Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Missionary Call

Would you believe it? I got a frickin' missionary call from the Kabbalah Center yesterday. For those of you who don't know, I have been writing a paper for a class on pop Kabbalah, and I have been using their website as a resource. So my "student study counselor" yehuda calls yesterday, noting that I had been on their website a lot recently, and had purchased a book or two, and wanted to know if I had any other spiritual questions that I needed help with. So I explained the situation about the paper to him and told him some of my philiosophical problems that I had with their website information...and he then recommended some more books. Which wouldn't be that bad it all of the books weren't trite little things with inadequate explainations of deeply philosophical points. According to him, I would be an advanced Kabbalah student in light of the questions that I was asking...wow...advanced, I am...well...not impressed in the least.

In other news...I have been on a Patrica Cormwell Crime Novel reading spree lately and I was home alone last night finishing the book From Potter's Field. Which was excellent to say the least. When I came home I felt odd to begin with the ability of a realtor maybe or maybe not being in the house...so you never know if someone is still there. Anyway, the combination of the book, the quiet house, and swearing that I heard the upstairs toilet flush (it was probably just the neighbors flushing theirs)...I freaked out. I did a sweep of the house while holding my rolling pin. I didn't grab a knife because if someone was in fact in the house and managed to take the weapon away from me, I think that I would rather be beaten to death then stabbed...a better survivor ratio maybe...

2 comments:

Jason said...

You raise an interesting philosophical point. Should one prefer to be attacked by a slashing/piercing or a bludgeoning weapon? A slashing weapon has all the draw backs of excessive bleeding, potential piercing of vital organs and perhaps instant death if the attacker is proficient or lucky. However, if the weapon is sharp, the wound would be much cleaner and limited to a smaller area. This means less pain. Also, the healing time and recovery would be much less. Now bludgeoning weapons are a different matter. They are crude and heavy and are designed primarily to crush bones. Granted, it takes a great deal of force, time, and effort to bludgeon someone to death. So, the survivability rate may be higher. However, the shear volume of pain involved with massive body covering bruises, hematomas and broken bones means a long drawn out convalescence full of intense pain. Also, if the attacker manages to incapacitate you with a bludgeoning weapon then there is nothing stopping them from finishing you off with it. A knife would be relatively quick and painless. A blunt object may take a few tries. Ultimately, my advice would be to become proficient with both in order to ensure that the other person is the one on the receiving end.

Anonymous said...

You better get Mr. 3 to teach you some defensive moves. Rolling pins and knives are not really the best defensive moves. There has to be something better!