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30 MARCH 2006

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Tilted

J: On Friday night Gina went clubbing with some Greenbelters while I went out pokering with friends. I didn't quite double my money and had a good time doing so. Gina had a great time, too.

On Saturday night Gina, Chris, and I went to RnA's place to celebrate Alex's birthday anniversary. They provided good food, Karaoke, DDR, and poker. I had a lot of fun playing poker and watching Gina and Alex DDRing together.

At the party Rich effectively dismantled my poker strategy for a week, in a series of mind bending maneuvers that trained me, Pavlov style, to go broke on pairs. I continued a steady decline in bankroll this week until the day before yesterday, when I finally managed to delve deep within, salvage my discipline, learn a little more, and claim several major victories in some tournaments. That which does not permanently tilt you makes you stronger. I'm now comfortably above my average profit line, and continuing to make great strides toward more difficult opponents.

The weather is great-- we've gone for a couple nice walks in the woods, and some of our friends are discussing a new season of bike rides to Franklin's Pub.

Allergies 2, (continued from last week)

Got some interesting emails from a Mr. St. Doodle, which I'll mangle and put up here with bastardizations of my thoughts.

First, since you're probably wondering (unless "you" means a spam filter, in which case pthhhhhhhhht), I just meandered by your site from the Looney Labs site (have to keep up on the latest Flux news) so nope, don't know ya', just a random 'net stranger.

Anyway, the "Allergies" post struck a bit of a chord with me, as I've had the same issue myself. In fact, I've had some people get very offended when I didn't bless them after a sneeze; explaining the origin with the whole "soul escaping" bit just made such people angrier. [...]

Now, when confronted with a sneeze, I usually remain quiet, but once in a while I'll ask "Still got it?" if I'm in the mood to explain. As for my response to "Bless you," I either ignore it or respond "Oh, lost that pesky soul loooooong ago," after which I must still explain the origin of B.Y. but then must elaborate by explaining how I traded my soul for a large Chai Tea many years back. Some still find it offensive, but they're usually too confused to take it any further.

Actually, now that I think about it, "Got soul?" as a milk-ad parody might work well, but I am operating without sleep.

Anyway, hope that helps or at least provides a moment of amusement.

Hail Eris/Praise Cthulhu/but below all "Bless You"
St. Doodle


Lucky for me, I have two souls. I won one in a game of twenty questions with the Devil.

Lately I'm trying this sneeze phrase: "The martians are coming!" It's not taking too well.

As for a "bless you" comeback, I think I've found a new phrase inspired by Chris Welsh that I'll try for a while. When someone says "bless you," I'll reply, "well, that's begging the question." Eventually, after they've heard it several times, I'll shorten the response to a simple "Begging the question."

"Bless you" does beg the question, in a classic logical fallacy way. The statement assumes that the listener has joined the bandwagon and agrees that souls exist and sometimes escape by accident when one sneezes.

Another possible response might be "That's horse and buggy thinking." Actually, as a B.Y. substitute, "Horse and buggy" might work well. Many sneezers are also horse and buggy, har har.

I've also heard a different etymology of the "bless you" phrase. See, when a person sneezes, it's a reaction to little demons trying to invade the body, so other people say "bless you" to keep the expelled demons out. Even if we think of germs as little demons, though, I don't think they or any other demons will listen to a magic spell.

If people don't use "bless you" to magically repair souls or keep demons out, then the phrase is nothing but a quaint piece of antiquated tradition, which no longer really means anything, except as a marker for politeness. In that case, why not say any nonsensical phrase, like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously." Except don't say that when Gina sneezes, she hates that particular phrase, so it would be impolite.


Your second story of "bless you" makes me wonder, though... If one thinks of the phrase as an incantation, not so much towards "god" or "spirits," but towards oneself (in the sense of it being a "spell," "mantra," "sigil," or whatever word one finds appropriate), is it not possible that as long as it serves as a reminder to perform certain actions, (such as hand-washing), could it not serve a very real function? Of course, I highly doubt any connection was known between scientific means of preventing the spread of germs, viruses, et al at the time the phrase came into being, but then again, who knows what knowledge has been lost over the ages? Not that I truly think this could be the case, but neither do I like to make the ASSUMPTION that "bless you" is "pure horseshit" as I may be tempted to.

Regardless, I'm grateful for the phrase. It has inspired at least a few of us mere mortals to actually think for a few moments about our susceptibility to mental automation.

Regards, St. D.


Maybe that's partly what feels so strange to me-- that people say "bless you" without actually thinking about it. If someone says "bless you" to me, I'd rather they really mean it, and
a) believe they are conducting magic,
b) don't expect others to follow their beliefs, and
c) realize the phrase makes some non-believers feel strange.

:-j

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