Category Archives: personal

Porn Sucks

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rape-patch.jpg If anyone can articulately explain why pornography is bad, please tell my friend Robyn. Since MySpace is a crappy blogging service and you might have to be on her friends list to view the post, I'll reproduce it here.

"Has anyone else heard about this attempt by a religious faction to heal those who have been 'overcome' by porn? Of all the things in this world to focus your energies on, I have to just shake my head. Granted, extreme porn (such as that involving 'snuff films,' people under the age of 18, etc) makes me less than comfortable, I fail to see this as an epidemic of sorts."

"Sex, in its consentual form, is a perfectly natural, pleasurable thing. People have varying predilections that not everyone will understand. But, that's just the thing. You don't have to understand it. Some prefer a traditional approach with no real experimentation, and that's all fine and good. As long as no one's getting hurt (who doesn't want to be), everyone should be entitled to express their sexuality on their own terms. If that involves putting your sex life on video or in photographs, so be it."

"I just don't see porn as a real problem in society. I think one of society's problems is that society is a little too uptight. We're all naked underneath our clothes, and I'm sure we all have sexual cravings. To say that someone is wrong, or is going to Hell because of something so non threatening as viewing or creating porn, is just asinine to me. That may be your take on the subject, and sure, you're welcome to your opinion. Just don't try to force your ideology on me."

"I have a rather small collection of these aforementioned videos, I'm interested in trying different things sexually, and to be perfectly honest, I probably desire sex 90% my day. At the same time, I've had less than a handful of lovers because I'm what you'd refer to as a 'relationship girl.' Though I have no problem with others partaking in casual sex, it's just not for me. What's my point? Being sexual does not make you a bad person. It makes you human."

"That being said, I believe that in honor of this Porn Sunday, the other Adam and I need to be taking a trip to a little place on McKnight Road ;)"

"*I ask that in reading this you keep in mind that I'm referring to sex in the strictest of consentual terms*"

I'd respond at length myself, but I'm too hurt by her insensitivity. Porn has really screwed me up and I'm too emotionally raw to explain why it's such an evil thing, so I'm relying on my loyal readers. Please lend me your brains and your keyboards.

Addendum: Here are some previous posts about porn and its effects.

Not Just For Jews
Disordered Apetites
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Virtual Red Light District

Addendum #2: Here are some news stories about the "religious faction" Robyn refers to.

National Porn Sunday October 9
Mesa man hopes his story will warn of cost of porn addiction

Being a Blogfather

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Ever take a look at Blogtree? It’s a neat concept that combines two of my passions, blogging and genealogy. When you submit your blog you tell the service which blogs inspired you to start blogging. In turn, you are told who your sibling blogs are and who was inspired to blog because of you.

I know I’ve gotten a few folks into blogging, including Fr. Michael Darcy, Shaun “Powerball” Pierce, and John “Publius” Thompson. Thus far, though, nobody has credited me at Blogtree.

If I’ve inspired to blog by reading mine, please let Blogtree know, or at least leave a comment saying so. I’m not looking for notoriety, but knowing you’ve inspired someone is a good feeling. Also, following someone’s blogging pedigree is a neat way of being exposed to new blogs. 🙂

2005 Great Race – My First 10K! :)

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great race bibToday I ran my first 10K race. 🙂 It was the Richard S. Caliguiri Great Race.

I met up with Rob Carr at the ambulance behind the starting line. My wife took a picture of us. As soon as that roll of film gets developed, I'll post my Run Shadyside and Great Race pics.

Rob and I ran the first mile together. He was worried about his knee and I was worried about setting too fast a pace, so we took it slow. As it turned out, we took it slower than either of us really wanted (about 13 minutes as I recall). After the first mile, I split off from Rob and picked up my pace. Having looked at Rob's chip time, it seems I didn't out-pace him by much. I finished in 1:04:55 according to my watch (1:06:13, officially ) and he finished in 1:09:41. I probably put about a minute's distance between us when I left him and just held on to it, accumulating another minute of separation with each mile. Had I known Rob was going to be so close behind me, I'd have stayed with him so we could push and support each other. Oh well.

Anyhow, I didn't finish in under an hour like I wanted to, but I'm not too disappointed. I'm mostly glad I finished. That was the first time I ran 10K without stopping. During training, I always stopped at about 5K, got water and walked around a bit before running the remaining 5K. I have something to shoot for next year. Continue reading →

Linker Appreciation

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I’m in the process of moving my blogrolls from Blogrolling to Bloglines. I’ve purged a lot of dead weight. It’s possible, though, that in my zeal to have a leaner and more useful blogroll I’ve deleted some reciprocal links. Please check out my blogrolls page. If you link to me (personally, not just in Blogdom of God or some other aggregator) and cannot find at least a reciprocal link, let me know and I’ll add you. 🙂

2005 Run Shadyside 5K – My First Race :)

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[runshadyside05.jpg]Today I ran my first race. 🙂 It was the Run Shadyside 5K. I finished in 28:32, so my mile pace was 9:12. It could have been better, but I wasn't disappointed. I learned a few lessons from today. 1) While it was a good idea for me to avoid coffee this morning, and hot chocolate isn't a known diuretic, I ought to limit my fluid intake prior to a race. Running with an uncomfortable bladder is suboptimal, to say the least. 2) I need to pace myself better. My first mile pace was about 30 seconds faster than it should have been. For the Great Race 10K, I'll be keeping pace with Rob of UnSpace. Hopefully, he'll keep me from going faster than 9 minutes/mile for the first half. 3) Though running with the vestiges of a head cold is doable, it's certainly not preferable. 😉

pace.jpg

The image shown is a graph of my mile pace times since I started timing my runs (Open in a separate page to see at full size). I started running to shed some pounds and some fat, but now I'm enjoying the sport itself. It's a great way to push myself. Running faster than other people would be cool, but right now I'm focusing on beating myself. If I only worried about losing weight, I think I'd get discouraged because progress is slow. By setting time and distance goals for myself, I have something with more immediate results to strive for. I'm running the Great Race 10K next weekend and I might run the Pace Race 5K on October 8. If any Pittsburghers know of any races I might be interested in, please let me know.

For some good running advice, check out these UnSpace articles:

5K Race Strategy: A Must-Read
5K & 10K Race Strategy: Preparation
5K & 10K Race Strategy: The Race Course