Well, Skatje’s going to Minicon next weekend—sending her off to hang out with intelligent nerds and geeks and people like Charles deLint and Lois McMaster Bujold and the Nielsen Haydens and Jane Yolen is probably the most responsible thing a parent can do. If any of my readers are also going, make sure she doesn’t just go hide in her room and knit or chat on the computer. She needs to get out and socialize! Make friends! Watch Dr Who! Something!
Unfortunately, although I’ll be providing the shuttle service to get her to and from the con, I’m going to be swamped with work for the next few weeks and just can’t afford to take the weekend off. I’ll probably get a day pass and hang out on Friday evening for a while, though, before Skatje shoos me away. Next year, though, I’m going to plan my calendar a little better and see the whole thing.
So my daughter gets to go to Minicon and she probably won’t even get me a lousy t-shirt.
Ahem. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with knitting,” she said as she brandished some rather pointy needles in PZ’s general direction.
I envy her going to Minicon and if Skatje, if you need a list of knitting stores in the area, just let me know.
Well be the ones standing quietly near the appetizers while everyone else if praying (briefly and with no holding of hands or handling of snakes or anything) at the family gathering.
The true meaning of easter is my Jewish mother-in-law’s cooking.
*boggle*
Do you seriously think chatting on a computer is not
socializing? If so, could you explain why?
One other thing … I’m suddenly no longer seeing boxes around the numbers, and I haven’t changed my browser since I last saw them. Please bring back the boxes around the numbers, PZ.
How do you meaningfully take part in a ritual or observe the unconscious actions of Homo Sapiens Fannicus without getting away from the computer for a while?
It’s been too long since I’ve been to a Minicon. Sadly, it’s going to be at least one year longer.
No, there’s nothing wrong with knitting or chatting on the computer, but she does that at home. She needs to do something different.
They turn Easter into an egg hunt and little chocolate bunny’s, and ignore its real meaning.
Many people who don’t believe go to church because they were taught to, and they want to be a part of something.
I favour buying chocolate Hershey(tm) kisses in coloured foil and hiding them around the house. for the kids. After all, I don’t need to hide eggs and honour bunnies for OEstre’s fertility rites! Did you know that “Easter” has the same root as “yeast” — fermenting, teeming, fertilizing, blooming?)
I think he means a more one on one traditional type of socialize out in the world.
On Easter we usually go to the Miami Zoo to pay our respects to our primate cousins.
What do the godless do on Easter?
I for one will ponder the mystery of why so many intelligent, educated people feel the need to worship a diety that demands a BLOOD SACRIFICE- it’s so barbaric and primitive.
I’m very thankful to have thrown off the shackles of belief in god(s). Though I must confess, the FSM has his charms. . .
Easter is a wonderful holiday for the science fiction fan. Mainly because Hotels have a hard time getting organizations to rent their space over this particular weekend.
For the last 20 years Norwescon (http://www.norwescon.org) has run it’s four day convention on Easter, and as someone who devotes 6 days to help in the operation of it (mainly in Registration) and several weekends over the rest of the year, I don’t know any better way to celebrate the holiday.
This year I fully intend to hobnob as much as possible with Kim Stanley Robinson (famous SciFi author) and Donna Shirley (Mars Exploration Program Manager during the Mars Pathfinder mission) and ogle the art of Luis Royo.
It beats being told about how some guy was nailed to a tree for saying it would be great if everyone was nice to one another.
And we will have chocolate.
What do the godless do on Easter?
We *convert* all the Easter eggs to *deviled* eggs! ;-)
Eat loads of chocolate. Any more easy questions?
I’m very thankful to have thrown off the shackles of belief in god(s). Though I must confess, the FSM has his charms. . .
And I am very thankful I haven’t. :-)
Do you seriously think chatting on a computer is not socializing? If so, could you explain why?
Probably because he’s older than 30…
They turn Easter into an egg hunt and little chocolate bunny’s, and ignore its real meaning.
Chocolate is its real meaning.
A few years ago on Good Friday, I decided that my wife and I needed to have the most decadent Good Friday possible. So I picked her up from work and surprised her with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, and we watched “Life of Brian” on video. Then we went to bed for further entertainment… that really was a good Friday!
Ah, godless easter traditions. I have two of these.
One is that I go out and catch, if at all possible, the cheesiest film I can. Usually alone. Normally, it’s bad horror schlock, but this year I think Grindhouse will be the winner.
The other tradition involves inflating a marshmellow peep in the microwave (without exploding it!). That’s my “blood sacrifice.”
This thirty-mumble godless person is familially obligated to attend the big shindig, so Interrobang will be spending the day eating appetizers and ham (and avoiding the oh-so-dairy-infused scalloped potatoes).
The bad thing about being thirty-mumble is I don’t get Easter candy anymore unless I buy it myself. The bad thing about being as catastrophically allergic to dairy products as I am (and lactose intolerant to boot) is that I don’t get to eat Cadbury’s Easter Creme Eggs or Mini Eggs anymore. (I recommend them; the experience of feeling your teeth dissolving is truly not to be missed.)
The other thing I’ll be doing is sulking while everyone around me eats Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, the bastards.
Spook:
So, bad horror schlock again this year?
:)
You must mean Feaster holiday. Tasty food, many eggs, much chocolate, dark and rich special brews, and good company.
Haven’t you noticed he took those for himself? At least my browser render the gray number boxes with white edges. It looks corny, btw.
You must mean Feaster holiday. Tasty food, many eggs, much chocolate, dark and rich special brews, and good company.
Haven’t you noticed he took those for himself? At least my browser render the gray number boxes with white edges. It looks corny, btw.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to do what I did last year: Take the sprout to the Unitarian Church. It’s a pre-emptive strike, of sorts: The in-laws take her to a megachurch fairly often. I want her to be exposed to religious people whose beliefs are generally otherwise much like my own.
I’m working on Easter, but the day before I’m dressing my kid up and taking her to her great-grandparents’ for an Easter egg hunt. Family loves it, I get to buy her a cute dress, and looking for the eggs is fun. Plus we can talk about the true origins of the symbols and how they were stolen.
Chet:
I’m over 30.
Similarly, I’ll be at Contemplation, the British national science ficton convention. No change on the comment number boxes for me, btw.
We have no threat of obligatory celebrations – no family in the vicinity (of parents, some deceased, some 3K miles away, some Jewish-ish; of offspring, both busy at school).
So, Eamon Knight and I will be able to make good use of the long weekend (one nice thing about Easter in Canada is getting Friday off work). We plan bathroom renovations and repairs (new sink, clean out the mouse droppings, new floor in the cabinet; attempt to seal the mouse port of entry) – perhaps taking some breaks to eat chocolate (but something rather darker than Cadbury mini-eggs).
Stogoe :
“But” was a typo on part.
Current plans for next weekend involve replacing our rusted-out bathroom sink (to be scheduled around the times Home Depot will be open for emergency runs for more plumbing odds & sods), preferably without burning the house down with the MAPP torch, nor flooding it when my soldering job fails at 3AM. I expect the task to involve much invocation of deity (as well as assorted bodily functions conventionally kept private), so I guess you could say it will be a religious occasion. When finished, we will reward ourselves with chocolate.
The godless do here what they have always done. Eat a lot of chocolate, have a family BBQ, get a bit pissed and watch the sport on TV.
What do the invertebrate (i.e. spineless) godless do on Easter? Go to church like they’re expected to. [sigh]
By the way – the boxes around the comment numbers are back, thank you PZ. (They were back when I made my previous comment but I had to leave before I was finished writing it.)
I’ll be at the American Atheists Convention in Seattle:
http://www.atheists.org/convention/
I think they picked a great weekend for the event.
NMMNG #19:
“that really was a good Friday!”
Did you remember the meat? Gotta have meat. I’m not a big steak fan, so my typical Good Friday meal is a nice big bacon cheeseburger.
I suspect I’m the only one here who celebrates Wester on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the autumnal equinox.
#3: Immediacy and presence form a large part of our socializing. Without this it isn’t a full experience.
Consider sight, sound, feel, smell. Much information is missing when you see and hear somebody on a computer, while feel and smell is missing entirely. As are whatever you call what we do when we sense pheromones.
The computer tends to distance us, and through this distancing lessen the impact. We’re more apt to bond with another when we’re with them. Or become alienated with an adverse experience. To really get to know a person you have to be there with him, for only being there can give you the information you need.
I can sympathize. I was allergic to nearly everything as a child; chocolate, dairy, milk, gluten, citrus. I was allergic to Coca-Cola! I could eat carob on Easter while six siblings insensitively gorged on Easter Morning.
Topic Allergies: are they an indication of natural selection or intelligent design? Immune systems gone wild! Discuss amongst yourselves.
I had a series of shots when I was nine in order to lessen my sensitivity and it turned out that I am now no longer allergic to anything except money.
I gather with family for ham, and fortunately the family I gather with is just as godless as I am so it is generally a pretty good day for me and my kids.
We’re believers but not churched. I go visit my relatives on Easter and they are far enough away that it takes the whole day.
Ever since I was a little kid, we’ve celebrated Easter in a way that had nothing to do with the resurrection of Jesus: we made Easter baskets, colored eggs, and hid and searched for candy easter eggs and marshmallow chicks. The funny part about it is that all my little Christian friends did the same thing in the mistaken belief that they were celebrating Easter rather than the pagan rites of spring.
Really, when you think about it, isn’t it painfully obvious that bunnies, chicks and eggs are all about fertility and not at all about Christianity?
Personally, I perform a little science experiment:
How many Cadbury Creme Eggs can I consume in a sitting without going into a diabetic coma?
My record is three, but I was young then, and invincible. It’s an attempt to support the theory of “Too much of a good thing”
While I was in the United states, there were also various attempts to discover what the hell was in a “Peep”. But I gave that up as a bad go. To this day, I maintain that those little bastards were created by alchemy, rather than mortal chemistry.
Well, I’ll be off to The Great Escape – a three day music festival here in Sydney, and carrying on a tradition established last year of haranguing the inevitable xtians, hare krishnas and other nutjobs who occasionally wander the fields proselytizing.
Doen’t change anyone’s mind, but it’s damned amusing for us…
I suspect I’m the only one here who celebrates Wester on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the autumnal equinox.
Not any more. Sounds delightful; is chocolate involved?
Alan Kellogg:
I agree that these are important differences, and I would say they make the impact of online socialization different from in-person socialization in surprising ways. My point was that it is still socialization.
Seperately, pheromones are chemicals which are (typically) aerosolized when detected by us. So I suggest ‘smell’ as the appropriate term.
Hey! I’ll be at Minicon too! In fact, I’m visiting all week in Minneapolis. I’m moderating a really cool panel Friday night 8:30-9:30 (The Artist & Musician as Protagonist: Pamela Dean, Charles de Lint, Mary Kay Kare (m), Adam Stemple, Jane Yolen ). Come on by. I’d love to meet you and Skatje.
MKK
Chocolate. Seems to be a family tradition of sorts.
The really sick ones, or at least the procrastinators, do taxes.
#41 – My current record is six creme eggs. It would’ve been eight (1 box) but my daughter came in and pinched two… I reckon that chocalate IS the real meaning of easter, that and another (paid) day off from work.
I’ll be sleeping in while my family goes to church, then I’ll eat a big lunch and spend the afternoon driving home in a food-induced trance.
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