Doubt
Philosopher
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2002
- Messages
- 8,106
Some of the following is true. Some is not accurate. Little is an outright falsehood. Don’t even try to guess. You would be wrong.
Announcement:
Would the person who left the chocolate thong behind at the chocolate challenge contact Girl 6 to retrieve it. Nobody knows what you had in mind for it, but i like your thinking.
First things first. I left the party to type this. Several people were hanging around the hot tub after the end of the party and I left to come up here and tell all of you instead of continuing to participate in the party. I hope you all appreciate my sacrifice!
The meeting:
The Bad Astronomer hosted today. Nice job. Made a joke about Michael Shermer’s somewhat depleted hair. Somehow Shermer could not find enough material (on the BA’s head) to respond about "thinning" hair.
Shermer was the opening speaker for the day, and was telling us about his new book “Science Frictionâ€. I think has a subtitle something like “How to spot gorillas while counting basketballs.â€
Rick Mae followed and explained why it is harder to do a good fake seances rather than just talking to the dead like John Edward. The hard part being that he is not trying to fool anyone even though he runs a company called Deceptions Unlimited. John Edward, on the other hand, does want you to think he is real. Convincing your audience that it is not a trick is the best handicap you can hope for if you have no talent other than cold reading.
Margaret Downey then explained how to host an anti-superstition party. Part of this involved her dressing up in a nurse’s uniform. No I am not going to explain why and the reason is not what you are thinking! Get your dirty mind out of the gutter…for now.
Andrew Harter/Mayne then followed Margaret. I have to wonder about the “Mayne†name. Looks like he cannot spell “Maineâ€. I think it must be that there is something he likes in New England, but I cannot quite figure out what it is.
Jamy Ian Swiss started us off again after a break for lunch. No card tricks this time. He did do some pretty good mentalist tricks while explaining the links between skepticisim and magic. Part of this came down to the formula that the greater the number of skeptics, the less dead magicians you get. Of course that was information from about 300+ years ago but you cannot expect the guy to update his act overnight.
Penn and Teller were next after Jamy Ian Swiss. P & T did a Q & A on BS (their television show). They only did a couple of tricks, but one of them involved handcuffing Randi to an anvil and giving him 50 keys to try and get out. Along the way, Penn admitted that his is sometimes wrong and Teller spoke. Apparently, those two things are not a sign of the apocalypse since the rapture did not start immediately after this happened.
The final speaker of the day was Christopher Hitchens. Mr. Hitchens delivered a light harted talk that touched on subjects from some of his books. One example of his writing is “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.†Just the sort of comedy one needs when the world looks to serious. If you think the tone of this last entry was a postive spin, there is a bridge in New York that just went up for sale that I can sell to you.
The day ended with a pannel discussion involving most of the speakers. The ever so slightly controversial Mr. Hitchens delivered a few opinions along with Penn that could be considered something other than main stream to other skeptics. However those present on the panel declined to take them on, even though it was a golden opportunity to defend the term “brightâ€. Apparently the major failure of the lighting system on stage stopped the bright supporters from shining this day.
Now on to the important part.
Two different groups from the forum headed out to different locations for dinner. Luciana led one group to the Stratosphere where they ate dinner and rode some extreme rides that appear to be designed to remove dinner by the same path it entered the body. The rest of us headed back to the Lotus of Siam with Renata.
Following this was the forum party and the Chocolate challenge. There were three winners in the chocolate challenge. I don’t have a clue who won or why. I guess the chocolate thong was supposed to be a back up plan to win the challenge that was not needed.
Two skpechics did something with chocolate body paint. I was told this is considered high art in some places. There are pictures, but I won’t be posting them. For those skpedudes who did not attend, I have only two things to say. (1) Nobody got naked at the party. (2) I am not going to tell you who was involved with the various forms of chocolate. (Yes, I do want you to suffer.)
Several Skepchics did wear fishnets. Nope, I won’t tell you who that was either. Lets just say it was a good number of women and they all had two good legs.
We did not have much in the way of dancing going on this time, but some of those that did displayed skill that required actual practice.
We now return you to your normal, boring lifestyle.
All information provided here has at least a grain of truth to it. Some of it almost completely true. The rest is just a gross distortion.
That is all for now. I am tired and I wonder how many typos I missed.
Announcement:
Would the person who left the chocolate thong behind at the chocolate challenge contact Girl 6 to retrieve it. Nobody knows what you had in mind for it, but i like your thinking.
First things first. I left the party to type this. Several people were hanging around the hot tub after the end of the party and I left to come up here and tell all of you instead of continuing to participate in the party. I hope you all appreciate my sacrifice!
The meeting:
The Bad Astronomer hosted today. Nice job. Made a joke about Michael Shermer’s somewhat depleted hair. Somehow Shermer could not find enough material (on the BA’s head) to respond about "thinning" hair.
Shermer was the opening speaker for the day, and was telling us about his new book “Science Frictionâ€. I think has a subtitle something like “How to spot gorillas while counting basketballs.â€
Rick Mae followed and explained why it is harder to do a good fake seances rather than just talking to the dead like John Edward. The hard part being that he is not trying to fool anyone even though he runs a company called Deceptions Unlimited. John Edward, on the other hand, does want you to think he is real. Convincing your audience that it is not a trick is the best handicap you can hope for if you have no talent other than cold reading.
Margaret Downey then explained how to host an anti-superstition party. Part of this involved her dressing up in a nurse’s uniform. No I am not going to explain why and the reason is not what you are thinking! Get your dirty mind out of the gutter…for now.
Andrew Harter/Mayne then followed Margaret. I have to wonder about the “Mayne†name. Looks like he cannot spell “Maineâ€. I think it must be that there is something he likes in New England, but I cannot quite figure out what it is.
Jamy Ian Swiss started us off again after a break for lunch. No card tricks this time. He did do some pretty good mentalist tricks while explaining the links between skepticisim and magic. Part of this came down to the formula that the greater the number of skeptics, the less dead magicians you get. Of course that was information from about 300+ years ago but you cannot expect the guy to update his act overnight.
Penn and Teller were next after Jamy Ian Swiss. P & T did a Q & A on BS (their television show). They only did a couple of tricks, but one of them involved handcuffing Randi to an anvil and giving him 50 keys to try and get out. Along the way, Penn admitted that his is sometimes wrong and Teller spoke. Apparently, those two things are not a sign of the apocalypse since the rapture did not start immediately after this happened.
The final speaker of the day was Christopher Hitchens. Mr. Hitchens delivered a light harted talk that touched on subjects from some of his books. One example of his writing is “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.†Just the sort of comedy one needs when the world looks to serious. If you think the tone of this last entry was a postive spin, there is a bridge in New York that just went up for sale that I can sell to you.
The day ended with a pannel discussion involving most of the speakers. The ever so slightly controversial Mr. Hitchens delivered a few opinions along with Penn that could be considered something other than main stream to other skeptics. However those present on the panel declined to take them on, even though it was a golden opportunity to defend the term “brightâ€. Apparently the major failure of the lighting system on stage stopped the bright supporters from shining this day.
Now on to the important part.
Two different groups from the forum headed out to different locations for dinner. Luciana led one group to the Stratosphere where they ate dinner and rode some extreme rides that appear to be designed to remove dinner by the same path it entered the body. The rest of us headed back to the Lotus of Siam with Renata.
Following this was the forum party and the Chocolate challenge. There were three winners in the chocolate challenge. I don’t have a clue who won or why. I guess the chocolate thong was supposed to be a back up plan to win the challenge that was not needed.
Two skpechics did something with chocolate body paint. I was told this is considered high art in some places. There are pictures, but I won’t be posting them. For those skpedudes who did not attend, I have only two things to say. (1) Nobody got naked at the party. (2) I am not going to tell you who was involved with the various forms of chocolate. (Yes, I do want you to suffer.)
Several Skepchics did wear fishnets. Nope, I won’t tell you who that was either. Lets just say it was a good number of women and they all had two good legs.
We did not have much in the way of dancing going on this time, but some of those that did displayed skill that required actual practice.
We now return you to your normal, boring lifestyle.
All information provided here has at least a grain of truth to it. Some of it almost completely true. The rest is just a gross distortion.
That is all for now. I am tired and I wonder how many typos I missed.
