WTF?!?!?!—The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Just a warning: your mind might be blown; you could get minor headaches or migraines from thinking about what I'm about to share with you too hard; I'm not responsible for either of these things, or for breaking you to the point that requires some therapy.  Seriously, I'm sorry for what happens to you after, despite your reaction to this post being COMPLETELY up to you.

            I will be honest here: I think I'm having a little bit of an existential crisis.  It's not exactly like, "What's my purpose in life?!  I NEED RELIGIONS TO GUIDE ME!" and it's definitely not like that more familiar Midlife Crisis of "Hey! I'm not that old!  I can still do young stuff!  BATCYCLE, TO ME!"  I know I'm addressing things that are WAY outside of most people's perspectives, but I'm serious—I'm having an existential crisis at the universal we're-too-small-to-have-any-major-impact-on-the-whole-of-the-universe-and-are-helpless-at-this-point-in-time-being-at-the-mercy-of-our-solar-system level.

            Please, allow me to explain….with the (optional) theme song being "FarCentaurus" by Nigel John Stanford, the guy whose Cymatics music video was so AWESWOME!

            Just recently (as in, this past weekend and prior to), I indulged a bit at the library, checking out Discovery's How the Universe Works and Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.  Just a quick bit about these two shows: the former, sometimes having blogger-and-discovery-of-dark-energy-assist-master Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) in it and voiced overall by Mike Rowe (#NerdCombo #NerdDrool), and the latter written by Stephen Hawking, with voice-over segments done by Benedict Cumberbatch (#SQUEE!).  Both of these shows are very well done, but they both also changed my perspective quite a bit.  And when I say quite a bit, I am really saying BY A FUCKLOAD!

            What I gathered from these two shows is that we, the denizens of the planet Earth (Sol-3), are not exactly the creation of a deity.  We're not living in the only solar system that exists in this universe (If you need more proof, just look at science headlines that go along the lines of "NEW EARTHLIKE PLANET DISCOVERED!"), and our physical selves did not just come out of nothing.  We're made of STUFF, these different elements such as iron, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, iodine, sodium, etc, that did NOT exist at time of the Big Bang.

            Instead, we're the product of a series of VERY fortunate happy accidents.

            Think about it: we're probably in one of very few (out of an infinite number of) universes that actually supports the existence of life, that mysterious chemical reaction that results in organic multi-cellular beings, with each one made of an uncountable number of molecules, making up a shit ton of cells that are able work together to function as a whole system by itself.  This universe was able to form out of matter and not antimatter, just because particles of matter simply just happenedto outnumber antimatter particles.  The universe that then formed after this cosmic battle of matter-vs.-antimatter (which results in the destruction of both particles, by the way) just happened to be uneven enough for gravity to attract these particles to each other, enough to form the first stars.  These stars just  happened to create the elements (out of hydrogen nuclear fusion) necessary to build us.

            Yes, we're not made of regular dust just like the Bible states in the Book of Genesis; we're made of stardust!  Which is pretty neat, if you think about it long enough; it's kind of romantic, in a sense.

            Anyways, some of these stars just happened to explode, creating enough material to form our current solar system, and the sun (Sol, of course) just happened to form successfully, and in just the right size in the PERFECT spot in the Milky Way Galaxy: not too far from the central supermassive black hole, but also not too close to whip us around at impossible speeds, expose us to deadly radiation or to suck us into the black hole.

            And, in addition to the whole "What the Fuckery?" I just laid out, the Earth formed in just the right spot in the solar system, at just the right size with the perfect amount of gravity and elements, AND survived the Hundred-Planet Demolition Derby that took place after the sun first formed.  Not to mention that enough comets hit the surface of this rocky and hot world to give us exactly the right amount of water (give or take a few litres) to cool it down to exactly the right temperature.  Plus, the atoms of specific elements successfully created these molecules that formed the first cells and, therefore, the first forms of life!

            And to top it all off, Jupiter, our big tough super-strong super popular planetary brother, formed far enough away to not affect us, but also to act as our bodyguard, deflecting and/or attracting in-bound comets and asteroids that would've hit Earth and prevented our existence otherwise.  Plus, the moon formed and took its spot at the right distance for us to land on it, and gives us almost the right amount of light at night so we can still see just enough to be able to not trip on something in the meadows and grasslands.  (Well, in my opinion, at least…)

            AND, to top it all off, that comet/asteroid that hit Earth millions of years ago wiped out all the dinosaurs, to allow US, the mammals, to survive, and evolve into creatures that can understand and map the universe!  We are simply the product of a series of accidents who can create abstract ideas that have no solid tangible presence in the universe, and extremely large solid objects made up of the same stardust as us that DO have such a presence!

            Which.  Is.  Weird!!!!

            What the hell?!  What is humanity's purpose in the universe?  Are we really experiments, something that just SO happened to form as part of a simulation (which I suspect due to the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, or the Keyon, as I like to call it)?  Or are we the creation of the universe itself so that this (possibly sentient) universe could understand itself—making us its neurons in three-dimensional space?  I have so many questions, many of them being "WHY….?" and eager for an answer that doesn't just have any basis in statistics and probability.

Perspective: Now You Have It

            It's frustrating and scary to see how we have all of this amazing stuff going on and NONE of it is the primary focus of the human race!  We're all on the same spherical rocky iron(ic) boat, orbiting the same star, paying witness to some of the same awesome stuff in the skies (including the moon), and yet we're too busy bickering with each other about police brutality and who crossed which lines in the sand, eager to collect all parts of an abstract creation of ours, an idea that we place numerical value upon, despite it having not a lot of purpose besides being a tool that we use in a system that we set up, and fighting over how people see other people who are different from them (Sunni vs. Shiite and Middle East vs. America—everyone wants to be right, nobody wants to be wrong; it's pointless to force your ideas of how people should live/think/function onto someone else, and that goes QUADRUPLE to the (tel)evangelists and racist fucknuts out there!).  Why do this, when we have a whole other realm to explore?

            And why destroy the planet we're all living on?  IT'S THE SAME PLANET EARTH!!!!  The climate-change global warming deniers (read: idiots) are poisoning the same air that everyone else is breathing and relying on for survival, only because they're not educated enough or they don't believe that we're all going to destroy ourselves as the result of our own actions.  We're making each other sick, we're killing each other, and we're ruining ourselves because of disagreements and bullshitting.  (Also, any deniers are NOT going to be allowed in my boat.  You cause it, you suffer the consequences—have fun either treading water or drowning or dying from dehydration!)

            Why fight?  Why destroy things?  We could be the only witnesses to everything the universe is showing us, and yet, we're staring at the ground and our cell phones and computer and/or television screens, and glaring at everyone else.  We're unhappy narcissistic creatures that are intent on focusing on ourselves and our own problems.  Our world-view is small, limited to what we each see around us, when we could just look up together and learn what we have yet to know about everything and everyone.

            Why don't we just do this right?!

            This is all I can say right now.  That is the gist of my sort-of existential crisis.  That is the result of watching those two shows on DVD—and I think everyone else should do this, too.  It would be good for you, at least, to realize what I have learned: we're a miracle that isn't acting like one, and should start in order to save itself from the extinction we've forced on many other creatures that live on the same planet we do.  If we do get our act together, cooperate and accept everyone's differences (including the colors of our skin, the religions we practice, and the fact that many of us have Autistic Spectrum Disorders and other disabilities), we can do incredible things, which can help us understand the universe (that can be scary due to the sheer size and scale of it—but only if you look at it that way) and also ensure the survival of the human race in case the universe decides to butt-fuck us again, with Apophis or whatever else is out there.

Random Thoughts Are Random

            I know: I was "thinking like a crazy person" (despite being completely reasonable) prior to this part, so why not share some thoughts that I had amidst this whole existential crisis I'm having and before?

Aw, @Macys! Plz use "Question!" next yr, if not to promote critical thinking, then to have buildings across the st. do "Answer!" in reply!
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) December 1, 2014

to me, right now, a lot of things don't just not "matter" to me--actually, they #antimatter to me. HAHA! #neilwithit
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) December 2, 2014

I wonder what would happen if you stab someone with a #unicorn horn. What magic would take place? @TheBloggess
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) December 1, 2014

            That's all for now, folks!  Keep sharing this blog, and ENJOY YOUR COSMIC TACQUITOS!

Christmas Music Mixtape--Mix It Up This Year

            NOTE: This blog post will not have a theme song, but rather multiple songs embedded via YouTube for you to sample what I believe would be the foundations for a better playlist for Christmas.  Also, I know it's another verbose blog post but hear me out: it's well worth it!

            Well, it's the time of the year again, where people purchase presents for other people in their lives, other people volunteer to help the homeless and hungry, cats fuck around with Christmas trees, retail businesses go nuts over Christmas sales, and radio stations keep playing cheesy music for the holiday season.

            It doesn't matter if you celebrate Yule, Christmas, Kwanzaa, or whatever else you feel like celebrating at Christmas (Halloween?  Because you're cool like that?), those songs on the radio get extremely annoying.  When my family and I were spending Christmas in New Jersey (part of my territory, Daleks), I'd be lucky to just pass out from exhaustion on the car ride home.  Lately, since I've been getting into music, it's been so annoying to hear those songs over and over.  I'd be like, "Can we PLEASE put on some fucking techno already?!"  Of course, that's only in my head, and since my mother tends to be only a little telepathic, she can't just instantly read my mind anytime she wants or whenever I want her to.  It'd get insane!  And violent and vulgar!  And Hulk-like angry!  *cringe*

            But the irritation got worse when I was working in retail at a store that does a lot of seasonal stuff: the Christmas Tree Shops (run by Bed Bath & Beyond).  I'm not a fan of working in retail at that place, and I don't plan on doing it again anytime soon, but the station that the place was tuned in to, I swear, only plays like, 10 tracks on repeat.  So it's the same songs over and over and over again.  I had to resort to bleaching my brain with some Swedish death metal songs as soon as I got home, just to get all of that holiday cheer out of my ears!  That plus those particular stations playing some super cheesy sounding Christmas songs like "Little Drummer Boy," and various renditions of "Silent Night" that tends to make your conscience vibrate with pain when certain notes get overplayed and over-enunciated is enough to get a Nerd/Nerdist like myself curl into a ball and pray to whatever deities are out there to make it end RIGHT THEN before they start wishing they asked for a chainsaw that they could use to destroy the fucking radio (FM, AM, Satellite--who cares?!) in a frenzied fit of "PLEASE, JUST MAKE IT STOOOOP!"

            Not to worry!  I'm here to help you create a playlist that is not only a little indie-ish (not so much mainstream stuff), but is updated enough to not sound like it was made to put little kids to sleep or have them sing in front of their parents and siblings at their Catholic school's Christmas pageant.  I can give you options and sources for music that will not drive you insane, but instead prompt the usual rhythmic head-nodding that badasses use while they listen to their badass music!

            So, let's start with a couple of bands that people will appreciate this holiday season--as long as it got played a lot more!  (I hope that those aforementioned radio stations are reading this blog post!)

Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra: The Definition of Badass Christmas Music

            My parents and I enjoy Mannheim Steamroller because they tend to be a bit of a pioneer when it comes to doing electro-rock Christmas music.  Songs like "Celebration," and two different versions of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (where the comma is important to identify which is which), as well as some movie-sounding ball-busting chords of "Carol of the Bells" just making that particular song my favorite Christmas "carol".  If you don't like Steamroller, then it sounds like you're a traditionalist Christmas idiot, who believes that the Christmas holiday genre only has room for music made for kids to sing at pageants of the Nativity.  Or "Dominic the Donkey," which is one of those songs that I wish was never made to sing; I had to sing it and it just…. *shudders, violent screams of donkey-cide*  NO ITALIAN CHRISTMAS DONKEYS ALLOWED IN MY TERRITORY!  PEWPEWPEW!  #EXTERMINATE!  EXTERMINATE!!!  EXTERMINAAAATE!!!!!!!!

            Ooops!  *noms on chocolate truffles*  Soorry!  *swallows*  I went a little overboard on insanity there; it's best to keep it under a certain level, like 3.14159265358979……  (Pi for Christmas--get it?)

Anyways, if you don't like this version of Carol of the Bells, you deserve to be evicted out of my land!

And how can you not like their take on Deck the Halls?

            But, if anyone is a stickler for keeping songs up to date (like I tend to be, as long as it's not Mariah Carey butchering certain ballads with overdone vocalizations and *shuddershudder*  BEEBS being that tween magnet by making songs for the season for the sole purpose of making the record labels money), they might also enjoy Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  This is THE rock band for Christmas.  THE musical artists who should do a show in MY area providing that ticket prices are reasonable and the location is not too far from me to the point where I have to wield my imaginary driver's license and drive my imaginary car (a Lotus Elise or Bugatti Veyron--I CAN DREAM BIG!) to the location.  (Translation: I can't drive!)  Though, a TARDIS would most certainly be useful in that situation, along with some psychic paper and 2 sonic screwdrivers--one mechanical and one alcoholic.

            Nevertheless, who can say no to their version of Carol of the Bells?  The version that makes me wish I can join an orchestra of my high school peers and knock everyone's socks off with my imaginary guitar shredding and minimal piano playing!  (*adds to life list draft "Perform Carol of the Bells with TSO at High School's auditorium named after my marching band director"*)

Also, I just went and searched "Trans-Siberian Orchestra" on YouTube and came up with this tune!  Ain't it just AWESOME?!

            Even Eddie the Educator Dalek informed me that TSO is his choice of seasonal listening!  Which means either I'm awesomely psychic or TSO is just that good!

@LadyEden1337 TSO IS MY PREFERRED SEASONAL LISTENING
— Eddie the Dalek (@EducatorDalek) December 10, 2013

However, TSO is not everyone's cup of hot chocolate (with whipped cream and/or marshmallows) which is why I'm digging deep into the interwebs to bring you some more of the better Christmas melodies that should be appreciated; it could be techno, trance, dubstep, rock, comedy, etc!  And if my parents follow along with these suggestions, it means I'm successful and should increase my Charisma by at least 0.5 in my Character Tome!  (That's right, Dad, not everyone wants to listen to the Dr. Demento Christmas show you have on tape/CD/your computer.  Please keep it away from me this year.)

Carillon of the Bells: A Cast In Bronze Feature

            If you do not like either version of Carol of the Bells I've listed above, you might rather prefer having a bunch of bells do it properly, along with a piano, drums, bass, and perhaps a rhythm guitar line.  For that, I bring you the works of my tweep Cast In Bronze.

What's amazing is that not only is this the second traveling carillon he has (the first incarnation was, at the time, the only one in the world that could hit the road and wow people to the point where they #fansquirrel over him a little; hey, can you blame me?  I first saw him at the awesomely awesome Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire!  He performs at Musikfest EVERY YEAR!), it was mostly blind luck (mixed with circumstantial luck) that gave Frank DellaPenna the opportunity to make his "wish" come true and bring the miracles of a carillon to a modern audience.  He was even able to compete on (or perform at) the show America's Got Talent!

            Not only that, it seems that he's also performed at Epcot!  THAT'S DISNEY FUCKING WORLD!  (Cue Dad's Vulcan-like nerdgasm where he talks about how people who don't work for Disney can perform in the parks with a difficult "audition process", and points out that even my sister with our high school marching band was able to march in the Spectromagic parade in Disney World, before partaking in the ginormous halftime show at the Gator Bowl.)  He's just all around Nerdist awesomeness, taking his music Nerdiness and making something epic out of those skills.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cast-in-Bronze/112389912232

The Twelve Days of Christmas That Tire Us Out

            I know you know of the tune the 12 Days of Christmas, and I know that you know that the person's true love gave to them in rich Victorian fashion, 11 Lords a'leaping, Eight maids a'milking, 5 Golden (hula-hoop) rings, and a menagerie of various exotic and expensive birds.  (I know I'm wrong!  That's because not everyone remembers all the 12 things in the right order!)  But not everyone's keen about singing how their significant other got them 364 total gifts over the course of 12 days, that, by the way, needs a shit ton of storage and upkeep and boarding and what-not.  (If you were on the Faroe Islands, it'd be 15 days of different items!  Source: Wikipedia)  Which is why I bring to you 3 hilarious variations of this song!  Not 1!  Not 2, but THREE!  First, there's the classy Bob and Doug take on the traditional tune that gets a uniquely original hippie manly twist on the original lyrics:

Ain't that classy?  "A beer….in a tree!"  (*makes mental note to get Dad's favorite beer that is not Foster's, and tie a chilled can of it to the trunk of the Christmas tree with a bow tacked on top*)

            If you're too young to know of Bob and Doug McKenzie, but are not too young to listen to the radio (which is like TV but without the pretty moving lights and Internet without the interactivity), I'm sure you've heard of the "12 Gifts of Christmas" by Allan Sherman, which is my personal favorite!  Who wouldn't want a Japanese transistor radio and calendars with the name of their insurance agent?!

I love this song!  I also crave to perform it in front of a live audience at my high school with an entire adult choir!  (*also adds to life list draft*)

            Yet, if you can't stand Christmas altogether, imagine (if you would) that it's already Boxing Day and you're singing Bob Rivers' version to yourself about the 12 Pains of Christmas and how you got through them all with the grace of a drunk Mother Theresa!

Classy!  Very classy!  I suggest you pick one and laugh your knitted socks off when it comes up on your playlist!  (If you don't like any of them, try this Indian version!)

Christmas Dubstep--Because It Ain't Cool Enough Without These Chewns!

            Ah, drum-n-bass, that genre that can also be called dubstep and furthermore piss Deadmau5 the trolltastic EDM producer off.  It's a bad sign when people's mothers gets confused about what genre is what and you have to explain the difference between techno and dubstep, but when you listen to it, it's like a temporal brain bleach that helps get the real life frustrations and the expired sounds I've described above in the intro out of your short-term memory.  Which is why I've included two songs here that should be added to every Christmas season playlist.  (If you don't know how to enjoy dubstep, try this "how to dance to dubstep if you're…" video and this other video of a child doing bassface!)

            Who said that Christmas had to be Merry?!  Tim Burton taught us that it can be Scary as well, with his stop-motion animation film The Nightmare Before Christmas!  And that is the tone I'm bringing to the Christmas playlist soundscape, by adding Hedegaard's "Scary Christmas"!  And make sure to pump up the volume on this one, enough to make your eardrums vibrate like the speakers at a rock concert!

            And why does the Little Drummer Boy have to be all properly "Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum"?  Hmm?  Why can't this kid….be a fetus with a mohawk and the mad skillz to make the beats all sick dubstep beats?  Hmm?  At one point, my dad was sampling various versions of Little Drummer Boy and one version stuck out: a dubstep version called "Little Drummer Fetus"!  If you're hitting up the EDM/EBM soundscape, you might as well add this to your playlist!

That's right, wonderful readers, feel my interwebz bass (the kind that's very hard to track down)!

Give It To Me: Straight No Chaser

            It wasn't until recent years that Straight No Chaser has brought my family fresher versions of traditional songs that we can all enjoy together!  They managed to get record deals from simply having their performances go viral on the Interwebz and since then, rocketed onto the music scene as the equally cool a capella version of the awesome Cast In Bronze!  They do stick to the music sheets, but there are songs out there where they were able to add their own twist to the music!  Here's one example: the 12 Days of Christmas!

And if you want something original, how about the equally funny but totally original Christmas Can-Can?!  It not only touches on the commercialism of Christmas but also Jewish traditions!

Some of the members of SNC also come from within my territory!  WOOHOO!  That makes Straight No Chaser my HOMEBOYS!  Lol, sort of!  But at least my parents are in possession of one legal copy of their CD and I hope to listen to it again this Christmas!  That is, in addition to the songs I'm listing here!  Get it, parents?  I don't want a repeat of traumatic childhoods or retail experiences!

Last Christmas I Gave My Listening Skill Points to Benny Benassi

            Hey, look!  It's the Bennassi clan!  You know, the Benassi Bros.?  The two cousins of the Benassis that spread out all over Europe with their badass Italian dance group and EDM production skills?  Okay, fine!  If you haven't heard of Marco "Benny" Benassi, he's like, the Neil Gaiman of music production!  (They even look alike!  :O  Le GASP!  COULD ONE BE THE CLONE OF THE OTHER?!?!?!  #nerdyconspiracies)  And if you haven't heard of the tune "Last Christmas" that Wham did previously, I suggest you get your head out from under that rock and take a listen.  I've already had to listen to it over and over and over again while working retail and I was ready to get back to hiding under that rock again from it--that is, before I heard Benny Benassi's remix ofthe tune!

It gives me hope that the Christmas soundscape isn't just jingling bells and people caroling gayly and sleigh rides throughout the Christmas-decorated village of ye olde times (or kids farting on Santa's lap--that song totally exists, readers!  Take a listen!).  Not that there's anything wrong with it.  Like I said, that scene is really not my cup of gourmet mint hot chocolate.

            Hopefully, I've given you some modern options for this holiday season.  Disclaimer: This blog post isn't the rulebook for the ultimate music playlist of all Christmas seasons ever.  Instead, it's a guide to providing a foundation of epicness that can only be completed by you.  That's right!  You can tailor-make your playlist for this holiday season!  In Morpheus terms, I've shown you the door (hallway), but only you can be the one to walk through it.

            With that said, I hope you have an excellent Christmas season this year!  And Kwanzaa!  Oh, and Happy Yule to all my Pagan readers!  If you wish to share your own (non-traditional non-mainstream) favorites, feel free to share them and I'll see about adding them onto next year's entry!