How’d You–Huh?

It always amazes me to see the sort of search terms that people find my other site through. For instance, ever since I made a comment about slug peni, I’ve been getting hits thanks to strange penis related terms. Those can be found here btw. I’m slowly but surely providing people with something to see in regards to those terms . . . whether those results are what the person was originally looking for is a whole other story.

But I looked this morning and found that someone had found my site by putting in “Stephen King.” Now, how the hell that did bring them to my site?

I tried to repeat it in an experiment, but gave up after 5 pages of searching. So that means that the person went through more than 5 pages and then clicked on my page??? I mean, I regularly go through more than 5 pages of results, but when I do click on a page, it usually has something to do with my original purpose. *smacks head*

Maybe they thought I looked interesting.

I read a post the other day where the person was talking about creating pages to match the search terms that they got the most often. And I thought to myself, “Huh. Well, that’s a concept.”

I guess I already did that with my penis search terms page, but to do that on a large scale basis just seems like . . . cheating, I guess. It’s perfectly legit of course; logically I know this, but I’m always wary of things that seem too simple.

Well, since one of the most often used search terms to find this particular site is “Overflow System,” maybe I should explain about that.

The name, for me at least, is directly related to one of my most favorite X-Files’ episodes ever, called “The Host.” The Host had all the elements of a really good story to me, because it hit a few different long term interests of mine: radiation, sewers, Chernobyl and monsters. Sounds like something you want to see now, doesn’t it.

For the handful of you who have never seen this episode *glares at you slightly* I shall attempt to give a background of how these things all come into play together.

Russian sub is hauling equipment that turns out to be salvaged from the Chernobyl site. It’s radioactive equipment. In the depths of the sub’s sewer system (or whatever it’s called), in radioactive sludge, this monster is born. The episode starts out with there being a blockage in the sewer system that a young Russian soldier is made to work on by one of his old [fat and probably smelly] superiors. I make a big deal of the old and fat merely because I don’t like this guy. That and the young man is kinda cute. But I didn’t say that.

Anyways, I digress. The young man is attempting to locate the blockage when suddenly something grabs him and pulls him under. His foot gets caught in the steel ladder attached to the wall, which allows two or three other men to run and grab it in an effort to save him (one of whom is the fat smelly guy). They pull, the monster pulls, and the monster wins. Shortly thereafter, the smelly guy orders the system to be purged in an effort to find the cute guy. No dice on that account.

However, later in the story, folks in the New Jersey sewer systems start showing up dead and Agent Mulder gets put on the case–much to his dismay, I might add. Oh, and this is one of the umpteen million times that X-Files have been closed down; so not only is Scully*** not there, but he is also not working with a partner.

Anyways, towards the end of the episode, we find ourselves at this section of the plot, helpfully borrowed from Schwicky.net.

FOREMAN: Agent Mulder!

(Mulder pulls the phone from his ear and looks behind to see the

foreman yelling to him.)

Linesman spotting something down in a section of pipe!

MULDER: Where?

(Inside, the foreman unrolls a blueprint of the pipe system.

He points to a section.)

FOREMAN: Here.

MULDER: That’s near where we found the first body.

FOREMAN: Right, except this is an old overflow system that dumps

into the harbor during heavy rainfall.

MULDER: That must be where it got into the system.

(The foreman nods.)

It’s working its way back out to sea.

(They look at each other, worried. Mulder and the foreman race to a

sewer grate where workers are standing by. Mulder grabs a flashlight

from one of them and heads down. The foreman follows. Mulder has to

cover his nose from the smell.)

The underline and bolds were put in by me. If you want to read the whole episode, it can be found here. Thus, we have the term “Overflow System.”

Now, for me, this term is used for when I’ve already written something recently at my other site, but I still have something else to to say. Plus, I feel that some of my posts are not really in the style of that site, but I still want to say them. Thus, I created my own overflow system.

***Side note — my spell checker said that “Scully” was not a word, but it said nothing about “Mulder.” Huh.

Grainger

I hate it when online sources write these two vile words:

Coming Soon!

And then don’t date the original text . . .

*grinds something other than her teeth into tiny shavings*

Entirely too much in relation to that statement, I think I might have found my next special interest.

Why Superman Will Always Suck

Sure, some people talk about Batman having it easy–what with being a billionaire and all–but truly people are discounting his struggle completely when they say that. Sure he has the toys, but he designed and made the “toys.” He did all his training on his own. He threw his life into the hands of fate and went out to find his destiny. He has a real reason to fight to keep others safe; he knows what it is to lose something so precious to you that it makes you physically hurt just to contemplate its memory. He takes a chance every night that he goes out. He uses his brain and skills that he has mastered throughout the years in order to fight with. Occasionally he gets knocked out and beaten to a pulp; look at the whole thing he went through with Bane and getting his back broken. And yet, here he comes, always fighting back, always trying.

Never giving up. He fights because he believes it is the right thing to do; because he knows the horrors that can happen; and because he believes that if he can use what he is to save just one child, one person, then it is worth it and he has done better than most of the population . . . super powers or not.

Superman, on the other hand, just is. Batman can be a son-of-a-bitch, but he has a reason to be. Look at the amount of insomnia that man has endured. Geez.

If you look at Kohlberg’s 6 stages of moral development, I’d say that Superman could be evaluated around:

Level II: Conventional/Role Conformity: Moral values reside in performing the right role, in maintaining the conventional order and expectancies of others as a value in its own right.
Stage 4: Authority and social-order-maintaining orientation

• Orientation to “doing duty” and to showing respect for authority and maintaining the given social order or its own sake.
• Regard for earned expectations of others.

Yup. That’s Superman alright. Compare with Batman then. I’d say that he’s here:

Level III: Postconventional/Self-Accepted Moral principles
Morality is defined in terms of conformity to shared standards,rights, or duties apart from supporting authority. The standards conformed to are internal, and action-decisions are based on an inner process of thought and judgment concerning right and wrong.
Stage 6: The morality of individual principles of conscience

• Orientation not only toward existing social rules, but also toward the conscience as a directing agent, mutual trust and respect, and principles of moral choice involving logical universalities and consistency.
• Action is controlled by internalized ideals that exert a pressure to act accordingly regardless of the reactions of others in the immediate environment.
• If one acts otherwise, self-condemnation and guilt result.

Hmm . . .

Don’t agree? Check out this article: Why Superman Will Always Suck.

Newsweek

Newsweek ran an article about autism and Asperger’s Syndrome a couple of weeks ago that I just now happened to run across. It’s called “Mysteries and Complications.”

It’s not the ideal, but it got a lot closer to what I’d like to see in a news article concerning autism and asperger’s. For one, it actually mentioned both sides of the issue. On one hand, there were some quotes from Autism Speaks–but even their quotes weren’t overly insane. Boy, I’m betting that pisses them off.

Here’s a quote from the article concerning the Hannah case and mitochondrial disorders:

It’s possible, scientists say, that a challenge to the immune system—be it an infection, a vaccine or some other trigger—could stress already fragile cells and exacerbate the problem. Scientists want to know how many children with autism have mitochondrial disorders. And would it be possible to identify those who might be vulnerable to vaccines? “This case is a call to action to continue to understand this very complex disorder,” says Geraldine Dawson of the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

I love how they referred to Autism Speaks as an “advocacy” group. Advocacy for what? Genocide? Hmm, I’m not going to say anything else about that. You can decide if it’s okay for a mother–stressed or not–to say she’d like to put her child in the car and drive both of them off the George Washington Bridge just because the child is autistic.

This is the link (although, as of 9 pm April 9th, 2008, it was apparently down–as in, like the entire site was down).

On the other hand, Ari Ne’eman got some quotes in too. He’s an aspie btw. He and I are actually in contact via email. He’s the president of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN), and involved in the New Jersey legislature. Did I mention that he’s only 20?

[He] believes in neurodiversity, the idea that differences in human behavior should be celebrated, not fixed. People with autism should be called “autistic people,” he says, not “people with autism,” the language favored by mainstream advocacy groups. “Our feeling is that the autism spectrum is an intrinsic part of our personality that cannot be separated,” says Ne’eman. And he worries about research that might one day locate genes and other markers that could help doctors test for autism. Researchers say such knowledge would allow them to intervene early, during a critical window of development in the first year of life. Ne’eman’s fear? That autism will become like Down syndrome—essentially selected out of the population.

Whoo hoo! Tell ‘em how it is!

Oh, if you really want to make yourself crazy, go check out the comments section of the Newsweek article.