brainjack>>

So there's been a lot of clamoring among the right-wing radio media about a speech targeted at kids of school-going age. And as these things inevitably follow, a corresponding wave of whatevernot from the analogue pundits at certain online publications so esteemed as bastions of impartiality. The places where I get my news seem to hob-knob a little more to the left than right politically, so I've gotten to hear all sorts of aghast bewilderment about how any sane person could possibly oppose such a benign speech, which from the source itself, seems to mainly concern individual responsibility.

It's all a matter of jurisdiction. I can relate to the final statement of the author of this article. Stay the hell away from my kids, indeed. But not in the vitriolic tone that the author seemed to intend. I don't want some stranger on the street to give my kid advice on proper manners, I don't want teachers to cram personal moral ideologies down their throats, and, yeah, I don't necessarily think it's the government's jurisdiction to lecture my kids on the merits of a good education. I think I'm doing a fine enough job already, and don't need somebody else coming in and cramping my style, as it were. I don't think that minor annoyance would lead to keeping my kid out of school for a day, but it does kind of rub me the wrong way.
I can empathize with school administration who might have a problem about jurisdiction, though this is in all probability a rare justification. I will admit that there are many parents who won't take on the personal responsibility to instill appropriate morals about education in their kids. There are plenty of teachers and administrators who feel that the responsibility thus falls to them. From accounts of many family and acquaintances in the teaching industry, that can feel like a last line of defense. I can say with some confidence most teachers would welcome any help from anybody, no matter how politically loaded it might be. I think it is more plausible that there is a slight resentment to the magnificent seven riding into town with a lot of pomp and fanfare, only to leave the folks in the trenches every day to the actual gunfight.
The only problem I really have are the very subtle hints to a mob mentality, but it's nothing to do with this speech in particular. Sell wrapping paper. Join the PTA. Celebrate holiday X in the prescribed secular fashion. Gold stars and black marks....er, mind the bigotry, make that thumbs up and thumbs down. Education/Psych 101 drilled into a five year old, very impressionable, skull. What the hell does all that have to do with my daughter's education, exactly? About as much as some strange guy she watches on TV(who just happens to be the publicly voted American President) telling her a bunch of things that her parents had better already have been telling her.

That is the biggest paradox of public education. Spend all this time and effort trying to motivate kids to value their educations, whilst promptly quashing an existing love by hindering growth and punishing over-achievement the entire time. When a student excels, they are a burden, so teachers often make them act as de facto in-class tutors to the students that are struggling. All in the name of civic duty, with the prevailing educational propaganda stating that tutoring helps students learn more. Really?! Super convenient for understaffed, underfunded, over-stressed-to-pass-state-curriculum-standards administration! Unless the plan is to train more teachers(which arguably is a need for public education to survive), that is a wagonload of horseshit I'm not buying. It's bad enough that they have to deal with that shit when it relates to education...why is the ostracization and hive mind requisite on all the other social, religious, political, and financial matters?

A lot has been going on since my last post, some good, some bad. First, I unfortunately found myself in November out of a job, as the company I had been working for the last three years was finally coming under the strain of the financial crunch. This was really quite a tough transition, but not for the obvious reasons. My experience with the company had some of my best time, and I got paid to do it. I already miss the guys I worked with, and hope that I can find as comfortable work environments in the future.

The job hunt itself was pretty painless, especially considering that my family was not in immediate financial distress. I posted resumes on some of the bigger job sites and began looking for something in the region. While there weren't many opportunities close to where I lived, I did experience a pretty steady trickle of leads from recruiters. Fairly early on, I was called out of the blue by a recruiter from Amazon.com. Apparently, a project manager had seen my resume and thought they could utilize my background working with indexing and search engines.

While this was a great opportunity, and instilled some degree of confidence that I'd have little trouble landing a position soon, it was kind of intimidating. Amazon.com has an interview process that had a reputation online for being fairly competitive, and I'd never really gone up against a technical interview that went beyond simple questions about OOP or a specific language.

I did some research, tried to look at other people's experiences with interviews and what sorts of questions were normally asked. While I'd been working in software development for the last few years, it'd been about twice as long since I'd learned from a book on the topics I'd likely be quizzed. Despite this, it seemed like an opportunity that couldn't be passed up, so I schedule the first of what is generally three interviews(two phone, one onsite).

I won't go into too fine a detail about the contents of the interviews, as it isn't really relevant to anybody but a prospective employee. In general, although I studied pretty decently on a variety of topics, the interviews didn't really align with what I expected. I reviewed a lot on theory, on common algorithms for search and sort, and made sure I could easily answer any OOP definitions or concepts.

My first interview went reasonably at first, with him asking some questions about Java syntax and OOP concepts. It did hit a snag, though, when I was asked to code a very simple problem(code an indexOf() for an array). I had worked out something in a matter of seconds, and then spent far too long muddling through handing him syntactically accurate code over the phone.

I have to say that this is quite possibly the worst imaginable way to assess design abilities. I did probably dive into it a bit early, mostly because it was quite clear in my head and seemed so simple that it didn't even require my writing it down for myself to see. Nonetheless there are a number of flaws in asking questions like this. First and foremost, it is one of the only methods of explaining design that is essentially static. I can't "erase" something that I just told the person on the phone. I can't "re-arrange" snippets of code that occurred at past points in the conversation. Second, it requires describing things at length that could easily be described in subseconds visually. Whiteboard designs are really great in that they do allow for a quick dump of an idea, and this outline can easily be expounded upon dynamically. Finally, it doesn't account for the fact that there are many tools in common use for programmers in standard development environments, and asking anybody to program without them is slightly crippling. Yes, everybody should have a strong enough core that they can do design on paper, but it is rare that any person could spout off code with proper syntax without tripping over their tongue.

I'm sure I come off as somewhat of a dunce after this one question had burned up most of the remaining time, but finally got to the portion of the interview I was most interested in: my questions about Amazon for the interviewer. Although I was exciting about the chance, I wasn't yet convinced that this position was right for me. My previous job had afforded a lot of lifestyle aspects which I had come to value, and allowed me to work in a field I'd grown to like. Despite the onslaught of questions nobody up to this point had told me ANYTHING about the position...just that it was for the Amazon Search group. I asked him a few questions to try and gauge culture, then one question meant to get a grasp on how their infrastructure could allow for innovation from even the smallest cogs of the machine. His answers were very ambiguous and didn't really clear anything up for me, unfortunately. I ended the interview feeling even more uncertain about the position and wasn't so sure I'd get called back.

The second interview did come, a few days later, though it ran very similar to the first. A few questions about OOP concepts, then another over-the-phone programming question. The first(stack implementation that with O(1) push, pop, and find smallest element) only required an explanation, and I got to a solution in reasonable time. I think that I was overcompensating for working through things in my head, and might have verbalized my thought process a little too much. The second(binary search on sorted array), to my chagrin, was more over-the-phone Java code. I didn't want this time to confound the interviewer with revisions and verbalizations, so I was quiet for several minutes while I worked out a solution, then read it back to him. I'd done it recursively, and he confronted me about that fact, but said there wasn't much time left. I saw the iterative solution immediately and quickly explained(not in Java) the solution before moving onto my own questions.

This was the first time I found out a clear answer on what the position entailed. In asking my questions, though, I got the vibe that me and the interviewer were both reaching the same conclusions, that this position wasn't a good fit for me and vice versa. It seemed to me that Amazon.com was the kind of job I always swore I'd never do, the TPS-reports, Office Space type gig where I'd be a worker drone in some giant organization who never got to utilize my creative talents to shape the vision. Coming off a job where I played a pivotal role in doing some cutting edge things in a crowded and growing field, I didn't think I'd survive moving backward to move forward in my career. At any rate, I got confirmation just a few days later, with an email from the recruiter saying they were passing me up on the position.

But, as Shakespeare says, "All's well..." It turned out that one of the other positions I was looking at in northern Utah was moving fast on filling a position for a developer, and I was a prime candidate. After a really good interview, and a short wait, I was extended a fairly reasonable offer. The company seems to be a great environment, and thusfar I have been very excited about the work they are doing, as well as feeling pretty comfortable with my new co-workers. All in all, I feel quite lucky to be working again after such a short time on the hunt, and in truth, even with the Amazon.com opportunity, the position I ended up taking was my top pick.

I am out of steam. Run down and down and out. Kaput. After throwing a tantrum on the topic of politics, on-line and in life, for the last 2+ years...it all seems like a waste of my efforts and breath.

Yesterday, I voted. For whom really is of no consequence. My wife voted also...for the first time around 12 yrs. It can occasionally be a topic of contention for the two of us...we share wildly different realizations of essentially the same political ideologies.

We went into the polls on our way to drop our daughter off at pre-school. There are many times when her precocious, inquisitive nature can drive me nuts, but other times it draws me back to earth. Here's an excerpt from the conversation:

Her: "Why are we at THIS school?"(Our polling place is at my old high school)
Me: "Mom and Dad are going to vote."
Her: "Why?"(This is a common question, and generally allows me an opportunity to ramble in hope that some of the information sticks)
Me: "Well...the system of government in our country is a democratic republic. Citizens elect officials to represent their interests by popular vote. Those people are supposed to vote for the things which we care about."
Her: "I'm gonna vote, too!"
Me: "You have to be an adult to vote."
Her: "Maybe when I'm an adult, I'll vote so everybody can watch kid's shows on TV..."(Another point of contention in the house: how much Spongebob, Kipper, or Callilou is permissable to the adult brain?)

In essence...this is what people DO vote for. Really mundane things, with no real practical reasoning behind them...just "I want, I want, I want." There is little discussion of what is justice and a lot of talk about making things nice for everybody...regardless of the price.

After demanding a paper ballot and filling it out, I got my sticker. My 4-yr old daughter got her sticker and so did my 1-yr old son. The mind of kids...fanfare and ceremony, pomp and circumstance. And then 3 hours later, it was all forgot. She remembered that we had voted, that there was some certain amount of gravity to the process, and then it was over. She went on with living her life, with just as much independence and assertiveness she had lived it the day prior. It really made me realize how childish I can be on certain topics...

Although I'm prone to politic ramblings, there are few instances wherein I feel like I need to write my representatives to tell them how I feel. Not that I feel like it is an effective avenue for change. Not that I really feel like it'll be read at all. Not that I want to assert who is working for whom(psst...THEY work for ME). Not that I really feel like it's some subtle acceptance of the authority which is leveraged against citizens from day to day. Although it may not be completely healthy, it seems to quell the cravings, like a cigarette can all-to-decadently provide a temporary high, to do something more drastic and revolutionary(like not pay my taxes). At very least it records for history that I personally wasn't complicit to whatever shit is bound to hit the proverbial fan.

President George Bush, who has single-handedly done more to degrade and destroy the Constitution than any other politician since Alexander Hamilton, has today called for Congress to swiftly act in pushing his financial plan to allocate SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION dollars of taxpayer dollars to rescue ailing financial firms. I believe that this is an act for the record books. I don't have an official documentation, but...yes, yes...I DO believe that this just MIGHT be the single largest act of theft ever committed in the history of man.

At any rate, as this acts as a digital journal, for my posterity I've posted my advice to the elected officials which declare authority over me and my life below:

Senator XXXXXXXXXXXXX,

I am writing to inform your actions on the upcoming vote regarding the proposed financial plan. I advise you as a representative of the constituency: you must not approve this bill. It represents an unconstitutional action of the executive branch, and it is this Congress' collective responsibility as the sole authority to allocate funds within the United States government, and you must in this case exercise your check against an aggressive executive administration to revoke the legislation.
In addition to the obvious and initial objections to the bill, I do not feel it will resolve the economic crisis mounting in these past few months. On the contrary, I firmly believe that it will only postpone the inevitable crash of the economy and cause more drastic damage when that moment comes. I also believe such legislation will be the largest single blow to free market economy the American populous has ever witnessed in its relatively short history. If it comes down to a choice between the principles of growth that have made our economy strong, and a heavily legislated and regulated economic system that is prone to such periods of instability, I will always favor small and stable growth within the confines of preservation of individual liberties. The only way this can happen is if we allow for expansion, and remove government control from all aspects of the financial system; not just in the form of regulations, but also in massive subsidies to stimulate growth in specific sectors, and in granting special liability privileges to the corporate entities currently responsible for economic decline.
As a citizen of the state of XXXXXXXXXX, and beyond that a citizen of the United States, I demand that you uphold your oath of office in protecting first and foremost the Constitution, and the natural rights of individual citizens which it represents. The Declaration of Independence declares the purpose of this document is to ensure the blessings of Liberty for the Founder's posterity. If you vote in this legislation, you will expand the extent of financial damage not only to my generation, but to the generation of my children and grandchildren. You must reject this legislation, or their generation will never be able to realize a full pursuit of their happiness.
As you must know, the only just government is that which protects the rights of its citizens. Any government which fails in this role is by default an unjust one, and it becomes the responsibility of the citizens to revoke their authority by whatever means necessary. If you choose to reject the advice above, and instead vote "Yea" on this bill, I can assure you I will devote full energy to expel you and your colleagues from your elected seat. I will lobby to inform my neighbors and family to vote in an opposing party or to ensure an incumbent takes your seat. I will donate funds to your opponents, and I will seek to enlighten the other citizens of XXXXXXXXXX of your misjudgment and betrayal of your Oath of Office. I hope you will instead heed this advice, and think carefully on that oath before voting on this bill. Thank you for your time and attention on this matter.

Sincerely,
your constituent,
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I advise any readers to do so as well. But act fast...this legislation is being steamrolled(on grounds that this financial mess represents an "emergency") through the Senate as we speak, and will likely be voted into law early tomorrow morning before anyone really has a chance to object. Kind of like what happened with that other sweeping legislation which degraded person liberties...

EDIT:It turns out the ruling wasn't quite recent. Initially handed down by the 2nd Appellate Court of California in connection with a case of suspected child abuse, it has been up for review, with a decision last month sustaining that the matter is not settled so long as the child is not considered at risk. Regardless of how the ruling ends, it is rather appalling that the public school system was ever considered to be some sort of safety net for abused kids. If there is a correlation, which I am disinclined to believe from my personal experience, then we should resolve the root problem of abuse, instead of accusing homeschooling of creating the problem.

Recently, California decided that the outdated quaint notions of individual liberties and parental rights had for too long oppressed the zombie masses. In a landmark case, an appellate court has just ruled that legislation requiring state licensure in order for parents to teach their kids at home is in fact constitutional. Though this in and of itself is a travesty and a blow to personal liberty, I am more concerned about the presiding judge's statements:

"California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children." Justice H. Walter Croskey

I have to wonder, if the Constitution doesn't in fact disprove this statement(which mind you, it most certainly does), but beyond that, wouldn't the right to manage your genetic legacy as best as you see fit be considered a NATURAL and inalienable right?

"A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation."
Justice H. Walter Croskey

Wow, my zombie circuits must have been fried with critical thought. Isn't the ONLY purpose of any education to obtain KNOWLEDGE and SKILL, for whatever reason, but most often used to pursue a career? Sorry, bud, nowhere in the mix do I implicitly or explicitly grant you some special privilege to brainwash my kids with your jingoist bullshit. I do, however, appreciate the candor with which the whipholders have decided to speak in this instance. It's a refreshing change, from the slick whealings-and-dealings common to politics. I am comforted in the knowledge that the reason California citizens pay property taxes is so that their children can become good little soldiers - warriors of fascism - their hearts, minds, and lives devoted to the Religion of the State.

I just wanted to let all my friends know about my support of the First Baptist Church of Mooksville, and their on-going struggle to battle the evils of figs and fig-lovers. It is evident that those despicably vile figs and the dirty filthy lifestyle of fig-eaters are out to destroy the moral fabric of our society. The liberal fig agenda will only serve to anger the Almighty, and will provoke further retributation in the form of attacks on our home ground and natural disasters.

Please, please, educate yourself on the dangers of figs, and visit this website for enlightenment.

Apparently, being "green" is so damned easy you can merely wish it thusly and "Presto!"

It's finally come to a head. I can't stand it. The self-righteousness, the trendiness, the talk of regulatory force...I have begun to fall in the footsteps of my Republican-ish parents and the ire and annoyance for pious environmentalist greenies(greenmen/women? green-backs?) has reached its pinnacle. I swear if I have to listen to one more advertisement proselytize in my general direction about my carbon-based sins, I'll buy 20 Humvees just in spite.

I believe we should seriously examine our impact on the planet. We should obviously be researching more efficient energy sources. There is a particular issue of Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan that discusses the Kardashev scale for measuring the technology level of a culture...a Type 1 has mastered and maximized all forms of planet-based energy(such as wave, wind, earthquake, etc). The narration grimly indicates that Earth in this era remains a Type 0. We don't even place on the scale. The sad thing is that the capability is there, but we have to seriously pursue these alternatives.

BUT! Guess what? Driving an electric car doesn't cut it, chumps! I don't give a damn if Sunchips uses some amount of solar energy to produce their product: I doubt it is significant enough to offset the impact of all of their factories, growing processes, shipping and manufacture, and probably worst...the waste produced by all of that. And what the hell is a carbon offset going to do to improve anything? It's like the archbishops of granola are handing out get out of jail cards...

We need REAL, EFFICIENT, CHEAP solutions to climate change, energy production impact, and waste management. It is more damning for actual good change that such concepts like ethanol and electric cars have become buzzwords in pop culture. These solutions aren't that great! Ethanol has an energy balance of about 1.3...that is, it takes approximately 3 gallons of crude oil to grow and produce 4 gallons of ethanol. In addition, both sugarcane and corn-based ethanol production severely impact food costs world-wide. Is it really that great of a solution if thousands of people in third world countries have to starve to death as a result? Ethanol isn't even that clean burning....sure it produces less CO2 than gasoline, but aldehydes injected into the air by the process are in some respects more carcinogenic and poisonous than gasoline emissions. Electric cars are even worse. The vast majority of U.S. electricity is produced with coal-burning plants. Coal burning produces about 15% more pollution than gasoline. If all the drivers in the U.S. switched to electric cars, we would be that much worse off. That's not to mention even the fact that any new production of any kind of product is a polluter. We would have to toss ALL of our existing cars so that we could all get new electric cars...and the production cost on the environment of these cars would devastate the ecosystem. I'd say the best thing you can do to be greener is use something old. Recycle scrap wood to make your own furniture, renovate and old car, hell, buy on E-bay.

Why aren't we more aggressively pursuing options like methane(as a start), or wind power, or wave power? Germany is one the highest producers of wind power in the world. Holland has learned to make use of it's unique geographical location to harness wave energy. These countries are great test-beds for what the rest of the world can accomplish if we set a goal and go for it. These solutions are not so expensive to maintain compared to the cost that goes into producing oil. Solar power is currently not so efficient because we can't convert a high enough percentage of solar energy with current panel technology, but this is obviously one of our better solutions and where we should be spending more time and effort.

Until we can come up with energy policies that the poorest nations can implement. we cannot solve this problem. Telling everybody in Sudan to just drive a Prius, fly economy class, and buy "green" products isn't going to work.

I've kinda speculated on how I would approach certain topics with my kids. As a kid, my parents were kinda prudish, and as a result, I got a lot of skewed data from sex-driven teens.
We haven't gotten our cat Orion neutered yet, and he has been scratching at the door now for weeks. Lorelei has been guessing at what he wants:

"Maybe he wants to play at the park?"
"Maybe he wants to play in the snow?"
"Maybe he wants to draw on the sidewalk?
"Maybe he wants to have a picnic?"

I mumbled sort of to her Mom, sort of to myself:
"Nonsense. He WANTS to find a nice girl cat and take care of biology."

So...NOW she keeps saying that the cat wants to go out to play with a nice girl cat. Today, as my son tried to climb off the edge of the bed, she said that he just wanted to find a nice girl baby. Then she said that she was going to find a nice girl girl. And I was going to find a nice girl Daddy. So I had to...explain what I meant...on a 4yr old level. This sort of thing can only really be discussed appropriately with the correct level of spontaneity.

"I meant to say that he's old enough to make baby kittens and that he wanted to go find some girl cat so he could do that."
"I can have a baby cat."
"No, not really. You can have babies, though...but not for a WHILE."
"I can CARRY a baby in my ARMS, though."
"Sure. But, you're a little young to carry a baby in your stomach."
"Maybe my cousin Ambre can?"
"Nah...MUCH older than that. Closer to your Aunt Sarah."
"Maybe when I'm older I can have a baby kitten."
"Nope. Only cats like Orion."

And that was it. Beginner's version of The Talk.

When I first read Carl Sagan's Contact, I was in high school, and, like Ellie, facing a crisis of faith. For the last several years, I had been noticing that there were lots of things about the religion that I had inherited that didn't quite jive. "Didn't quite jive" would be a poor way to put it...the disparity in logic was immense, and it was only recently that I had come to the conclusion that it could no longer be ignored. Something on the order of somebody insisting that Santa Claus came on Christmas Eve after you had just witnessed them putting gifts under the tree themselves. ("Well, he was gonna come, but since you were awake, he hired me to do it instead!") Whenever, I queried about this, I was instructed basically to have more faith that it would meld in time, and told that I was thinking to hard. This basically sparked a period of self-discovery that ballooned into researching many other faiths, and every single one had the same issue: all the stuff I was told was to be taken as truth contradicted everything I could see or know about the universe I existed in.
Reader's of the book Contact were treated to a much finer piece of art than those who watched the more bastardized version on film. While the movie was as well-made as such a format can allow, I was disappointed that the prologue was omitted. Contained in it, Sagan concludes the concept of the transcendental properties of the universe as some form of evidence for an intelligent creator. I personally feel this was the strongest theme in the novel...if there is any form of God which is truth, it must be best illustrated in these perfectly simple, elegant, and structured instances...all of which are clearly observable. It is as close to proof of God, if there even is one, as science can ever hope to achieve without direct, tangible evidence.
I generally classify myself as an atheist, although that label may be misleading to atheists themselves. I find that the word "atheist" conveys the right message to 99% of the people asking the question "What faith do you belong to?" Strictly speaking, anybody who lacks a belief in a god is atheist, but the etymology really indicates that it might more clearly get the point across as a-Theism(I don't believe in the theist's "G"od), which means that all pantheists and polytheists are also atheists. Similarly, the word "agnostic" is loaded...the etymology indicates a lack of knowledge in "G"od. Even taken literally, I find the classification offensive...I have plenty of knowledge("gnosis") on a variety of topics...why would I self-classify myself as ignorant? If someone asks a Christian if they believe in God in Arabic("Allah"), they'd answer "No," because the Arab most likely didn't mean "G"od, but the Muslim God, and wouldn't interpret a positive response in the right way even if they DID mean "G"od. Likewise, I don't answer "Yes" to the question about my belief in "G"od, because when I speculate on the properties of a creating force, they are so vastly different from the Christian God that it wouldn't make sense to any Christian.
That's not to say I believe in nothing. The universe is a highly orderly place, and it makes logical sense to me that it is orderly by (not necessarily "intelligent")design. Before the clamor arises from the secular crowd, let me explain myself in a bit more detail. It is completely possible, in fact highly likely, that humans see order as evidence for design because their brains are evolved to appreciate order. An understanding and appreciation for order are beneficial to human survival. However, this is the point of singularity in both axioms. Whether something designed order to be appreciated by intelligent life(which would arise by this appreciation through an orderly design), or intelligent life(which wouldn't be around to speculate on the issue without nature) by nature appreciates natural order, the results are the same. Both theories are not provable, and therefore have little scientific validity, and neither alters or changes in any fashion the realm of science.
I know that this is a sore spot for most atheists that Christians like to poke at. "Yes, you DO believe in God, just not a traditional DEFINITION of God!" or "You believe that God is Chaos, or God is Nature, or God is the Universe." I dunno...it just...gets on my NERVES...the capitalization does. God as a Pronoun. I guess that I can see something in what the Deists taught, but even that isn't close enough. Deists believe that God can be found in natural phenomenon, but it still seems like it's too close to the Christian God. My beliefs are closer to the idea that natural forces and natural constants are the only likely god to ever exist. God is not Nature...God isn't a He, She, or It even. There isn't a Creator or Cause, but there might have been a creator as in a cause of the creation of the universe, and those things are as close to god as we will ever get in our observation of the tangible realm.
Based on this axiom, there is so much potential in postulating philosophy! Myself an artist and computer scientist simultaneously, finally it all fits in such an aesthetically beautifully engineered way. Everything is logical and orderly and just plain clicks. This is what I envision when Sagan talks about the "transcendental." I think popular futurist and string theory proponent Michio Kaku puts it pretty well(and I'll have to paraphrase): "When physicists see Einstein's theory of general relativity, they cry." There are SO MANY aspects of the universe which inspire this same sense of awe and appreciation. How stars and planets and galaxies are formed. How evolution breeds complex species. The periodic table of elements. The number pi and phi. Fractals.
This opinion on occasion gets me in trouble with my religious friends and family. "How can you see such strong evidence of a designer and not believe in a personal God?" It's not that I specifically disbelieve in a "G"od...just that that question is really quite irrelevant in my quest to understand and realize the tangible universe. Well, rephrase that a bit...I DO disbelieve in SOME "G"ods. Whenever somebody gives me a slew of scripture-heavy what-ifs on the nature of the universe and creation and man and evolution, it's likely to induce a high degree of cringing. Sure, that benevolent and magnanimous "G"od of yours still has some aesthetic properties, and there might be some value in understanding it if emotional response was all I cared about. But the version of "G"od, the one which logically follows from my understanding of the universe based on empirical evidence, shows that a God which created the Earth 7000yrs ago by cobbling together old planets and leaving dino bones in there as a clever ruse is a MORONIC concept. I have come to appreciate and understand a certain level of order and beauty...not in the product itself, but in the design of the universe. It is not rational that Picasso, a great and emotional artist in his own right, with distinct and valuable aesthetic style, can paint the Mona Lisa. The styles of Picasso and da Vinci are so vastly different, they belong in separate realms. Any God which can set in motion the forces that will give rise to sentient life isn't such a scamster that He'd make all observable evidence contradict everything that His book says is stone-chiseled fact. The universe is far too elegant and orderly to need such inelegant and disorderly explanations.
Again...it could just be that I can theorize on this only because I'm here and sentient to theorize, and that I appreciate this because having an appreciation of the world around me was beneficial to my survival. But I have to speculate on what forces led to my developing a sentience, or a sense of appreciation, or even to my own survival and the survival and production of my species. To some degree, these forces and properties are "creators"..they are things which are causes of creation of me as a sentient being with appreciation for transcendental order.

Godammit, some things just plain fucking suck...

I just am so pissed about this. I told a friend today I'd almost rather he be dead...nothing could possibly be worse than watching your gloriously talented brain turn into mush and slip through your fingertips. For shit's sake! Can at least ONE of my favorite authors live until I turn 30?! Douglas Adams died really young. At least Vonnegut lived a pretty full life. Robert Jordan didn't even have a chance to finish his work. Is Gaiman next, by some mysterious case of spores, or will Warren Ellis fall off a tall tower in the middle of a rant?

There is a book my wife owns titled Touched with Fire. One of the premises is that it takes a certain level of insanity to create very creative and beautiful works. It is just sad to admit the truth that bright flames burn faster.

Yesterday was Guy Fawkes day. Not a huge festive occasion here in the United States, but has been celebrated for a while over in the U.K. For those unawares (or those who haven't seen V for Vendetta) Guy Fawkes Day marks the day that a British revolutionary planned(and failed) to destroy what he felt was an unfair and immoral Protest majority in the House or Lords. On Nov 5th, 1605, Guy Fawkes was caught with a large stockpile of explosives, ready to set the plot into action and take out the aristocracy. Traditionally, the festivities in the UK were sort of a day of nationalist fervor, wherein realistic looking effigies of Guy Fawkes were whipped, hung, and or burned...the latter often heightened by placing a cat or some other small animal in the bowels of the construction for the illusion of a screaming victim being consumed by the flames. Not very PC in modern times, which have since dropped most of the celebration. Nowadays, the day for all but the more rural villages is simply an excuse to hang out around a bonfire and watch fireworks.

Oddly enough, rather than standing out today as a symbol of nationalist loyalty, Nov 5th has been more of a figurehead for anarchist and revolutionary movements in the UK. In an episode of Daria, the personification of Guy Fawkes Day ends up looking a lot like Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. When V for Vendetta was released last year, people latched onto it as an icon of individual liberties and civil rights. Although the revolution itself on the first Nov 5th was violent, the character V and Nov 5th has been used to illustrate a passive exercising of the liberties outlined in the Constitution.

We can add one more Nov 5th to the annals of revolutionary movements.

Yesterday, a grassroots campaign organized at thisnovember5th.com for Texas Representative Ron Paul dropped what has been dubbed the Money Bomb. It was an impressive thing to monitor the progress throughout the day, and I was very excited to have a chance to see the tangible evidence of the multitude of supporters the candidate has. I'm not going spend much time lauding his platform, just state that he is the only candidate I have ever seen in my entire life I felt deserving of my trust, and that I fully endorse him in the position of the President of the United States of America. Within the span of 24 hours, Dr. Paul raised a whopping $4.2M...breaking the previous single day contributions records for this election period held by GOP hopeful Mitt Romney. Most people either hate Paul or love him, but, love or hate, the fundraising push is big news. The average donation per person was a mere $100. Never before in politics have I seen a candidate who has been so solidly endorsed, by regular, down-to-earth folks. The day was inspiring; for the first time in my adult life, I am filled with hope for the restoration of the rights to which I, my family, my friends, and every other resident of the planet is entitled.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Well, the new baby wasn't waiting on anybody. He came after a very short labor with no complications. Mom and he are in good health and spirits, and the rest of the house is getting a bit of rest. Thanks to everybody who gave their wishes of good tidings and congratulations!


Demetri Vincent Sanderson, born Aug 17th, 2007.

*** Spoiler Alert : for those who do not wish to hear me wax philosophical, skip this stuff ***

1. Babies make their own rules. If he wants to come now, by gum, he's coming now.
2. This shit has been happening for countless eons. Way back in cave times, people just kind of found a warm cave and did their business.
3. The above does nothing to appease me, and I want as many modern amenities and assistance as can be afforded during the actual parcel transfer.
4. You need a lot of weird shit on hand to take care of things. Vodka? Grape juice? Fresh pineapple? Can I mix myself a drink before we use it for its REAL purpose?
5. No matter how insane your mother is, as a grandmother, she's far nuttier.
6. If it's your first, second or tenth, you WILL be both confoundedly surprised and awe-fully familiar to meet them.
7. Boys feel different from girls. In more than the rudimentary anatomically ways. The explanation for why would take me pages to state eloquently, but it basically boils down to this: As a father, a girl is your hope for the world, the way you want to see it. A boy, on the other hand, is the opportunity to enact the change.
8. There is high likelihood you will feel dumb and inadequate through most of the process. This is normal, and usually goes away after the first 20 years or so.
9. As a lover of science, the process from conception to induction into the world is one of the most complex and transcendental you will ever come to know. Yes, I know the cycle of meiosis. Yes, I am vaguely aware of the biochemistry involved that makes the labor start, that allows blood to flow to the child in the womb, and that miraculously allows a women to expend that much energy. (It's lots of adrenaline, I think. Mmmm....adrenaline) And yes, I can even wrap my head around the transition from shared host body/parasite to new human being. But that still doesn't let me view it as anything less than pretty fucking incredible.
10. As things in life change, there are some parts of your self that don't. Even know, I have a 4 hr old infant on my chest, tap-tapping away at a keyboard under the green and black glow, while simultaneously looking up Star Craft cheats and browsing Think Geek for onesies.

*** End Spoilers ***

Yesterday was a pretty swell day for me. Finally, after nearly 9 years, I've finished the last class of my degree. The gratifying closure was fairly palpable when I left the classroom and walked to my car. I could feel the pressure of the last 10 years of my life waft away with each step, and the feeling was great! I was talking to another friend about it, and I came to an epiphany about why I was so happy. After all, 9 years for a 4 yr degree is not that much of an accomplishment, and in reality, I don't feel satisfied with my education overall. It's not that I did a great and difficult thing, but rather that, finally, I don't have to worry or care about it anymore. For the first time since I started prepping for college in high school, I finally feel like I am competent and capable of dealing with the demands of my life.

Sure, there is a lot to do besides school. Family takes time, and work can be demanding some days...but I don't feel like I'm spread too thin. That one little thing that was looming over me is no longer there. I think that there was a combination of things. I realized the other day that of all my family members, I'm the first to complete a college degree. Some of my other siblings have started degrees, and my older sister who is much smarter than I am was actually pretty far into her RN program...then she got married and stopped. I think that at an early age, I was pretty determined to not live as I did growing up. I wanted to provide the things my family needed and even just wanted to have for a comfortable lifestyle. I had convinced myself that the only way to get that done was to finish my higher education. Even when I had landed a good job, bought a house, gotten to be more financially independent...it didn't matter, because in my head having a college degree was equivalent to success.

In celebration, I took my wife, daughter, and mom out for Thai food. It was a really fun time; my mother has lived a fairly mundane life, and she got to have a fun time tasting good(and for her, relatively exotic) food, as I regaled her of my time in Bangkok. She was a little wary of the sushi at first, but after tasting it, she was an immediate convert. Plus, the drive down and back gave us a chance to catch up.

Baby comes in 2-4 weeks, and I still don't flinch at the responsibility. I learned after the first that being a parent doesn't mean giving up your personality, just a reassessment of priorities. And the thing is that no matter how much you fear the responsibility, when the time comes, you just do it, because it makes you happy and you can't see how you wouldn't want to do it. I look forward to late night video game sessions while I try to get her/him back to sleep.

Yesterday, at the age of 84, due to complications resulting from a bad fall, one of the greatest authors of my century passed away. So it goes. Kurt Vonnegut's works reflected themes that spoke to me personally...my struggle as an artist, my struggle as a parent...my struggle as a human being attempting to live in an often imperfect world.

I have never before been affected by the death of a celebrity. This time, I care, and struggle to surpress the tears as I write.

Vonnegut's unique and particular style was the perfect venue for his powerful social and political statements. He wrote about identity. He wrote about the imbalance of the world. He wrote about war. One of my favorite novels of all time is Breakfast of Champions, wherein Vonnegut himself cameos as the famed Kilgore Trout. The character appears in many other stories as well, but in this one, he meets his Creator. The moment for me was eye-opening and spiritual. I had never before viewed art as a worthwhile endeavour or means of altering the sordid world I saw around me every day. In this moment, I realized that all who create have potential to be Creators in a sense. The make their creations, and then they leave them alone. The scene illustrated such a transcendental concept: that of the Artist God, a recursive entity both comprised and composed of Creators itself.

In Galapagos, I saw for the first time how morality is reflected in the resulting outcome of actions. As with many other books, Vonnegut begins the story by telling you the ending. The real tale is the path to such a bizarre and unexpected place. Vonnegut describes through a captivating narrative the journey, and along the way, the reader is able to derive his own conclusions. Slaughterhouse Five...a more well-crafted depiction of the nuaseating dichotomy of humanity and brutality in war has not been put to paper for nearly a century. The novel showed me how people might be driven to commit such inhumane acts as the Holocaust, yet conversely, how they are responsible for the ultimate decision made. War is hell, and in Hell, mortal man grasps whatever straws to keep his sanity. Yet still...these actions are not absolved by all...those responsible for the actions will carry the weight of them for their life, regardless of whether or not their society or even the victims forgive them. The harsh reality was jarring to me as a teenager, but was oddly comforting. Finally, there was an explanation for the world's injustice, the problem was discrete and solvable, and only served to motivate my idealistic mind.

A great man is now dead, and my first reaction was "He should've gone out in a blaze of glory!!" I wanted Kilgore Trout to remove his travel-worn boots and muscle through the toxic river at Midland City. I suppose that's what he'd been doing all along. His life and writings were his struggle, his goal to change the world for the better. He was able to reach the shore, with legs caked in slime, but his spirit unbeaten. You have touched many lives, sir. You have many followers to carry your message, now.

So it goes.

Guten Nacht, Herr Vonnegut. I will miss you.

An enjoyable gathering was held on Saturday. My wife made some potato soup, soda bread, and we went out and picked up some extra stout draft beer. Nothing says Ireland like a nice bottle of Guiness. Originally, we were planning to hold a 7th Sea one-off, Inish-Fae session with prebuilt characters, but that didn't happen. Sigh. I was really looking forward to playing a crazed, drunken Shea leprechaun. It was a nice time....the talk at one point drifted to WoW, and 95% of the people in the room were babbling as expected. Only two of our friends still play FF, but the hostility was palpable. Really, to me, it doesn't matter what the medium is. I just want to have some fun again.

Our dog was sick the other day. It really sucked. I think he may have nabbed a few chocolate thin mints out of our daughters hands. Feel sorry for the poor guy. He spent the day throwing up, and whimpering. He usually is so high-energy that it's hard to keep up. I took him outside to get some fresh air, and when we had walked a few yards, he just plopped down on the ground. I had to carry him home. He didn't eat much of anything, but we finally got him to drink some water. This morning he was much more vibrant, chowed down on some food with ravenous intent, and then proceeded to go back to his normal terroristic self, chewing and destroying everything. Glad to have him back, even though his is a filthy, vicious cur. ;)

I've seen a few stories in the media lately dealing with copyright. It has been a while since I have actively "pirated" music, but these stories and a few conversations have spurred the gears. My first issue is that people don't understand the separation between art and media. Art is communicative of one or more ideas/ideals. Media is just a means of providing information. Visual media, audio media, tactile media...art must contain at least one medium, but I would say that the medium itself is not really art. So, somebody typing a story could be art, but if the medium for that story is a public blog, it's hard to prohibit transfer of the medium. In the case of pYzam/deviantART, somebody had to have taken that piece of art and then declared it as their own. Either the owner on deviantART did not take valid measures to prohibit the transfer of the medium, or the infringer on pYzam disobeyed their contractual agreements.
That being said, when looking at the infringement case being made by Suzanne Shell, I can't really see how her so-called contract can withstand. I don't believe that an ex-post-facto contract can be valid in any legal or moral sense. The tactic of hiding the contract in the packaging with a "if you have already broken the seal" clause is sneaky, and I think it violates basic contract law. To me, it is sensible that a contract must a) be conscious, b) be clear, and c) have consequence. Before I sign, I must know exactly to what I am agreeing, I must make the choice of my own volition and without confusion, and I must know what will happen if I breach the contract, or if the contract author breaches. I would agree more with Suzanne if she had any sort of measure to make her website private, some measure that a standard spider would have to work around to get to her info. But she didn't. Not only is archive.org covered under fair use practice(thank the Framers this still exists), but this site was open to public, with an insufficient "security measure" to protect the work. A spider is not going to be affected by a stupid little pop-up asking "Do you agree?", and as far as it knows, the site was accessible without authentication.
This brings me to current RIAA practices and propaganda. The current propaganda is that college students are responsible for poor starving artists. If this really were the case, I would have a moral issue with the rampant copyright infringement that occurs. This is not actually the case. I was rather appalled to hear what percentage of CD sales go to Japanese artist yesterday. Of a 3000 yen CD, an artist will typically receive about 6-10 yen!! The amount is probably higher than that in the U.S. but still...music artists everywhere are getting fleeced! With the advent of iTunes and digital distribution methods, I can see that the artist and consumer can MORE directly connect, but I doubt that they are receiving 100% of digital sales. They have to pay licensing fees to Apple, which takes most the profit, etc, etc. In the end, I would be surprised if artist got even 10% of iTunes sales. So what's the big deal then? RIAA is the one losing money, NOT the artists, and that's why they throw the big stink. I try to think about this in terms of traditional visual art. Say I have an agent, and that agent has my pieces hanging in a gallery. I pay this agent a lot of money, something like $4M per piece as a licensing fee, and that agent is going to be able to sell my piece for $4.1M. In return, the agent is expected to ensure that my piece isn't stolen, copied, or destroyed. There is a responsibility on part of the licensor to maintain the contracts, and they are failing to do so. They are failing primarily because people don't like the "you don't own, you rent" business model of music arts, and because the contracts that RIAA is trying to push are invalid as they describe them. Dead people and children can't enter contracts, and certainly, somebody can't enter a contract without realizing that they have done so!

I like art. I like music. I don't think that copyright infringement is absolvable. But there is a definite responsibility on authors of art to make clear and concise contracts, and then a responsibility on owners of art to maintain those contracts. If you own DRMed art, cracking it is infringement. If you make music available for download on BitTorrent, YOU are responsible for infringement...not the thousands who download it, and not the software creator. Hopefully, when the big *AA companies realize that people are crying for more rights and not cheaper prices, a new and better business model will evolve. We are getting there with iTunes, but it's got a LOOONG way to go.

Playing MMOs is an interesting flavor of addiction. It's like...an acid trip that could turn sour, and the controlling factor is the attitudes of those around you. Or like smoking a joint which may have rat poison pellets in it...who knows, maybe as you play your own version of puff-puff-pass Russian roulette, the unfortunate fellow to DIE in lieu of an expected pleasantly lethargic hour might in fact be YOU. There is just no guarantee that you will have a good time on any given day, and this has a lot to due with those around you.
That being said, it can also be a catalyst for confidence and comraderie, so long as you find the right group; equal portions ass-kicking, humor, and friendship. Some of the most fun times I've had in an online game has been relatively mundane things. At very early levels, taking 3 members of our crew to fulfill a run that "requires" twice that amount. Succeeding at difficult tasks because of concentrated effort, because of a closeness in the team that correlates to a closeness in real life. After awhile, you can almost read the minds of your compatriots. They don't have to ask to be rebuffed. They don't have to chastise you for not doing your job right. You, as a group, are well-oiled, refined by fire, and precise. And after the battle, you jokingly flirt with your male friend's female character, ignoring for a moment the fact that you are both married, and that the characters races would make any physical congres, well...acrobatic, to say the least.
I had originally planned to wait until the end of the month to buy a copy of WoW and upgrade my trial account. It didn't exactly happen that way. Due to some confusing language in the online upgrade process, I now have two accounts. My wife had expressed interest in playing also, for a chance to hang with some other friends in the virtual realm. I suppose this means that I will be starting the process of putting in on her PC. It must have been an omen. After all, despite how things trickled off with FFXI, I really miss the fun times just running around with our small band. I'm hoping that some of the mechanics of WoW are a little more conducive to that sort of gameplay. And when I get to end-game...I'll see if I really want to deal with large-guild mechanics and tight schedules.

Last night, during the virgin run of my full account, I picked up some gold from Nellaf and then we ran out to catch me up some quests. It was a reasonably fun time, reminding me all at once what I love and hate about doing things with him. He's got to be the most gung-ho person I know. Not out of stupidity or lack of skill, but in a headstrong, world-is-my-oyster, we-can-take-them fashion. He gets overconfident, and my penchant for prudence is bulldozed. I'm not sure if I should take it as a compliment, but he often assumes that I can manage, and will run off into the yonder, while I quiver in my marshmallow armor amidst dozens of prowling nasties. Another common scenario is that we are creeping up on a large gathering of enemies, which a cautious man would back away from. Nellaf always manages to talk that caution man into attack, and invariably, the cautious man is first to fall. Ah well. Life wouldn't be exciting without such adventures.

I imagine that as has happened with other MMOs and other groups of friends, the discussion of WoW will dominate gatherings. Figures. We play it all day in our homes, then when we get together, we talk about it the whole time. Well, to those who are friends in the virtual realm, you are not allowed to quit for at least, I dunno, a year. No excuses.

...one that's quad-rup-le next-gen, one that won't cost me two gold bricks...

First post in ages. I'm bad at maintaining a routine in real life, I'm not sure why I ever imagined the virtual realm would be any different.

It would be more sensationalist to state that I had been off on secret spy missions with Section 9 or the KGB. It would be less mundane to create a tale wherein I, the hero, had overcome clamorous fates to be here, speaking with you. Forsooth, I am afraid I cannot weave such a verbose tale, but rather only say that the tribulations of all aspects of life have left me wearied and weather-worn. At work, I spend my absolvable distractions on browsing Digg to catch up on the latest tech news or to fume over the latest tidbits of anti-establishment propaganda. At home, I have been prone to collapsing in front of a screen, filling my brain with Sudoku puzzles. In such a tight enclosure, the stresses of the day have no room to breathe, surrounded and stifled by endless sequences of 0-9, arranged in ever descending fractal trees of possibles and non-possibles.

I recently purchased a Wii, after some minimal debate with my wife over the pros and cons. I realize that there are some men out there who must actively try to convince there better halves why they should be allowed to buy their new toys, but this isn't often the case with me. It's not a great thing, actually, especially when I know that there are much better and much more responsible things to which $298.99 ought to be earmarked. The conversation tends to go somewhat like this:

Me: I want to buy _foo_
Wife: Ok, I can see why you might want _foo_. After all, you haven't bought anything fun recently, and _foo_ is sure to bring smiles to your face.
Me: Yes, but _foo_ costs $([0-9]{2,3}).99.
Wife: If you bought _foo_, yes we would have to watch our budget. But $\1.99 really isn't all that much when you think about it. Actually, it's quite a great deal for _foo_.
Me: I don't particularly need _foo_. I still have my old _bar_, and it's got some use in it yet.
Wife: Go ahead and get _foo_. You deserve it.
Me: I suppose I should check our finances again to be sure all the bills are in order...
Wife: That's not a good idea. Just go get your _foo_ before you do that. We'll eat ramen and toast this month. You know how much you like ramen.
Me: Nah....I need to check the account balance.
Wife: Um....if you happen to see an eBay purchase for 50 pounds of organic unprocessed wool, and the amount happens to be for...oh...say, about $([0-9]{2,3}), I just want you to know: A creepy bum was standing really close at the ATM the other day. I think he had a video recorder.
Me: A bum with a video recorder? That seems odd.
Wife: Yeah...and weird thing is, he had like a sheep fetish or something, like stuffed animals, his windbreaker had sheep on it, he had a sheep decal on the side of his shopping cart...even his own hair looked like beautiful unprocessed organic wo---I mean, his hair looked like an unshorn sheep.

But by then it is too late. The devil on the left and my wife on the right have flanked the chump with the halo, and whilst they duke it out, my mind is off on some bizarre train of thought about whether or not there would some favored piece of tech I wouldn't sell even were I homeless.

But back to my Wii. First, it's awesome. I had a hell of a time obtaining one, but the wait was well worth it. We held a party with several friends, and split our sides while attempting to pull of microgames and bowling strikes. I personally wanted to get the version with Twilight Princess, but beggars can't be choosers. The caveat of the console purchase was that it would be oriented to family play, we'd try to focus on games which they would enjoy playing with me. Not to mention that I had to wait a little over a week before the local Gamestop got its shipment, and even then, I had to pounce on it like a vulture within an hour of UPS arriving. I have, however, had opportunities to rent a few games before considering the more expensive purchase prices, and have to say that overall, I'm pleased with how Nintendo developers have handled the new paradigm. The remote is such an easy thing to lean on when innovative design is lacking, and so far, the games I've played have used it when needed, and left it alone when not. Some of the titles that I'm pretty sure I'll pick up include Trauma Center(because everybody loves the ego boost of convincing yourself you are an expert surgeon) and Cooking Mama(to revive Iron Chef night, but for lazy geeks!). I was also quite excited to get the network capability working, and see the Virtual Console. Not many titles out now, but with the addition of Enix's Actraiser, I'm hopeful that merged Square/Enix can see the benefit in adding them to the growing list of scheduled releases for the emulator. Even a scurvy dog like myself can stomach paying $5-$8 for a beloved title like Chrono Trigger, for sheer interfacing experience if not a clear conscience. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Hi-potion.

Oh, one more piece of news-ish sort. I retired my FFXI character last month. What sealed the deal is that one of my best friends in the realms of reality had made the decision to quit, and had told me he needed me to be a good friend and kill his character. I did. The hardest way I knew how. All of his gear, sold. All of his gil, liquidated, distributed. All his unsellable gear, I threw away. Out the door. On the ground. Never to be seen again. Some of it would be more than difficult to reobtain...it would be impossible, one-shot quests that are non-repeatable. I guess he didn't quite realize what I'd do, or I misinterpreted what he wanted, but I kind of knew he'd be back(as this made it his fourth attempt to leave) if it wasn't finalized, so I preformed the role of second to his virtual act of seppukku. Nellaf(oh, it hurts to say her name, sob, sniff) died an honorable death, but it was too much for him to even go back and look at his empty body, empty inventory, and empty pocketbook. The whole thing killed all hopes of future fun. There was a friend or two left, but I saw them so infrequently that I ended up paying for an entire month in which I didn't play a single second. I contemplated starting a WoW character, and still wimble on the decision, but life without MMO is so much more ventilated. No suffering through dickheads and fuckery to get a large end-game run together. No rigid schedules to follow to get elite gear. No wanting to wring your friend fucking neck as he throws in the towel for the 10th time in an hour at the first sign of difficulty. I imagine that late game would be the same in WoW, so I haven't thought too much about it. If I did start up, I'd make sure that I never got passed high mid-level on any character...just have something that I can run around with pals, high enough to look cool to noobs and do some heavy questing, low enough that I don't feel the gravity to reach the pinnacle.

Ok, it's late and I need to sign off. Thanks, you've been a great audience. 'Til next time. If there is one. Which I will resolve to bring about.

It's been a slow day at work. It's been a slow week, really. This has been a semi-welcome change to the hustle of previous weeks, but I must admit I am confounded by it. I realize that there are plenty of personal projects with which I could fill my time. But I find myself on occassion throughout the day staring at my computer screen like an Alzheimer's patient, knowing that there was something I was thinking of, but not being able to determine what exactly it was. My boss is usually pretty great, and he's told me a few times to take a break and leave early when I'm in that state. I've actually had some time to code within the last few days, some pretty neato tools to make my life easier. I'm looking into a new indexing tool called Lucene, which I'm already brewing up some cool applications for.
Vacation plans are commencing nicely, and I'm looking forward to getting out of the house and the state. San Diego is looking to be even more fun than Anaheim, as both my wife and I have natives we are planning on meeting up with. One of my buddies from college lives there, and its been a long while since I've seen him. Hoping to show off my girls, and have him tour guide us around the city. Loads of fun, and only a few days away.
Also...I got enough points to lot on my Noble's Tunic this Sunday! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot! I've "agreed" with myself to limit playtime, and am still getting over withdrawal symptoms. Hopefully, the acquisition of the lastest item will slow my pace.

I am disgusted....apalled even, by some of the things people can do. Things people can do and still feel like they are doing nothing wrong. The basis for my political motivations is that of respect. I value life, I value personal liberty, I value property. Therefore, I must respect all 3 of these things for every other person on the planet, and protect their freedoms if I want to maintain my rights to them personally.

First off, I found while reading a friends blog a story that was buried by public media. Hammer of Truth reported on an incident of police abuse to a suspected drug dealer, a casuality of the war on drugs. Apparently, torture and coercion of a U.S. citizen to sign away his rights to a search warrant is deemed an acceptable loss, as the officers involved in this case received an average of 4.5 years in medium security prison for the stuff. Read the transcript, and if you don't have a weak stomach, listen to the audio. The most infuriating portion for me personally, is the moment when he finally gets them to read the document for him, and one of the officers indicates it says that the guy is giving up his rights "knowingly and voluntarily" and then proceeds to beat him into submission again. It made me sick, and for the first time in my life, I put my drop of water into the raging sea of bullshit by emailing all my Congressmen.

Apparently, abuse of trust is not limited to law enforcement. A couple of conservative Christian wackos in Kansas City led by Fred Phelps are also pushing a cult like following to amazingly hypocritical actions. Imagine the scenario...you have a relative fighting in Iraq, possibly in a war you do not personally condone, and he/she is killed in action. At the funeral, some religious zealots show up to inform you that unfortunately, your loss is a byproduct of America's policy of tolerance towards homosexuals. If only those ass-fuckers had been convicted and killed, you wouldn't have to have your loved one die. Oh, and by the way, the events in New York that triggered the whole war wouldn't have happened if God wasn't so pissed off in the first place!

I try to live a very simple political philosophy: "I don't fuck with you, don't fuck with me." That people can proclaim their own rights and trample others' in the same breath is baffling and depressing...

A week later and I still feel residually like crap. The process was actually much less painful than I thought it would be. I didn't have any finals during or after the procedure, which was damn good. Was scheduled for all three extractions, plus two filling during one hour, and I was sure I'd be out for the day. Instead, I get about 25 shots of novocaine, he does the filling work, then pulls out an awl-like tool to pry out the wisdom teeth. I only winced once, when he pulled out the tooth twice removed from the one where he'd just sliced open my gum to get a filling in. I get sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and some Loritab. Whee.
The crappiest thing was that work was not relenting that day. 2 hrs after I got out, and 1 Loritab settling in, I have some things to deal with. I then have to spend about 2 hours on conference calls getting things set up for somebody to overtake my stuff so I can sleep. Epic levels of suck. Epic.
Well enough bitchin'.

I believe I promised some sort of code for a dice roller. I'll get to that.

FFXI has proved awesome. With the recent expansion, Treasures of Aht Urghan, and the three new classes it brought, I've had many fun-filled evenings of beating the crap out of things and sighing at all the moronic players that joined with the XBOX 360 launch. I've also gotten over my two week slump of not caring to level WHM, as I'm feeling quite gimped by my lack of the "uber" gear. The runs last night were awesome and I did some good stuff. One of my buddies is talking about setting up our own group to do some late-game events, but that's a few weeks off. I'll just have to ride on this group for a bit.

Beginning the plannings of a vacation. Looking at San Diego stuff, maybe SeaWorld/SD Zoo and stuff. I think our little girl would have a blast with that. I hope I can find a window soon to do it.