Babies Like Helpful People

Saw this on Yahoo. Experiments done with babies prove that they can tell who is the better friend.

The babies are shown shapes, representing people. A circle tries to go up a hill. A triangle helps it, and it jumps for joy. A square pushes it down the hill.

The babies, when asked to pick a toy version of the shape, chose the helper, even when the square was the helper, and the triangle had pushed the circle down the hill.

Later the babies were shown the circle choosing to sit next to either the helper or hinderer. Babies paid more attention to when the circle sat next to the hinderer. The conclusion there is that they focused longer on the bizarre scenario of someone choosing to associate with their own bully.

It just goes to show you that babies are already good at perceiving many different things. So be helpful!

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Clark Kent: Bizarro

Tonight on "Smallville," I was mildly surprised when Kent offered to help Lana take down Lex. But I accepted it. I did get a vibe that he was different somehow, but I thought, "He seems cooler, all right, cool."

Then I was more than mildly surprised when he flew inside the Daily Planet. But I guessed that either I had missed that development where now he can fly, or his training at the North Pole with Santa was starting to pay off, or maybe he just jumped, and didn't fly at all.

Then at the end, it turns out he's Bizarro Clark!

The real Clark is frozen in his Fortress. I just hope "Smallville" doesn't fall apart like "Lois and Clark," where clones kept popping up left and right. That got boring. And sad. And they stopped broadcasting the episodes in order, so I could keep track! How lame was that... Thank you "Smallville," for learning from history's mistakes!

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South Park ImaginationLand: Butters Made It All Up?

Tonight I watched all 3 episodes of the South Park ImaginationLand Trilogy back to back. I noticed that Butters was the first person to make contact with an imaginary creature when he spotted the Leprechaun. He was also the last main character shown on the final episode. My theory: He created ImaginationLand.

Later in the first episode, his friends were debating issues of an imaginary nature, and he was there. All of a sudden the Mayor of ImaginationLand showed up. I think Butters made it happen.

But how could have the U.S. government been working on a gateway to ImaginationLand all the way back in the 1960's, if ImaginationLand didn't exist until Butters made it up? Because once Butters created it, it existed for all time, backwards and forwards through history.

I don't know if you've seen "The Lost Room," but at one point they explained how once a certain event happened, something that had existed suddenly never existed. I think once Butters imagined the Leprechaun and ImaginationLand, both had always existed.

I admit, it's a somewhat involved theory. And the trilogy works fine (maybe even better) without it. But what if it's true...?

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JourneyMan's Wife Wiser, 90-Year-Old Livia?

Monday on JourneyMan, the wife finally got wise (or indulged in hypocrisy) when she said something like, "Don't promise when you don't know." (i.e., Don't tell me you'll be somewhere when you might time travel instead.) Previously she had practically forced JM to promise her he'd be somewhere when she and he already knew that he could no longer control where and when he was. So now, it makes sense for her to acknowledge the truth, and to act as intelligent in that regard as she appears in all others. Finally!

Monday we also saw Livia in 1948. That got me thinking, what happens to her? Does she alternate back and forth between 1948 onwards and 2007 onwards? Does she eventually leave the past and live the rest of her life in the present? Or does she finally finish her last mission and return to her correct place in time? If that's the case, then lets say she has a few more years, and stops, returning to 1952. Then she lives the rest of her life. Let's say she's 30 as we see her now. 1948 - 30 = born in 1918. 2007 - 1918 = 89 years old now.

Does an 89-year-old Livia make an appearance in the near future? My guess for how that episode would play out would be Old Livia shows up, talks to JM, JM tweaks the past, and changes everything. It would turn out that Old Livia had simply been living her last mission for the past 55 years, and was destined to arrive in the present as an old woman, in order to set things just so. JM then travels to 1948 (or 1949) and completes the mission, preventing Livia from ever starting it. Then young Livia shows up and stays anchored in 2007 (or 2008) onwards, never getting old (at least not for another few decades). Sounds plausible.

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No Heroes Tonight

I can't believe it. It's over.

No "Chuck" either.

But "JourneyMan" is new. Maybe it'll cheer me up.

This morning I flashed back to "Quantum Leap" and had a revelation. QL was great because not only did it have sci-fi and causality and destiny's ramifications and all that, but it also had something "JourneyMan" is sorely lacking -- humor.

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More Shootings In A Crazy World

I read on Yahoo that "A gunman opened fire in the parking lot of a Colorado Springs church on Sunday, striking four people," and there was an "earlier shooting about 70 miles away in the Denver suburb of Arvada. There, two people died and two were wounded early Sunday when a gunman opened fire in a dormitory at a missionary training center on the campus of Faith Bible Chapel."

Two shootings. Maybe related? But after that mall incident, more shootings add up to something -- A string of shootings.

Can you believe it? Can you believe we live in a society where random acts of major violence are increasing in frequency?

Maybe this is all part of some government plan to scare the public into accepting a Police State.

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Junk Food Makes Me Physically Ill

When I was younger, I could eat cookies and cakes and all kinds of junk food left and right, and I'd only feel bad if I ate a ton in one sitting. But now, for some reason, if I eat some junk food like cookies or potato chips or whatever, and at night, I can somehow feel it in my system when I go to bed. It's not very pleasant. I guess I must not have eaten that stuff at night very often before.

It's like my body feels polluted with excess garbage. It's really weird, because if I eat similar foods earlier in the day, there's no similar feeling. I think it must have to do with metabolizing it. When I'm active, I can run on garbage, like the DeLorean at the end of "Back to the Future." But when I'm resting, it will just sit there and ooze into my system.

I've heard the idea that "your body is a temple" and all that stuff about toxins, and how vegetables are great for you, but sometimes taste can overpower logic. It's funny. If I eat really healthy stuff, I sometimes enjoy it, and usually always feel good afterwards. Clean on the inside, hard to describe. Clear sinuses, clean air. But if I eat the stuff that smells and tastes really good, like fast food type stuff, it will be majorly enjoyable as a meal, but much less so later when processed by my system. I hate the dichotomy of it all. As that Chef Boyardee kid would say, "Why does the good food always taste so bad?"

I guess if you take the time to decently prepare fresh foods, they taste great too.

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