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When you ask someone how they know what Jesus said and did, a religious person invariably says, "Because the Bible says so, that's why." And if you question the validity of the Bible, you're told that the book is never wrong, and is the ultimate guide to Christianity. Yet, when feminist Christians point out that God may or may not be a woman, and you reference the Bible, they say that the Bible was written by men, who put their own slant on things.

So, which is it? Is the Bible a misogynistic book written by self-serving men, or an inviolate text of what happened in the olden days of miracles? Do you really think you can have it both ways? Either the book is always right, and God is a man, like they say, and you feminists are just whining; or the Bible is biased, which means absolutely everything in it is suspect – because clearly, if they can change the gender of a god, then they could change anything else they wanted to, too, couldn't they?

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And while on the subject, isn't assigning a gender to an omnipotent being sort of limiting? Isn't the meaning of "omnipotent" the ability to do anything? Which, one would assume, would include changing one's gender?

And isn't gender simply a concept assigned to species that need to reproduce? I thought that God said in the Bible that there was only one God. Who would he reproduce with? Is there another, female God one universe over?

And is she hot? Is there a lot of Gods in parallel universes, and is there competition for the hottest Goddess? And do Gods ever get rejected? Is that what natural disasters are? God goes for a date, and gets cock-blocked, and kicks the earth, and half of California falls into the sea?

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Sorry, less airy fare: Does anyone else think it's a little hypocritical for lesbians to use dildoes? Didn't they make their choice (or whatever)? You don't see many gay men with female blow up dolls, why should they get to claim the male form repulses them, and then they get a molded version of the only thing that makes us different? Doesn't that mean they sort of are attracted to men? Or at least, that part? Shouldn't they be stuck with vaginas, when they make the declaration of vagina-only love? If you want both, hedge your bets, and call yourself bisexual! I can't respect a hypocritical lesbian.

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Why is graffiti so unreadable? Isn't "tagging" supposed to be an ego thing? Wouldn't you want people to be able to read what you've written? Isn't that the point? Rather than stylized letters that you claim is your name, shouldn't it actually be legible? I mean, sure, it's not even your real name – I've never seen graffiti that says "Eugene", it's always "Road Dawg!" or something (I assume, it's hard to read…see above), so there's already a level of anonymity, but seriously? Why bother if it looks like someone threw a paint-bomb at the side of a house?

Also, since this flowery graffiti is so popular, when is calligraphy making a comeback?

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Why does everyone equate piracy – software, music and video – with stealing a loaf of bread? Why is this the fall back position? And is it even accurate? I've been asked "If you didn't like the price of a loaf of bread, would you steal it?" to compare it with software piracy (which, in this open forum, I assure you I never do). But how is that the same? Piracy involves copying something someone else bought. It may be unethical to some, but it's really duplication.

If I could go to the store, see a loaf of bread, and then duplicate it into my backpack, then yes, you could compare the two. There would still be a loaf of bread on the shelves, so no store security would believe anything was missing. The bread company would still be out the money, since I got bread for free, but the bread would still be there, accounted for. Hence, it's harder to get caught.

And where's the line between piracy, and sharing? This is a real question, not a rationalization, by the way. I'm curious. If you bought an album when I was a teenager, and made me a copy of it, no one seemed to get their feathers ruffled. Hell, half the people I know made mixed tapes from the radio, which means you had to listen to some idiot DJ talk all the way through the intro of a song, but you had a copy. The technology made it possible, and for some reason, people thought mixed tapes were awesome. No one looked at you like a thief, and no one said you were being unethical. (I have a whole blog post coming on ethics, so I'll save the rage for the term until then).

Today, it's grand scale; one person buys the product, makes a copy, and leaves it out on the internet equivalent of their front porch for others to have a copy of. Is it because it's a stranger that it's no longer considered sharing? That one person owns that CD/program/movie. They paid for it. Why are they not allowed to share with friends? And if friends is okay, why is strangers wrong?

Isn't sharing with strangers called "charity"?

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I may have more later, but this is the mental equivalent of spring cleaning for me.

Seeing as the last time I posted, I claimed that I would be posting more often due to my new "inspiration" at being a new dad again, one would expect that either a) I would live up to that claim and post more frequently, or b) retract myself and start again. Hey, who guessed "b"? You got it!

And so, in order to get the ball rolling, I thought I would write some quick thoughts, mini-blog style, and see if that gets the juices flowing. You know, just touch on some things that are rolling around in my brain, either from the news, the entertainment industry, or just logical gutter sweepings that need to be cleared in order to make room for serious blogs. Are you sitting comfortably? Then Let's begin!

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So, this is the first time I've gotten this far watching "American Idol". I can't say what the appeal is this time, other than to point out that, for me, things that you follow through their creation process have more personal attachment than things you simply purchase after the fact. Case in point – every single previous "Idol" winner, I have no interest in out of the box. In fact, it's usually their second album, with me really not being familiar with them actually being an "Idol" winner, which gets me interested. The only ex-Idol that I actually enjoy at all is Kelly Clarkson, and only because she went a little rock.

But I am watching Idol this time. And hence, I have a feeling I might actually care about one or two of the contestants enough to buy, or at least download, their music. I mean, I think it's a given that almost everyone who makes it to the top ten gets some kind of musical attention after the fact. They've proven that they are better than about 9,000 other people, and that means that, as long as they've been getting votes, logically, they should sell some records. If nothing else, I assume they publish a CD of these theme shows when completed, but since I've had no previous interest, I'm not sure.

What surprises me, though, is how bad people take getting eliminated at this point. Are they not clear on their situation? They've beaten almost everybody else that tried out. There are only a handful of people who could be considered to be "beating" them, and really, at this point, it's just a popularity contest with America (Can Canadians vote for "American Idol"? Or just "Canadian Idol"?), and if you get to the final 24, the judges obviously think you're good enough to be a recording artist.

So you don't win overall. You have proof – viable proof – that you are a great singer. Why so sad?

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The latest season of "Survivor" has impressed me with something. Not the "fans vs. favourites" angle, which clearly is suspect. I mean, isn't everyone who gets onto Survivor after the first season a "fan"? It's not like these people came dressed up as Rupert begging to be on the show. And "favourites"? Really? Sure, Yau Man and James and Ozzie – but Ami? Cirie? Who?

And I don't buy this whole attitude of: "The favourites have an edge from experience." Or at least, not at this point. By now, some of these "fans" have been on their island longer than some of the "favourites" on their seasons.

So what's so impressive? Simple: Tracy. She's actually using logical strategy. And as many times as contestants on "Survivor" use the word strategy, there has been precious little on display. Please, please don't get me started on Tod from China. No, Tracy is an interesting anomaly – she's not doing great on challenges, except for happening to be on the winning team some times. She's not particularly strong with alliances, having been dumped unceremoniously with Chet and Kathy, the "old people" in the "Fan" tribe. But she sees the situation ahead of her quite clearly.

When it seemed obvious that Chet would be voted out after not being able to swim, she banded with Crazy Caveman Joel to vote out Mary, Mikey's girl crush. The next elimination and even Joel couldn't overlook Chet's weakness – that and he clearly seemed to dislike him as a person. And what did Tracy do? She took shots at Joel's manhood, implying that he was Mikey's bitch, and would vote whichever way he was told, until Mikey didn't need him anymore. Joel mad. Joel see red. Joel SMASH! Joel no one's bitch! And thus, Mikey was eliminated.

Cut to last week. The tribes are shuffled, and Tracy and Joel and Chet, oh so conveniently get dumped in the same tribe with Ozzie, Amanda and Cirie (amongst others). When Chet invariably costs them another immunity challenge, one would assume that clever Amanda and straight-forward thinking Ozzie would dump Chet first, right? I mean, in typical "Survivor" fashion, Ozzie and Joel discuss how the only real choice is to get rid of Chet, followed by Cirie and Tracy. Everything looked like it was going to go that way. In all honesty, that was even the smart move.

Enter Tracy again, who doesn't go to Ozzie directly, but gets in the ear of Cirie. She convinces Cirie (rightly), that this "eliminate the weak" attitude will cost them Chet, sure, but that Cirie or herself might be next, and Joel is evil! She even goes so far as to suggest that as useless as Chet is, he's controllable! Wow! Great thinking for Cirie, who presents these ideas as her own to Ozzie – and which, unbelievably, completely convinces him to change his (and therefore, Amanda's) vote!

This is revolutionary to me – someone who rightly reads people, and can manipulate them correctly, without anyone guessing what she's up to. If any of the previous eliminated people were to show up on the jury (I know, they're not), they would believe the guilty parties, up until now, were Joel and Cirie! Way to slip under the radar, Tracy!

What can I say? I want her to win now. It would really show people what brains are really worth.

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The latest inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have been revealed. Before I bitch about this, let me first just examine something here under the microscope: The name of this organization is, as I understand it, the "Rock and Roll" Hall of Fame. It was established to honour those who were important to Rock and Roll. And yet, I see that in order to stay current with the times, they've decided to induct rappers and pop stars. Um…why? What impact did Madonna have on rock, other than to show us how not to rock? Really, was Vogue a huge influencing factor on Dave Groehl, and we don't know about it? Did "Material Girl" have a similar impact to Elvis Presley? No, I'm not just slagging Madonna – I actually want to know! Where is the logic in including non-rock artists into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Doesn't that sort of devalue the opinion of this institution?

I mean, it's bad enough that the Sex Pistols referred to them as a "shit stain". That's got to hurt, especially when they were being inducted at the time. But when you start including Grand Master Flash and Madonna into something supposed to be about rock and roll, how do you expect to be taken seriously?

Please bear in mind that I'm not even trying to judge the music of these artists – I'm not saying that Madonna or Grand Master Flash aren't great musicians (I could, in Madonna's case, but I won't). I'm simply stating that it doesn't make sense to include people who aren't in this genre into the institution claiming to represent the genre! You don't see a lot of tennis stars inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and I defy you to argue that they should! Or, put another way, would you induct a folk group into a Rap Hall of Fame? I mean, they rhymed too, didn't they?