I had intended on posting this yesterday to celebrate our 1000th day, but things got a little nuts on my end. Today, however, is the delicious palindrome of 1001 days since our first post here at Meddling Kids! A pretty impressive milestone to say the least.

This all started with Marc (Boy Infidel, sometimes called Skinnyhead) and me (Big Ugly Jim) sitting over pints talking about our skepticism, our frustrations with the acceptance of religion, alternative medicine, and claims of the supernatural. It was Marc who suggested we start a blog, and the ball was in motion.

Thank you to all of our readers, whether you were here on day 1 or are freshly discovering us. With 966 posts to date, there’s lots to read here, and hopefully we’ve punched some holes in the sacred firmaments of blind faith and unscientific thinking that can prove to be interesting or helpful. Here’s to another 1001 days!

Jim

I watched Practical Magic last night. It was such a cute show, one of The Lovely Lady’s favorites, and it made me think about one of my big pet peeves as a skeptic. People always ask me how I can enjoy a movie about witches or possessed people or what have you because I don’t believe in the thing the movie is based on. And I can say that there are some movies that this really bugs me with, like The Exorcism Of Emily Rose.

I had to think about that for a bit. Why would a movie about witches and love spells and all that jazz be something that wouldn’t bug me, but an allegedly true story about a girl who was either possessed or who had some kind of epilepsy irritated me to the point of wanting to cock-punch the director?
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I have never been to Mexico. I’m sure it’s lovely, and I’m sure that it would be a wonderful place to wake up, especially in some ridiculous five star resort on a beach somewhere. But I am not about to go there, and I strongly suggest people seriously consider boycotting the place.

Several years ago, Chris Morin died in Mexico. Chris was a part of my local music scene, a guy I knew and liked. We weren’t close friends by any stretch, but he was a guy I respected. When Chris died, it was determined to be a suicide, but that never sat right with me. Since his death, there have been a string of Canadians murdered and beaten in Mexico. I don’t believe that “Canadian” is the key here by any stretch, but certainly I have been passively paying attention, and I don’t like what I hear.

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I love the UFC. I watch it quite regularly, and as someone who has trained in several martial arts disciplines, I love watching the fights and seeing how people at the top of their game stack up to one another.

Recently, I was out for beers with the Lovely Lady, her brother, and my buddy Davey. That show The Ultimate Fighter was on, and I commented on how I dislike it. My reasons for not liking it are based on the format. It seems ludicrous to me to have some extremely tough fighter whining in the diary room because one of the other guys didn’t cook dinner and always leaves his socks on the coffee table.

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Wow, has it ever been a weird few days. I’ve been ridiculously busy, and as a result have not had a chance to post here over the past few days. There is good news and bad. The bad news is all private, and I don’t feel the need to share it here. The good news is that I have a few months’ employment reprieve in the form of a contract extension. My weekend was extremely full and rich with goodness, and all things considered I’m doing well. My back is bloody killing me, though.

The end result of a few days of craziness is that I haven’t had the chance to really do much blogging. The good news for you is that things are less crazy now, and that means I’m back on the horse.

Jim

There are awful people everywhere. Why, here is a tale of some of them now! What luck!

So a madrassa (a holy school in Islam) was raided and the more than fifty boys who were being held in chains in the basement were released. They share stories of abuse and torment, all under the religious school’s claim that they were helping them beat curses and/or drug addiction.

Starve a cold, beat a junkie shitless.

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Just a quick note to tell you I’ve updated the site theme slightly to make administration a tad quicker, and to add a few new features for you, our amazingly sexy reader. Here are a few of the changes:

• All share functions now reside above the post, instead of being all split up like the men and women in a Baptist congregation
• StumbleUpon sharing is now accessible through the “share” button
  
• You can add or view comments by clicking the comment bubble beside each post
  
• The “Food for Thought” and “Critical Thinking” menu options have been moved under the well thought out “Thought” button
  

If you have any feedback or issues, feel free to email me directly at boyinfidel@gmail.com

The Lovely Lady sent me a link to a post by Bonnie Ware called Top Five Regrets of The Dying. Bonnie was a palliative care worker, and compiled a list of the top five regrets that she encountered. It’s an excellent list, and I thought I would share it with you, as well as my reactions to it. I’m not dying, at least not in the immediate sense, but I think it’s wise for all of us to keep in mind that we don’t all get to die in our sleep on our 110th birthday, and the threat of death should make the taste of life all the sweeter.

Please read the article. I like how Bonnie explained each of the questions, and the insights she provided.

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I understand the pain of single life. Yes, the Lovely Lady fills my days with joy and all, but there was a time between my marriage ending and my relationship with the Lovely Lady starting where I was single. I wouldn’t describe those years as totally bereft of female attention, but I certainly wasn’t knee deep in shepherd’s daughters. I am a strange man, and that makes dating difficult. Most women of an appropriate age for me find my lifestyle ridiculous. But it turns out, I was on a much slower path than I needed.

I have just read a post on Debunking Christianity entitled TOP 16 WAYS TO GET A WOMAN/WIFE ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE, and it’s a tremendous resource for the single fella. I’m terribly sorry to the single ladies out there, but God doesn’t really seem to give much of a crap about making sure you find happiness. He’s sort of like one of those “The Game” guys that way.

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We had an error on the MK web site this morning. Marc and I were able to figure it out. Some fine people had attempted to hack the site and include a bunch of links to Viagra. We fixed it. Now we’re trying to ascertain how they were able to do that. But we’re back up and running, so a huge thanks to Marc for that!

Jim