Well, keeping in mind that I once spent a very enjoyable birthday dinner listening to my mother describe how Chaucer uses puns on "cunt", my mother's not actually easily shocked. I'm just uncomfortable, for some reason, watching sexual references with her around. Obviously, YMotherMV.

Mom didn't censor what we watched on tv that much, she did have MTV blocked off for a long time. although this was when they showed videos and not things like real World with strangers in a hot tub.

But I didn't watch a ton of tv during middle school and the first part of high school because I was constantly being grounded and the tv was almost always taken away (in some instances quite literally taken away, for awhile Mom kept it in the trunk of the car to make sure we weren't watching tv when she wasn't there).

Mom was also didn't like underage drinking until my brother joined the Marines at 19. Then she decide it was stupid for the government to say that he was responsible enough to defend the country and possibly kill people (although he didn't serve during a time of war) but not responsible enough to drink and seriously relaxed her stance on no under age drinking.

I'm pretty sure my parents were the only people in the neighbourhood to teach the kids they babysat about the concept of "property is theft".

Only if you never lived anywhere near my parents growiing up.(We live just about everywhere in Southern California - moved a lot).

I saw Avenue Q with my parents. It was kind of traumatizing.

Yeah, I was sitting between my parents during Me, Myself, and Irene.

For Jesse: [link]

Dangerous Beauty: The Art of the Shiv

A shiv is a weapon crafted from the limited resources of a prisoner’s closed world. Crudely constructed from such things as spoons, shoelaces and upholstery tacks, shivs lie somewhere between the graceful and the grotesque. They’re primitive, too — like outsider art, but produced deep on the inside.

Only if you never lived anywhere near my parents

hee!

On watching embarrassing things with parents: When I was in university, my father came over from the UK for a visit - the first time I'd seen him in five years. I took him to see a play put on by two friends-of-a-friend.

It was a very high-concept play about an 18th century french prostitute in prison who suddenly had a freshly murdered (but alive) Hypatia appear in her cell. They then had a big math-and-philosophy discussion, which was fairly entertaining and the reason I had picked the play. The next part of the play came as an unpleasant surprise - they took off their clothes and washed each other. Eek!

Tom, I'm touched that you think of me when you think of shivs! You know, I hardly ever actually stab anyone.

FSM hate mail

FSM hate mail is a collection of email that Bobby Henderson, author of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, has received from friendly folks who hope to win him over with their charitable benevolence. Samples:

"If I was your creator and you mocked me in this manner I couldn't think of a hell hot enough for you."

This next one is my fave:

"I hope you die in a lake of fire and get your eyes pecked out by crows, so that you may go to hell and exist for eternity in a lake of fire getting your eyes pecked out by crows."

"people like you are scum, I hope you die by the hands of some sick perverted guy who will skullfuck you and then use your skin to make lampshades."

"Charles Darwin went insane when he was 28 anyways (didn't know that did you?) Let me put it this way to you concerning your bologna flying spaghetti monster. If we are created in the image of what you believe God to be, we would look like spaghetti."

eta: more: [link]

If we are created in the image of what you believe God to be, we would look like spaghetti."

Have you seen the inside of you? IJS.

My dad is teaching an undergrad course on scientific discoveries (he's developing it, so we don't even have a title yet.) Anyway, he's going to start with talking about science, the scientific method, psuedo and junk science and get around to hitting, among others, the Copernican revolution, Einstein, maybe quantum if he can figure out how to do that without confusing the hell out of everyone and ... darwinian evolution. I asked if he was going to mention FSM. He said, probably (though most likely in the introductory bit on science.)

I cracked up. I think that book is one of the most sucessful presents I've given him, even counting the Feynman letters one.