To all my Calgary-based readers (which is most of the three of you), I’ll be performing a quick stand-up comedy set at Broken City for Comedy Monday Nights tonight. You should come down and laugh at stuff with me. I think the show starts at 8:00, and I promise I won’t pick on you, or anyone, actually. It’s part of the rules of performing there.

I used to do stand-up back in college, and then gave it up largely because I enjoy improvising, but I don’t really like writing and fine-tuning jokes. Time marched on and I did a handful of random events, but hadn’t done standup for almost two years before my last performance, which was a fundraiser for the New Black. What was strange was that for the first time I really enjoyed the writing aspect, and figured I’d push myself to try again.

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I hope everyone takes a minute today to think about the contributions of Carl Sagan, and to think about how his body of work changed the way many of us approach science and reason.

Carl Sagan Day should be a time to remind ourselves of the importance of a skeptical attitude towards life. He was a dreamer who looked at the stars and saw possibility, but tempered that with practicality. It is easy to see the mysteries out there and not consider the reality of things, accepting as writ the delusions of others, but it is folly to do so.

When I was a kid, I valued my faith very deeply. That’s gone now. I had to look at the things I believed and hold them up to the microscope of scrutiny. It was not an easy process, but one I knew would be worthwhile. Through Carl Sagan and people like him, I saw a world I had never been before, a world of beauty and mystery and wonder, but with real, tangible answers to our questions. It was extraordinary, and I was deeply enriched by the experience.

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I recently read this article from Al Stefanelli’s blog about firearms and I have to say, I totally agreed with him. I’ve had weird conversations before with people who would assume that because I’m an atheist, this obviously means I’m for gun control and a lot of other legislation typically championed by the left wing. On this as on so many other issues, I choose instead to understand the issue from my own perspective and come up with an opinion, rather than relying on the rhetoric of one or the other side of the argument.

The article (read it, silly!) is from the American perspective, but has some interesting statistics in it. I live in Canada, a free nation unlikely to ever be a military dictatorship largely due to the sad state our military is in. This last statement is both a joke and a sad comment on the state of my country. I do not buy into the “cold dead hands” rhetoric of the Charlton Hestons of the world, but I do very much believe that I should have the right to defend myself and my loved ones, possibly with lethal force.

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Q. What weighs over 400 pounds and can kill you where you sit? A. My hangover. Between the shoulder I’ve been screwing up all week and the limitless quantity of beer I consumed last night, I’m afraid my everything hurts today. Halloween is definitely one of my favorite times of the year, and this one was no exception. We managed a pretty awesome turnout to the show for a Monday night after a weekend of Halloween parties for all but me, and it is possible that fun was had.

All Saints Day is by definition the lamest day in the calendar. For starters, it’s the day after Halloween. That’s like being the modestly talented local rock band who has to play immediately after The Rolling Stones. There’s a reason that doesn’t happen, and it’s a good reason.

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Today’s Ask Surly Amy comes from an alcoholic who is struggling with the… religiousness? religiosity? religulizationalism? ah, I know… churchiness of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve known people (atheists and otherwise) who have had serious problems with this aspect of The Program, and it’s a strange situation.

If you aren’t familiar with the twelve steps, they are:
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I love haiku. I once wrote a song whose lyrics were entirely haiku. It was a terrible song from my second band, The Fabulous Yobs, called GITBOTH. If you can guess the acronym and were never a member of the band, I will give you something neat. But that’s beside the point. I am going to spend the next ten minutes writing haiku, and we’ll see how many I can get done in that time. Annnnnd….. Go!

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I often find myself in a professional setting being asked to job. Jobbing, for those of you who aren’t nearly as dorky as I am, is a professional wrestling term for getting beat. When the unstoppable supervillain gets beat by the up-and-coming kid, he’s doing the job. And I get asked the Business Analyst equivalent far too often from almost every client I’ve ever had.

This usually takes the form of asking me to grace a decision with my blessing when it does not deserve it. For example, I once sat in a room with several of my peers and our client. The client had invested several hundred thousand dollars into a piece of software that we all felt was horribly inadequate. In order to have it work even remotely well, we had to write a wrapper application that helped us through the most menial tasks of the tool, and I personally consider that offensive. If an application is that bad, it should be questioned. Notice, I didn’t say replaced, I said questioned. It may be that some underlying aspect of it is worth the badness, but it may well not be.

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Regular readers I will trust forgive the quiet long weekend. It was anything but quiet as I got to check out the cd release party for Edmonton hardcore punk rockers Fuquored, and became lightweight champion of the world in UFC 2009. Nor was it a weekend that was not ripe with interesting world news. But it was Thanksgiving and I had me some quiet time with the family.

My American readers are no doubt giggling at me. Thanksgiving? That isn’t until next month! Well, here in Canada, we do ours earlier. So there.

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