The Atheist Blogger

Here’s a fun meme I thought up late last night. For each letter of the alphabet, choose an atheist blog or atheist related website that begins with that letter and link to it. To make things easier, you can remove preceding articles such as ‘a’ or ‘the’ to unlock more letters. For instance, this website “The Atheist Blogger” could be used for both the letter ‘T’ and ‘A’. Converting numbers to their word forms is also acceptable.

If you can’t think of any sites, have a perusal of the Atheist Blogroll, and if you really can’t find a website with the starting letter (gold star goes to anyone finding a website starting with X), choose an interesting word from the dictionary and list it with its definition. Try to be imaginative! Remember, this is a great chance to discover blogs you may have not heard of before, so don’t feel that you have to put blogs in the meme that you read regularly!

Finally, link back to the blog who sent you this meme, and tag 5 other blogs.

1. About Agnosticism / Atheism
2. Bay of Fundie
3. CyberLizard’s Collection
4. Deep Thoughts
5. ExChristian.net
6. Friendly Atheist
7. God is Pretend
8. Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes
9. The Invisible Pink Unicorn
10. Jewish Atheist
11. Kill The Afterlife
12. Life Without Faith
13. Moiz Khan
14. nullifidian
15. Oz Atheist’s Weblog
16. Pharyngula
17. Quiet Atheist
18. Radical Atheist
19. Sean the Blogonaut
20. toomanytribbles
21. Unreasonable Faith
22. The View from the Pond
23. Why Don’t You Blog?
24. xylomancy – divination by means of pieces of burning wood (lol)
25. You Made Me Say It!
26. ZackFord Blogs

For tagging, I choose: Friendly Atheist, Unreasonable Faith, CyberLizard’s Collection, and before you think I’m just spelling out naughty words, Life Without Faith & Sean the Blogonaut

Geoff Arnold discovered a great meme recently, so I thought I’d have a go.

Things you have done during your lifetime:
(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school (many a time)
(X) Watched someone die (my gran)
(X) Been to Canada (when I was 1, but it counts dammit!)
( ) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
( ) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane (more times than I can remember)
(X) Been on a helicopter (once, and it was so noisy I don’t think I’d do it again)
(X) Been lost (all the time; it’s why I have GPS on my phone…)
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean (Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian. Got Arctic and Antarctic left!…on second thoughts…perhaps not)
( ) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
( ) Recently colored with crayons (I use board markers these days)
( ) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Been to the top of the Empire State Building (froze my fingers as well)
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t. (whatever you do Adrian, don’t make an atheist blog…oh f*ck)
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose (annoyingly yes)
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain-naked
(X) Gone skinny dipping
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus (back when I was an irrational boy)
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone (watched it in Australia at the new millenium, so before most of the world!)
( ) Paid it forward
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating (didn’t do much skating. Falling?…plenty)
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States (want to though)
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
( ) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(X) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise (going on a Nile cruise in August)
(X) Traveled by train
( ) Traveled by motorcycle
( ) Been horseback riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(X) Been to Disneyland OR Disney World
(X) Been in a rain forest (another thing I did in Australia)
( ) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
(X) Ridden on a camel (Australia again…)
(X) Swam with dolphins (…and again)
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
(X) Been snow-skiing
(X) Been to Westminster Abbey
(X) Been to the Louvre
( ) Been to a bull fight in Spain (had the chance, outright refused to. Bloodsports are evil)
(X) Swam in the Mediterranean
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League game
(X) Been moved to tears
(X) Done something to change someone else’s life

37 out of 70. Not bad for a 20 year old eh? I’m tagging everyone who reckons they can do better, and I want evidence people!

Chicken Girl recently posted this meme on her blog. Out of 219 movies in a list, if you have watched more than 85 of them, you have no life. She had watched 37 of the movies, and so was pretty safe. Unfortunately for me, going through the list was a bit of an embarrassment; I had no idea how many crappy movies I’ve watched in my time…

( ) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean
(x) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
( ) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
( ) Blazing Saddles
( ) Universal Soldier
(x) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
(x) Along Came Polly
( ) Joe Dirt
(x) KING KONG
(x) A Cinderella Story
(x) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
(x) Dumb & Dumber
(x) Dumber & Dumberer
(x) Final Destination
(x) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
( ) Halloween
(x) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving -MAS
(x) Flubber (Orignial)
( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
( ) Chicago
(x) Ghost Ship
( ) From Hell
( ) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
(x) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
(x) The Day After Tomorrow
( ) Child’s Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
( ) Ten Things I Hate About You
(x) Just Married
( ) Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
( ) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
(x) Bad Boys
(x) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Sleven
(x) Ocean’s Eleven
( ) Ocean’s Twelve
(x) Bourne Identity
(x) Bourne Supremacy
( ) Lone Star
( ) Bedazzled
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
( ) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
(x) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bron Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(x) ET
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Bosses Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
(x) War of the Worlds
( ) Rush Hour
(x) Rush Hour 2
( ) Best Bet
(x) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She’s All That
(x) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
( ) Ever After
(x) Wizard of Oz
(x) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
(x) The Terminator
( ) The Terminator 2
( ) The Terminator 3
(x) x-Men
(x) x2
(x) x-3
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
(x) The Little Mermaid
(x) Freaky Friday
( ) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
( ) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(x) Shrek
(x) Shrek 2
( ) Swimfan
( ) Miracle on 34th street
( ) Old School
( ) The Notebook
( ) K-Pax
( ) Kippendorf’s Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
( ) The 40-year-old-virgin
(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
(x) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
(x) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
( ) Baseketball
( ) Hostel
( ) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
( ) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
( ) American History
( ) Three
( ) The Jacket
( ) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
(x) Monsters Inc.
(x) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(x) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard
( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
(x) Hulk
( ) Dawn Of the Dead
(x) Hook
(x) Chronicle Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
(x) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld
(x) Kill Bill vol 1
() Kill Bill vol 2
( ) Mortal Kombat
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) Army of Darkness
(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(x) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(x) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
(x) The Matrix
(x) The Matrix Reloaded
(x) The Matrix Revolutions
( ) Animatri
( ) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
(x) Team America: World Police
( ) Red Dragon
(x) Silence of the Lambs
( ) Hannibal
(x) Battle Royale
(x) Battle Royale 2
( ) Brazil
(x) Contact
( ) Cube
( ) Dr. Strangelove
( ) Enlightenment Guaranteed
( ) Four Rooms
( ) Memento
( ) Pi
(x) Requiem for a Dream
( ) Pulp Fiction
( ) Reservoir Dogs
( ) Run Lola Run
( ) Russian Ark
(x) Serenity
( ) Sin City
( ) Snatch
( ) Spider
(x) The Sixth Sense
(x) The Village
( ) Waking Life
( ) Zatoichi
( ) Ikiru
( ) The Seven Samurai
( ) Brick
( ) Akira

Total: 77

So I have a life (just about). Of course, it probably doesn’t help that I’ve watched many many more movies than the ones on the list.

Sean the Blogonaut posted an open-invitation book meme:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

The closest book to me was one just perched off the end of my bookcase: The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It was quite literally the closest piece of literature to me in my room, and it also just happened to be my favourite book (so I luckily avoid #5).

What happens next is strangely ironic given the content of this blog. I opened the book to page 56, and was greeted with the popular argument against God (the one about the Babel fish). The next 7 sentences read:

`”Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

`”Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

`Most leading theologians claim this argument is a load of dingo’s kidneys, but that didn’t stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

`Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.`

Arthur let out a low groan. He was horrified to discover that the kick through hyperspace hadn’t killed him. He was now six light-years from the place that the Earth would have been if it still existed.

Now I realise I’ve already tagged some people this week in an earlier meme, so I’m going to tag absolutely everyone who reads this post. If you are reading this and you own a blog, it is now your internet duty to carry the meme torch that little bit further.

Oz Atheist tagged me in this “six random things about you” meme that’s going around. I started writing this out this morning before lectures, and had to run out the door, leaving it incomplete. Then, when I get home, I find out that Hannah has also tagged me, and seeing as she lives in the same county of England that I come from (Wiltshire FTW!) I am honour-bound to respond to both tags. Update: Heather also tagged me! Firstly the rules:

Rules

1. Link to the person tagged you (Linked to both).
2. Post the rules on your blog (doing so now).
3. Write six random arbitrary things about yourself (that’s gonna take some thinking).
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them (hehehehehe).
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog (Geez…let me finish the meme first).
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up (in my todo list).

Six Random Arbitrary Things About Myself

1. My middle name is Michael (after my father). Not exactly a random thing but I doubt I’ve told anyone before on this blog.
2. I have a slightly crooked little finger on my right hand due to the fact that I broke it at school, and my mother refused to take me to hospital because she didn’t think anything was wrong with it. A few weeks later when it had swollen a bit she took me, and the doctor told us it had broken and fused in the wrong place. Of course, there is no point re-breaking and re-setting a little finger, so I still have the crooked thing to this day (although admittedly it isn’t as noticeable as before).
3. I have used the same small blue backpack for the last 10 years to carry stuff in. It might have a broken front pouch; its torn in places where it really shouldn’t be torn, and it probably needs another wash, but its my lucky pack dammit! (Not that I believe in luck of course, but “lucky pack” sounds cooler than anything else).
4. I installed putty on my Nokia E71 phone, just so I could log into my server from anywhere in the world. I then used putty to watch the first Star Wars movie in ascii-animation over a telnet connection whilst very bored in a Information Security lecture last week.
5. There are two distinct shelves on my bookcase. One for computing books:
   • Software Engineering 8
   • Using UML
   • 3 C++ books
   • 4 books on PHP, MySQL, and Apache
   • 2 books on CSS
   • Visual Basic 2005 (eurgh)
   • HTML 4 (awwww, so old…)
   • ASP.NET 2.0 (never touched, thank FSM)
   • Visual C# 2005
   • Database System Concepts
   • Big Java 3rd Edition
   • Design Patterns
   • 3 books on JavaScript
   • Ajax

   …and one for atheistic books:

   • The God Delusion x 2 (hardback, paperback)
   • 50 reasons people give for believing in a god
   • The Quotable Atheist
   • The End of Faith
   • Letter to a Christian Nation
   • Climbing Mount Improbable
   • The Selfish Gene
   • A Devil’s Chaplain
   • Freedom Evolves
   • The Demon Haunted World
   • Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
   • The Blind Watchmaker
   • The Jesus Puzzle
   • The Portable Atheist (not portable in any way, shape, or form)
   • God is not great
   • How to be a good atheist
   • I Sold My Soul on eBay
   • Imaginary Friend

   I am an atheist computer geek…and I love it.

6. I used to have 20:20 vision. Hours of staring at computer screens last year, coupled with horrible lighting effects used in a video game I made, finally wore my eyesight down to the point it is at today. If you work with computers, heed my words: When they tell you to take 20 minute breaks every 2 hours, do it.

My 6 victims targets choices

Friendly Atheist

The Atheist Jew

Moiz Khan

A Division By Zero

Splendid Elles

Chicken Girl

Right…now I’m off to tell people about this.