Call me crazy, but I’m really fucking tired of the “war on terror”. Like the bumper stickers say, War IS terror.
Anyway, here’s a complete transcript of the audio broadcast. It claims to be completely accurate, but I really have no clue.
I’m no bin Laden fan, but right now, Bush feels like an evil that is much closer to home.
House passes Patriot Act Conference Report.
Which leaves the Senate.
I’m not anti-Patriot Act, but I think an extension would be good to clarify some issues in language and intent before we permanently place anything into law.
But then, I’m anti-American.
And I hate safety.
ACLU joins fight against internet surveillance.
Some lawmakers have already joined their voices with the opposition. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., cautioned that the mandates could give the government the authority to dictate software designs, drive innovators offshore and threaten security as well as privacy.
Cornell’s response to the CALEA amendment.
Not for profit accredited educational institutions contribute uniquely to American society by exploring and sharing knowledge for its own sake. Teaching, research and outreach rely fundamentally on principles of unimpeded communications and open inquiry. If the uncertain administrative, financial and technical expenditures suspect in this regulation do not alone exacerbate the many burdens that currently challenge the autonomy of higher education, the technical oversight provision is plainly inconsistent with our missions. Were no other means available to achieve its purpose, the government could argue a compelling interest. But the alternative exists. Cornell University already provides this kind of information when properly served. Therefore there is no compelling government interest in this specific surveillance technique and it most certainly is not a narrowly tailored method for compliance.
ACLU calls for vote against cloture on Patriot Act.
“Congress must not let a fake threat by proponents of Patriot Act to let it expire to cause them to support a defective bill,” said Lisa Graves, ACLU Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy. “Common sense corrections that would better focus limited resources and protect the privacy of innocent Americans already enjoy strong bipartisan support. Lawmakers should adopt them.”
Drama Llama has a MySpace account.
Lacking a llama of our own, we had to make do with actual drama, matrix-style kung-fu, and our sweet computer hacking skills. Which worked out pretty damned well, I think. I mean, check out panel 2. That panel is a work of art. Save it, print it out, and hang it on the wall. I mean, really.
There will be more of the posting later. Until then, practice your sweet comment-leaving skills.
Later that day…
Do you depend on La Casa Comics to keep you informed about what is going on in the world? If so: What in the FSM’s good name is wrong with you!? Regardless of the fact that you’re clearly insane, I’ve plumbed the depths of the internets (i.e. I looked at Technorati’s top 10) to bring you today’s breaking news.
Ever since I mentioned Dawn Yang in this post, we’ve continuously gotten hits to our site for people that just HAVE TO KNOW what the pretty internet lady is up to. I maintain ignorance as to why this might be important. To anybody. But there you go. Dawn Yang is the poster-child of the internet right now. So what has good old Dawn been up to? Well, she has a nice Snow Patrol song playing on her website. Compulsive music on websites is one of my major peeves (in other words, I hate pretty much everyone on MySpace), but at least it’s decent music. Her blog has been quiet lately since the “fiasco”, and perhaps that’s the best way to deal with it. I stated before, and will restate, that I don’t see what the big deal is. Let the poor girl get back to her life. Besides, we have such better things to gossip about now.
Like Jennifer Aniston’s boobies. Oh wait, right … I don’t care about her either. There must be something wrong with me. I don’t particularly want to see nude pictures of Jennifer Aniston. What do I want? I want Playboy. In Braille. Now those are some hot “bumps”. Am I the only one that doesn’t find Aniston that attractive, or more importantly, attention-worthy? Anyway, the news is that some “razi” took some topless photos, and now Jennifer is gonna sue. And well she should. I mean, she can’t have just anyone taking nude or nearly nude photos of her, when she makes bank selling equally racy photos to GQ. GQ named Aniston their first ever “woman of the year”. I don’t understand. Someone please explain this to me. Has she been saving babies from burning buildings? Does she give 80% of her net income to third-world countries? Oh, right, we are talking about GQ. Perhaps she has just been seen in some nice outfits this year. That would probably do it.
Firefox is on there. Firefox is good. Firefox 1.5 is now available. I haven’t bothered yet, as I hear the differences are not drastic by any means, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it. I’ve never really had a need to be at the front of the line when it comes to such things. But then, if you’re hearing this for the first time, from me, then you’re not either. Let’s start a club!
The Xbox 360 is mentioned, as is Howard Dean, and some other things I don’t know anything about. In any case, I’ve rambled on more than enough for one day.
I’d like to dedicate today to two of my favorite regular readers: Sister Amos and Sister Rachel. Shower them with your kind comments and affections, for they are worthy.
This may be cheating, but not everyone who reads the comic reads my blog, so I feel justified in a double post. Besides, it’s free advertisement. I originally wrote this post here, following an awesome comic strip introducing the word “edu-natrix” into the American lexicon. Which just goes to show that if you aren’t reading La Casa Comics, you should be.
Education is one of those wacky things. It is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable resources available to anybody, no matter their interests or their professions. Education is a tool for personal and professional growth, a weapon against ignorance and oppression, and it makes its own sauce. And in the United States, at least, it’s becoming more and more of a joke.
While the “No Child Left Behind” act makes such claims as, “Every child can learn. Every child must learn. And thanks to NCLB, every child will learn.”, Kansas has gone off the deep end and made “intelligent design” a mandatory part of the science curriculum.
The good old NCLB goes on to say:
Fortunately, there are schools and reform leaders across our Nation who have shown how quickly effective leadership can transform student achievement and how swiftly success can sweep through a school. With a dedicated focus on accountability and achievement, any school that needs improvement can create a new culture of learning and excellence. The good news is that we know much more about what works: scientifically proven methods; aligned standards, assessments, and instruction; school and district leadership focused on student learning; accountability for results; and highly qualified teachers will improve achievement and bring success. Admittedly, our Nation’s commitment — to teach every child — is ambitious. But we have the tools and we have the know-how. Working together, we can ensure that all students succeed and that the achievement gap is closed, once and for all.
And in the meantime we cut educational funding, screw over schools and libraries, and pump money into weapons, oil, and wars. And as China teaches us, cutting educational funding gets students run over by big trucks. Come on America, we don’t want our students to be killed in traffic, do we!?
I could probably spend about 10 hours writing out this post, but I don’t want to, and I don’t think anyone would read it if I did. So I’ll try to wrap things up. The tricky thing about education is that if you don’t have one, you don’t realize what a valuable thing it is that you’re missing. It’s like if you’ve never read Kant, you don’t realize how dull and brain-melting the process is. And you won’t get it when people make offhand references, as I just did. You are missing out, truly.
Parents need to read to their kids. Education starts at home. Teachers need to get excited about getting kids to learn. I had an alternative style of education, in which I was taught the value of learning, and after that pretty much given the option of how often and where I wanted to go to school. As a result, I home-schooled for two years, went to middle school as a part-time student, and dropped out of high school halfway through my junior year. I got my GED, worked for a year, and then went to college, and I’ve never regretted a single one of those choices. I pursued the education that worked for me, because the way the system had things layed out didn’t always make sense. NCLP is making restrictions tighter, and trying to improve education via standardization and testing.
To be blunt, fuck standardization, and fuck testing. Teach these kids the value of an education, and they’ll do the work themselves.
“It is only the ignorant who despise education.”
-Publius Syrus (42 B.C.)
From the DaVinci Institute:
We have put together ten key trends that are affecting the development of the next generation library. Rest assured that these are not the only trends, but ones that have been selected to give clear insight into the rapidly changing technologies and equally fast changing mindset of library patrons.
Read the rest here.
Welcome to the Saint Martin’s Campus, where the fun never stops, even when it means blowing shit up. Komo got the damn story before we even issued our official press release.
Old Main is the main building on campus (as you may have guessed from the name). The O’Grady Library, where I work, is near Old Main, and the coolest building on campus anyway, so it filled up with displaced students, faculty, and administration in the blink of an eye.
Even so, things have quieted down a bit already. It’s kind of amazing how fast life can just … move on. Not that this was a tragedy by any means, more of an incident. Just allow me my little dramatic moment.
edit: The Seattle PI is a little slow, but they’re doing their part.
The Olympian chimes in.
Brief coverage from the Tacoma News-Tribune.
The Olympian takes photos of our suffering.
I wouldn’t make light of it, but no one was seriously injured. Even so, my condolences to everyone who had flying glass shooting at their heads. That can’t be fun.
Snarky political rant. Go Eric!
A Pithy Mood has been a secret pleasure of mine for months now. Something delectable, to be treated with earnest admiration, but from afar, and infrequently. We must not oversup on our extravagances.
Her recent post is about helping out with Katrina, and donating to a cause we might otherwise forget about. Pets. In most cases, these are family members that were left behind with food and water and a wish to stay well. As Tamea says:
However, the millions of now homeless, lost and starving animals who’ve also been affected by this hurricane have no politics to disagree with and they need help desperately.
If you have issues with humanity, then donate to save these animals instead. You can donate to the humane society who is working to reunite pets with their families, or find new families for abandoned animals. You can also donate to the petfinder disaster fund, which is doing the same thing.
My oh my. But seriously. Oh my.
I feel bad about feeling so good while people are doing so poorly.
People have faced shoot-outs and some reports say martial law has been imposed in some areas. Armed gangs have moved into some hotels.
Some have been breaking into shops, houses, hospitals and office buildings.
Thieves used a forklift truck to break into a pharmacy, AP news agency reports, while dozens of carjackings have been reported.
I’ve made my donation, and honestly wish there was more I could do to help, but for personal reasons I’ve been walking on sunshine for the last couple days, and it’s difficult to break free of my happy myopia.
My best wishes to all those displaced by nature. Life will find a way.
Good, now that I’ve gotten your attention. You know how a lot of medicine that you have to ingest tastes like shit, but if it didn’t taste that bad then it probably wouldn’t be as beneficial? Well, I think that’s Dubya. Before you burn my blog to the ground, I’ll explain.
This idea started when I glanced over the Friday cover of the New York Times, and perused an article which talked about rising energy costs. The article mentions that even though the national temperature average is still in the 80s, people nation-wide are already worried about budgeting heating costs for the winter, with prices higher than most of us have ever seen, and not estimated to drop any time soon. Common ideas were to turn the heat down, and put on a sweater, be it for a home, a school, or the workplace. But you know what, I think that’s perfect.
Let’s face it. As a nation, we’re coddled. We’ve had a good run of prosperity lately, and no matter how much people will bitch about monetary imbalance, the amount of people in “comfortable” financial situations seems to just keep growing. I know I can’t cross the street without getting bumped aside by a new SUV, a fat woman pushing 8 kids in a Wal-Mart SUPER-STROLLER ™, or some guy younger than me with leather pants and a new BMW. The thing is, our financial gain has nothing to do with us becoming smarter, stronger, or more driven than we have been in the past. On the contrary, the lazier we get the more shit seems to get handed to us. Think of the “No Child Left Behind” act. Oh, you have a LEARNING DISABILITY!? Well let us just bend over fucking backwards to make sure than when you’re 25 you can still force someone smarter and older than you to bow to your will. Because really, that’s the trademark of our society now. The more you suck, the more you can boss people around that suck less than you. I was reading movie quotes from “Stand and Deliver” the other day, and I think one applies here.
There is two kinds of racisim, Mr. Escalante. Judging a group because they are a minority, and NOT judging a group because they are a minority.
Granted, I’m not talking about race. What I’m talking about is natural intelligence and ability. Perhaps we could insert “intellectual prejudice” for “racism”, and make the quote more applicable. The point is that while it may not be right to judge a group because they are less intellectually skilled, it’s not necessarily right to NOT judge them because they are less intellectually skilled. More simply, while it may not be nice to point and laugh at the dumb kid, you should still realize that he’s the dumb kid. I’m so going to hell for that …
So to get back on track, we’re coddled and we’re letting people who don’t deserve to run our businesses run them, who don’t deserve to be our managers manage us, and who don’t deserve to friggin’ fry our “freedom fries” run the country. And for that we get to start worrying about our energy costs in August, and we deserve that.
See, Bush isn’t the problem. Yeah, I was upset when he won the first time. I was absolutely DEVESTATED when he won a second term. Whether or not he cheated is moot, the fact remains that about half the people in this country WANTED him. And that, to me, means that he is just the symptom of a much larger problem. Those people we are trying so desperately to “not leave behind”? They’re growing up, having hordes of “little miracles“, and they’re voting. They run our Wal-Marts, our McDonalds, our movie theaters and our Auto Dealerships. They sell us insurance, they buy stock in Starbucks, Microsoft, and Enron, and they run for office. And they’re part of the problem, but they’re not THE problem. THE problem, really, is that this is a self-propogating cycle. More than that, they’re gaining momentum while we’re losing it, and things seem pretty bleak. But then, like a pile of rotten refuse gleaming in the Texas sun, they offer us a solution. George W. Bush.
I’d like to side-track a little bit to offer up an oil analogy. It’s fitting, don’t you think? We’ve all seen those big oilwell contraptions, with the big hammer thing rotating around the big piston thing, mesmerizing us with its tireless tick-tock efficiency. At some point, I assume it’s before those things begin their work, men strike oil deep in the earth (sticking a giant drill deep into the ground is as close an analogy to “raping the earth” as I could ever think of), and it gushes to the surface in all its black-gold glory. Sometimes, the oil catches on fire, and you have a hole in the ground that becomes a flame-geyser. Can you say “not fun”? To put out these fires (and my point is coming up here very soon), they don’t try to lessen the flow of oil, or pour water on it, or smother it (in any conventional sense). They certainly don’t attack it with their liberal ideologies and they don’t try to plug the hole with Michael Moore (though that might be worth a shot). What they do is they set up an explosion so big around the jet of fire that it feels puny in comparisn and dies (kind of like if a guy were all full of cock and swagger, and to bring him down you send Orlando Bloom into the room). Okay, so really it’s an oxygen-deprivation thing, but the point is that to put the fire out, they make a much bigger fire, which steals the little fires oxygen, and both of them end up not being able to sustain, and die.
George W. Bush is our explosion. (Whew, took me awhile to get there. Sorry.)
We’ve got the steady flame of mediocrity burning strong in the American heart. How do we fix that? With a supernova of mediocrity that’ll steal all the oxygen from the little mediocre flame, and they’ll both burn out.
The energy thing is a start. People who are colder tend to move more. The best heat solution is body heat, and the best way to maintain body heat is to stay active. This, in turn, will start to help with our obesity problem. Also, improved bloodflow increases brain activity (though plenty of jocks have proven that this is not a solution by itself), so people might get a tiny bit smarter.
Our economy, which is not going to be able to sustain this level of prosperity indefinately with W. at the helm, will suddenly get a lot tougher. Ideally (and I can be a naive idealist at times), this will increase job competition and create a more rigid standard against incompetence. Sure, you may not get a grad student hired to cook your fries at Burger King, but in general a tougher market will mean that the lowest of the low will have to bring themselves that much higher to compete. If not … well, it’s Darwinian, and I like it. I think I already mentioned that I’m going to hell for this.
In “What is to be done?”, Nikolai Chernyshevsky wrote of an ideal society based on peasants in a social commune. In it he lauds a social commune of peasants that live in perfect peace and suffer from absolutely NO conflict or unhappiness. Other than the impracticality or such a society, it shows a prevalent underlying ideology that conflict is intrinsically “bad”, and only happiness and contentment are “good”. Dostoevsky, with great contempt, often referred to Chernyshevsky’s utopic peasants as being no better than an organ-stop. Particularly so in his “Notes from Underground”:
Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of the sort; for what is a man without desires, without free will and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? What do you think? Let us reckon the chances–can such a thing happen or not?
The reason I mention this is that I feel like our society now is perilously close to an ideology where we would be better off without choice, freedom, or free will, so long as we are safe, warm, fed, and “happy”. I say “happy” when I mean content, and though I think they’re worlds apart, I’m not sure most Americans could describe the difference. I won’t get into it here why I think a “happiness”-based society is ridiculous. I think Chernyshevsky described it well enough, and in reading his description it’s fairly clear to see why it’s patently absurd.
But that’s what we’re doing. On a day to day basis in our society we are getting rid of conflict. Classes too hard for some students? Make them easier. Too hard to get a job? Hire those poor, unqualified folk. Better yet, promote them. Let them run the company. Too much trouble to be in shape? Introduce more fad diets than anyone knows what to do with and start selling salads at McDonalds. No, don’t worry about exercise. So long as we’re skinny, who cares? We don’t like to see failure. We don’t like to admit that any task is too difficult for any person. We’re all equal, right? It seems like we’d rather have those people with exceptional qualities lower their skills to a more average level (we don’t want to make anyone feel bad, right?), than try to really push those who don’t have the natural abilities. Sure, plenty of teachers work hard to do just that. I mean, we’ve all seen “Dangerous Minds”, right? At least twice as many don’t care.
I’ll bring this all around, and finish up, by saying that a slow decline into mediocrity is a subtle thing. A warping of values into something that will destroy our society can be even moreso. Dubya is as subtle as a pygmy monkey thrown at your face. And in this case, he may be just the splash of cold water we need to realize that it’s sink-or-swim time folks, and it might be better if a few of us sink.
Google has released, in beta, their IM software. It’s called “Google Talk”, and it rocks my little world. I don’t know where you can download it from, except that I can send you an invite if you like. You NEED Gmail to use Google Talk, so if you need that, let me know and I’ll send you an invite for that as well.
Cool points for Google Talk:
I won’t claim it doesn’t have some room for improvement (can you say “integrated google search function”?), but it rocks the hell out of everything else available, on day 1. But that’s just one man’s humble opinion. Comment me an email address, and I’ll send you an invite. Let me know if you need Gmail as well.
When you think of the instant message, generally your thoughts only go back a few years. If you’re positively archaic, like me, that may even mean ICQ. For most, it means AOL and MSN Messenger. In reality, the IM was born as long ago as 1960 with the creation of PLATO, which was funded by a shared Army-Navy-Air Force pool and housed at the University of Illinois. By 1967, it would also be funded by the NSF.
PLATO began as an education tool, designed in a drill-based fashion that would allow students to bypass lessons they already understood. Though the first application only supported one user, and PLATO II only allowed two, by PLATO III (1966), it could support twenty. PLATO IV, in 1972, was the first to support “Term Talk”, which allowed user to share information via electronic chat. By 1975, PLATO IV served almost 150 different locations.
A man named William Norris, CEO of CDC, became very interested in PLATO as it evolved. He thought that it would be a learning platform that could level out educational inequalities by offering higher education to people who would not otherwise be able to afford university. In 1976, CDC purchased the commercial rights to PLATO, and through aggressive advertising hoped to sell it as a universal teaching tool, more effective than a human teacher and never susceptible to sick days or strikes. Reviews in the ’80s tended to agree that while PLATO was perhaps as effective as a human teacher, it was not more effective, and at $50 per student per hour, it tended to less cost effective than a traditional classroom.
In 1986, Norris stepped down as CEO, and the PLATO service was slowly killed off. Though designed for computer education, PLATO’s real legacy is in its online communication features. PLATO Notes was introduced in 1973 and was among the world’s first online message boards and was the direct progenitor of Lotus Notes. By 1976, PLATO had sprouted a variety of novel tools for online communication, including Personal Notes (email), Talkomatic (chat rooms), and Term-Talk (instant messaging and remote screen sharing).
PLATO’s architecture also made it an ideal platform for online gaming. Many extremely popular games were developed on PLATO during the 1970s and 1980s, such as Empire (a massively multiplayer game based on Star Trek), Airfight (a precursor to Microsoft Flight Simulator), the original Freecell, and several “dungeons and dragons” games that presaged MUDs and MOOs as well as popular shoot-em-up games like Doom and Quake.
Though PLATO had a loyal fan-base, the first general instant messenger introduced to the internet was ICQ, in 1996. ICQ, a play on “I Seek You” was created by Mirabilis, an Israeli start-up company based in Tel Aviv. ICQ was known for its simple UI, ease of use, file transfer capabilities, and for the “ICQ Number”. The ICQ Number is, in my opinion, the easiest way to add someone to your IM list. People would list their number on the internet, and with a simple cut&paste, you had added them to your ICQ friends list. Easy as pie. In 1998, Mirabilis and ICQ were purchased by AOL, and not too surprisingly the program quickly went to shit.
Despite buying ICQ, AOL has its own IM program, called AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), which came out in 1997. Though this program was usable for a brief period of time, it too fell prey to the AOL curse, which is highly regarded by people who only know enough about their computers to be able to turn them on (maybe) and surf the web, but only if a searchbar is automatically included in their home page. Everyone else, with reason, hates AOL with a fiery passion. Not that I’m biased or anything. AOL may just be on to something, though, as they prepare to replace AIM with Triton. Triton highlights tabbed chatting, and is being completely rebuilt from the ground up to support VoIP technology. It is currently in beta.
Microsoft, the big boo daddy of the computing world, hopped on board the IM wagon with MSN Messenger in 1999. When it first came out, MSN Messenger could be used on both its own network as well as the AIM network, making it a handy little chat-tool indeed. AOL, after trying for a long period of time, finally blocked MSN Messenger from using their network, isolating it to its own .NET messenger service. In their attempt to take over the world, Microsoft created a browser-based version of the Messenger client, which could be used on any computer with internet access, without having to download the program. Of course, this became a big security hole, and a big pain in the ass, and sucked in general. They also created MSN Mobile, which allowed users to send IMs via their cell phones. Welcome to the Microsoft Galaxy.
Yahoo! also has its own IM service, which supports VoIP already, and alerts you when you have new Yahoo! email. But I don’t really care, and I’m not going to tell you about it.
User Info:
AIM – Active: unknown; total registered: 195 mil (Jan ’03)
ICQ – Active: 6 mil; total registered: 140 mil (June ’03)
MSN – Active: 100 mil; total registered: 155 mil (April ’05)
You can see a big table comparing these services here.
I apologize if this post was horribly boring. If you’d like to complain, IM me. I use MSN Messenger through my Hotmail account, dragon_bebop (at) hotmail (dot) com. And really, you should IM me anyway, because it would be fun to chat with some of you. Just don’t expect me to join AIM. I won’t give in to the dark side!
… I like my coffee.
In a paper cup.
Follow-up story from Gamespot about GTA:SA “Hot Coffee Mod”.
Honestly, I’m getting really tired of video game controversy involving Grand Theft Auto almost implicitly. I even had a debate with my family about it over the weekend, which was odd. I was the sole vanguard of the first amendment. I fully agree it’s a complicated issue, but really feel like it boils down to looking for someone to blame for societal problems. Years ago, Rock n’ Roll was responsible for all sex, vandalism, and delinquency. Now it’s video games. In either case, I don’t think they could be farther from the mark.
Most of the gamers of my generation are aware of something that newer and older generations both might be missing out on. Video games help develop intelligence. They aren’t all about mindless violence or senseless escapism. They are, in fact, about solving puzzles, fixing problems, and completing objectives. Sound like a job? It is, and now Discover Magazine has released an article, involving numerous studies, that states that not only are video games good exercise for your mind (the brain’s equivalent to a healthy jog), but help sharpen skills that are of actual use in the real world. Gasp! But then, any gamer in their mid-twenties could have told you that. People just tend to ignore us … and mock us … and occasionally throw things at us.
The article is interesting. You can read it here. You can read the first two paragraphs for free (lucky you), and then use my login information to continue.
email: bava-track01 (at) mailblocks (dot) com
password: 9f6f50c0
They raise a good point that video games as development tools for children are much more effective if used within a parenting framework that encourages the learning aspects. When used as passive babysitters, they aren’t quite as edifying. Still, I long for the era when parents encourage their children to play video games for an hour a day, just as they would encourage them to eat their vegetables, or go outside and get some exercise.
It’s a strange, new little thing, the blogosphere. Michael Gorman, the president of the American Library Association, made some general and negative comments about blogs and “the blog people”. He pissed a lot of people off, to the point that some librarians have revoked their membership to the ALA for as long as he is president. Blogs can be a good way to share professional information, especially for a group as concerned with information sharing as libraries are. However, whenever I write on my blog I always keep in mind that it could be read by anyone. ANYONE. And I assume the worst, that if I write something that a certain person shouldn’t read, then I shouldn’t write it, because they probably will. If people don’t follow those guidelines, then to some extent I believe they deserve what they get. Though as far as legality goes, I don’t know how strong the cases of those companies can be, at least without a written policy in effect.
Some people I know think blogs, and bloggers, are crazy. I think as a technology, it’s interesting, and that it will change (and already is changing) the way the internet works and the way information is transferred. It’s not always to the good, i.e. who the hell cares about the angsty problems of every 14-year-old in the world, but it’s not going anywhere, so we might as well get used to it.
We spent all day on Sunday playing a board game. And by “all day”, I mean this game takes a good 12 hours from start to finish. We’ve had multi-day games happen before, but it’s never as exciting the next day, so now we try to start early and finish fast. I always tend to be the one trying to “move things along”, for some reason. I don’t have any/much German in me, so I can’t explain this need to facilitate.
Daniel came down to visit for a couple days, and Civ is our tradition, dating all the way back to early ’99. He was in China for a year, and now lives in Austin, so it’s been awhile. It was a great time, with some good guys and lots of beer (once again, Adam brought an excellent home-brew). Daniel stayed until this morning, and he got the full flavor of an Ahniwa slice-of-life: swing dancing, and music. I wish I didn’t work so close to the line (the line of financial ruin, that is) and could have taken some time off to visit with him more. Hopefully he didn’t feel cheated, but I did warn him that my life is frantically busy. Still, it was good to see him, and he’s coming back down for another weekend soon, so perhaps we’ll be able to catch up more then.
—
Sprint has stolen my soul and replaced it with cancer.
That’s right, I’m now cellular.
I like the service, but the prices screw you over unless you get a two-year contract, which seems a bit long for me. And evidently, if you cancel your contract early, Sprint is entitled to your first-born child and a yearly Christmas card. They can have the damn kid (had I one), but I suck at sending Christmas cards.
The first phone I got sucked.
But I’m getting a new one.
It’s like Eddie Izzard says, when you get a new technology, you expect it to be able to do everything for you. “I got this new thing, now I’ll never have to work or do anything myself ever again!” I don’t know why, but that’s what I expected from my cell phone (I even tried to cure a leper with it). Instead, the coolest thing I’ve gotten it to do so far is play the Cure whenever one of my friends calls me (which is, in fact, pretty cool). The funny thing is, I blame my phone’s failures at performing miracles on the particular phone I had, and not the technology in general. So when I get my new phone, I’ll go through this all over again, most likely (unless it actually can cure leprosy, I’ll let you know). Even if it fails at miracles, the new phone is silver and blue instead of just silver, and it’s got the whole walkie-talkie thing going for it, and a speakerphone, so I can just set the phone down and yell at the top of my voice (because that seems like it will annoy everyone around me even more, which is my goal as a new cell-phone user seeking revenge). I’ve joined the 21st century, and lo, there was much rejoicing. Thank you, Saint Sprint.
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Gamespy has a first. A decent article. But you’d know that already if you read Penny Arcade. Which you should. The game itself looks neat. The concept is ground-breaking.
Also, with EA so big in the news lately, people should take a moment and read the EA Spouse transmission. I don’t know if such a thing is possible any longer in our EA-infested world, but I’m strongly considering boycotting them. This is old news, evidently, but it’s the first time I’d ever seen it. So I put here on the off-chance it’s the first time you’d ever seen it too.
Other news: McGill Application – Finished, Sent.
Yelm Job: I declined the interview. It was too far away.
Likeliness that I’ll still be in Oly this fall: 95%.
If you live in Washington, I hope you’re living through our pollen plague. Flowers are sure rude bastards. You don’t see me throwing my male gametes all over the place, do you? Do you!? No, and you don’t want to either. In honor of these plants being assholes, I’ve butchered the “Roses are red…” poem in a new and fun way.
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
keep your seeds to yourself,
I don’t gamete on you!
Yes, “gamete” is now a verb. Use freely.
–OHMYGODBECKYLOOKATHERPISTILITISSOBIG–
Farewell, Hunter S. Thompson. Thanks for changing the art of journalism. And, as is said here, being in a sense the patron saint of blogging.
You can find quite a bit more info here.
Wired magazine has this very provocative article on the future of nuclear energy. Or rather, the present of it. They make very enticing points. It’s not perfect, obviously, but we need to stop burning coal and soon. I say we go for it.
Any thoughts? Let’s discuss.
A full month later, and we’re just getting started on cleaning this all up. Another article I read compared the medical problems we are experiencing in these countries to ones we had during the US Civil War. Hopefully this can be improved, and fast, though I reserve my cynicism. As the article states, a disaster such as this, sudden and unpredicatable, makes us realize that it could have happened to any of us, without warning; reminding us that the Earth is not compassionate, and that we need to make the most of things now, not later.
How pathetic can you get? I would like to feel some compassion for the guy, but he “tried” to slash his wrists, “tried” to stab himself, and then “tried” to get hit by a train, killing ten other people and injuring hundreds. Perhaps, right along with suicide prevention hotlines, we could use a couple suicide success lines, providing helpful information about how to end your life successfully without wrecking trains in the process. Like S*P says (I tried to find the particular strip, but couldn’t), “Remember kids, it’s up the river, not across the street.”
Isn’t this what therapy is for? Or perhaps a sound talking to from the principal? Since when do kids get felony charges for drawing violent pictures? I bet you every kid between the ages of 8-12 has drawn something somewhat violent at some point or another. They’ve a morbid fascination with death, because in general it’s not a particularly real occurence. So yeah, explain to little Timmy and Billy why it’s wrong to draw pictures of stabbing and hanging your classmates, but don’t throw them in a federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist my own clever headline. Still, eleven nominations, hot damn. I guess I should go see that, and soon. I think Moore’s an idiot for taking Fahrenheit 9/11 out of the Best Documentary category to run for Best Picture. For someone who does documentarys on American society, he sure seems kind of clueless sometimes about our … tastes. I loved the movie, personally, but I was never less than absolutely sure that it would never win Best Picture. That it didn’t even get nominated is no surprise either. Besides, what’s wrong with the Best Documentary category? Perhaps Moore needs to come to terms with the fact that his movies are, in fact, documentaries (though some might argue), and that there’s no shame in that. Like he said when Bowling for Columbine won, documentarians are people that focus on the truth in fictitious times. This is important, and in my opinion, commendable, regardless of whether or not you agree with this “truth”.
When it comes to spiritual beliefs, I try not to be judgemental. It’s a fairly non-factual field, where what you feel is more important than what you can prove. I don’t know if I think that resurrection is likely, but I certainly think it’s possible, and as an idea, I kind of like it. Even so, I don’t think I would ever, ever equate the reasoning behind a belief in resurrection as “Well, it’s like a video game. You just hit the reset switch.” I just mean, c’mon! You’re Japan! You’ve got a gazillion years and eras of history, myth and folklore, and the best your youth can come up with as an analogy for resurrection is resetting their gamecube!? Only in Japan, I tell you.
