Fantasy Sports = Dungeons and Dragons

     I am about to write at length about topics I have never actually experienced on my own. I have been invited to join several fantasy football and fantasy basketball teams and decline every time. I decline because I tend to to obsess over things, and I know that if I started doing fantasy sports I would never stop. That obsessiveness is the same reason I never picked up World of Warcraft, the computer game that ruins lives, wrecks marriages and has actually killed people from playing it too much. Once I started playing it, I would never stop. I also have never played Dungeons and Dragons, but that's only because no one ever invited me to...

World of Warcraft = Dungeons and Dragons = Fantasy Football

     There was a time - a short, brief period a long time ago - when video games were for nerds and geeks only. This was before my time. Video games used to be text based, and involve exploring dungeons, finding treasure and weapons and being a hero. You would read some information like You enter the dungeon and see a torch, a skull and some bats. There are doors to the north and west. Then you type something like "grab skull" or "eat bats" and the game progresses until you die (which happens often) or you get to the dragon. So, basically, it was a computerized version of Dungeons and Dragons, the ultimate geek game. These days the game World of Warcraft is almost exactly Dungeons and Dragons, just on the computer. It makes sense, then, that geeks and nerds and dorks enjoyed video games, and the big stupid mean jocks made fun of those that played them.
     Today, of course, every dude in the country loves video games. You can play sports or kill terrorists or hunt dinosaurs and do any and everything in-between. Video games are no longer for dorks. In fact, video games continue to be one of the fastest growing and most profitable industries in the country.

     Fantasy sports have also had astounding growth in popularity over the last decade or so. Fantasy football - where people pick players from different teams and combine their yards, points, tackles, receptions, first downs and hairstyles and add them up to see who won - continues to grow in popularity and profitability every year. Most people that play fantasy sports have several teams in several leagues and cost their employers billions in wasted work time.
     Guess what. Fantasy Football and Dungeons and Dragons are the same thing. I've already stated my case that Twilight = Girl Porn, let me try to convince you of this as well.
   
     Dungeons and Dragons gives people the opportunity to do what they probably do often anyways: pretend to be something they aren't. Pretend to be a hero, saving a hottie, and winning fame, renown and riches. It's also just plain fun. You don't have to be a stereo-typically lonely, sad teenager to want to be someone else. I think everyone has an idealized version of themselves with better jobs and more money and popular friends. D&D just turns that into a game.

Clay Matthews = Orc with a +2 Hairstyle of Anger

     Fantasy football allows guys to identify with the heroes of the gridiron in a way that is much more intimate than just rooting for them. When someone picks Adrian Peterson to be their running back, they are definitively stating a preference for that running back over all other running backs. When boys are young they often want to root for the best teams and the best players, because they feel they have some sort of claim or ownership to the victory. I was rooting for the Yankees and the Yankees won so I am superior as well. It's essentially a role-play, just like Dungeons and Dragons. For many people, that role-play continues into adulthood through sports - failed high school athletes trying to recall some glory years or missed opportunities.
     I don't think that all, or even most, people really think along those lines. I think most people find sports and feats of athleticism to be very entertaining, and whichever team is closest to you is probably on tv more so you probably follow them more closely. And I think most people do fantasy sports because they are fun and a good waste of time and a great way to keep in touch with friends (kind of like video games).

     The role-play aspect of D&D and FF aren't their only similarities. In fantasy football, participants try to field their best teams based on matchups. Say the Packers are playing the Tennessee Titans, who are known to give up a lot of sacks. A smart FF player would start Clay Matthews over some other linebacker in hopes he gets more sacks. And if you have two running backs, you'd start the one who is playing the worse run defense. In D&D (and role playing video games like World of Warcraft, which is essentially D&D in video game form), you have a bunch of swords to choose from, and you are going to pick the sword that does poison damage to fight the dragon that is weak against poison.
     Don't you see!? Defenses in football are like armor in D&D, and offenses in football are like weapons in D&D. Getting a stronger, sharper, more magical sword is like trading Matt Ryan for Tom Brady. You look forward into the NFL teams' schedules to see who they play and equip accordingly, just like you would if you are going to raid Medusa's Lair.
     Fantasy sports is Dungeons and Dragons which is World of Warcraft.

Ok, it's hard for me to reconcile this
image with the thesis of this post

     The internet and video games have changed all of this, but it's fundamentally the same. It used to be that fantasy sports and D&D was done on paper, slowly. Now fantasy sports is all online, and D&D has become WOW, like I stated earlier. People - smart people that used to play D&D - have realized that sports is really just a numbers game. Find people that have high probabilities of catching passes and gaining yards, get people with the best stats (like size, strength and speed), and combine them in such a way that your team is likely to beat other teams. Sports is just stats and data wrapped up in a fun, fast moving package of action. Just like video games.
     I think I can take this further, and I am assuming that most people that don't really care about WOW have stopped reading at this point, so I'm going to go for it. Each position on a football team is like a class in WOW. The quarterbacks are elves, obviously, the offensive linemen are trolls, the defensive linemen are goblins/orcs, the receivers/secondary are rangers, the runningbacks are dwarves? and the kickers are halflings. (Remember, I've never actually played WOW, D&D or football, so this might not be precise, but I bet you can clean it up).

     Right!? Fantasy Football = Dungeons and Dragons. One of those two is considered "cool" while the other isn't, but really, the demographics of both have merged with the internets.

Finishing The Sound of Music

Stupid movie, beautiful setting

     I have probably seen The Sound of Music seventeen times. I have certainly, without a doubt, seen it start to finish zero times. It was on TV this Christmas Eve, like it is every holiday, and I thought "maybe I'll watch it just to get it over with." Well, that lasted for about a song. Then, flipping through the channels three hours later it was still on!! It's like Lord of the Rings but without anything cool ever happening.
     So, having never seen the movie all the way through (or even close), here is what I think I have pieced together.

The problem with Maria? Has to be that haircut.

      Maria has some sort of problem that can't be solved. (I think that problem is probably her weird haircut, and the best way to solve it is to let her grow it out. That's how you solve the problem with Maria. Movie over.) Also, she's a nun who is babysitting for a man with a mean exterior but undoubtedly tender, fragile insides. They are in Austria and the Nazis are doing something. The dad is a captain for the Austrian army and has to go fight for the Nazis? They escape through the hills. In the meantime there is some musical contest that some guy is putting on? And the family is going to participate in it as a cover for their escape? Some girl is 16 going on 17. She likes some boy. The kids don't have new clothes so they wear drapes. They learn to love and laugh again through the magic of music. Oh! And the dad was married but she died but he is seeing this woman and then I guess something happens there too.

Okay, let's see if I can name all of the songs
     - the hills are alive
     - how do you solve a problem like maria
     - climb every mountain (sung by the most dramatic, weird sounding nun in history)
     - 16 going on 17
     - a few of my favorite things
     - a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down
     - do re mi (actually a pretty fun song and scene)
     - so long farewell alvederzane goodnight
     - eidelvise
   
     That's nine songs I can think of, but I am sure there must be 40. How on earth could there be a 6 hour musical with only nine songs? I bet Newsies had more songs than that. I bet I could name more than nine songs from Newsies (king of new york, seize the day, santa fe, the wake-up-and-get-to-work song, that gather up the masses the song they sing a couple of times okay that's just six), and I definitely know more songs from Wicked. What a long, painful move.

     

Musical Comedy

This post is basically a big long explanation of things I find funny. Maybe you'll find something you like?


I am an absolute sucker for musical comedy. Please note this is different from comedy musicals, with the dancing and the emotions and the stuff. I mean comedians that sing funny stuff.

The best at this is probably Flight of the Conchords. All of their comedy is through song, they sing lots of songs, and they sound good and are funny.

This song here isn't their funniest, but I think it's a good combination of funny and catchy. I will actually listen to it randomly because it is stuck in my head, even though I no longer laugh at it. Is that weird? I don't know. I listen to other, better songs (you know, just plan old songs for the sake of singing songs) for the same reason, right? I suppose when I listen to regular music I might have liked the message or lyrics the first few times, and now I just enjoy them. This is no different. Anyways.

I posted this one a while back, but I just can't get enough of it. It's Hugh Laurie, who did a lot of musical comedy pre-House. I think it's hilarious, but also fun to listen to.

(You should also look into his song "America")

Finally, if you haven't yet, you should watch Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's got a weird name, I know, but it is very clever and quite funny. It's about a wannabe super-villain answering emails on his blog. Give a listen: (this actually is a musical, but, not the normal kind)

That's all. Go away.

Finding Your Center (Of Your Pizza)

     People walk up to me all the time and ask "tell me a good math trick, something I can use in my everyday life." No, this really happens!! Well, let me tell you, I have some great ones. I know how to multiply by 9's really quickly, I can tell if a number can be divided by 3 really quickly - lots of great stuff.

     If you are like my wife, you are absolutely horrible at cutting pizza slices. I mean, you might be the worst person in the world at finding the middle of your pizza. What drives me crazy is she will cut across the pizza, clearly not hit the middle of the pizza, and then just keep going like her first cut was a good one! Can you imagine? Then, I am stuck with the task of handing out disproportionately cut pieces of pizza to people. Everyone automatically assumes that I am giving them their slice based on how I perceive their eating habits, based on their weight. That's not fair to me! I am doing that, but I wouldn't be so crass as to symbolize it through pizza sizes. Please!

     I needed to solve this problem in my household before my marriage and friendships came crashing down. I needed geometry.

     You might not be aware of a cool property that all circles have. If you pick a point on a circle, and from that point draw a right angle within the circle, the sides of that angle will intersect the circle at a diameter. Here's what I mean:
     First off, it's important to make sure we know that a diameter passes through the center of a circle. Any other line segment through a circle is called a chord:

What we want is to find the center of any random circle. (Or, really, we just want to be able to cut a bunch of diameters). Start by picking any random point (we'll call it "S" for "start." Or "square." No, wait, that's confusing. "Sircle.") Also, grab a right angle:

If I put the corner of my right angle directly on the edge of the sircle circle, the right angle will intersect the circle at two points (we'll call them A and B):

If I connect points A and B, we have a diameter:

And of course, you can repeat this process one more time to cut another diameter, and this will result in finding the center of your circle:

So, this can work for any random picture of a pizza I pull of the interwebs:

As you can see, the center that was cut in this pizza is actually slightly off. Shame.

Now we can find the center of any pizza, and avoid any awkward moments when having guests over. Ha! A great right angle to use might be the box the pizza came in, but I am sure you can find others as well.

It looks as though I have made your life a little easier by answering a question you have never asked and didn't really care about anyways. You are welcome.

(Hint: this method also works on pies, cakes, waffles and well-made pancakes, but not quiche for some weird reason).

My Reality Show

The setting of the best TV show ever

You would watch this show. Try and tell me you wouldn't watch this show.

     Everytime I walk through a Costco I have two thoughts. First, I think "I would love to have that big TV." Second, I think "I wonder how long I could live in this place, all by myself?" If I were locked inside a Costco, and could use and have everything in the store, how long would I last?
     I've decided that I could live out the rest of my natural life. I might go crazy, and there's a chance I might die early and unhealthy due to a lack of vegetables, but I bet I could live about as long as I would if I weren't locked in a Costco.

     So then I thought, if I could live my natural life in a Costco, I wonder how many people a Costco could support indefinitely. 50? That seems like a bit much. Maybe 15 or 20? I am super curious. There's a kitchen, freezers and refridgerators, lots of gasoline and electricity, leaf blowers, socks, literally tons of metal scaffolding for building and playing with, tools, frozen and non-frozen food, trampolines, energy and juice drinks from the future, medicine, and furniture. It has everything, right!?
      So, if there is a zombie apolcalypse, the first place I am going is to Costco. I want to get in there, lock the doors and never open them. There'd be weapons to fight off the zombies and food to eat and zombie movies to watch and zombie-killing video games to play in my now-zombie-centric life. I recommend you do the same, but don't come to my Costco because I've gone off the edge and I will kill you. But that's not my TV show.


     The show is called ... something. I haven't figured that out yet.

     There are three competing groups of 15ish people. Each group has its own Costco. They walk in, the doors shut and lock behind them. There is no leaving. They can do whatever they want with whatever they can find within that Costco. That includes forklifts and cars and those fun suction tubes they used to use when I was young. Whichever group can stay safe and sane inside the Costco wins. Each member of the winning group gets a million dollars (second place gets a hundred thousand or something). They don't have phones or internet, or any means to contact the outside world. Each group will have at least two doctors, and something along the lines of a construction worker/architect/plumber/electrician/etc. The groups will have the personnel necessary to survive. Each group doesn't know if the other groups have quit yet, so they might be the winning group and not know it.

     The group can remove someone from among them if they unanimously agree to get rid of that person. This can happen at any time. This can only happen twice. A person who is voted out gets no share of winnings.

     Oooh, I just thought of this: Costcotopia.


     So, if the group has already voted out two people and then a third person gets extremely sick, they have a choice to make. If there is a third person driving everyone crazy, do they quarantine him to a part of the Costco? Do they build a jail? Is there law? Can they get married? Can they grow their own food? I DON'T KNOW. I don't know and I want to know.


     Wouldn't you watch this show?! Who knows what they would build, how they would structure their society, and what kind of crazy crap would go down? Costco would make a ton of money, every product in Costco would get advertising, and holy crap it's brilliant!

     Does anyone know how I can get in touch with The Discovery Channel, or NBC?

Aliens

     "What is one thing that would really force you to question your beliefs"


     A friend asked me this question a few months ago, with regards to Christianity. At some level it is a question that, based on how I answer, allows the one who posed the question to evaluate how I pursue my belief. If I say "nothing could make me question my beliefs" than I must not really analyze or challenge anything that comes from a religious standpoint. On the other hand, if the thing that makes me really question Christianity is very plausible, or in fact has happened in the past, then I look like an idiot. (This question wasn't posed in a threatening or challenging way of any sort, for the record, but was genuinely curious). I think it's a great question that everyone should ask themselves and of others.

     So, having just discussed how I try to approach my faith in a logical fashion, let's begin with these beliefs that I accept as true:

1) God created the universe and everything in it.
2) God created humans on earth
3) Jesus (God as a human) died and rose from the dead to save humans from their sins.

     "What is one thing that would really force you to question your beliefs"


     Lucky for me, I had thought this through before. Kind from a backwards approach, where I realized that if x were to happen, I'd really question my faith in Christ.

The potentially biggest obstacle
 between me and my faith

     The one thing that would most cause me to question my faith is discovering intelligent life on another planet. Really, it's more than "intelligent life" but life with a soul. (No, I don't have any method of proving if aliens would or would not have a soul, but meet me halfway). Why? There's a few reasons.

     1) I've talked about how the universe we live in is a whole bunch of systems that God started and let run a long time ago. I'm of the opinion that the universe exists solely for us to run around in. That means that all of the other planets and solar systems and galaxies and everything else out there is pretty much a byproduct of creation (which could have been done via big bang for all I know or care).
     Life, in my opinion, is still a tiny miracle every time it happens. Every new creature and new bit of life is God shooting a little lightning bolt to earth and yelling "Go!" He puts life on Earth. If life and humanity was the sole purpose of creation, I don't see why God would put life on other planets as well. There's no need for him to put it on Mars or anyplace we haven't yet found.
     If there was unintelligent life on another planet, I would still really examine what I believe and why. If we found that trees are growing somewhere out there, I wouldn't be terribly concerned, but my theory about life being "God lightning bolts" would break down. If there were animals crawling around, I would be much more skeptic, but I still don't think it would be shattering. (I would essentially be forced to change my opinion that life is a tiny miracle happening by the grace of God every day. Instead I would view it as yet another "system" that God put in place and is running along just fine.) If, however there were some sort of "people" "walking around," I would have one main question:

     2) Do they have some form of Judaism/Christianity? I feel like their humanity would have the same types of issues as ours did: at some point falling from the grace of God, or not falling and still being in a garden of eden like state. If either of those two scenarios are not present at some level, then pretty much everything I've believed I am going to re-examine very closely.

     I don't expect you to really care or agree with any of this. But when I've had this conversation with other people they've been genuinely interested, and I find that writing it out makes me think through it better. So I figured there's a chance that you might care or have similar/differing thoughts. Please feel free to leave them as a comment below (or email me, grant dot gilchrist at gmail). I just felt the desire to express it.

     For what it's worth, my wife was asked the same question and said "the equivalent of the rapture happening in some other religion." Meaning, if the biggest, grandest, most final prophecies of other religions came true, she would probably believe that religion instead. A much smarter, simpler answer, really.

A picture of the baby, because I know that's why half of you are here anyways.

Biblical Logic and (Not) Proving God Exists

Author's note: holy crap this ended up being long. I was tempted to break it up into two posts, like I usually do when I try to get smart, but decided not to. I will put some pictures in to make it prettier. Also, you are now able to leave comments below if you so choose. Thanks for reading.


     I hold an opinion that a lot of people don't agree with. I think the Bible is a very logical piece of work, and that my Christian faith is a logical exercise as well. People take issue with this notion because they believe the Bible is contradictory, or don't see how a position of faith and belief can be defended or pursued in a logical fashion. But, if I accept the following things to be true:
     a) Jesus was who He said He was (God in human form)
     b) Jesus was raised from death after being crucified
then pretty much everything else falls into place. I am not a philosopher, and never took any sort of a "logic" class at any point in my education. But I majored in mathematics, which means that I essentially majored in logic, so here are some thoughts.

     I think a lot of people hear the word "logic" and think "scientific." These are two very different things, that I am going to attempt to define without looking up actual definitions. "Science" is a method of testing something that we think is or is not accurate. Isolate a variable, test the variable, interpret the results. This scientific method is applied to all kinds of areas of life and nature. So, based on my limited understanding, something being "scientific" doesn't necessarily mean it's based in physics or chemistry, it just means it was tested using some form of that method. I think most people know this, but the term "scientific" tends to get thrown around a lot these days and is losing its true meaning.
     "Logic," on the other hand, is applying a previously agreed upon or accepted system of rules to any desired presupposition. ("Presupposition" basically means "let's pretend this is true and see what follows." It's the starting point.) A presupposition doesn't have to be true, or even reasonable, for logic to be applied to it.

This picture is not just filler.

     (For what it's worth, Mr. CS Lewis himself first exposed me to this idea. In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe the professor explains to Peter the following: It's not illogical for a fantastic wonderland to exist in the wardrobe if Lucy says one does, because Lucy isn't prone to lying or confusing fantasy with reality. Instead of starting with the presupposition "fantasy lands don't exist," he starts with "Lucy doesn't lie," and goes from there. It might not be probable, or even believable that Narnia exists, but that doesn't make it illogical.)
     If I start with the above presuppositions (that Jesus was who He said He was (God in human form) and that Jesus was raised from death after being crucified), most of the rest of the Bible makes sense. To me, it's very logical, and I am a pretty decent logician.

     What I don't try and do, ever, is prove that God exists. I can't. I don't think anyone can. Well, obviously no one can or else someone would have done so and this wouldn't be an issue. The fact that I can't prove His existence doesn't bother me, because I find His existence to be logically consistent with what I know and understand about the world, my life, and other presuppositions I have chosen to accept.
     A lot of people take issue with the fact that God's existence can't be proven. They point to "science." (Remember that science really means "a system for testing variables," but I am going to its more common definition which is "stuff we know.") "Science" has done a lot for humanity. Pretty much everything I interact with on a daily basis that is man-made has its root in science at some level. Science put a man on the moon, science puts probes on the ocean floor, and science gives us medicine and healthcare. Since science has done so much for us, a lot of people (understandably) put more stock in it than they do in the notion of a God or one of His potentially holy books. So, it's fairly logical to assume that if science, which has done all of these fantastic things in a fairly short period of time, can't prove God's existence, He probably doesn't exist. Couple that with all of the disease, disaster and death in the world, and people don't want a part of Him.

On a fairly unrelated note: who would make
their children watch this? I am terrified already!

     I differ in my presuppositions. If someone states "science can't prove God exists, so I doubt He exists" they are at some level assuming science has been trying to prove He exists. I don't think that's the case. (From what I understand, early scientists believed He existed and either used that knowledge to assume there was order in the universe, or try to prove His existence through order in the universe. Some of this was misguided: People believed that the Earth was the center of the universe because that's where God put it. So when that was proven wrong, it was interpreted as an assault on God's existence or creation, but in hindsight that's really not the case.)
     All that to say: just because we can't prove God exists doesn't make me question His existence any more than anything else might make me question His existence. (In fact, often in mathematics proofs aren't accomplished by proving something MUST be true, but by proving that it can't NOT be true. I can't prove God exists, but I can easily accept that He can't NOT exist). For me, it's a logical pursuit. I am just starting at a point that atheists don't tend to start at. I readily accept that if Jesus wasn't who he said he was, and if he didn't resurrect himself from death, then my Christian faith is pretty damn empty.

     Another presupposition of mine (I use that word to sound smart), and this one is going to be tough for me to articulate: I've stated before

            "Science is man attempting to figure out how God does what He does." -Grant Gilchrist 

which is really a pretty brilliant quote that should go on my tombstone if I ever die. Well, if I am assuming God exists, can I test the existence of the Thing that created my ability to test? Or, can I test the existence of the Thing that created the other things I test? I honestly don't know. It seems like I should be able to, but it seems pretty impossible at the same time. Can science test the existence of God? I don't think anyone is trying, and maybe they should?
     Jesus famously quoted Deuteronomy when he said "Do not put the Lord your God to the test," but I've always interpreted that to mean "don't push Him." Like when a bratty kid challenges his and mom is trying to convince the kid not to get a spanking. Don't test her, she will spank you. I don't think that's the same kind of "test" as trying to see if God exists.
     Testing God's existence happened throughout the Old Testament. People walked in ovens, seas were parted, armies went blind, etc. But the most "scientific" of all the tests, at least that I know of, came from Gideon. He basically said "God if you want me to do something, I want my jacket, which I will leave out overnight, to get wet but the ground around it to stay dry." Then that happened. Then he said "God, just to make sure, tonight I don't want my jacket to get wet and I want the ground around it wet." And it happened. He essentially isolated a variable (the jacket) and ran a couple tests on it. (He even used the word "test" in my translation).

     So, why isn't anyone testing to see if there is a God?
     Here's the obvious, main problem: Testing God (or any human) isn't a hard science. To test the existence of God, you'd have to play by that existing God's rules. We play by God's rules when we test matter and chemicals, because we are working within his system of nature. But testing God relies on an understanding of His system of Himself (if that makes any sense at all). He's a being, so He probably won't respond the same way to every test. It would take a supreme understanding of how He works and why He acts in the ways that He does. And this knowledge could really only be gained by a) assuming he exists, and b) assuming one of those holy books floating around there is actually Holy. You'd essentially have to be a believer.
     One might argue that point. That believing something, as opposed to accepting results of experiments, taints the scientific process. Ultimately, this is no different from any other aspect of the scientific method. Take Euclidean geometry, in my opinion the most basic and accessible forms of all the sciences. Euclidean geometry has a thousand proofs and theorems and laws that everyone accepts and trusts. But Euclidean geometry is based on 5 key axioms. An axiom is basically something everyone agrees is true. Something everyone believes is true. From wikipedia, the 5 Euclidean axioms (with my additions in bold):

1. "To draw a straight line from any point to any point."    (meaning one line connects two points)
2. "To produce [extend] a finite straight line continuously in a straight line."     (a line segment can be extended into an infinite line)
3. "To describe a circle with any centre and distance [radius]."     (a circle is what a circle is)
4. "That all right angles are equal to one another."     (all right angles are equal to one another)
5. The parallel postulate: "That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles."

     Look at that 5th one. It's not at all obvious. The first four make pretty good sense. The fifth one isn't obvious when you read it, but if you look into it just a bit it also is very sensible. The point being, none of those 5 things can be proved. They have to be accepted. Starting from a point of belief is necessary for any sort of proof or demonstration. This is no different with my faith in God. Well, the difference is that everyone accepts the definition of a circle, not everyone accepts the existence of a God.
     The point I am trying to make is that accepting the existence of a God would not negate any evidence that might suggest the existence of a God, it is in fact how any evidence is ever gathered.