What in the world could that be?

Just a short post because I need to go. But after this I shall be MIA for about a week (according to plan, if not, something happened to the plan).

I might make it as far north as Idaho, or as far east as Park City. I've got conflicting information on that...

Anyways, that will be why I haven't spoken to you, responded to e-mail, or called you (sorry Whitney. I meant to, but it's been crazy).

I need to go now. Have fun. I hope I do.

Get your freakin' eyes checked!

Optical illusions that you won't believe your eyes!

http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception.html

And did you hear about the "10th" planet? Anyone else think that's as big a load of crap as I do?

"Oh, no. She's stuck in a loop, and he's an idiot. Well that's love for yah."

Just watched that episode of Futurama. Classic. I love that line.

"Victory is mine!"

I have reclaimed my room and an arduous battle it was. Many crumpled boxes lay tossed in the garbage can, bug carcases are strewn about the fields of artificial carpeting and in the glorious shining corner sits my computer!

Which it has for about a week now, shut up!

But it's official now. Everything in my room (visible to the naked eye) is mine. No more of my family's stuff is here unless it is intermixed with my stuff (which is actually quite common, unfortunately) and I have my bed back! I haven't had my own bed for about a month now. I know how youngin's bounce back and all. And how camping is so great, but the couch is only big enough for MOST of my body. Meaning that my neck or legs don't fit. So my back has hated me the last couple of days.

But I am victorious! I get to sleep in MY bed finally. Which hasn't happened in 8 months. We loaned it to one of dad's co-workers and I borrowed someone elses.

Apparently there be many more bugs that have survived the initial battles. But the war shall end in my favor.

I must be off now, don't let the bed bugs bite (they are vicious little SOBs). I shall kill them all shortly.

Stealth.

Like the movie, this title will have nothing to do with the content here-in except for being part of it in an offhanded way. lol.

A Void in Creativity: I was really surprised to see your comment, I didn't realize that you read this. Interesting... Very interesting... And also: I don't recall EVER using the word "sync" or spelling it wrong. Feel free to clue me in, 'cause I'm lost.

================================

So I'm not really up for a super long post so here's me lazily posting an article:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/28/ira.statement/index.html

If this cease fire actually holds this time, it should be a great win for humanity. I can't even remember how freakin' long this one's been going on. Dawn of time, what? Kidding, but for a long, long time anyways.

Went to our promo of "Stealth" tonight. For those of you that are confused, that's a movie, and we saw it before it came out to the general public.

It's pretty good, it's pretty much a Sci-Fi movie, but it's set in the near future, not the distant future. I just had a grievance with the title. They are very much NOT stealth planes. They might think they are, or say they are, but leave it to the informed (or those of us that have watched the history channel) to point out the heat signature on those bad boys would be tremendous. Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the sillouette was GOOD, but NOT invisible. Too many straight lines.

But pretty good all the same, for a movie. Just you might have a problem with the absense of mine fields at one point. Don't want to spoil it though.

Anyways, that's enough from me. I'm boring my brother and have some sort of sore throat that I really wish I didn't have.

Void in Creativity, you're starting to freak me out, by no fault of your own so don't worry about it, but still.

That is all.

Finally.

I finally beat this stupid game.

I swear I haven't had a game frustrate me this badly since... I honestly don't remember. Like, this game is unbeatable your first time through. I don't mean that you can't beat it, but there is NO WAY to beat it without SEVERE trial and error. I don't think there was a mission where I didn't perish in some kind of hail of bullets or hellfire. The culprit? Army Men: Toys in Space!

I've actually liked these games, sorta, but they are way freakin' hard. And the great thing about this one is that guys don't have to come in predictable areas, because it's a sci-fi (sorta) game they can beam in from all corners of the map. And what's more is that when you fulfill certain triggers, they do just that and pounce everyone at once. So ridiculous.

Grr.

And to add to my blood pressure I've never wanted to through my computer and wreck it as much in its whole life, either. The stupid thing is being incredibly sluggish, and well, stupid. I finally got rid of this program that would kill it for no reason, the program would randomly start in the background and stall EVERYTHING. So kick that and what happens? Your computer STALLS RANDOMLY anyways. What a dork.

I think I'm only like this because I don't sleep anymore. And I'm not only like this, just mostly (heh).

Yeah, that and I just had a show down with a friend for a stupid thing. She engaged with another friend in this little "friendly" competition to see who could get the most comments. Long story if you want more details. So naturally they BOTH asked me to help them singly above the rest. So I decide that I'll stick with the tradition of NOT choosing one friend over the other (unless there are specific circumstances that warrant it) and make them tie. They'd see it's silly and laugh and have a good time, right? Nope. I had to help one "more" than the other to make the one mad. Then the one that I "helped" ran off to get a whole mess of other friends to help and unbalanced everything again. And then gets miffed at me for helping the other (confused yet?).

So I basically through my hands up, told her it was silly and that if she comes out of it realizing that I don't choose friends over one another for something silly like that AND realizes that it was silly to begin with, she'd be the winner. But that I'm not going to continue if she's going to take it personally...

Man, I totally felt like I was in elementary school again... Or Jr. High... Or High School... Or college...

I mean, what makes people silly like that? I can see it being in good fun, but to get actually miffed if you're going to start losing? Anyways, that's enough talking about that stupidity...

On my final note, I made up two resumes today (I just can't do the little squiggly for it here). Hopefully I'll be able to turn them in tomorrow as well. I think that they do a pretty good job, but they are my first, and I have no means of comparison, naturally.

Anyways.

Look at the size of that distraction!

The man.

So I officially had another run in with "the law" today. It was super silly. These security guards at the mall (stinkin' rent-a-cops, heh) harrassed us for handing out movie tickets... TO PEOPLE THAT WE WERE MEETING THERE. Apparently they thought we were some form of soliciter. It was really odd, because after we explained ourselves and what we were doing there, THEY KEPT HARRASSING US. Idiots. They even got a third guard involved at one point. It was rediculous. We weren't doing anything wrong, and we were less than fifteen feet from an ACTUAL disturbance. They had these little three year olds running around causing havok. Now the only reason them harrassing us is so bad is that we've been doing this exact thing for about a year or more. More than that, the last time we did it, we had little kids shooting nerf darts fifty feet into the air and then at each other. Yep, we're the disturbance, us standing here, talking with our friends, well within our rights, and handing out previously acquired materials. I wonder if they get in a huff if you give your cell phone out? Or the number? Talk about soliciting...

Anyways. The comment was made that I hadn't spoken of the shuttle launch (which at that time was still forthcoming), but which at this time is old news. Here's why: IT'S BEEN POST PONED FOR THREE MONTHS. At least. I love what NASA meant to the US and the world as much as the next guy, maybe even more, but even I have a limit on how long I want to sit waiting to be jilted again. Unfortunately, they haven't proven to me that they can do the job again. I wanted to see them return to flight more than the next guy, I guarantee it (unless the next guy is one of the astronauts), but give me a break. Two YEARS worth of fixing their problems AND THEN three months of scrapping the mission and it's like they sent it up in frustration. I can see that there's a certain amount of difficulties, this is no small feat, but if you're not ready to go, don't get my hopes up. I'd still love to see NASA get back to where it was, where it should be and should have always been, but don't tease me with it. So I vowed not to talk about it, or read anything about it, until it happened. And now it has. And now the same problems are cropping up (possibly even damage to the shuttle itself) as those that downed the last one. Are they stupid? After 30 years it just seems like they gave up. They changed the sensor twice and it didn't work. Something tells me that should have come up BEFORE the shuttle was on the pad... It's like they want this one to end horribly too, but they don't want everyone else to know it, like they're tired of them going up and having to deal with it or something.

Obviously I'm being very negative with that, but they haven't done anything to impress me lately, not that they have to, but why should I give them credit for this sort of thing? NASA is as close to a living hero that I have, probably, they contribute more than any other agency EVER. And they are totally dropping the shuttle program. Why? It's idiocy. And really frustrating watching someone through away the thing that I've planned my life around. Like you should plan your life to be a cop or a doctor to see those get done away with. They are all important.

Grr...

Other then that I just wanted to inform you that Time remains a construct and not anything that applies to the laws of physics (I take severe issue with the theories of "space/time" because time is a measured construct of our own society. It might have properties that can be examined, but all of that is arbitrarily determined by humanity.) So they are lengthening the year of 2005 to make their clocks sinc up with the Earth's rotation. It just seems to me to be a case of "fudging" it. Except by the "experts". Like they said it would be one number, and the one they got was only off by one second, so what's wrong with fudging it? I'll let your chemistry teacher explain that to you if you don't know. But the skinny of it is that you NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVAR! make up data in science. It'd be great if they screwed up the first time and were fixing it, but if the clocks were off (meaning the atomic clocks) it's stupid to "fudge" them by even a second (especially when they are precise to milliseconds at worst).

So the article.

I suppose I will stop now, aside from running out of steam, it is apparent to me that my fatigued state puts me into a soap box about science. Buggers. I seem to be really grumpy about it, too.

Or maybe it's just me. Au revoir.

Wow.

I almost got used to the comments, heh, but good things aren't meant to last I suppose.

Speaking of comments, I just got an e-mail telling me that someone commented on a story that I "published" almost a year ago. What's really wierd is that I think it's only the second person, besides myself, to even READ it AND it wasn't finished. The person can't write, so it baffles me how they read it (heh, I'm talking about them using l33t amongst other things, not their poetic abilities), but it was interesting that they wanted to read more. I hear that alot, but I haven't yet been bitten by the writing bug again. As always, ideas flow, but they are sketches, not paintings...

Some day, maybe.

It appears that I may be disappearing for a week. My grandparents are going to whisk me and my brother away after his party (sometime after) this weekend. He will be 16 and then we will be spending the long postponed time with them. The problem is that, even though they ask us every year, a week is a long time for me. I'm not exactly doing anything now, but it's quite probably going to postpone any work that I might hope to find and all. Not that I've been searching my guts out.

But the reason I'm going this time is because I don't want to add that to a list of regrets. I don't like seeing my grandfather in his condition. He's apparently on oxygen now as well as God knows what else to keep him surviving. I hate it. I don't understand it. He's a strong guy. He's old, but he could still whoop up on anyone that I know of or have ever met. But somehow he can't breath, or move, or do much of anything.

His time has probably come and gone. And he's held on. It's remarkable, but sad.

So I'm going for him, and for me. Who knows if this will ever happen again. Waste not, right? It's just sad that the last memories I'll have of him will be him suffering. Case in point of why I don't wish to age. He's not the reason I feel that way, he's just the poster child. There's no reason that I can see wanting to survive at all costs. Unless you are waiting for something big, like to meet your grandchildren. Or something... But there is little that I can think of that would make me endure such hardships...

So we'll see how that goes. I just remembered that I might need be back sooner then that. I was trying to think of what was going on on the 6th. That would be Mountain Con's second to last meeting. If they have one in September, anyways. I really would like to be there. But Carl, just put me in touch of someone I can help, and I will be satisfied. We're two months distant, I don't think we have the option of turning around now.

Speaking of which, shameless plug time: Mountain Con is on September 24th at the Airport Hilton. (That's by the airport, go figure). If you buy your tickets now, you only pay $15 for adults and $5 for children. Goto www.mountaincon.org for all of the information, the guests that will be there, and so on. I don't know them off the top of my head because the last seven months I haven't been nearly as active as I should have been. College, go figure.

But I am planning on being there, and I would like to see you there if you can make it. It should be really great. And c'mon, it's only $15, you get to meet a mess of actors and see a really cool band. Switchblade Kittens is going to be there for a live concert at 10(? check the freakin' website) and that's just about enough reason for me, even if I wouldn't get to hang out with all of my friends.

BTW, this was posted at 4:04. Thought you might find that half as humurous as I did.

A jumbled mess.

I didn't get to this like I thought I would, so I'm going to post simultaneously about three things. Ok, well one after another. I guess I'll restrain from talking about them in the most pertinent order and talk about them in the chronological order.

First thing's first then: "That was the best show I've ever done."

That was meant to be the subject line, but sue me.

Thursday night was our last show. I-sci-fi is now the way of the dinosaur. Though it's more like the way of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (just waiting to be cloned and brought back to life). It got really hard for me not to spill it up to the deadline, but we made it. With a teary goodbye, we passed our last show.

Though I'm really mad at myself for a self sabatoge... I forgot the power to the speakers so my best playlists ever went unheard by the masses. Well, at least the masses that I could talk to about it. So in a rare, and brief, moment of self glory, I'm going to post the list and see if you can get the message. Would it help if I told you that it had to do with the show?

Preshow:
Star Wars Main Theme
Building A Mystery
Crazy Frog (cut from actual broadcast due to time)
System of a Down - Legend of Zelda (cut from broadcast on account of time)
March of the Highguard (cut for time)
Hero (Nickleback)
Won't Back Down (Daredevil song)
Aerosmith - Don't want to miss a thing.

All of the cuts for time were because we were late, naturally. But they were there to throw you off, more, anyways.

Break:
Mister Big Time (Armageddon)
Pure Energy
Cure for the Itch (Linkin Park)
Boulevard of Broken Songs

The break was more to set a lively atmosphere. We usually deal with the fans and get rowdy for 15 minutes in the middle of the show. We just call it a break is all.

End Show:
Blur - Whoo Hoo
Switchfoot - Meant to Live
Aerosmith - Come together
Modest Mouse - Float On
Linkin Park - In the End
Blue Oyster Cult - Don't fear the reaper
Sarah McLachlen - I will remember you
Leaving on a Jet plane
Strong Bad - The System is Down.

Now if you didn't know what was happening to the show, or has happened, do you think you would have figured it out? I did that sort of thing in most of my mixes. Always hidden messages. I love it.

I'm going to cut out the second of the three things because it's not important and is ultimately dwarfed.

But now I've heard from the horses' mouth that college is going to be ruined for me. Not only will I have to deal with my Ex when I go back, I will have to deal with her new fling (my old best friend, naturally).

Maybe I'll just go to school down here. It would serve me right, having to eat my own words and all. But at least I'll be in good company. I'll have friends (more recent friends, anyways) going there as well. It would be a smooth way to avoid opening a new front in this war. Unfortunately I don't believe that it's been resolved. Either side brings the other up far to often. I've apparently been asked about as well. Which flusters me even more. Not that I was asked about, but that it was kept from me for fear of my reaction.

I took that severely personally. I am my own person. And I should hope that no one in my inner circles of friends or family would ever keep something from me for fear of my reaction. That's bullshit, to put it mildly. I'm not so emotionally unstable as to need coddling. And the last thing I ever want from anyone is to be shielded from the truth. NO MATTER WHAT. If my goal in life is to seek the truth, is to gain as much as I can (knowledge and otherwise), I can't afford to stay away from ANYTHING because my feelings "might" get hurt.

They're much more hurt now than anything. I assure you that much. It will pass since it was done with good intentions. But I hope to never have it happen again. It's not really a warning to my readers or anything. I just needed to attempt a proper purging on that one.

And that ends my jumbled mess.

A tribute.

Here's a tribute to James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek). I thought it was pretty neat and figured you might want to see it, if you haven't already.

I'm more and more realizing the difficulty of posting interesting links knowing that one of you (at least) Farks AND is on the mailing list that I am (plus about 30 others, heh). Sorry that I don't often have material for you, but ocasionally, maybe.

I found this interesting because China is under AMERICAN pressure to raise its economy. It actually says that some people want a tariff on them if they DON'T raise prices... Wierd... I thought cheap Chinese goods was one of the best things to happen to our economy... But it seems that its threat to our labor force is much more worrisome...

That's all from the news front. I stayed up rather early this morning arranging my library. It's on shelves! But I had to find all of the books at my disposal so that I could put them on there, and in a remotely arranged way that I would like to see them in. I have so many old books, and then a few new (and that's just the copy of them part. I have very few books that could be attributed to a modern original publication - something published in the last 10 years) most haven't been published originally for decades, and many haven't been penned originally for CENTURIES. It's really very interesting.

I have so much to read... If you ever doubt my seriousness when I tell you that I have already to lengthy of a reading list, I will invite you over. For me, this set of shelves alone will take centuries to read at my current rate. So much goodness to read, so much knowledge, and so little desire to read it... Heh. They should just make them into a movie (I'm kidding, and that's a bit blasphemous.)

I also have most of my Boba Fett stuff out. I probably can't compete with you, Carl, but my dainty little shelf has much to please me. And then I have the Puma and his little brother. And "It's a trap" Ackbar as well. It's pretty cool to have my shelves ordained with Slave I and so many other cool things. I'm determined to take back this room with a vengence. I'm going to be putting up some global maps, and I found an old framing of the Columbia shutllecraft that I will hang as well. It's been more than two years since I had a room with something on the wall more special than a calendar. I'll have to see about remounting my poster, as well.

But it's very nice. I have my notebooks, my real books, and plenty of deskspace as well. It almost makes me want to have homework, heh, because now I have the facilities to do it in a hurry and not even worry about it. And all of these references, I definately longed to be back in Seiters class, not because I miss her, but because of all of the missed arguments. I look at all of these references and the things that I could have brought up in her class to challenge her bigotries and half truths. Oh well. It would have been fun though.

Today's the anniversary show. From 7-9PM. I still highly recomend that you listen to it if possible: www.i-sci-fi.com. I know some of you haven't, but I'm excited for this show. You don't want to miss this piece of history, we have two really neat guests as well.

Alright, enough of the plugging.

I think this next week I'm going to make an honest stab at creating virtual life. I found that "Virtual Humans" book again and I think I might be able to figure it out. Though the last time I looked into it I was discouraged, because you pretty much have to program each and every response and some of the neater tricks require scripting that I don't know (Java script and some other fun stuff). But I think I can learn, and if I can make it work, I just might let him run around and play with people, but that's a long term goal if the work is more difficult than I'm currently giving it credit for.

So much to do. I shall post again tomorrow.

Beautiful.

Wow. This one's tone will be much different from last night's.

So many wonderful things.

Like the beauty of the Moon. It's a great deal of coincedence and irony that on the aniversary of the first manned mission to the moon, it is in its full glory. Perigee and full. It lights up the night sky like only poets can capture. Nothing is more beautiful right now.

And then there's the less glorious beauty of having a sliver of my room back. I am posting for the first time in seven months from my room. It almost didn't happen. I had to shift a great many things, and then my tower so that the ethernet cord would reach. But I have my desk set up, my computer set up and now all I need to do is allocate my books to their ideal positions. I love it. I'm actually going to have my library on shelves for the first time. All grouped together. And right here at hand so that I can look to them at a moments' notice.

Opera is actually doing alright for the time being. I can use tabbed browsing which is marvelous, but one of the things that it has over Firefox is that it can save "sessions" in which every time you open the browser, it will open the websites in their respective tabs that you told it to. It cuts a heck of a lot of navigating out of my surfing. I can check my e-mail, news and blogs without all that much clicking. Very nice.

Tomorrow's the 3rd Anniversary of I-Sci-Fi.com. In a way it's hard to believe that it's only been three years. We've done so much with it, grown so much, learned so much and shared so much. If you can listen, I suggest that you do. It will be one of our best shows ever. And I picked the music, which seems as of late to be one of the main reasons to listen. I almost cried when I put together the playlists tonight. It's my best work yet. I always try to make the music choice deliver a message, like what the show's about. And by the end of the show, if you were to look back through the playlists, you'll get it 10-4.

Today's been a very good and eventful day.

And I feel good knowing who died in HP. Big dorks. He wasn't THAT important to the story. I thought it was one of the kids. Great goodness. And this would be the second time that he's died anyways (not to be insensitive...). Hopefully that won't spoil it for you, but some of you will catch my meaning. I personally liked the original the best. But we shall see.

It does make me anxious to see the movies as they come out, though. Interesting indeed.

Ah, and one final thing. There is a new (new to me, anyways) intellectual argument on how Stonehenge, the Pyramids, etc. might have been formed. And in this method only one man is claimed to be needed. Though to do it in the timelines given, you will need more men.

But I find it amazing, though this has been in the back of my mind for a long while, that you can do it with such a little number of persons. I would not have guessed one person, for sure.

It is interesting to note such things like this. But you will never know, likely, what the real method was. But every method such as this eliminates the likelyhood of other crackpot theories.

So have a ten ton stone to move? Try this method if it doesn't do it for you, nothing will.

Scotty and the Moon.

This was too awesome not to share. Google Maps! and the Moon: Here

And in other news, James Doohan passed away today. The hearts of a million Trekkers go with him. We'll all miss him, but I hope he's a bit more comfortable than I've heard reported over the last years.

The Beginning of the Second Cold War

You might not realize it, nor might you believe me when I say it. But I think we're in the beginnings of the next world wide crisis. You might think "No, duh!" after all this mess in the Middle East. But the monster that is lurking in the shadows is much bigger than we are as of yet prepared for. I think we've split our attentions poorly. And I just hope that someone in the military has caught on enough to plan something for this next event.

The Beginning

I find this particularly interesting because it is on the lines to fulfill a "prophecy" one of my friends told me about in 5th grade.

More then that, I fear for the world. Should this come to fruition, it's definately going to be our World War 3.

Edit:

I also found this article about China's military buildup. It's a link I found from Fark, if you've already read it. But it is a good read anyways. This one has a less anti-Chinese, but just as much a warning, tone than the previous.

Great and mighty "Grr!"

For the love of all that is good and holy!

I have had it! I am no longer a proliferator of that vile Firefox. I would love to say that it is merely technical difficulties, but after half a dozen times of trial, error and reinstalling... I will attempt to fudge with it no more.

So I have lost ALL OF MY BOOKMARKS. That's not such a bad thing, except that I had about a hundred articles meant for reading and passing around. I lost the few blogs that I had bookmarked, I lost the... Gosh... Freakin' grrr... I lost all of those articles. I litterally had about fifty articles on the War on Terror and various religious treatises and even some crack pot things. I had no choice because Firefox wouldn't EVEN OPEN anymore. I would tell it to start, wait fifteen minutes and still nothing.

These pitiful words don't even begin to highlight my intense frustration. I might as well run outside and burn my library. It would be equivilent for me...

So from now on I'll be bookmarking everything twice and maybe even saving it... If it's an article of importance anyways...

And I have a new experimental web browser. I'm sorry, but I hate Internet Explorer. It's too barbaric. It's like rubbing stones together... Having all of those popups and open windows instead of tabs... So I have something called Opera now. Which still isn't a match for Firefox, but I don't know how to salvage something if a purge and reinstall won't deal with it... But Opera has similar functions. Disturbingly similar: Tabbed browsing, no popups (thus far, after a while FF began having popups much to my dismay), built in Google search, that sort of thing. But now I'll have to navigate in sublight again... No instantly searching Dictionary.com, Amazon.com, IMDB, and so on...

It's so inhumanly sad...

And as far as I know I'm the only one to have such problems... I had something similar happen to my laptop. I just blamed my laptop for the issues. But why has it forsaken my desktop? It's like Google all of the sudden charging money and putting password locks on their search. Fear that day, when capitalism stoops to even that pit of hell...

So I'll be running Opera through its paces in the next several days. Much to my despisement and loathing.

Alright, enough of the theatrics and whining...

We watched History Channel's new show for the first time this night. Very intense. It follows soldiers in Iraq about. More or less. The incidents have already happened, like tonight's was the raid on Fallujah, but you are there, inserted with the Marines as they are there. You experience those battles pretty much as they did. Without the fear of death, etc. It's called Shootout, and I think it's something that we need. I think it will help us understand a bit of what this war is. To sympathize with our troops there.

Other than that, more progress, (ok, actual progress) on cleaning out my old room. That's a relief. Hopefully it won't be a one hit wonder.

And then I did my first Merit Sheet in a LONG time. "Know Your Episodes". It was rather easy. The other two that I have aren't so easy, but I'm still looking for the ones that I need to do. These ones just looked interesting and all.

And Forgottenpain. If it is taboo or not, I sent you an e-mail. And either that e-mail no longer functions, or you have ignored me. I hope it's not the latter (especially if you're going to be a goober and comment here). It's nothing, just a couple of questions. But I hate having unanswered questions.

Well I'm off to see if Opera is worth the time it took to download (less than a minute, heh).

Evil proliferation of useless junk.

Rather than spamming each of you en masse with this e-mail, I thought I might share it on my Blog where you can easily opt not to read it.

Though I'm often puzzled why spamming is such a big deal... Sure, it's sorta annoying, but you should just delete it. It's rather easy. That, or get Gmail. I think between Gmail and me knowing how spammers get my address, I have cut off any unwanted spam.

Anyways, the spam:

IDIOTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbor
call the local township administrative office to request the
removal of the Deer Crossing sign on our road. The reason:
"too many deer were being hit by cars" and he didn't want
them to cross there anymore.
This one was from Kingman, KS.
______________________________

_______________________
IDIOTS IN FOOD SERVICE:
My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco.
She asked the person behind the counter for "minimal lettuce." He said
he was sorry, but they only had iceberg.
And he was a Kansas City chef!
______________________________________________
IDIOT SIGHTING:
I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport
employee asked, "Has anyone put anything in your baggage
without your knowledge?
To which I replied, "If it was without my knowledge, how
would I know?
He smiled knowingly and nodded, "That's why we ask."
Happened in Birmingham, Ala.
_______________________________________________________
IDIOT SIGHTING:
The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it's safe to cross
the street. I was crossing with an intellectually challenged
coworker of mine when she asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I
explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled,
she responded, "What on earth are blind people doing driving?!"
She is a probation officer in Wichita, KS
___________________________________________________
IDIOT SIGHTING:
At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker who was
leaving the company due to "downsizing," our manager commented
cheerfully, this is fun. We should do this more often." Not a word was
spoken.
We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the-headlights stare.
This was a bunch at Texas Instruments.
________________________________________
IDIOT SIGHTING:
I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back
into itself and for the life of her couldn't understand why
her system would not turn on.
A deputy with the Dallas County Sheriff's office no less.
____________________________________________________
IDIOT SIGHTING:
When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to
pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it.
We went to the service department and found a mechanic working
feverishly to unlock the driver's side door. As I watched
from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door
handle and discovered that it was unlocked. "Hey," I
announced to the technician, "it's open!" To which he
replied, "I know - I already got that side."
This was at the Ford dealership in Canton, Mississippi!

They walk among us ... AND REPRODUCE!!!

I especially appreciate the last one, of course.

If you did not laugh out loud to at least one of these, you've either heard them before, or should check your pulse...

"These are the jokes people!"

Oh, and I often find that many of you put out the book that you are currently reading. I usually don't because most people don't care, and it gets wierd when I don't finish the books that I read. Like I've been cutting my way through the Bible for about five or six months now... But I am intending to read this one from stem to stern: Plato's "The Republic". I highly recommend it. It's in my library, as well, naturally. I find the argument style very intriguing because it reflects my own and several others. It's a series of dialogues (thus far) of Socrates and several of his friends intent on understanding the truth and nature of "justice". It's an incredible insight into the culture as well, since Sophocles is the author of these dialogues. And this has much to do with everyone.

And yes, I do find it in me to read books occasionally. Ha, ha. I just find that reading articles and thoughtful items is more fulfilling. But since "The Republic" is a set of dialogues, the only thing I find difficult about my translation is where the "he said" stuff sits. It doesn't flow as conducively as possible in my opinion.

But I encourage you all to read it at some point in time. You don't have to be a nerd, or a reader. These sorts of things have EVERYTHING to do with EVERYONE. This is life. You all deal with the just and injust on a daily basis, whether you term them as that or not.

STRPG

So yesterday was a very eventfull day for once.

I managed to find a site so that I could finally activate a copy of MS Office 2000. Yeah, it's a bit outdated, but it will be naturally easier to deal with because there will be a mess of information for it. And I took advantage of that.

But for most of the day I spent it with my dad and friends playing a game. We played the first game of the Star Trek Role Playing Game. Note the title. Anyways, Carl is the DM and it's great. I'm still getting used to the system (seriously, this system has taken me SO long to get used to, it's nuts. I just think it's because it wasn't well written, but I don't know... It's definately shifted my average for learning games, heh.)

But yesterday was a blast, mostly. I don't know that I had all that much fun once our superior officer bit it... It was very gruesome... We were in a shaft climbing a ladder when my dad's engineer character dropped a lit plasma torch down the shaft. He was at the top and I was at the bottom... And it passed everyone to hit the Lieutenant who promptly caught fire, fell, was caught by the Ensign behind me, who promptly THREW him down the rest of the 2.5 decks to hit the bottom where we were going...

I don't like that guy's character, or the Zaldan character either... I mean, sure, Kirk was a trouble maker, but in the first hour of the game they got us kicked off the starbase and one of them had seen the inside of the Brig. And the Zaldan had picked up the, barely, alive Lt. and when I told him to PUT HIM DOWN, he dropped him. Ouch.

But the game was really good otherwise, I wasn't useless! I say it like that because I'm playing a soldier (MACO type) on a starship, so I have to wait until we get boarded, pretty much. But I was one of the four guys with a phaser, and we pretty much needed it. It was cool (oh, and the other three weren't available. The Lt. didn't have his - naturally - and the other two security officers were elsewhere).

I think Carl did a good job (you're welcome Carl) and can't wait for the next game. But if my character had been aware of the guy THROWING the flaming Lt. down the shaft... There would have been hell... I kept wanting to call them "Crewman" and not Ensign... I just think it fits better...

But I'm off to finish my duty report so that I can get stuff for it. Huzzah.

Banninated.

Frustration doesn't begin to describe it.

What a dork.

So apparently a moderator banned me from a forum that I've been frequenting for a few weeks now. Why? Don't know. I didn't get a notice saying "You've got BANNED!" or an explanation, or anything. Anyone that I've tried to talk to about it, only two or three, has yet to respond. And I'm starting to wonder about it.

It's rather frustrating, mainly because I've done nothing wrong. It's totally hit the high note in my sense of justice and very irritating... I might have skirted some of the rules in the past, but that depends on your viewpoint. I might have said things that were inflamitory... But definately not anything to hit the radar screen unless the Mod is an idiot. There are complete assholes and trolls in that forum, so it's not like I'm running around chopping people's collective heads off or anything. I just poke 'em with a sharp stick...

And they deleted my essay. Bastards. The rules specifically state that you aren't really supposed to go on a soap box, but with 90% of the posts being like that, why would mine draw heat for it? People post long winded and idiotic things all of the time. They even post OTHER PEOPLE'S long winded and idiotic things. I actually take my time to construct an intelligent thesis and post it, entirely my own work, and it gets deleted, and is one of the top reasons I can think of me getting banned. Since most of my stuff isn't ground breaking usually, I have a small list of arbitrary reasons to choose from.

It's so frustrating for me because it's unwarranted and unjustified. I mean, if you're going to kick someone out of a forum, at least have the courtesy to tell them WHY. Sheesh...

Stupid freaking arbitrary ass.

...

On a lighter note, there isn't one. Heh.

But I'm constructing a somewhat worrisome thought process as of earlier today pointed at addressing the future of foreign policy. A thought occured to me that I didn't like. Sure, it's a lot conspiracy theory stuff, but there's definately a potential there. I'm going to have to see if I can get this one to work in essay form. If it does shape up to be something worth reading, I just might publish the bugger.

Other then that, I'm going to attempt to sleep. I couldn't last night and have been feeling really ill all day today. I figure that eventually my sleep cycle will rotate around to immitate normalcy. And then I'll snap it back into place. But hopefully it won't come to that...

I'm getting increasingly less patient with being bored out of my gord. It's not a good thing. It drives me insane, or better. Which I guess isn't such a bad thing. The better part. Not the insane part.

Anywho. I go now. Watch out behind you.

And it's probably not best to mention the Shuttle Mission getting scrubed unless you want your ear to be filled with a bit of heated ranting about it. The dorks shouldn't be having a problem like this. I'm going to stop paying attention to it if they scrub it one more time... This should have been the last one. They've said for a LONG time now that they were ready...

(Alright, I'll leave it there for now. It's a warning for your own safety.)

Wow.

It's been 8 days since I last posted anything...

8 days... I'm trying to figure out if that's a long time, or a short time.

See, time has no meaning for me anymore. I'm not sure it exists. Well... Of course it still moves in a linear fashion, but I'm quite convinced that if I said I would be somewhere at a set time, it wouldn't happen. Unless maybe it was early in the morning, or late in the evening... Or you told me to be there. But be there of my own free will? I wouldn't bet my life on it.

So last night (love technicalities) we watched "The Island" and I liked the movie. It had some interesting points to bring up from a philosophical standpoint, but there wasn't as much science that was involved. I think that's the hardest thing for me in movies now... I can't seem to find one that just blows my freakin' socks off with its consistency and truth. Like, I know how they are supposed to be entertaining, but I ALWAYS get hooked up on some little tidbit of information. Like they blew something in a scene, or the physics (one of my biggest complaints always) wasn't quite right.

Knowledge ruins people. If you didn't know anything, you'd always be easily entertained. Ever since I took AP Physics and have been getting more knowledge on the way things work, the sciences, etc... I just don't seem to enjoy things all that much anymore.

But this movie was pretty good. Bang up job with the choice of actors/actresses. The big guy from Planet of the Apes and The Green Mile. Boromir. Ewen McGreggor. That new actress chick who's the star. (Never been super good with names, heh, but you all know who I'm talking about, or will). Very good roles, in my opinion.

But then I'm getting very worried about the present state of affairs of our entertainment industry. Like, why the hell are we so focused on war and fear? I know that we have the "War on Terror" running around in the background of our lives (some of us have to deal with it much more up front than I do), but we haven't had any happy-go-lucky films IN A LONG TIME that I can remember... I'd welcome you to point one out, because I'd love to watch it. Like I have seen the world, in one incarnation or another, be devestated, anhialated, blown up, crushed, subjugated or plain vaporised in various ways more times than I really care to think of lately.

It's really disturbing to me that we have such a morbid entertainment with fear lately. I mean, where are the comedies? Where are the "Hills are alive with the sound of music"? I know, that sounds like an odd thing to say, especially since I've never seen that movie, but I am seriously itching for a movie that doesn't have suspense, doesn't have murder or mystery or mayhem or destruction or lying or deceipt or... The list goes on.

I'm all up for a good horror flick, but to me it shouldn't be contingent on how many different ways the human body can be mutilated. It shouldn't be contingent on a mindless curse (for some reason born of water, or having water as its trademark) killing people because bad things happened in a previous life...

Our entertainment should REMOVE us from our lives. People are getting blown up for REALS out there, folks. The Londoners aren't even the latest victims. The sepperatists out of Spain have decided to have a go at it again. Bombings in the Middle East, again. And again, and again.

So why are we so entertained by watching that sort of death on TV? We don't need that. Especially not now. I'd much rather see some good, wholesome comedy than another world ending movie. Or another movie about people being lied to by "the man" or "big brother" or...

Is that really what you want to watch? You want to watch an alien menace come down and whipe the floors with us? You want to watch zombies anhialate the last bastians of mankind? You want to watch clones that have been lied to their entire lives who aren't even considered human beings? You want another conspiracy theory?

I thought we were about showing that we aren't afraid anymore. That "You won't get us running because we're not afraid of you. We're stronger then that."

...

Now with all that ringing in your ears (eyes?), ask yourself what the last comedy you saw was. What was it about? What was the last ORIGINAL comedy that you saw? How long ago was it made?

'Cause unless I'm missing something, I'm rather worried about what our "entertainment" says about our psyche.

Alright already!

I always said that I would give into undeniable proof/evidence/overwhelming things. And I got my ass handed to me again today.

I am now a "permanent" resident of Layton again. No more Logan for a little while, however long it takes. No joke. I went back today, finally, after deciding that my purposed job was infinately more important than sitting around getting fat off my family. Just to find out that BOTH of my roommates bailed on me while I was gone.

One of the two I knew was going to leave eventually, but not while I was gone, darnit. And the other basically felt pressured into bailing out because he couldn't handle it by himself for a bit until the new guy(s) moved in. He was worried about being by himself and dealing with the whole possible theft thing. That had he been able to get ahold of me (which is crap since they've been given my number at least twice that I know of, my new number anyways) he would have either stayed on, or just asked to see if I wanted to room with him elsewhere.

But in any case, the appartment was completely devoid of everything (essentially) except for my things. Which was a great relief, because I thought the landlord might have moved it out or something for lack of communication. And the fact that they had gone had left me without ANY utilities, save maybe water, in which to have at my disposal. Which wouldn't have lasted long enough for me since I would have been 2 weeks out from a check.

So I bagged it. Everyone seems happy more or less. It seems to be what everyone (and I MEAN EVERYONE) has wanted since shortly after I moved...

It's not so bad, but it does dislocate some things in the house, being as we're trying to salvage my room back.

But now I'm AGAIN looking for a job, because there's no way to maintain it and I'm going to have to drop that as well. It's not so bad if it hadn't taken me about a month of solid looking to find it. But hopefully something else will crop up down here. Afterall, I've been rather "forced" into it, so there should at least be something that I can use as an alternate. Y'know, I should be an expert at finding a job, you'd think. I've only been more or less continuously looking for the last 2 years. Ok, more less than more... But it is getting frustrating...

Anyways. I have implemented a strategy for the next time that I move out there so that I shouldn't have to worry about such things in the future. But right now who knows when that will be. Probably not for a few months anyways.

But I'm going to not accept this so much as a defeat, it is more going to be a change in plans. A minor setback, or something.

I was fighting what I knew anyways. I seem to have that common flaw. If I have some form of Kryptonite, that's definately it. And I've always known that I am my own worst enemy (no self destructive things implied, just that a weakness in self-discipline/"inner will" inevetibly causes failure). But this is redicurous.

But tomorrow I'm hunting the elusive job again. And reclaiming my room, I hope. But at least I've unified two good things again. My desktop with a working cable connection. You have no idea the wonderful thing it is to have a connection that doesn't kick you for no reason, especially after having one for so long.

But it's way too freaking early. I've just been doing what I normally do when I'm stressed out.

And if you have yet to figure out what it is, ha.

I'll try to keep you updated, but for a length of some time to come, you won't have to hear me say that I'm in my "second home" or anything like that.

Then again, there was some good come out of it. I don't have to miss out on my RPGs...

Sorry, that's a relic of me trying to maintain a sense of humor about being "forced" into a course of action that I didn't really plan for...

Deep Impact

So Deep Impact was a wonderful success this morning (EDT). And because I'm feeling lazy, read the news if you didn't know what it was all about.

But I've actually been following this one since it launched and am as happy as anyone (but maybe the technicians that but their work into it) about it's success.

But I just thought I would share some comments that I found about it. I actually rarely laugh out loud to things I read (contrary to my IM messages, I reserve "lol" and "roflmao" for various degrees of grinning, heh), and I laughed at these. Some of you might even appreciate them too.
"
2005-07-04 02:21:54 AM
serial_crusher

NASA scientists steered a probe about the size of a washing machine directly into the path of a comet about half the size of Manhattan

Not sure if washing machines and Manhattans are legitimate units of measurement in the metric system."

"
2005-07-04 02:19:28 AM
MisterTweak

The guys who worked on the team for the "fly-by" ship wore blue shirts. The guys who worked on the team for the now-vaporized impactor wore... red shirts. And who says that NASA people don't have a sense of humor??"

"
2005-07-04 02:39:39 AM
judasmachine

that one is for the dinosaurs BIATCH!"

Fark, yeah!

I had my "boobies" today.

Hah, for you non-farkers that's "first post". They have a script that when you post that, not only does it get changed to "boobies" they time warp it into the future 20 (?) hours.

Fun stuff.

But yeah, my first post. And a political one. Scary.

Still waiting to see if I get flamed over it, heh, but posting it for sentimental reasons.

I'm not going to put my username, but if you care, you'll figure it out.

"consdubyaSpeaking of intelligent people. I want a chance to try and rebut to some of your statements. I appreciated the calmer tone of this instead of the vein-popping flamewars that we all know and experience. Just FYI.You ignore the fact that the majority of the Iraqi population believes that the US came to steal their resources, and is generally not supportive of the US due to the Israel/Palestine thing. They suspect that the US will never leave, or, if they do leave, they will only do so if they can control the oil in that country through a puppet government.Your a smart guy VideoVader, why can you not see this? The only way to end the insurgency is to hand over all power to the UN. Which you should not have a problem with if you are really there to spread freedom. But hey, I have heard it before, the US made the sacrifice, thus we deserve the spoils. But then again, that is the point of the left, this was the point in the first place, not freedom.But I'd like to hear you say where it is that the Iraqis have gotten that information. I don't see a great deal of evidence for it, when we still only pull in about 400K barrels a day from them. Which is about the same as it's always been. We've set up their schools and hospitals again. I'm just sayin' it's much to do with biased information that they are getting, which is why they might feel that way, if a majority of them really do.Additionally I take issue with you suggesting we leave the Iraqi situation to a group of vultures. Sorry, just the way I feel. They (the UN, specifically France, Russia, and most likely Kofi Anon, his boy, etc) didn't want us to go in because of all of the money they had tied in there. A bit what to do about corruption, I'm sure you've heard some of the finer points as well. That seems a pretty big thing to me. Not only do our allies fear us taking over oil, but they're going to get jacked out of all the illegal, corrupt, money that they have tied up there.I still have a problem seeing us going to Iraq for oil when we get a lot of it through better means. There's no need to conquer Iraq for oil because we've already got it coming in from Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia as the biggest three suppliers. We get a much less significant number from Iraq, and there's no evidence to suggest that it has ever increased.Just something between intelligent people having conversation."

Grr... I'm starting to hate the not keeping the formatting thing...