Archive for November, 2006
Old Writings: Existence and the Existence of God
Nov 29th
Yep, big topic for a fourteen year old, at least when I was. It is amazing how resolute I was about certain concepts and how things always seemed to work out. I don’t think I finished writing this one. Maybe someday I’ll go back and expand on it.
Enjoy,
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Existence and the Existence of God
by Mike Benton
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    There is only one thing that can exist before everything, including whatever you believe created the universe and life. That one thing can’t have laws of physics and science, that apply to matter, gases, or in other words any particle, apply to it. The reason why is that it isn’t made up of a particle or any other thing that can be touched, seen, heard, smelt or tasted. This thing is a force. More >
Set on fire and no one noticed.
Nov 26th
Someone set hisself on fire in the middle of rush-hour traffic and no one noticed…
Last Friday, November 3, the statue appeared to be on fire. When authorities got there, they found a video camera, a canister of gasoline, a sign reading “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, and a human body so badly charred that it was impossible to determine its sex. Someone had self-immolated, near a highway off-ramp, amid rush-hour traffic.
Read this link for the full story
Old Writings, Adventures at the Canal: The Bag
Nov 25th
This is the story that got me to write more about the canal. Sadly, I did not write enough about the canal. Today it is covered over by a park and unseen and probably unknown about by many. The bulk of adventures at the canal happened from when I was 12 to about 16 years old. Although they are not terribly life changing or even remotely enlightening, they are a form of entertainment and a piece of my history. Someday I will fill in some of the gaps with more.
Enjoy,
The canal was a magical place where you could go if something was on your mind or you just needed some peace and quiet. The gurgling and gushing of the running water outdid the other sounds so all you could hear was nature’s blood. Water.The water was fairly cold in the summer and got even colder as the year went by. I remember one cold day in the Fall of ‘94 when I was down at the canal with my friend Matt Duran(His uncle has been best friends with my mom since high school). We were eating pomengranates and smoking cigarettes when I looked up and saw two little kids crouching at top of the canal about fifty yards away. More >
Old Writings, Adventures at the Canal: Ex Girlfriend
Nov 21st
Nothing special here, posted simply because of it is part of the collection.
Read quickly,
Is life really that important that we have to rush throught it and not stop to smell the exhaust. Speaking of which, there is too much exhaust in this world. Will the next world be a happy place where there is no pollution and everybody has food and a place to live? I don’t think so because the dirtiness of this world will have gone with death into the next world and infected it. More >
Old Writings, Adventures at the Canal: Introduction
Nov 20th
What follows is the introduction to a series of short stories I started writing in high school many years ago. I recently came across these and felt they were good enough to post. They are unedited and come exactly how I found them or rather how I left them when I wrote them all those years ago.
Enjoy,
It was always there, down at the end of the street, all dirty and filthy with the runoff water from the mountains. It was dug by the Hohokam indians a couple lifetimes ago. It was fifty feet across and thrity to forty feet to the bottom. The walls weren’t concrete like the other canals in Phoenix, these were dirt. You might call it a canyon or something of the sort. I didn’t like it much to begin with but after passing it about a thousand times I got used to it. More >
It’s been awhile
Nov 20th
Last Saturday my dog went exploring while we were camping and we haven’t found him yet. I’ve been up there looking for him every free moment I have. There is a little more than 100 sq miles of area to cover. It seems that we focused our attention in the wrong direction the firt few days based solely on his past habits.
You see the wind blows from the south east to the north west. I kept looking in the north west. Logically if he was going to smell something and run off towards it, the smell would have to come from the south east. I was not searching much in that direction.
Apparently there is are sheep to the south that I did not know about. The area they are in is a ‘Motor Vehicles Prohibited’ area. about 35 sq miles. We think that is where he is. The next step in our search is to find the ranch owners and see if they know where their flock is and if we can go to them. I’ll ask the shepherds if they have seen him. We hope our dog has is smart enough to stay around the flock and shepherds for safety, warmth, food.
to be continued…
Donald Rumsfield Steps Down
Nov 8th
United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield steps down. I was making some food to eat and it came as late breaking news on the TV but what is interesting is that this is already documented in Wikipedia. How is it that a news station that gets tons of cash to get the news first actually got side swept by a user driven site?
At any rate, I think this will be the first in a few more step downs that are going to occur in the next month or so. Call it intuition but I think something new is going to happen. 
You saw it here first.
The Sense
Nov 2nd
The ashy black rolled beneath him as the tires droned to the beat of movement. The sun dredged itself across the endless sky. The horizon was a constant range of mountains, giving way to more spiked horizons. Every now and then, rodents would dash across his path in a frenzied cluster of movement that tugged a primal urge to survive. In between those now and thens, he would spot the corpse of a failed survival attempt and his heart would pay a small tribute to the life lost. More >
The Pledge failed…
Nov 1st
Yes I know, I didn’t post anything yesterday. So to make up for my pledge failing, I bring you news of the other pledge that failed. Earlier in the blog I told you about the $100 laptop pledge. The pledge would have been a success if 100,000 people signed up, but they didn’t. Maybe the number 100,000 was too high to begin. Maybe 5,000 or 10,000 would have been more effective. At any rate, you can see the results at PledgeBank.
It does show that there is an interest in consumers for this machine whatever the reasons.
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