HitchHiker's Guide Entry> Metamorphosis 

200712.20 - Defined as follows:
1. Biology. a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly.
2. a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft.
3. any complete change in appearance, character, circumstances, etc.

Example: Butterfly. ...Before a butterfly is ever a butterfly as we know it, it goes through several stages of life before realizing how great it is to be a butterfly. Entering visible existence as an egg, this stage is rather insignificant and usually overlooked by most living organisms and always ignored by non-living organisms. Emerging from the egg is a caterpillar, at which point it begins eating. The caterpillar so enjoys this newly-learned ability that it continues to eat for a few weeks. Having eaten far too much, the caterpillar pauses to loosen its belt and maybe even unbutton its pants for comfort. Lethargic with food, the future butterfly decides a nap will do it well. To assure an uninterrupted sleep, the caterpillar spins a cocoon around itself and promptly nods off. Due to the lack of alarm clocks in the butterfly world, our subject remains in this pupa stage for another week or so. It wakes up and and comes out to a good news/bad news scenario.

The good news: it now has large, colorful wings and no longer looks like a grub. It also no longer has to pay a penalty to rent a car.

The bad news: It spent half it's life crawling around, eating salad and sleeping.

At which point it immediately flies off, completely unaware of the potential havoc it could wreak with a simple flap of its wings.

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When it comes to computer hardware, metamorphosis is never as beautiful. It's usually backwards in comparison to the process of the butterfly. I woke up Monday to find my butterfly of a hard drive had rolled itself up and proceeded to eat its own wings off. In other illustrative words, it went from an intricate piece of machinery to a brick.

We (and by we I mean my friends who actually know a thing or two about fixing computers and hardware and stuff, of which I do not include myself) are working on a few things to recover the data off of it, but with no success so far. I'm starting to come to terms with the loss of data...pictures, music, artwork, an excel worksheet that I custom made to keep track of my budget, all my editable files for my websites and other work. Oh, for crap's sake!
Okay, so I'm not quite ready to come to terms with the loss of data.

But, as is my custom, I am not panicking. I still have access to a computer and the internet from my house (as evident by my ability to write this post). I just do not look forward to getting a new hard drive (and an external backup while I'm at it), installing XP + SP2, installing all the other stuff (office, CS3, drivers...). Oh well.

So they say things happen in threes. I don't recall this being something I've ever confirmed in my own experience, so I can't say how much there is to that statement. If it is true, this would be my 2nd of 3. The first was my iPod (which is back to normal). So I worry what #3 would be..the red ring of death on my XBox? My left arm falls asleep and never wakes up? My icemaker in my fridge goes crazy...oh wait. My icemaker already does that. Great.

We are all too familiar with the process. When it happens, it's as if our head is putting on a street performance and all other parts of our body take notice and crowd around to see what's going on. Yes, a sneeze has the amazing ability to stop all other activity while our head performs a delicate dance of muscle contractions and saliva spraying. And there's usually an encore. Sometimes more. If we do enough repeat performances, other entire bodies take notice and stop to watch. I'm sure if you got past 10 people would actually start chanting and clapping with each successive sneeze.

 

After our fit of spit and whatever other particles and liquid we've unconsciously felt we needed to shake around in our bodies has come to a close and we successfully gathered ourselves together, we're usually presented with a seemingly instinctive "bless you" or some variation. What does this mean? Does a mostly involuntary function of our bodies really put us in line for some type of religious consecration?

Let's look at a few of the explanations dealing with the origin of "bless you" to see if we can find some understanding to this reactionary reply.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fact of the matter is this: There is no clear evidence that gives us a solid explanation as to why people say "bless you". The earliest writings that talked about sneezing and blessings never got into any detail as to why "bless you" is said. What we can conclude is that it wasn't important enough to be documented. Following this line of logic, we can rightfully conclude that the proposed origins/explanations are unfounded and not at all true. I mean, stoppage of the heart and dealings with angels and demons and former angels would seem to be pretty serious.

 

So from what we've learned, saying "bless you" after somebody sneezes is likely nothing more than a superstitious ritual disguised as politeness. People are raised to say "thank you" and "please" and "your welcome", as well as "bless you". Do you say "bless you" or some variant? Why do you do it? Perhaps it's because you've always done that and that's how you were raised. Or it just seems to be the polite thing to do. Either way, I'm going to safely assume most people aren't seriously thinking about saving your "soul" or preventing the plague or restarting your heart. The response is as involuntary as the sneeze nowadays.

 

How did something so questionably superstitious and mysterious work it's way into the category of manners? We all know there are no pieces of our soul flying out of our noses. We all know a sneeze isn't Phase 1 of the Black Plague. And we all know that saying "bless you" does nothing but merely acknowledge a sneezer's existence.

 

I don't say "bless you" when someone sneezes. I say nothing. I've gotten looks from sneezers for my silence. As if I'm the one dropping the ball there. Joe Schmo breathes a bunch of dust and tiny particles through his nasal passage, causing a chain reaction which results in him emitting a violent spray of tiny droplets from his face. I just can't see how it is polite to ask for God's blessing on such activity. What is said when someone coughs? Nothing. Why don't we do it for other bodily functions? Let's make a grain offering every time somebody's stomach growls! Hiccups? Blinking? Muscle spasm? Why can't we turn these things into causes for obligatory response?

 

My point is, even though most people will acknowledge the superstitions behind saying "bless you", continuing to say it under the guise of politeness is still too much. Reacting to something like that with a statement (which we have little idea of the origin of) only shows our ability at simple recognition and response. A robot could do that. There's other, more fitting ways to show we're polite. Break the mold and show you're a logical, reasoning person who isn't controlled by silly superstitions-- next time someone sneezes, and you honestly don't believe their life is in danger lest you utter the magic holy words, say nothing.

 

 

Throughout the years of the past 2 decades, Batman has been the focus of six movies. The first Batman (simply called 'Batman') was pretty good. Michael Keaton had a good Batman face. The sequel (Batman Returns) wasn't too bad, either, but you could tell it was starting to lose that Batman feeling. Christopher Walken riding on a duck with Danny Devito? Make a face that shows approval with a hint of skepticism, that's me.

 

OK, Tim Burton got a little carried away, so they bring in another director (or something like that, one way or another, Burton out, Joel Schumacher in). New director, new Batman (Batman Forever): Val Kilmer (but Alfred stays). Throw in some good ingredients: Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Seal. But it's like a random selection of good food all thrown into one dish. You end up with a Cheese-covered shrimp (prawn) & Watermelon salad with maple syrup & Twizzlers. Not the greatest all in one spot, or in that scenario.

 

"People like George Clooney from that doctor show, let's make him the next Batman" (Batman & Robin).

They managed to make this one worse than the one prior. The funny thing about this is that the character Bane is in this one. In the comic book, Bane paralyzes Batman by breaking his back. This movie did the same thing for the Batman movie franchise. To try and recover and continue the story would be futile.

 

So the Batman franchise lay dormant for about 8 years. And then, Batman Begins. "Oh, here we go again...what is this, a prequel? Good grief."

But wait. This one was good. And not just *not as bad the other ones* good. Not just *not painful to watch*. It was entertaining. A lot of people I know liked it, most of them said that was the best Batman movie of them all. They rightfully ignored any preexisting storyline that might have survived the disaster of the last couple movies. They scrapped the whole thing and just started from scratch. Everything is new, including Alfred (No! Oh, but it's Michael Caine... Oh...well, yeah, that's awesome).

 

The end of Batman Begins hinted toward another movie at some point in the future. That point comes in July 2008 with The Dark Knight. There's a few trailers and stuff out there at the moment, and here's an article with a behind-the-scenes video to whet your appetite. Be forewarned, the excellent journalists of the Today show use a fake, fanmade Joker picture [this is the real Joker]. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Al Roker is gay.