Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit…
…when there are footsteps on the Moon.
::wipes motivational tear from eye::
“The universe doesn’t send you more that you can bear.” Or whatever it actually is. I think I hate this one the most.
I know people who have committed suicide, the universe pretty clearly sent them more than they could bear.
Everything does happen for a reason. Usually those reasons are the laws of physics acting on the universe as it is in that state at the moment. But it’s a reason.
Oh it absolutely does. The Universe doesn’t give a shit about you or I. The Universe is Shiva and Kali, both infinitely hospitable to Life, and infinitely hospitable to Death. Everything dies, even those things that are not alive - even protons have a half-life. There is no ‘fair’ in the Universe. That is a human concept, which is another discussion altogether.
Once you can get past the idea that the Universe is “fair”, you can get past the idea that God Is An Evil Bastard Who Hates Me, or God Is Punishing Me For Something I Have Done, or other silly concepts that warp and distort who we are and how we treat others.
The Universe is NOT fair, and it is not out to get YOU personally. The Universe simply IS.
“the exception that proves the rule!”
Eh? if it is a rule, and you show me an exception to it, then it isn’t a rule.
I always understood this confusing statement to mean NOT “the exception proves the rule to be true,” but that the word “proves” in this context means “tests,” so the statement really is saying, “the exception TESTS the rule,” or “the exception puts the rule to the test,” or “the exception requires the rule to *prove *itself.”
*Prove *as in “proofing yeast,” which means testing it to see if it is active/alive.
I didn’t say it made sense.
Yeah, what’s wrong? It is indeed an outrage that they pick up a letter at your front door, deliver it to the front door of your aunt on the other side of the country, and then have the nerve to charge you 44¢ for it.
The point is that North Americans seem to get “outraged” by the slightest inconvenience, like having to wait in line for services that are over-burdened because they don’t want to pay for them with taxes.
Sir! I am outraged! OUTRAGED!!! That you would accuse me of this!
The Master Speaks.
In the column Cecil mentions how this is useful in traffic situations. A thread regarding this came up recently. The idea is that, if the sign says, “No U-Turns from 9am to 5pm,” you can assume that U-turns are okay at other times.
The sign doesn’t say, “No U-Turns. Especially from 9am to 5pm!”
Homer Simpson: “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”
Dr Hibbert: “Actually, your heart attack has left you as weak as a little girl!”
It doesn’t make me see red or anything but I automatically assume people who say “the proof is in the pudding,” are parrot people who talk but don’t listen to themselves.
That which does not kill me might actually cripple me for life.
The whole expression is *“the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” *which makes more sense than the truncated version.
Hey, c’mon, all you have to do is want it bad enough.
(If that were true, Superman would have flown down and beat the shit out of my big brother when I was six, because nobody anywhere at any time wanted something as badly as I wanted that).
Damn, those were hard. Bit it was way easier without the cessna.
Next?
Exactly.
Can’t we agree that in most cases when someone says “Anything’s possible,” it’s just a hyperbolic way of saying “A whole lot of things are possible”?
One of my favorite bits on the sort of scene ThelmaLout is deriding seems to involve a lawyer questioning a medical examiner:
I seriously doubt that it ever happened, but it’s the sort of thing you wish a witness would say when watching one of those obnoxious scenes. (I’m not what you’d call a fan of courtroom procedurals.)