(Just so you know, NCBF stands for “Not Certified Butthole-free”. It means that I’m pretty sure that there are no buttholes in this post, but can I really ever be positive?)

Fact #1: Three years ago, I was at a family reunion. While I was there, I met a cousin that I didn’t really know up to that point. I don’t remember how the conversation got started, but it veered towards sex. Not with each other, mind you – although with enough wine coolers or a knock on the head hard enough to make me forget that I’m related to her, I probably wouldn’t say no – but with, you know, the people we had sex with up to that point in our life. So anyway, it turns out that she was raised as a very conservative Christian, and hadn’t had sex until she was something like 28.

At least, not the kind of sex that involves a vagina.

Go with God, my jungle friends.

Apparently, as long as you don’t let anything go in your vagina, you’re in the clear.

What this meant, apparently, was that any other orifice was open game. If I understood her correctly, if there was a location on her body where one could stick an erect penis, someone had done it at least once. I guess God’s lawyers should have worded that part of the bible more carefully, because they left a pretty significant loophole in there. Hey, it’s like they say in every terrible movie about computer hackers since 1986: “Every system has a back door.”

LITERALLY.

FACT #2: Mormons can’t have sex before marriage.

I know what you’re thinking: if the religion says they can’t have sex before marriage, Mormon teenagers don’t ever have premarital sex, right? You’re going to be really disappointed when you hear this, but it turns out that Mormon teens have also found a loophole. It’s a technique called “Floating” or “Soaking”.

It’s fairly simple, really. The boy sticks it in the girl, but then, instead of 15 seconds of flailing around and then triumphantly throwing up the horns and yelling “PUT HIM IN A BODY BAG, JOHNNY!” (That’s how people have sex, right? I know that’s how I have sex.) the couple just sits there without moving.

That’s floating.

These two facts raise a ton of questions for me.

First of all, does it really not count as sex if you penetrate your partner and then sit there motionless? If this is acceptable, God probably needs to come up with a slightly less narrow definition of “sex”, because his current definition is dangerously specific and completely ineffective at enforcing what I’m guessing his intent was when he made the rule in the first place.

Second of all, supposing  that it is legit, and God is like “Hey, I just said no premarital sex. I didn’t mention floating and I didn’t say a fucking word about sticking it in the ear canal. Quit bitching and let the kids have their fun,” how much farther can you take “floating”? If you and your girlfriend decide to do a little bit of floating on top of a washing machine, a galloping horse or in the passenger seat of an offroading pickup, is it still legit?

Shh!!! Everybody remain completely motionless and silent, or poor little Kevin will most assuredly climax!

Third of all, what do you do while you’re floating? You can’t move, or else you’re breaking the rules and violating God’s law instead of sidestepping it. Throw in the fact that the boy is a teenager, and you really, REALLY can’t move. I like to imagine that they stare at each other with the expression that the kids in Jurassic Park made when they were trying to remain completely motionless so the dinosaurs wouldn’t eat them.

Fourth of all, are guys ever tempted to pull a fast one on girls when they’re doing this? You’re already in, and you’re 18, so it’s going to take seven, maybe eight seconds to finish the job. Does it ever cross your mind while you’re sitting there, locked in a stare down with your girlfriend like a couple of boxers before a prize fight, to just grab on, scream “PSYCH!” and then start going at it like crazy? The girl will probably be too stunned to react for the first few seconds, and by then it will be far, far too late. This has to have happened at least once, right?  Anyone who doesn’t think that this is a possibility was never an 18 year old boy.

Fifth of all, is there self-floating? I’m not sure if Mormons are allowed to masturbate or not (I’m guessing not), but if they’re tempted, do they sit there, motionless, with a white-knuckled grip on their junk? For the sake of entertaining myself, I’m going to say that I am 100% sure that they do. After some discussion on this subject with my friend Dan, I’m also wondering if they stare in the mirror while they’re doing it, pointing at their reflection American Psycho style. Once again, for entertainment’s sake, I’m going to make an executive decision on this and say “yes” once again. I haven’t been able to look in a mirror without chuckling since having this discussion.

Finally, WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING BEING AN ATHEIST!?!? For the past 10 years, I have been having plain old normal and all-to-infrequent sex with girls. Apparently, this would not the case if I was an extremely conservative Christian. All the weird stuff that you have to pay a prostitute extra for is just par for the course if you pick up chicks at a Baptist church.

I had a really terrifying picture of couple of people doing some pretty terrifying and extremely acrobatic things to each other that I was going to put into the post, but lucky for you, it doesn’t really fit into the formatting.

Either way, I’ve got some unholy urges that require that I find a mirror and a bike glove on the double. It’s time to clutch. Did I mention that I’ve decided to start calling self-floating “clutching”? Because I have. If you have a better name (and I’m sure one exists), let me know.

My Dad’s birthday was a few weeks ago, and we went to see Avatar.

You want my take? Here’s my take:

James Cameron is a fucking pro at making movies that trick people into thinking they’re awesome just long enough to get a gigantic pile of money and an Oscar. You remember Titanic? It made historically high amounts of money and got something like 30 Oscars, including best picture. Does anyone still believe that this is one of the best movies ever, or even the best one released in 1997?

Now Avatar is starting to be discussed as a possibility for a picture of the year nomination.

Before we go any further, let’s play a little game. I’m going to explain the premise of the movie, and you’re going to try and figure out what happens. Ready? Go.

- There’s this planet inhabited by aliens called “Na’vi” that has a rich supply of this mineral that’s called “unobtainium”.

I’ll just give you a second to let that sink in.

- Humans want this mineral very badly, and there’s a very rich vein of unobtainium on this planet that happens to be underneath a Na’vi settlement. The humans want to get to it, but they can’t because the Na’vi, who they consider savages, refuse to leave their settlement.

- The marines and businessmen on the planet want to get the aliens out of their settlement by any means necessary, but there’s also a group of scientists stationed there that are trying to befriend the aliens, understand their culture and then convince them to leave their settlement peacefully, so the humans can get all of the sweet, sweet … unobtainium that they want.

- The scientists are planning to get along with the aliens by using these devices that allow them to control biologically engineered Na’vi. Basically, you lie down in this thing that looks like a futuristic iron maiden, and then you can control one of the lab-grown Na’vi  assigned to you.

- No, really. It’s called “unobtainium”.

- A strong willed, unpolished rookie manages to get into the tribe, who reluctantly agree to allow him to stay and learn their peaceful, nature-loving ways. He will be taught by the tribe leader’s daughter.

Okay, I’m going to give you 30 seconds to try to guess what happens for the remaining two hours of the movie, even though you probably only need 15.

Ready?

If you guessed “The headstrong rookie learns to love the kind, peaceful ways of the Na’vi, learns that once he gets to know them, they turn out to be more like him than he originally though, everybody learns from each other, and after a flashy standoff with a lot of explosions, the evil military and capitalists are sent packing”, you’re not only correct, you know how to identify a predictable storyline.

You know what this reminds me of? District 9, which everyone also loved.

In District 9, a bunch of aliens show up on earth in a giant flying saucer with a bunch of super-powerful guns that only they can operate. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to be smart enough to find a way to use their vastly superior technology or weapons to do any better for themselves on earth than a beat-to-shit shanty town in South Africa. A guy that’s originally sent to evict them to an even shittier shanty town accidentally inhales some of their fuel, which naturally starts turning him into an alien. He’s forced to run from the evil human capitalists and military men and befriend an alien. He learns the ways of the aliens, realized that they’re not that different from him, and develops compassion for them. After a flashy standoff with a lot of explosions, the evil military and capitalists are foiled.

Are you starting t0 notice a pattern here? Boy, I am.

First, you make a flashy action movie with a lot of crazy special effects and explosions. Then, you put in a group of aliens extremely similar to an oppressed group of real life people. The humans in the story are all fucking with the aliens because of a greedy profit motive of some kind, except for one small group of people who come to understand and accept the aliens and realize that we’re all not so different. Then, you give it a strange, cryptic title and brace for the gigantic flood of money and praise that’s headed your way.

Well, fuck these guys. I want my piece of the pie too, so I’m working on a script of my own that’s going to get me a share of this action. I’m not going to say too much about it, because I don’t anyone stealing my million dollar idea, but I will tell you the title:

“Space Pocahontas”.

It’s gonna be huge. I don’t want to spoil it, but the humans show up to this other planet and want some land that’s already owned by an alien race with inferior technology. The humans in the movie have this really crazy intergalactic philosophy I came up with that they call “Space manifest destiny” and I’m already working on the in’s and outs of rendering some really amazing looking alien revenue centers that I’ve named  ”Space Casinos”. I’ve showed some rough drafts of the script to a few people I know, and they all get really misty eyed during the “Space Trail of Tears” scene.

But I’ve said too much.

It’s not that I’m opposed to stuff like this; Avatar was really, really pretty and only kind of too long, and District 9 – actually, I didn’t really like District 9. What I’m saying is that both movies looked really cool and had at least semi-coherent plots (I mean, who HASN’T fed gasoline to a dog and turned it into a human?). There’s nothing wrong with movies like that, I just don’t understand why people are SO fired up about the artistic merit of them.

Oh well. I guess I can bitch about it, or I can cash in.

SPACE POCAHONTAS – COMING JANUARY 2012!!!

EDIT: Well, fuck. A quick google for “Space Pocahontas” reveals that I’ve been beaten to the punch.

DAMN YOU, CAMERON!!!

So, I’m a little bit over 24 hours into being able to play games again, and it’s rapidly becoming clear why I wanted to give them up for a year.

On New Year’s eve, I went to a friend’s house to celebrate. I was having a good time, so I hung out until 3. Then, when I came home, I was pretty tired, so I figured I would play some games the next day.

On Jan 1st, I woke up and started up Torchlight, which I’ve been excited to try out since it came out.

Since then, I would estimate that I’ve spent somewhere around 6 hours NOT playing Torchlight. That includes sleeping. Even now, as I’m writing this post, it’s taking every ounce of self control that I have to keep myself from shutting this browser window, opening up steam, and cranking out a few dungeons to get some sweet, sweet loot.

Some of the problem is that Torchlight is a fun game. I keep noticing tricks that it took from World of Warcraft that made that game so addictive (I immediately get a boner when anything orange or purple drops, I’m willing to spend as much time as necessary to get sweet enchantments, and I’m getting embarrassed as I type this so I’m going to stop). It runs so smooth on my now seven year old computer, since it’s system requirements are ridiculously low (800 mhz and 512 MB of RAM – those are, like 2004 system requirements. I’m embarrassing myself again, aren’t I?)

A larger part of the problem, though, is that the forbidden fruit is suddenly up for grabs. For the last year, every time I sat down at my computer, I would always think about games at least a little bit, clench my teeth, and then do something else. When my brother would come over with a Street Fighter IV, or Punch Out!, or Brutal Legend, I would start visibly sweating and twitching, and sit on the couch and watch him play…

…funny story. My little brother just came in. He brought over Brutal Legend for me to play, because he knows that I’ve been wanting to play it. My little brother is awesome. I’m going to bite my lip so hard that it bleeds and finish this post first.

I’ve spent a lot of time on my various blogs lamenting how stunted my development has been in life. I spent most of my early and mid-20′s feeling like I accomplished far less than I could have (and maybe should) have. In my late 20′s, I came to terms with it, realized that everybody I know feels the same way to some extent, and even people who I consider extremely successful seem to have similar feelings of doubt or sometimes feel even worse than I do.

Now that I’ve gotten a more objective look at my video gaming habits, I’m mostly just impressed with the sheer volume of things that I’ve accomplished. While all of you lazy assholes have been struggling to get everything done in a 24 hour day, I’ve essentially been working with 5. At least, once you factor out all of the time I spend sitting in a dark room with no pants on staring at a monitor. Working with less than 1/4 of the time other people do, I’ve managed to get through school, hold down a job, have sex a couple of times and even get myself into legal trouble with a poorly maintained blog! Someone needs to give me a pat on the back!

I have to say, though, giving up games was a good thing. It gave me a better look at how much time I spend on them, I think it will help me alter my habits, at least after I spend the next week playing all day and all night, and it was just kind of cool to challenge myself to do something hard.

I decided about a month ago that I needed to do something similar this year, but it was hard to figure something out. It’s difficult to find something that I can give up that I never actually need for anything. I use the Internet a lot, but along with the endless supply of porn and sites like fukung.net that I frequently accidentally spend 2 hours clicking through, it has some practical uses as well that I would need. I’m not giving up masturbating, because I’m not an idiot, and I doubt I would make it two weeks. I’m not giving up being a hateful little shit, because I CAN’T HELP IT.

I had been thinking about it a lot last month, when I ran into a guy in one of my classes who was at a Starbucks editing some papers. I asked him what he was doing, and he explained that he was finishing up the editing on a book he wrote, which is apparently going to be kind of like Harry Potter but a school for ghosts (After trying to decide if that will be good or bad, I finally decided that it all hinges on his writing ability. There are a lot of stories that sound goofy when you only have 15 seconds to sum up the premise, and those books about a school for wizards did pretty well).

So, I think I’m going to try and write a book. Don’t ask me what it’s about, because I don’t know, or maybe I do and I just don’t want to tell you because I always feel like that guy that’s trying to describe an SNL skit or a scene from the Simpsons when I do that. Either way, I plan to have a book written by 2011. It will probably be terrible, I may never show it to anyone, and it will probably just sit here on my hard drive, where I can be proud of the fact that I wrote a terrible book, but it will be a book nonetheless.

I’m also going to try and get back on the “Three Posts a Week” wagon here. Things were going well, then I slipped a little, then I slipped a lot, then I started to stress out about what people thought of the posts, which always makes them worse, which makes me post even less, which makes me feel more pressure to hit it out of the park on the rare occasions that I do.

Either way, Happy New Year, everyone. I’m going to go play some Brutal Legend with my little brother. No pictures in this post, because I’m ready to play NOW. I barely had the self control to put in the links for Torchlight and fukung before running off. Take care.

This is going to be awesome.