Friday Frizzle Fry Fun Facts
2005-04-29,

How many songs are there with phone numbers in them? I can only think of three--

• 634-5789 -- by Wilson Picket;
• 853-5937 -- by Squeeze; and of course,
• 867-5309 -- by Tommy Tutone

It's entirely possible that that's all there is. Google shed not any light on the subject, and I was disturbed by the fact that someone hadn't made a dedicated site just to songs with phone numbers in them. Surely, every nook and cranny of pop culture has had a page dedicated to it (and I'll call you Shirley if I want to, you can't stop me). I'd do it myself, but I have neither gumption nor interest in such a task. Will no one help us fill this void? Will no one 'answer the call', as it were? (That pun gets funnier the more I think about it.)

Although I consider myself an atheist, I find the historical aspects of religion fascinating. It's very telling of mankind's past as to what he has chosen to forget, keep, assimilate and modify over the centuries, whatever those reasons may have been. Take the whole (mainly Catholic) 'fish on Friday' (thus this entry's title) thing that has today atrophied from a weekly penance into a beer-battered, all-you-can-eat, (and if it's Ohio perch) mercury-laced bonanza. How did it start? And are questions like that ever easy, or even possible, to answer? There are many perspectives on the matter, Christian, Pagan, or a little of both. I thnk the term 'Yahwehdess' (referred to on the 'pagan' link) - which I will from now on be calling 'Mrs. Yahweh' - is a real gas. It's intriguing how all these various Eurasian mythoi convolute and intertwine. (That sounds like a species of fish -- "Notice the obtusely angled dorsal fin and bright colors of the Eurasian Mythoi as it convolutes and intertwines.")

And somewhere in that intertwining fabric, JudeoChristian mythos tried to weave out the concept of the Goddess. Is this when female subjugation really got going? When I think about it, it can't just be the domination of the masculine in the species caused by the mythos-- there are fine examples of female gods present in female-subjugating societies. Take Hinduism-- there are strong goddesses in their mythos, and they still treat their women like crap. Of course, that whole 'caste' thing doesn't help.

So if it's not subjugation that caused the weaving out of the Goddess entity, what was it? Maybe it was just the next logical step in the male domination process. First we beat down women, and then we beat down their goddess! I'm no feminist, but there is some logic to the concept. I just don't understand why it is that Judeo-Christians don't want a heavenly Mom. Why is monotheism so important? Hey, I think I've go some fodder for the next Socrates Caf� coming up. I may even bring notes. Yay brain! Do your thinking thing!

I'd wanted to start a punk band called The Ringtones and make an album of 5-10 second-long songs. Sadly, the name's already been taken. A Calgary surf rock band? Only in Canada would you get surf music in a plains (state) province.

Because our office mail system was screwed up yet again this week, I (along with many others) was left off the All list and, thus, did not receive the notice that they're going to have the carpets cleaned over the weekend. Luckily, the person in charge of the operation was going around to folks and giving them name tags for their chairs - so they'd go back to their owners after getting shuffled out of the way - and informed those who didn't get the original notice, so at least there was a little bit of heads up. Now I need to dedicate the last hour of my workday to getting everything in my office off the floor. I've got a lot of crap in here, mainly under my massive u-shaped desk/work area. Boxes, testing implements, my computer, two old computers... stuff.

One last thing for you to hem and haw over and not be able to do anything about-- give it a read:

Oil, Geopolitics, and the Coming War with Iran by Michael T. Klare

-- End Transmission --