybe even a plague of rats. 2)Israel will attempt to destroy the Iraninan nuclear enrichment facility. |
| I am totally opposed to this kind of "trivial personal problem" blog entry. It's not my policy to catalog my minor aches and pains. Now here are all the details. It happened eating pizza. Pizza?! The tooth must have already been cracked and the mozarella grabbed it. That was Saturday. I have a nice dentist, an Asian lady, and she opens up at 7:15am this morning. Isn't that amazingly early? So in a few minutes I'll call her and let her take a look. Yes, Elusive Ennui, I know that being pregnant is far more annoying than a chipped tooth. The "bowling ball in your belly" analogy was very convincing. I hope you bowl a strike. Doctors and nurses scatter. "Look out! Here it comes!" *sound of bowling pins being knocked over* A baby cries. |
| Has it really been "was last updated 51 Days 16 Hours 29 Minutes ago"? I am the world's crummiest blogger. It just doesn't come natural to me. I am a "project" person, not a "daily diary" person. Hmmm... I guess a cow farmer might keep a "daily dairy diary" and chuckle to himself everytime he makes an entry... But I'm not chuckling, people. I am sick! SICK, I tell you! With the state of the world! It's going to Hell in a handbasket! No, not really. My theory about people who think the world is going downhill is that they are just pessimistic. Same with people who believe in progress - they are just optimistic. Reality is: NOTHING EVER CHANGES! Fundamentally. The surface changes, constantly changes, but the essence remains the same. Look at land transportation, for example. What's the essence? Wheels and a seat? Call it a car, call it a buggy, call it a wagon, call it an oxcart - for 6000 years people have been going around on wheels and a seat. Something to stare at in the evening? Call it television, call it a fireplace, or call it a campfire - for 100,000 years people have been spending the evening staring at a flickering light that stimulates their imagination. Essence, people, essence! Blogging? Call it blogging, call it a journal, call it a diary, call it scratching on the wall of your cave with a piece of charcoal... yes, once again, for thousands of years... *sigh* Everything changes. Nothing changes. They are both true. Personal application: Have you ever moved from one location to another location with the feeling that "Things will be so different for me now!" and discovered that things were just the same? |
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