This is why I will...

forever be loyal to Apple. A week or so after I bought my iPod Shuffle, I noticed that static would creep into the left earbud at random intervals for irregular spans of time. Sometimes it was all day, sometimes it was never, but when it did my music listening experience suffered. And I know we all hate to suffer unnecessarily.

So I walked into the Apple Store this fine afternoon, and let the dude at the Genius Bar know what the problem was. I'd been using the buds for about an hour already in an attempt to duplicate the problem, but as is the natural course with such things my equipment operated perfectly. This I relayed as well, after the dude attempted to discern for himself the conundrum. I couldn't tell by the look on his face if I was successful, but he went into the back for one point two minutes, then emerged with a brand new plastic packaged set.

"Here you go."

"What, really? You don't need my receipt or anything?"

"Nope."

"That's outstanding. Thank you."

It seems unreasonable, somehow, to expect this level of service. Their profit margine on something like earbuds is thin enough, never mind giving away a new set any time someone complains of a problem. But they do, with a grace and efficiency that borders on ephemeral. No other earthly institution is so fantastically agreeable to deal with, at least not in my experience.

Much postage today...

but I thought this was funny when, the other night, I attempted to obtain a file via a groovy program which shows you where the file is coming from.



Peace!

Too Freakin

Weird. I'm listening to Missing, from Beck's latest brilliance, and all of a sudden I find the clouds and snow outside the window of the cafe have disappeared. Curious, I seek a map of the current cloud cover for America, and on one site I am treated to a dancing ear of corn, kernels labeled with the two-letter abbreviations for all the states of the union. It jiggles itself from left to right, shakes off invisible dirt, allows butter patties to carress it, all in time to this strange strange song.

For a time, this is real entertainment.

For yr. amazement....

and general edification, herein I shall present a list of Logical Fallacies, straight from my freshmen year in college, which you may use to deconstruct or destruct any argument yr. favorite Pundit or Dumbass Colleague may attempt to use against you.

Appeal To Force We are riteous because our Army kicks Major Ass!
Appeal To Pity Conservatives are under attack because the Liberals hate us!
Appeal To The People Hey, everybody else is accepting Jesus. Shouldn't you, too?
Ad Hominem Liberals are wrong because they're stupid.
Enclosed: Two Quoque Don't tell me I'm immoral, look at you and your immoralality!
Accident Surgeons are responsible for thousands of stabbings. Arrest them before they stab any more innocents!
Straw Man I may oppose gun control, but you're pro-abortion, so you're for more killing!
Missing The Point It's snowing in the north-east, so God must hate you liberal heathens.
Red Herring The Republicans have ideas on taxes, therefore, we must generate similar ideas on taxes, since the public wants us to be tough-minded about taxes.
Appeal To Authority If Jerry Falwell says that God hates all gays, then God must hate all gays, because Jerry Falwell sure knows God.
Appeal To Ignorance Since you DON'T know God, you heathen, then everything Jerry Falwell says about God is right and true.
Hasty Generalisation That Liberal is a Communist, therefore, all Liberals must be Communists!
False Cause The President lost the debates whenever he wore a red tie. No more red ties, and he'll always win!
Slippery Slope If we start letting gays marry, then all our children will grow up gay and no more children will ever be born!
Weak Analogy My tax plan is big and full of loopholes for major corporations. Therefore, if your tax plan is big, it must also be full of loopholes for major corporations.
Begging The Question Snowflakes are so complex that only God could make them.
Complex Question Why do Liberals hate God and America?
False Dichotomy Either the President is wrong or the Liberals are wrong, and since the President can't be wrong, then the Liberals must be wrong.
Supressed Evidence Most Americans worship God, so if you see an American, go ahead and pray with them.
Equivocation Any theory can be proven wrong. Gravity is just a theory. Therefore, gravity can be proven wrong.

Seen or heard any arguments like these? I know I have, and it drive me INSANE. Don't fall into the trap of using these when it suits yr. ends! Keep that Logic clean!

Kinda scary...

but perhaps more honest. My "wu name" is Arrogant Killer. I certainly have a reputation for being arrogant at times, and perhaps this refers to my ability to kill men's souls by flaying them with icy shards of truth. I dunno.

I feel terrible, but the fact that Spinsanity.org has been closed up for months completely escaped my attention. They did good work, and I proudly own and display for my conservative family members All the President's Spin. So today I'm replacing it with an entertaining blog I found via Tom Tomorrow's site. Say hello to Pandagon.net. Good Stuff.

Well Thank Jeebus...

something is finally going right.

"You won't be bored for long! New adventures are on their way."

Thus opined my lunch special fortune cookie. It is different from the more typical prognosticating foreign pasteries in that the English is decent, and the text is blue not red. In this it is slightly disappointing, because half the fun of these magic slips of paper was trying to interpret their obscure yet strangely confident verbiage.

Some of the best reside here. Some are truly as mystical as a Zen koan, and some are obviously the unfortunate result of trying to espouse profound universal truths in a language you barely understand.

In other news, the sun shines today. Do whatever you can to bask in it. Now!

The Awe-Inspiring

Time Waster. I have 7 and a half pages of an 8 page paper to write, due tomorrow, I've been here at school for two hours now, and have yet to add a single word to it. Reminds me of the time I was editing a multimedia presentation for Government and Law class right up to the time we presented it - my skill at procrastination is surpassed only by the intensity of my apparent academic deathwish.

Time to calm down. Focus. You can do this.

...Bathroom break!

Three Steps To...

Dealing With Rejection:

Actually, I don't have a plan of any kind. The most common response when one is not hired for a highly desired job is to soak the inside of the head with a favoured liquor, and thus obliviate yr. knowledge of any form of existance outside of the bar. If one is confident enough, and skilled enough, one can simply move on to kick some ass in say, HALO or CoH. That is guaranteed to Restore Confidence. Find something you can do better than anyone else... indeed. That is the key to survival in all circumstances.

So FUCK YOU APPLE STORE SHADYSIDE. I may not have been the loudest person at that Hiring Event, but my understanding of the product and the philosophy is pure and highly contagious. Whorefaces! I sell more product without even working there than ten of yr. best men. SHIT, now I shall have to return to the coffee industry for money.

Or maybe not. My Writing Professor insists that I should be making a living writing columns for many different Big Time Publications, which was a wet dream for a long time when I was young and thought that Journallism would be the key to my future. And she is a published Author, with books and many other peices living under her byline. Shit! I should be that lucky, put into exactly the right place & time with the skills developed here, in this worthless rantage space. Why not? Ride whatever comes along.

Oh, and this...

There just aren't enough words in the language. I know that some people think there are too many, but there aren't.

The raping and pillaging continues. And the one magic word that describes it all?

Fuck.

God Fucking Dammit...

Just when you thought it was okay to believe in a politician, any politician, they go and do something like this. The consensus seems to be that this legislation is built to please the Mega Rich and the credit companies who use small print and legal trickery to suck money and life directly from their customers, like the Christopher Reeve in South Park, snapping the spines of the weak and drinking their life-giving fluids like nectar.

Yes, Mr. Barak I Believe In America Obama. How is voting for this bill taking a stand against the financial rape of the middle and lower class? It's not!

Just when you thought it was safe to start paying attention to politics again, when it seemed that there might be one or two days of the week when you wouldn't feel like slaughtering the guilty in an endless stream of blood and broken bodies. Something happens, always, to confirm your suspicion that where the world to end today in a firey cataclysm, the rest of the universe would be much better off.

I've read a bunch of posts...

on the problems that we Athiests have in relating to Religious folk. Many people argue that lefties operate under a severe handicap when we display an unwillingness to engage in religious debate on religious terms. But if it's true that the Antichrist is supposed to be good at quoting scripture, where exactly does such a debate get us? I don't think it can really go anywhere, because honest debate relies on having a set of agreed upon facts to work from, and religion by it's very definition eschews facts in favour of faith. In other words, it is impossible to reason with someone who is, in the purest sense of the word, unreasonable. "Faith defies Reason, and without Faith I am nothing..." I might have butchered that a bit, but Douglas Adams was straight on. Forgive me, then, if I display little interest in fighting about whether or not God exists, or if America was founded on religious principles.

It was, BTW, but only because we wanted to escape a world in which Religion ruled public life. I think most NeoCons choose to forget that little, monumental detail.

The Rude Fat Man

At the Internet Cafe who did not even purchase food or drink from the cafe and instead waltzed (waddled) in with a Wendy's cup a dirty three-day near-beard B.O. and a wheeled cart packed with wires and cheap or free computing devices looking for a power outlet since his circa-1995 laptop had no battery power and he wanted free web access.

Breath. I was sympathetic until he made a big show of unpacking said wires in an attempt to find his AC adapter. He placed his laptop on another table across from a girl who not long after asked him to leave her alone. I had nabbed the last free outlet in the place, and when he said he had a three-way adapter I gladly agreed to share.

My sympathy evaporated pretty quickly when I realised that he hadn't actually bought anything. This is the WiFi equivalent of running into a restaraunt, pissing on the toilet seat, then running back out. I rarely make assumptions about a person's hygenic habits, since some folk are just born dirty, but this man clearly did not take care of himself and didn't particularly care. As he swung his substantial gut around to take a seat I noticed that his belt buckle was straining and nearly failing to keep that gut in check.

His cell phone would ring, and upon every call he would peer down his nose at it's screen as though deciding whether the caller merited a slice of his invaluable time.

Then he leered at a young girl that walked past him to use the restroom, and that did it. My loathing became honest and complete, and I know that in a way that's bad for me. It's okay to say someone's behaviour is outside accepted social norms, but it's another to actively despise said person. That takes energy and produces no results other than self-riteous satisfaction, and Damn Me, that feels pretty good right now. I think I'll pick up something at the liquor store on my way home tonight.

God Damn It.

The Great Savage Beast has stepped off this landscape. Hunter S. Thompson could feel the warning signs in his bones, the sudden drop in pressure that foretells a gathering Shit Storm, and he was not prepared to watch the dying of the light again after all his insane efforts to warn and educate and ready us. He railed against the Dumbness of America in a time when no one else seemed to get away with it, and he was always painfully right, at least in some way.

I will not miss the writing so much as the idea of the man, which is what I think we all fell in love with. The thought that a stone-crazy shotgun-wielding peacock-owning Flower Child could still be alive in this age of Terror and Riteous Fighting in the name of Jesus was strangely healing. No matter how we despaired when debating our Republican office colleagues, or how out of touch we felt when the President told us that he could balance the budget by making 2+2=5, we knew that somewhere far away, even from the top of a mountain in Colorado, another man would back us up with a ferocity and honesty few could match. He was a sharp reflection of just how crazy one has to be in order to stay sane.

Did he really mean to emulate Hemmingway, a fellow in the realm of tortured intellects? Who knows. If the movies are right and you really do get to float up above your body before your spirit leaves the earth, I'm pretty sure I know what he'd have said.

Holy Fuck, look at that goddamn mess.

And now the Great Scorer will have to write against his name. For an unmatched honesty and purity of spirit, no matter how twisted it's manifestation, he deserves at least a council, a chance to speak for himself and his time. He will do well, and will laugh at his enemies in Hell through a tall glass of tea & Wild Turkey.

Darkness worshed over...

the Dude, darker than a black steer's tuckus on a moonless praerie night." Hey, I spat that right off the top of my head. Pretty good, no? Of course, that's a fairly accurate description of my mood. I used to write for fun, and because I believed that I was more than halfway decent at it. The sheer joy of the excersize was at one point worth it, but now I find myself applying this gift to meeting deadlines once again, and it's just as unappealing as it was when journalism was my profession of choice. I still hate being ordered to write things I have no desire or interest in.

Dealing with medical bills and taxes and my total lack of monetary income is another factor, of course. Nothing could be better calculated to make you feel like a victim than having expenses that are absolutely necessary outweigh your ability to earn the dollars to cover them. It is not, according to some recent research by Time, entirely our fault. I suppose that one major factor in my current ennui is that professional adults have finally admitted in plain language that our generation will be the first in the history of human advancement to experience a lower standard of living than our parents.

Goddam retards! The Sonic Wall Content Filtering Service has prevented me from accessing the online manual for a program I recently downloaded, apparently with the blessing of the same said service. Who designs this shit?

Anyroad, I've also got so many freakin' passwords and email accounts and whatnot that even forgetting one of them creates major headaches. I'm told the new Beck Hell Yes EP is fully worth downloading, but my iTunes store ID? What's your password, fucker? HA! NO MUSIC FOR YOU! Oh, and here's a few hundred spam emails. Enjoy! On the plus side, I found a Bittorrent client that gives you a neato 3D live picture of the swarm network you're sharing with. Bits of data that leave my powerbook appear as tiny red cars on a red beam of delicious freed information. It's priceless, especially when you have the bandwidth for some fast freaking connections.

Last week I finally accepted...

the truth that I'm not really paying to attend any of my classes. So long as I get a passing grade my attendance, and by extension anything I might otherwise have learned, means nothing. No employer with a sliver of working grey matter will ever care whether you earned an A+ or a B or a C- in your psyche class sophomore year (which for me actually was a rare A). They will care if you have a degree that's appropriate to the position you want, and they will want to hear stories about how life has prepared you for this and what an excellent employee you've been to others.

I'm paying Pitt for a diploma, and perhaps some neat experiences, but precious, precious few of my classes are actually worth attending regularly, and it's an equally rare prize when I end up learning something worthwhile in a lecture. Hey, for fun let's make a list of Good Classes I've Had:
Biology for Non-Majors: Taught by a hilarious Scotsman, this class is thoughtfully structured in a way that assumes that you don't already know everything about biology. The reading follows right along with the lectures, and is available as a cheap Xerox from the bookstore. Sadly, the site of my sole falling-asleep-and-drooling incident.
The American Way of War: Professor Goldstien ("Goldy") is priceless. Hilarious and serious, well-read and experienced, he'll tell you about life in post-WWII Air Force and actually fucking know what he's talking about. Well structured class means that you rarely leave without being enlightened in some way.
Introduction to Art: Fucking hard, basically a memorisation course, but it literally gave me an entirely new appreciation for the "art world." Plus the Prof (Gretchen Bender) was way, way cute. Sounds a tad immature, but dammit, it's true.
Explanations of Humans and Society: This sounds like one of those throw-aways, and in a way it was. The lectures were generally interesting but damned difficult to stay awake through. The recitations shined, though, and apparently, magically, somehow I convinced everyone that I knew the subject matter. Well enough to "A"ce a few papers, anyroad. And, Freud fucking rules!

So, four for fifteen so far. Actually, five, 'cause this Creative Non-Fiction is becoming enjoyable. Other profs have tried, many have not, but if only one in every three of yr. classes is anything but a bore and a hassle, something isn't jiving. My poor attitude towards academia in general, coupled with traditionally non-existent study habits, might have something to do with this opinion. And of course there are kids in any class who do well and even seem to enjoy it, but thanks to my Inner Rebel I have never ever been one of those. The classes I am interestsed in I have already studied for and quite likely know as much as the teacher does, and the ones I don't care about I cannot bear to expend effort upon. I just want my degree, please, and there's no need for it to be painful for either of us.

A new class...

requires me to write things quite frequently. It's Creative Nonfiction, something with which I should be intimately familiar. Unfortunately I've not felt very, well, orignial as of late. I'm sure that my observations and interpretations of current and past events is in some way unique, set apart from all the rest of the rantings and the ravings of the press-slash-blogsphere. Even the topic on which I will do much of my writing this semester, Religion in America and/or American Politics, has recieved much coverage thanks to Dubya's supposed ability to harness the Fundamentalists as a viable voting bloc, a theoretical counter to the Crazy Commie Lefties who would ban all guns and make dope legal and use Bibles to fuel the melting machines of the recycling plants.

Perhaps there are a few more words in there than I thought. At any rate, things should get interesting when I have to infiltrate some religious organisation and write up its nefarious operations. Having the experience that I do in this area should also provide some grist for the word-mills, as it were, although being predisposed to certain positions (i.e. right-wing religious nutters aren't rational and cling like children to made-up stories about a benevolent invisible Superman named "God" who will reward them for eliminating individuality in His name, but only once they die) is supposed to be bad for honest reporting. So, to what degree are we supposed to be "creative"? Sounds like a good question to ask the instructor, no?

This might be illegal or something...

but this must be preserved / exposed. An icy hand from the past, risen once again to remind us that nothing, really, changes in this country. It might be past the Statute anyways, I dunno, it's from a past edition of the Onion. Let's just see if anyone finds it.

---

To Hell with Journalistic Objectivity, Vote for George Bush, Dammit!
Onion Election Watch
by Victor Runbeck
Onion Campaign Reporter

I've been a political reporter for The Onion longer than most of its readers have been alive, and never have I compromised my duty as a journalist to further my own agenda. Until now. I simply cannot stand by any longer without voicing my fervent support for the sitting president of these United States, George Bush. Furthermore, I feel safe in assuming the majority of Americans - indeed Onion readers - agree with me.

Lend me your political scruples and let's take a look at George Bush, quite possibly the most qualifie person to lead this country who ever lived.

George Bush is a President who'll keep American women obliged to our proud Puritanical past. (Hey, I don't plan on having an abortion this year!) Now girls, no matter how you stack your blocks, having children is what you do best. Who would take care of the kids if you decided to try your hand at being a corporate attourney? Your husband? Ladies, there's not a sane man alive who would allow that to happen. A vote for George Bush is a vote for Leave It To Beaver's June Cleaver. You wouldn't see Mrs. Cleaver trotting downtown to her obstetrician for an abortion and she certainly wouldn't be pulling in bigger paychecks than Ward.

We need a President who values individual rights - as long as they ain't gay rights! OK, you're gay. Fine. Great. Sorry. You should have thought about that before you signed up for the U.S. military. Sexually harassing women isn't exactly what we teach our boys-in-uniform, but at least it's better than sending love notes across enemy trenches to the other side. And that's precisely the sort of thing gays do. Fellow Americans, this is a call to arms - a rally to reelect our President and to assure that our military is rife with brawny, masculine, thick-necked, hairy-chested, back-slapping heterosexual men.

If ever there was apolitical party that had an affinity with God allmighty, it would be the Republican party. As a matter of fact, looking out of my study right now I see Jesus Christ sitting on a cloud smiling down upon the GOP. (He's wearing a little elephant lapel on his tunic.) Seperation of Church and State is a fine idea, but when we can't make our teachers lead classroom prayer, we're no better than the Communists! A vote for George Bush is a vote for every little boy who folds his hand for the first time to murmur The Lord's prayer. Pick up your cross and vote my friends!

George Bush and the Republican Party represent everything that is right and just in the aggregate American mind. We Republicans know who we are. The Waltons, Harry S. Truman, and yes, even the blond-haired Jesus Christ is at home in our party. When our ideals no longer offer the reassurance they once did, the American people will look to the future. It's happened before. Social Security and Civil Rights were the product of a society that oculd no longer hold off change. The 21st century will produce new problems demanding new change, but I ask you, has that time come? Hell no! Hang on to the last century with all your might and vote George Bush in '92!

---

Scary, no? Put a W between the George and Bush in that story, and replace the lond mention of Commies with the word Terrorists, and blammo, that damned History thing, like a busted-ass record, repeats itself.

"Back in the burgh..."

says a friend's IM away window, and the same applies to me. When I arrived it was raining and hovering around 55 degrees, which according to the weather predictor will be the norm for the rest of the week and beyond. The occurences of brain-killing holy-fuck-it's-cold temperatures have been few, and concentrated in the period when I was enjoying sun in California. BTW, the two trends emerging from the Governator's Domain are large, internally lit inflatable lawn figures, and big-screen HD televisions. EVERYONE has or will soon aquire one, so hop on the wagon and be the first on yr. block!

Navigability Q. Anthropoid sent me an email the other day regarding some lasses who had recently lost their innocence. That's probably the neatest automatically generated spam name I've heard. I should use that as a spoof address...

Hells Bells,

over 100 pageviews? Of course, half of them are me checking the site for the status of the updates, but still... kinda neat.

I feel dirty now that I've been denied access to two very different websites by this joke of a service provider - I'm talking to you Unwired Access. For some reason, it is possible to view Penny Arcade but not Mac Hall, and anyone even vaguely familiar with these two comics should understand the irony. Poor programming job, boyos - even my site has enough cussing on it to set the filters alight. Ah well.

Let me put it this way - I called the family in pittsburgh from the home of my family in southern California on christmas day. I was told it was about 10 goddamn degrees in the 'burgh, and I sympathised. Then I put my shorts on and went to play some golf with Dad-O. We went to San Diego on Monday to see U.S.S. Midway, and the weather was so perfect that I was reminded of a dream.

Also, despite the size of the open blue sky and the concentration of highly religious crazies, there is another crucial difference between my two hometowns. In Colorado Springs you can actually drink the tap water without the distinct feeling that some measure of your USRDA of essential minerals is being filled at the same time. This simple fact can have a profound influence on one's feeling of overall health.

Is this wretched excuse...

for a year over with yet? Goddammit, 2004 will be remembered forever as the Year of the Foul Swine-Herd. History's pronouncement is in, folks, and there seems to be little doubt that after a few centuries of measurable progress towards a brighter future for all humanity, the scales finally tipped the other way this year, and we are now going backwards.

We're going fucking backwards. I know I just used that line, but I'll use it again Goddammit because that's the plain truth. Only the Greed Heads and Professional Pimps are doing better today than they were four years ago, and only fools and monsters think that our human world is a kinder and more enlightened place now that the Shrub has been allowed to wage his wars. FEAR and TERROR have such a grip on the hearts of the Swine in this nation that only an ocean of revenge-blood will break them. And you know what that means - we're TOO LATE.

FUCK I'm in a foul mood. The first minute of the first hour of January 1st 2005 will not be different in any way from the minute that preceeded it, and the weeks and months that follow it may not bring relief. Now would be a good time to invest in some liqour holdings, because the only guerantee I am willing to make is that people will continue to drink. I know this because I will be one of them. So long, suckers, I'm going to live in an altogether more tolerant land. It's called Future Land, and the bretheren of my generation have finally gotten into a few top positions and are already beginning to undo the massive damage this brain-dead batch of luddites is wreaking. See you there if we both survive.

Well, I tried this once...

already, but apparently Safari is designed to shut down after a certain amount of self-serving bullshit whining rantage. I thought it was pretty good, but I'm a notoriously poor judge of the quality of my own writing.

For some reason, the other night an episode of "Wife Swap" caught my attention, and it illustrated for me a point that I don't think a lot of people really consider day-to-day. This episode concerned the swapping of a Texas rock and roll semi-goth mom and a South Carolina baptist woman's-place-is-the-kitchen mom. It confirmed, almost too perfectly, every nasty suspicion and feeling I had about these fundamentalist religious fuck-nut cases, particularly the bits featuring the baptist husband. His mind wasn't just small, it shrank as you watched him. He was so perfectly prejudiced, so delightfully ignorant, so horrifically terrrifyingly mind-killingly stupid that I began to question my own grip on reality. Objectively I know that these people exist in large numbers - they're the "core" of Red State Fucks that did what they always do on November 2nd in an election year and voted for the dumbest beady-eyed Fuck on the ballot. I have even lived among them in Colorado Springs, that smoky hamlet at the foot of the Castle von Dobson, Focus on the Family.

But this was too easy. The man (Bill, I think, Mr. Bill Fucknut) presented such a clear target for lampooning that even the Iraqi National Guard could have taken him out, were they equipped with sarcasm instead of second-hand U.S. small arms (and here, the obvious joke would be "maybe they'd be better off with sarcasm," and that's just as cheap a shot. But come on, you were thinking it. Knock-Knock Joke Mortars and Funny Rhyming Humvees and Trenchant Wit Grenades and oh okay). And at some point towards the end I began to notice that the extraordinary level of editing - that is, splicing together short clips that may or may not be in correct chronological order - couldn't be due solely to time constraints. The staccato nature of the sound bites in particular bothered me, because it clearly destroyed the natural rythm of the conversations that were "taking place" on camera. Whole sentences would end and begin at unnatural times, sometimes a syllable or two shorter than they should have been.

But everything we see on television is edited this way, to one degree or another. That's why they call them shows. If it's on television at all it is by definition entertainment, and entertainment does not have to be real. In fact, it's generally better if it isn't. But these quote-unquote arguments that happen on Reality Television Shows never ever ever happen exactly the way we're made to think they do, and anyone who thinks they do needs to move a few feet back from the screen and check their pulse. Everything you see on that screen, Everything, Every Fucking Thing, is Edited to appear that way. All of it. From news interviews to America's Most Painful Pratfalls, nothing is real inside there, nothing, and the degree to which we Fat Americans depend on it and accept what it says unquestioningly is really, really fucking scary. I am both fascinated and terrified by the prospect of witnessing the next fifty years of our specie's development, because now I have a genuine fear that we'll start going fucking backwards.

What do you think, too much? So far Camino has behaved well, but it set my processor activiy monitor aflame with activity, and something called the "TrueBlue Environment". WTF? Why isn't it all just one fucking thing, one application one process, give me a break.

I suppose it's true...

that I'm one of the most vanishing of minorities, especially in God's America. That's right, no one in particular, I'm an Atheist. Been out of the closet for a while now, yessiree. Haven't been hit by lightning or run over by a Jesus Fish Magnet delivery truck as of yet, but it's definitely odd knowing that something like 98.6% of the other humans I see walking around me believe in an invisible super hero that lives in space and punishes people for wrongdoing after they're dead.

BTW, here's the credit for that description. GYWO is superb satire, because it isn't satire, really, it's just raw disgust channeled through some cheap red clip art and fantastic dialogue. And my contacts ache, so that's all for tonight. Future Self, if you're reading this, I get the feeling that a humongous rant is building in that dark, dark heart of yours, so here's hoping it gets out soonish.

Yay! It's there...

on page 624 of the gallery, I think. Yeah, that's it. One of the only pictures of me to ever make it onto the Inter-Web, my PowerBook Pallas has a message for the rest of the world.

I like it.

Good reading...

comes from odd sources. Consider this document, which has been handed down to us from our dear James Madison, one of the Founding Brothers. One passage in particular stood out to my eyes:

"Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate [liberty] needs them not. Such a Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another."

Such profound wisdom may be plumbed from the depths of our history with disconcerting ease. What modern politico could hope to match such eloquence, and what chance would a cadre of such people have to effect change in our hyper-polarised political world? Makes me whistful for a time I was never a part of.

Lines like this are why I love...

Teen Titans.



"Bumble Bee! Release the Mind Control Squid!"

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA HAAA!! Seriously, that show's got it where it counts.

To take arms against...

a sea of ignorance, and by opposing, end it? That seems to be the Question of the Week, whether 'tis nobler in the heart to suffer the taunts and jabberings of a slate of morons in order that their voices might be countered. But for the majority of my time as a registered Democrat, I've not been excited or energised by the party and it's machinery - rather, I've taken solace in running counter to a party of fear, superstition, and naked ignorance. Against such a tremendous front of Red on our map of America, is it really possible to fight against the Elephant without by default aligning with the other side? I was prepared to wear the ribbons and devices of our nation's armed forces in order to fight for America, but the new militancy taking hold among the Opposition would pit me against America. How is this behaviour any better than the "enemy"s?

I know, an Obviousman standard! I'll fight ignorance on both sides.

Well, that felt good...

but solved nothing, as always. Plus, now that the spleen has been vented and the balance of precious bodily fluids restored there are a few things that have become clear. John Kerry might have run a poor campaign, but he also faced the most rutheless, well-funded and hyper-disciplined political machine ever created in America. JFK walked up to the firing line with a revolver and watched as a tank battalion rolled over the hills towards him, and the fact that he came so close to winning despite the odds and the forces arrayed against him is a testament to the power of decency and real courage in politics. These ideals are oft overlooked because no one wants a Smith & Wesson when you could be driving an M1-A1 Abrams, and here I could delve into the similarities between the candidate's philosophies and their chosen weapons ad nauseum. Suffice it to say, if you bother to ruminate upon the contrasts offered, the illustration is simple and clear.

That is all for now. I wished to leave something in the great un-read blogsphere that was less vituperative than my last post. In the weeks and months to follow the forces of decency shall regroup and forge ahead, and we will prepare however we must to make sure that 50% of America is not squashed into the treads of the enemies' armour.

Congratulations! And Welcome...

To Four More Years of Bombs and Poverty! This race was John Kerry's to win or lose, and he lost it, folks. He did not have the Fire in his belly, or the ability to connect with the American population on more than an intellectual level. Reality has never had anything to do with who was going to win, so in a way the whole Bush line that "we make our own reality" has plainly become the truth. People don't actually know who will make a better leader until that person's leadership is tested, but people obviously believe that Dubya is the stronger man. John Kerry could not make himself look strong, not to save himself or the Republic.

Obviously a bare majority of Americans really are that terrified of Terrorists and Fags and Abortions. Obviously it is not necessary to appeal to Hope when an appeal to Fear is so much easier to understand and so much more effective. Make no mistake: Bush lives on, runs on, and governs by Fear. The Alternative, we are told by the ads and Dick Cheney, is a pack of wolves that will eat your children and steal away your bibles and turn those left alive into Queers, and so the man who can save you from those wolves will be your saviour no matter how ghoulish his true agenda.

We The People have given George W. Bush a brand new rubber-stamped permission slip to continue on his Riteous Course, and anyone who buys the line from Sen. Frist that they will govern more moderately this time around should have their ears plugged with molten lead, because they're obviously not using them. We have told the world to Fuck Off and Get Out Of Our Way. We have the tanks, friends, and we'll decide where to park them, thank you and good night. Anyone who thinks that Iraq will be fixed before the next Islamic china shop is torn apart has learned nothing and has no sense of history, and anyone who expects the rest of the world to do more than wring it's hands together and pass a few resolutions has learned even less. Nothing short of massive economic and diplomatic retaliation will ever convince Americans that it is a poor idea to have a bald-faced jack-ass in office that bitch slaps foreign leaders into doing things the American way. And nothing will ever convince Dubya that he was wrong in the first place. America is Too Big, Too Great, and Too Powerful to ever be swayed by the pygmy voices of other nations, and that will never change so long as our taxes go to Halliburton in order to fix the things that our fine Army breaks.

I am strangely at peace with this result. It is clear, now more than ever, that America is truly ruled by fear. In 2000 it was Bush who accused Al Gore of trying to "scare people into the voting booth." That ranks as one of his most subtle yet important hypocrisies. "Why Take The Risk?" shouts another Bush ad that ran every thirty seconds in the week before the election, apparently referring to the risk that John Kerry will personally take all the money from the CIA's bank account and give it to AIDS patients and homeless unwed mothers. Or start non-stop shuttle service from Kabul to Cleveland with special discounts for guys named Mohammed. Or use the National Guard to take over all church basements and turn them into no-questions-asked 24 hour abortion clinics.

Don't laugh. People are afraid of this, which is why 11 states just made gay marriage illegal. The specter of a Homosexual A-Team driving around in a van and breaking into your house at dinner time to turn your innocent little boy into a Lover of Men is real to these people, on some dark fundamental level, because a piece of paper that says two humans are married cannot possibly justify that sort of reaction. Americans are deathly afraid of Terrorists and Gays and Non-Christians, but they are not afraid of Tomahawk missiles or Stryker APCs or F-15 Strike Eagles. Those are the weapons of God and Justice, and to date they have killed or allowed the death of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. Iraqi families are afraid of those weapons, but their deaths are totally justified by the two buildings that fell down on September the 11th of 2001. The tens of thousands of children's bodies that lie mangled in the streets of Baghdad are just a part of that "group of folks" that "hate freedom." Killing them is necessary, ladies and gentlemen, until as Mr. Rumsfeld said they become "tired of killing themselves."

Congratulations America. Your fear will rule the world and the future of our children for the next seven generations. God Bless.

Attending a mini-rally with Reverend...

Jesse Jackson was good for the soul, even if I'm not traditionally moved by populist emotional appeals. People chanting in a crowd, no matter the message, always creeps me out. But this was helpful because after all the reading I've done, and all the polling that's taken place and been ignored, and all the reporting that has been spewed out of that God Damned Television, I really do feel that Kerry will win. If the "likely voter" polls now show an absolute dead even tie, then the massive new voter registrations and minority (read: Black) votes will almost assuredly tip the balance. Republicans tend to get a consistent degree of support from their registered voters, and if this one election were any less crucial I'd say that they'd probably win, although with an unacceptably thin margin again.

But I have the feeling that people are really starting to wake up en mass, and are considering just what another four years of Dubya would cost this country. It still shouldn't be this close, but it is. This time, however, it will be close in our favour.

5 days to go.

We are slowly working...

towards an understanding of the consequences of electing Dubya in 2004. My own family is very well split, but there are a few normally staunch conservatives that are beginning to balk at giving our current White House another four years to run willy-nilly around the world and blow stuff up in the grand delusion that it somehow makes us safer. I really really hope it's not too late, although it appears that the registration rolls in PA favour the Dems by a steady margin, and one thing you can be sure of in this election is that when people register under a party they're going to vote for that party come Nov. 2.

Sweet Merciful Jeebus, less than one week to go.

I watched Jon lay down the law...

to Msrs. Carlson and Begala on the taped and now world-widely distributed edition of Crossfire that Mr. Stewart appeared on. My impressions are thus:

1. He said many things that needed to be said, such as "You're a part of their strategies." "You have a responsibility to the discourse in America." And "The lead-in to my show is about puppets making crank calls. What is wrong with you?"

2. Debate does not involve shouting loud enough to drown out the opposing voices. When Mr. Begala claimed that Crossfire was a "debate show" he ignored this key distinction, and the two gentlemen proceeded to illustrate this by repeatedly interrupting Jon and shouting their points and questions at him.

3. Much of the news that fills up "the cycle" in this era of 24-hour power networks isn't really news at all, but fluffy incidents of little import that are blown into proportions enormous. It's fairly disgusting, and as a trained Journalist it was always one of the turn-off of the profession for me. And it is a powerful and damning statement indeed that some of the best journalism practised in America these days is done by professional comedians.

Sad, yet true. What does it change for Crossfire? Not a whole hell of a lot, except that perhaps a pang of conscience shall visit the minds of those responsible for journalism's downfall, and the citisenry who allow it to happen.

I had to explain...

to the nice man in the coffee shop why my bumper sticker "Bush-Orwell '04: War Is Peace" was an ironic message, and not meant to imply literaly that a state of war means tha there is peace in the world. He was receptive, and open to discussion, so there is hope, but I worry sometimes that I'm being too clever for my own - and Our Republic's - good.

I met the clever girl that had been putting up contrarian Homecoming Queen posters next to the mass-copied photos of semi-attractive guys and gals, messages like "This Toaster For Homecoming Queen: Brought to you by Bread." They've been torn down, but to me that says that at least people see them, for the smaller message at the bottom says "Wake up and vote for something important."

Please Jeebus, bring that date ever closer. 15 days to go.

I Wonder Why...

this particular image from the large collection at Exploding Dog.com is so singularly fascinating to me. On the other hand, I know exactly why, but part of me continually questions. It is a simple, direct, beautiful condemnation of everything this !President has done in the "War On Terror." We all knew that the right thing to do was avoid a costly war waged for a dubious purpose. We now know that we were not only right, but prescient. We knew that Iraq was not a threat to America. We knew that war would not solve our problems, but worsen them. We knew the costs would be devistating, not in lives or money but in spirit, the one thing that America has had from it's first days as a peice of parchment in 18th century Philadelphia to the days following 9/11, when we were all Americans. I wept when a German mourner held a sign up in front of a camera that said "Freiden," because we knew for certain that at that point that we had real hope for a better future for people across the globe.

And now what do we have but contempt? 18 days to go.

How do you trust...

a cafe full of strangers when you have to poo and your laptop is still hooked up to everything and your food and coffee is only halfway eaten? Generally, I do one of two things: Pack it up early. It takes a few seconds to get Pallas disentngled from the local power outlet, but all told it's pretty painless. Most of the time I rely on her size to keep her anchored, the theory being that someone would have to be real real dumb to try and run off with a 17' screened laptop once everyone else in the establishment has seen me bring it in.

And lo, I'm proven right again!

Any suggestions for getting rid of an all-pervasive static electricity field in one's apartment? Every article of clothing I own adheres. AND, as though there were a God and he had set himself to thwarting me in all Earthly endeavours, someone moved into the apartment above mine and almost immediately began playing loud rap music into my kitchen. The change was instant and remarkable. I moved away from the University to move away from the noise and pig-habits of my neighbours, above and below and next of doors. Initially, things went swimmingly, and I treasured the silence that seemed to pervade my new home. I also took comfort in the assurances of my landlord that intra-building disturbances would be met with the most severe disapproval. I shall call them today and discover specifically what actions may be taken, but the issue for me is larger. It is the fact that simple courtesy, the understanding that the actions we take in this universe have instant and real consequences in the lives for other people, has disappeared with the introduction of powerful stereos. It is impossible to walk any street in the cities of America without hearing at least one good string of "Fuckin' bitches and hoes" repeated as refrain to some mindless Casio keyboard bass line. This is an insult to many things, personal dignity and simple privacy foremost among them. And unfortunately, I'm sufficiently offended to fight against it, particularly when such refrains make their way into my private life whether I want them or not. It's Just Wrong.

Dirty stinking...

rotten filthy useless ORGANS! Damn. Whining Now changes nothing about Then, but it can help to ventilate the spleen. Thanks to this disease, over the past few years the doctors seem to have made a habit of taking pictures of the inside of my body. This is fascinating and disturbing at the same time, allowing the suffering patient to observe the cause of their suffering while being powerless to do naught but watch.

I had a similar dream this morning as I lay recovering from said photo-op, in which I witnessed the aftermath of a car crash and was powerless to help anyone but the victim's dog. It was a little grey shaggy thing with a leash, and there was definitely the strong sense that I was useless in any other capacity than to hold on to it should the victim survive. I'm sensing a common thread here.

Watch the debates. Anyone who truly cannot make up their mind, who honestly believes that there is little difference between the two candidates, is merely suffering ignorance. I'm not kidding. At this point, there should be no questions left in the mind of the concerned citizen.

Another Sunny Day...

Well, that's the name of the song, anyway, and it actually is rather nice today, at least outside this window. This idea has been percolating for some time now, but I've yet to confirm it with any other iChat users: iChat's unique (read:immediate) presentation of your buddy list and the away messages listed therein makes it much easier to think that just saying Hi is a good idea. It also makes reading said away messages something of a hobby, witness this sample:
"Arbeit erledigend... und jen saugt Kugeln."
"Don't eat your soul to fill your belly. I think that's how the quote goes, anyway..."
"This window is named for me. It is also named for you. We share in it."
"my life is so exciting I might die! i hear the ice cream man!"
"i'm so afraid of waking... please don't shake me... i must be dreaming."

I also still get a kick out of downloading crap on the campus wireless at speeds exceeding 120 kbps. Why is that? One could link it to the kind of thrill that gearheads get from slamming new headers on their V8 gas-eater and feeling those extra thirty horses push their stomach into the seat. Except for us the thrill is more intellectual, at least, one hopes that no one in Nerd Land experiences a different physical sensation when bandwidth is maximised.

I came up with an idea for a webcomic. Nerdslayer would be a consummate Nerd himself, utilising all form of wireless devices in his quest to set free the infinite mountains of information in the world. But he is the sworn enemy of the Common Nerd or Helpless Geek, those who give his kind a poor name and reputation by laughing loudly over their previous D&D exploits in the Land of the Night Elves, wearing long unkempt ponytails and shirts three sizes too large for their frame (disregarding those whose frame is substantial enough to require the largest size of garment), and the placing of Japanese techno-pop in any form of public music system. Mind you, similar uncouth behaviour in others is just as perverse and detested, but we must pick our battles.

Using a special reinforced and alltogether sharper-edged 17" PowerBook and an arsenal of discarded AOL CDs and hockey-puck iMac mice, Nerdslayer would hop from campus to campus and office block to office block kicking nerd ass and forcing them into more socially adept behaviour through concussion, amnesia, and tailored relocation/resizing of garments. He would discourage the use of pointless electronic devices and inappropriate use of common ones, mainly cell phones.

You might ask yourself, if you care (which is more than doubtful), if some event precipitated this idea to form itself? The answer is yes, and no. Yes, because there was a minor incident in one of my classes regarding one of our token "I think I'll use my cheap-assed laptop to take notes in class because it's still more sophisticated than you mongrel lead-eaters" that, while too boring to get into, caused me to remember all the little moments I had felt the above frustrations, particularly at my place of work, the University's instructor media services office.

Also, The Ministry of Truth is apparently open for business, capitalism being an odd sort of anethemic enterprise to involve itself in. The bumper sticker with "Bush-Orwell '04: War is Truth" now adornes Pallas's backside, and the response around the campus has been either curious or positive or both.

Substance? Nay...

But there was a strange lack of, let's call it idiocy in the debate last night. One can almost use the word "debate" to describe it and not raise the hackles of a dead William Webster. It is as close to a truly substantive discussion betwixt the candidates as we're likely to get, and I can be happy with that if Kerry continues to whallop Bush.

Wallop. H or no h? Either way, the word is appropriate, for a whalloping is what Bush got (and gave himself). He became particularly upset, and I thought this was brilliant on Kerry's part, when his father's record was compared to his. Is it not evident that everything Dubya has done in his life, from the spurned guard service to flailing at Yale and Harvard Business to killing businesses of his own to his entire political existence, has been a failed effort to emulate his father? And now they even have Iraq wars to compare. Analysis can do nothing but harm Bush, and the only way it harms Kerry now is if it is done without context.

A friend of mine (who remains a friend, despite being at odds politically) can only speak of Kerry's positions without context, the whole "he was for it before he was against it" thing. What's funny is, those statements are true, and their veracity is not challeneged. Rather it is their complexity which is somehow worthy of scorn, and if that is how we measure our leaders then by all means give me polysyllabic conceptual iterations. The leader of the Free World should be smart.

Masochism Part II

Am I even spelling that right? Anyroad, I just had a conversation that might have convinced me of the earlier point - that people will only come around if we lose more than we've lost already. And I don't even think I'll bother writing about the debates, because I know what they're going to be already, toothless pointless insults to intellect and democracy and humanity in general. Doubt me? We'll see...

Also, it's been decided that The Big Lebowski has the best dialogue of any slacker movie ever. Prove me wrong.

Masochism as Therapy

What is this insane desire in my heart, to see Bush win his first legitimate term in this most foul year of our Lord 2004? Would it really be what the blind deaf and dumb pig voters deserve? Yes, but it's not what the country deserves. It's not what our wildlife and air and waterways deserve. It's not what our youngest children and high schoolers and college graduates deserve. It's not what our fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers deserve. And it's most certainly not what our brothers and sisters in the armed forces deserve.

But, as some have speculated, we may actually require another round of beatings in order to break the cycle. Maybe we actually need a few more million jobs to disappear and be replaced by minimum-wage part-time slots in the McMeaties or Whore-Mart industries. If a few more people's lungs are destroyed by coal plant emissions and global warming brings a half dozen more hurricanes to our coasts every year, that might be what it takes to get people to START THINKING. Only the most painful of stimuli can convince a person to hurt themselves more gently: such is the effort to get people to use their sizeable brains.

Sez yous...

Rev. Lou Sheldon, lads and ladies, president of the Traditional Values Coalition in Aneheim and obviously bat-shit crazy: "Schwarzenegger has sided with the homosexual and drag queen lobby in muddying the biological realities of male and female."

Thus he spake when referring to The Governator's addition of Transvestites to the list of people it is possible to commit hate crimes against. That's right folks, Ahhnold is apparently a closet Democrat, at least when it comes to things like gun control and environmental regulations and equal rights for homosexuals. It remains to be seen if he will turn around Cali's messy electricity situation and still-not-inconsiderable financial woes.

Shit, I didn't even know there is a Homosexual and Drag Queen Lobby. HaDQueLob (Had - Kwê - Lob. This guy lives in a bunker where he dreams of and curses that acronym I just made up.

Also nabbed one of these hotties on eBay for a considerable discount, which is awesome seeing as they're normally around $70. A wireless mouse allows for nearly total freedom in, well, mousing around the interface, which I try to minimise anyway. God Bless Pallas and her spacious design, trackpads in general just weren't designed with long-term usage in mind. Although they are a considerable improvement over the old trackball (whose mechanical vexations I miss not one bit), and an infinite distance -in whatever medium one measures quality in- from those accursed pink nub joysticks Windows users suffer with. Cast off your shackles, brothers! If not from Windows entirely, then at least rid yourself of the Nub.

Takes getting used to...

For all of last year I was known to my ROTC shipmates by my last name only. I made a deliberate effort to get to know everyone by their first names as well as teach them my own, because it felt odd to pass someone on the street and be greeted by "Hey, Roy!" instead of "Hey, Liam!" I began this year by insisting that they use my first name exclusively, since I was no longer to be a part of the Service, but apparently that was just too weird.

Now I understand that there will forever be a very small group of people that know me as Roy, and I suppose I should consider it a privilege. There may be a dozen Liams lined up in a row if someone calls our name in a crowd, but I'll know any of my shipmates instantly if they call out Roy. I think that's something to treasure.

I'd Rather be an anchorman...

Yes, did you catch the clever reference? This entire CBS non-story is brilliantly timed and executed, and there are a few things that few people seem to be considering or addressing.
1. This story about the memos being fakes broke at a crucial time for the !President, when his poll numbers were really beginning to slide and the story regarding his "missing year" in Alabama had gained some real traction with the people and the press.
2. The story that CBS reported has not been discredited directly. Indeed, the questionable memos are just a part of a large pile of evidence whose sole conclusion is that Bush did NOT serve the time that he was required to in the National Guard, and indeed was penalised for failing to report for training on several occasions.
3. SOMEONE gave CBS those faked memos. This wasn't a clerical error. This was a deliberate attempt on the part of one or more persons to cast doubt on the whole of the story, and to say that the timing is convinient is an understatement. I don't subscribe to the theory that Rove or one of his elves masterminded this coup, if only because there has been no link demonstrated or proven. That's not to say that I don't find them capable of doing so. If these pigs can sink McCain and Cleland by similar sneak attacks of innuendo and false charges, they can certainly engineer something like this.

And poor CBS. The state of journalism in the mainstream media of America is disgusting, decrepit, and any number of other d-words that mean it doesn't work. Discombobulated, there's a fun one. In the wake of the shocking success of Fox News's "We Smear, You Concur" style of reportage larger outlets with genuine respect have fought hard to equal them, sometimes imitating line for line their tactics. The worst is the "he said she said" method, in which no investigation or even thought is required, but the words of polished party hacks are aired without context or inspection. That CBS was duped is regrettable, and the investigation into the Hows of this case will be illuminating for journalists across the country. But Dammit, they were at least doing some genuine reporting! Despite it's flaws it is a step in the correct direction, but it will be ignored because the story is no longer how Bush failed to serve even in the most minimal of ways, but that some copies of some documents from the time were from questionable sources.

Witness at once the brilliance of the Bush machine and the total incompetence of the media.

Every excess...

...becomes a vice. Thus spoke the fortune cookie on Sunday afternoon. Weirdly, this is the lesson of my life, one of the immutable rules that I live by.

Pallas seems happy with this new brain. No real issues to record, even the friggin' DRM mess cleaned itself up with eerie ease. I have yet to get my second partition (Ruri) formatted with a backup plan, but the whole thing's smooth as silk.

I read Kerry's speech in NY, watched him on Regis and Kelly this morning, and am starting to wonder if it's just enough but too late. There remains a more-than-substantial block of first time voters who, like virgins, are unsure of how they will perform but are certain that the time is right.

A friend of mine is away at a College Republican's meeting. Should I send her the speech, or the text of the NIE (if I can find it)? Might be better to use documentation that's non-partisan. Hmmm...

The Recovery

Spent yesterday convincing two good friends to buy MACS, which they were going to do anyway. Played with the new 17 inch iMac, possibly drooling in the process. Spent a good three hours Zeroing Pallas and reinstalling everything with the help of the G-Bar guys, super lot. Everythings just about back to normal, except that Pallas now feels like a brand new beastie, clear mind and pure heart.

Nothing like a full reformatting to get the geek blood pumping.

Trump: America's Fattest Jackass

I don't normally watch broadcast TV except for the news (which might also be marginal), but tonight I'm almost glad I did because I saw something that confirmed just about every nasty suspicion I had about the modern business world.

At the same time a special on Prime Time aired regarding his "business empire", Trump's Apprentice ran an episode in which a man who refused to be treated differently from the rest of his sales team got axed because he refused to be treated differently from the rest of his sales team. I started watching this because the human drama appealed to me - the situation was obviously falsely induced, but the dynamic of these people interacting wasn't. This is the more cerebral appeal of these reality shows, I suppose, and in this instance it was enough to keep me interested for a few minutes.

Apparently the board room at the end of the show is where people are fired, but those who do well in one task earn an exemption for the next one that guarantees their safety in this hatchet-fest. One person who earned such an exemption beforehand and pulled more than his own weight on a team oft divided by a lack of leadership felt that his performance was strong enough to play on a level field with the rest of his teammates this time around. He refused to accept the exemption.

"The Donald," or "The Pompous Ass" as he has now confirmed himself to be, felt that his decision was so stupid stupid stupid that he should be fired, despite the depths of incompetence that were displayed clearly in the other members.

Is that really how business works? You put your neck on the line and refuse special treatment to stand with your partners and promptly get screwed for being a decent person? No wonder people think selflessness is out of style. Enjoy your multiple bankruptcy filings, TPA, you might be good at filling pocketbooks but your spirit will forever be empty.

The $117 Web Page

Ever hear of a web page that cost $117.33 to download?

I'm not necessarily complaining about this exorbitant sum, which my cell company AT&T charged me for data downloaded beyond my free monthly allotment of 5k. No, you read that right - five kilobytes. I mean only to express my amazement - and concern - that anyone in the United States thinks that 5k is a reasonable amount of free data in any phone plan. Of course, many people have similar plans, and many use their cell phones as infrequently as I do, perhaps a few times a week. But it never occurred to me that using this same phone, with all the bells and whistles of modern technology it comes equipped with, to check my email could cost me more than the phone itself cost to purchase.

There's probably a way to find out just what I was doing on August 17th that cost me $117.33, although I've reset Safari and cleared the cache at least once since then. But despite my own idiocy I think that plenty of web-savvy folk would be surprised to see a similar bill for their individual web usage. How is it that any supposedly high-tech company -far less one that specializes in moving digital datum- could consider it reasonable to charge such sums? Sadly, I get the feeling that this is part of a broader picture that illustrates just how far behind the curve America still is in terms of integrating high technology with society. Isn't it possible to purchase sodas with your cell phone in Sweden?

I think it's also indicative of America's larger problem with communications, specifically, that most people seem to feel that quantity always trumps quality. All of us have been standing in line at the grocery store while the person in front of or behind us (or, too often, both) blithely jabbers away on their phone about every insignificant minutiae of their day or week or life. In these circumstances, it is perhaps understandable if a cell company chooses to focus it's plans on voice costs instead of data. But there are a few constants in this 21st century of ours, and one should be that no one, NO ONE seriously considers 5k a month adequate for staying connected to the world. 5 megs would be more acceptable, if only for checking mail and bank accounts and so forth, although even that could be exceeded easily if a customer has mastered only weak spam-filtering techniques. (Myself, I have five email accounts and three levels of content analyzers, as well as a keen eye for when to use the dummies, say, registering for the NYT).

What this proves mainly is that I might be smart enough to get my Bluetooth-enabled phone to act as a wireless modem for my laptop (a PowerBook G4, which is actually trivially easy to set up in this regard). But I am also careless enough to use this phone freely without being certain of the terms of my contract. Let this then serve as a warning and lamentation: that it may be a long time, if ever, until the USA catches up with the rest of the civilised world in making data access as easily accessible as, say, toast.

Anyone else had this problem?

Dirty, Dirty Politicking

I've no quarrel with folk who pass out buttons and signs and t-shirts and register others to vote. I've no quarrel with their position or their ideology or their various states of education. I welcome debate or at least decent conversation, and I firmly believe that if your ideas cannot survive the crucible of being challenged by others then they're not worth hangin' on to.

I also think that cultural festivals are poor platforms for any political speechifying, and thus it was that I buried my head in shame during the Pittsburgh Irish Festival this past weekend. One of the sons of Bobby Kennedy was present, along with a trivial pair of Dem politicos from the area, and I don't know who was responsible for this decision but they chose to believe and act as though all good Irish people are Democrats. One two three they stood on stage and told a crowd waiting for music "And I know that all of you are going to go out on November 2nd and vote for JOHN KERRY!"

One two three they were booed into oblivion, and rightly so by my count. I will vote Democratic on Nov. 2, but for fuck's sake, I came to the Irish Festival to drink beer and buy crafts and hear good live Irish music (that evening's closing act was Gaelic Storm, who did much to erase the bad vibes that lingered). If someone had been yelling at me to vote for Bush on that stage, I might have thrown something, and I think it's admirable that no one did. But I will vote with a stain on my conscience for reasons that should have been apparent already, and were brought back to the forefront: I did not wish to be voting for John Kerry, and I think that an awful lot of Dems are beginning to feel the same way. (I have no idea what this whole "electable" bullshit is about - to me someone like Gen. Wes Clark is far more electable, and as a true political outsider would not have brought the baggage of a voting record. Also, he has a history of standing up for himself at all times, something Kerry seems to feel should be reserved for October.)

Goddammit! At this point Kerry couldn't beat a retarded squirrel with one testicle and a lopsided gait, even though this same squirrel could beat Bush. Mike Moore, bless him, still sounds an optimistic note, and I think that in the end the enormous blocks of people who haven't voted in the past will vote for Kerry, if only because there is too much to lose. But I can still be disapointed that this was not the campaign, the election, or even the choice that we were promised. The American body politik is an abused and discarded corpse, rotting slowly, surely, and irreversibly unless and until Someone with real conviction gives the rest of us something to vote for instead of just another Boogeyman to vote against.

Birth of an Idiot Nation

Yes, fellow World-folk, today is the Anniversary of the Death of the American Dream. Everyone of sense and honesty knew before the "Election" of 2000, if only in our deepest hearts, that Shrub was a swaggering countdown to Bombs and Poverty, waiting for an excuse or even a fleeting opportunity to plunge America into a permanent state of War and Fear. Constant fear is the only way that you can get normally sensible people to approve of, or at least ignore, ball-crushingly obvious lies like the Clear Skies Initiative (which shakes a finger at the Power Industry for dumping mercury and arsenic into the clouds, then hands them cotton sacks with $$ printed on the sides for contributing to "America's Energy Independence").

Think of America as a coffee shop that wants to do more business. Following the Bush model, the best way to increase cash flow is to:
1. Cut prices on all your drinks, but most significantly on the expensive ones, while leaving the lower and mid-range prices almost unchanged.
2. Initiate a "service charge" that adds $.50 to the cost of the cheaper drinks because otherwise they don't produce as much revenue as the expensive ones.
3. Build an addition at the same time that has more room for all the extra business those price cuts will bring in.
This will have the effect of both cutting revenue streams and increasing costs, which leads to "growth" and better lives for all. Except, perhaps, for the employees you had to lay off to afford your Price Cuts.

Sound familiar? This isn't all that Bush has gotten away with, no no, this sham of an economic policy is just the beginning. It scratches, barely, the surface of a 5 ton steel block of deception, cronyism, abuse of power, and broken promises. And for every promise that the President of the United States of America breaks, he breaks the dreams of a million citizens. It is nearly too much to bear, the idea that this man's lies kill thousands while those Guardians of Freedom in the press corps transfer such Rhetoric as Fact to the public. It sickens the heart and disgusts the intellect, and on this Anniversary the heroism of a handful of public servants and private citizens seems wasted in the wake of this monstrous War On Terror.

Good God I am a thorough fool.

Events precipitated that minor outburst, be sure of that, but whining now changes nothing then.

Dolt!

And thus it rains. Frances is unleashing all that remains of her fury upon the Eastern Seaboard, but shit, if this is all we have to deal with after what those poor Florida folk went through, there's no room for any of us to complain.

Watching a smidge of Regis & Kelly this morning hurt as much as I suspected it might, and it left me wondering what these pseudo-celebrities and all their cattle-like followers mooing softly in the studio risers would think of this Real Life shit. Who knows, perhaps I do them a disservice, but the tiny voice in my conscience which calls itself Truth says otherwise, the ugly little monster. No one wants you! Most folk believe that they have a Tried & Proven way to deal with Satan, should he ever arise from his firey dark domain, but the thing that scares them most thoroughly with no room for thought is You, Truth. But why?

Catalogue your flaws and recite them every day. This is what you work against. Catalogue your gifts as well, and this is what you have to fight with. For most, the former outweighs the latter, and that is Scary.

As things stand it's a good thing I don't have enough money for things like furnature and cable at my apartment. If I did, it's quite possible I'd never leave. Being poor has a few advantages, the most obvious of which is that you appreciate all the more the things that you do have, but if there's a second powerful benefit it would be that it forces you to entertain yourself in ways that get you out. It's also telling that half of the laptops in use here have a big white Apple in the middle of 'em. More, actually.

Gee, now that I've got some real time on my hands I can do things like provide links. What fun! Also experimenting with desktop/computer interface options, something I've done for a while but was never quite satisfied with. Got a good tutorial on how to create OSX icons more reliably, although the site's gone from my history file now. Oh well, you resourceful folk can find such things on your own if you're posessed of the motivation.

Sweet Jeebus, this is beautiful. I guess Apple "flip flopped" on their initial rejection of a flat panel all-in-one, and the result is once again a picture of what every computer maker would do if they were actually smart about their design. And this Rio Carbon thingie? I wouldn't worry about it gouging iPod mini sales. It may be slightly smaller and hold an extra gig of music, but the difference between 4 and 5 gigs of music is not as significant as some might make it out to be, particularly if your rips are high quality swag.

"Everything isn't meant to be okay." Sometimes it takes a punk band to state the obvious. To catchy tunes.

Bleargh. School begins anew for most of us, which entails things like moving and buying books and seeing people you were happily rid of for three months straight. Although to be honest I rarely run into anyone I know, much less find intolerable. The issues now are:
1. Free fast internet access. As a student I am unaccustomed to paying for web surfing, idle or productive, and there is a dearth of known costless hot spots around the area in which I reside.
2. Rearrange schedule. My Medical DQ for Naval service means that I have to follow up on Career Option #2, and soon soon soon.
3. Lack of Cable TV. Without which I cannot watch such gems as Teen Titans and my beloved The Daily Show. Might I quote briefly from the book All the President's Spin?

Comedy Central's The Daily Show is... one of the few programs on television that regularly skewers the press for its focus on process rather than substance... Jon Stewart's interviews with leading political figures are some of the best on TV. Stewart generally stickes to substantive issues; allows politicians to speak without regular interruption; asks challenging questions about the prevalence of deception in our political system; and refuses to let misleading assertions go by without comment.

Smile, America. Jon is On It.

Rather than go through the hassel of renaming this site for the fourth time, I think I'll leave it be. It will not be as accurate as it once was, however, because all signs point to me not being a Midshipman for much longer. The reasons are complex and depressing, somewhat, but the primary agent in this life change is my Hideous Disease. There is at the moment Fuck All I can do about it, so I will fail to dally upon this subject much longer. Change is the only constant.

Debating politics with family is rarely worth the effort, unless they are unusually open-minded and fair. How many of us can claim membership in a clan where obstinancy is the exception, not the norm? Not many, I fear. However, this book Crimes Against Nature by Bobby Kennedy Jr. is having a transformational effect on my mother, whose goal now is to finish with this "career" thing and go to work for Mr. Kennedy as a transcriptionist or something. For my part I shall attack this in the place people are most receptive, the "magic bullet" mentioned on The West Wing as the greatest way to affect change, Education. Hell, I had always planned to become a teacher when I retired/was forced out of the Navy. This way I get a head start on that dream.

Done with Submership!!! What a relaxing Sunday, with the sunny weather and plenty of boats a-floatin'. I've learned a lot from this place, but the most important tidbit I'll take away is that no matter where you go, People Are Fucking Stupid. Doubt me? Where have you been where they're not?

I rest my case.

Don't know why I haven't written lately, the inspiration comes and goes, I suppose. I actually wrote a poem about that once a long long time ago, but I won't subject you to it. Although "you" consists of perhaps two people, myself included.

Vacation looms once again. This time, an elder cousin marries somewhere along the south-eastern coast, and though this union may be happy I can think of only one thing; soon I shall be with the Ocean. And not even necessarily swimming in it 24-7, because I have no desire to be stung in the bum by Fish of Jelly. Several historical ship visits shall be made, and much sea kayaking will take place. My goal has always been to circumnavigate the island we stay on, but I planned to be in much better shape by this point in the summer. That I am not is due 100% to my illness, or more accurately, the medication I've been taking to control it. Apparently, several years spent ingesting a corticalsteroid can have side-effects, such as bone density loss and a malfunctioning adrenal gland, not to mention an immune system which hasn't functioned properly in a long while. Ah well, whine whine whine.

Soon also I shall be ending my time on the Submarine, seeing as my courseload next semester at Anytown U. will consist of more credits than I can count on all my fingers and toes. It's true! Ick.

Today I begin Stephenson's Quicksilver which came highly recommended by Wonko. Even if it weren't, I would have picked it up eventually because everything the man writes turns to Midas Gold.

If you can, listen to Bill Clinton's archived DNC speech at theDemocrats 2004 website. Compare it to any speech of Shrub's. Any one. Can you understand why people seem to pine for the good old days of the mid-90's?

All's well that ends... I suppose.

Despite my occasional complicity, I had to smile. The speculation has finally led to some decent digging by a sort of freelance script kiddie investigation squad, and the fact that the site is no longer hosted on blogger makes it pretty official. No experience is wasted so long as you learn from it, however, and I have indeed learned a very excellent lesson.

And now, to litter the ground with the corpses of my enemies...

Yes. I entered an essay into the 2020 Democrats contest to speak at the Opposition nomination convention. The list of finalists, to be honest, isn't very impressive. I wrote mine in a rush a day after the deadline had passed, and I won't pretend it was anything super-special, but there's little inspiration in the essays that did make it. And it might sound like I'm trying to rationalise the fact that I wasn't chosen, but I'm really not sure I want to be a registered Dem anymore. If there's one thing I could point to that's destroying our democracy, it would be stupidity, but the second thing would be our current party system. Pigeonholing ourselves seems to be a human trait, but being able to choose only one side or the other means that you're automatically a warrior/partisan for that group, lending your time and money to the cause of Us Verses Them, which in the end benefits no one.

So here we go. As soon as I get around to it, I'm going Independent.

Well, great. As though my contrariness wasn't well-enough established, reading over this description of the personality types, there's a few lines from each that fit me perfectly. It seems as though I just wasn't built to fit into one particular archetype.

Which is just fine.

It rains...

Strangely silent on the rantage of late, although I am thoroughly sick of the Reagan pageantry. How many funerals does one man truly need? Of course, I think it's pretty arrogant of us to be putting people in great boxes and taking up 3x6 feet of land for a corpse that has no hope of being resurrected.

And, if you get a chance, my 300 word turd on the future of American politics is up at the 2020 Democrats site, we'll see if I have a future of speechifying ahead of me. Eh?

"There's a secret romance blooming! Go for it, in spite of your hesitation."

Thus speaketh the Fortune Cookie Gods. That's handy, but what I really need to know is if I have in fact broken my wrist, thanks to some at-work hijinks involving another dude's skateboard. Well? Have I?

Well, I finally resurrected the Beast. The Banana Boat. The BeBop. My 1966 289 Mustang, a deadly bucket of rust and hope and burning fossil fuels. There are other Mustangs out there in much better shape, and I used to be jealous of those who could afford to replace chipped paint and fraying wires. But now I understand the truth, that I will never have the money to make it a real driver, and even if I did I would put more cash into it than I would a brand new '05 GT that would giggle as it passed the BeBop at 146 MPH. That monster should not be run, today or ever again, because each time I start it up I take a full year off my life. Today for no reason at all I drove my mother's station wagon over 100 mph on the parkway, because I didn't feel like being slow and I sure as hell didn't feel like being sane. I have always felt that, in the ancient and wise words of Thompson, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing right, and if you are going to speed you had better make sure that everyone else on the road has reason to fear you, because otherwise you will be busted for exceeding the speed limit by a mere 10 mph and your friends will mock you for being a sucker. That is the nature of life in America, if you are discovered breaking the rules by a slim margin others will despise your weakness - BUT, if you have the balls and the guts and enough hot air in your head to bust that limit wide open by doubling it, then shit, you are a force to be reckoned with.

I should not be allowed to drive the Mustang because it is fast and accelerates hard enough for me to pass anything that is naturally aspirated, and with a few hundred dollars I could beat to paste every one of those dumb punks with tricked-out plastic four-bangers. I have crashed once already due to my love of Speed, and my 1.5 tons of American steel required $1,000 of work to get running again. I will speed again in the future, perhaps frequently, and if I crash again that car will not be worth saving. But she will have left this world the way all great Warriors desire to, in a blaze of stupidity doing what she loves best, which is moving faster than anything should be allowed to if it wants to stay on the ground.

The BeBop was built in a different era; there is no reason for that much horse-power to live under the hood of a passenger vehicle, especially one that does not like other passengers. When loaded down with friends the acceleration drops off sharply - the only time that car runs as it should is when I am driving it alone. There is room perhaps for a backpack, and the spirit of Horatio Alger screeching gleefully and reveling in celebration of this disgusting example of American excess. Cars this old and this powerful should not be allowed to run, and in any other country than America they would be banned out of sheer revulsion for their size and deadly fumes. While she is in my possession one or both of us will die, and if I live to bury her I will invest my future dollars in a sensible and environmentally responsible car, something new and reasonable but with enough strength to feed that occasional desire to move. And if I die with a Will intact I will insist that the BeBop be sold for scrap and broken up, her parts melted down and remade into the door frames of a new Mustang.

Two rather remarkable bits of writing to point out here, one that's been around for a short while, and one that's brand new.

First, the olde one. Anthony Swofford's Jarhead - A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles is awesome. You should read the whole thing, but there's a paragraph or two that I want to save for all posterity:

"Some of the men who spread good news [about war] have never fought - so what could they have to say about the purity of war and warriors? These men are liars and cheats and they gamble with your freedom and your life and the lives of your sons and daughters and the reputation of your country...

Some wars are unavoidable and need well be fought, but this doesn't erase warfare's waste. Sorry, we must say to the mothers whose sons will die horribly. This will never end. Sorry."

The second piece, the new writing, I never thought I'd see. George Will is as redoubtable a warrior for the Right as there is in America, but this is actually what he wrote in a recent editorial:

"The commander in chief seems not to fathom the depth of the difficulties when he describes the insurgent cleric Moqtada Sadr as a person who will not 'allow democracy to flourish.' 'Allow?' If some bad people would just behave, democracy would sprout like tulips?"

That sounds suspiciously like criticism which, if true, is nothing short of remarkable. I always wondered how people who are obviously intelligent could support such a dunce as our !President, but it appears that the worm is turning for Dubya, as even his partisans are beginning to question the utility of this morass that invading Iraq has become. Remarkable!

I have given up on Americans. These swine no longer deserve my pity, or any other form of attention. One of them wrote an article for today's opinion section that states, boldly and for the record, that we have done nothing to earn the sacrifices that Our Brave Soldiers are making in that stupid shit-littered sandbox Iraq.

Well, son, you may be on to something. Off the top of my head I can name perhaps five Great Americans who might have been worth dying for, and even then they are remarkable not for the ways that they exceeded human expectations, but merely by not possessing the flaws that make the rest of us Fools and Animals. We have taken the greatest continent on Earth, with more natural resources and beauty than civilised humans had ever experienced, and created a generation of permanently stupid cripples who spend their time phoning in votes for massive popularity contests and writing songs that glorify their excesses.

How, O Lord, how did we so blithely squander this bounty? Of course, our scientists have just proven that there is no way for You to exist, at least, not as the all-knowing all-powerful God of legend. Are we really the image of You? Because if we are, then you're responsible not just for our weird lanky bodies and worthless sense of smell, but our Stupidity as well. These brains are activated only once or twice in a lifetime, for most of us, and even for those like myself I can count only half a dozen so far, although there is a margin for error due to the wretched state of my memory.

Life is Suffering. Hoo boy, there is no more noble truth than that one. Everyone who goes out in public in sweat pants is suffering, I guarantee it, in some form or another. Everyone who puts their beer gut on display is suffering, and increasing the suffering of others. Not because they are grotesque to look at, no - there are plenty of things in this world that elicit the gag response. Anyone that fat who doesn't give a damn will burden the health care system in some way as to make my insurance more expensive, will beat their wife/husband/children to compensate for their lack of self-esteem, and will argue for forty minutes with the ticket monkey at an airport about their "Two Seat" policy.

You can take that to the bank - I assure you. News like that comes with a warrantee.

And That, as they say in the Biz, is That. Finals are completely done for, and I'm actually considering working 36 hours in three days every week at the workstudy job I held all semester. If it weren't the easiest job I've ever had (and believe me, I've had some pretty ridiculously easy jobs) with plenty of opportunity to do nothing for hours on end, I probably wouldn't bee so hot to get back to it. But us True Warriors have ways of keeping our attention occupied, or just letting it flag and staring at the wall until time melts away. I could get some serious reading done this summer, and get paid for it...

Damn, what am I doing sitting here?

Holy Hell. Today has been absolute insanity. I awoke from my usual 1230-1430 nap (yeah, there's nothing usual about it) to terrible visions of a future dominated by half-mad mutant babies and green aliens who wear contact lenses to hide their purple pupils. "You actually WANT to be a child of these Earth-creatures? You must be CRAZY!"

Seriously, it's almost 1 O'clock in the morning (0100 by our standards), and half the people in this world that I give a damn about are still up and signed on to their AIM accounts. There's a part of this scene that is unnatural, and it's either the fact that such a large segment of the Sane human population is still awake and at their computers, or the fact that I'm still awake after a semester of preaching the benefits of getting plenty of Rest. This Squad Leader will have a lot of "'splainin" to do come next fall...

There is no other explanation.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force is written by drunks.
Directed by drunks.
Animated by drunks.
Produced by drunks.
There is no other segment of the population that would find this kind of gibberish amusing at 0034 hours. I guess that means I'm ready for bed. Hooray for finals! Woo!

Jeezus, I've been surrounded by swine and wildebeasts of all sizes. Politicians of every stripe are beginning to visit Anytown with disturbing frequency, and for less-than-alturistic reasons. The torrent of abject stupidity seems particularly thick today, and it's impossible not to believe that some malicious cosmic force is behind it.

On the upside, I found another Stephenson book the other day, and although it is short it is sweet. Read "The Big U" for entertainment. Later on I plan to collapse in a steamy pile on the leather lay-z-boy and let the cats chase themselves stupid while hopped up on canned processed meats.

From a Salon.com article about the Israel/Palestine conflict -

"But both the Palestinians and the Israelis I talked to agreed that there was one party who could break the deadlock: the United States. 'It's like two people fighting,' Yehuda said. 'You need someone from the outside to step in and break it up.' Every Palestinian I talked to agreed -- but most had become so despairing of a reasonable U.S. policy that they didn't even bother to bring it up. Clearly they'd grown weary of grasping at vain hopes. Mention of Bush brought a bitter grimace, sometimes the dark smile of a gunfighter. This man is detested."

I really wish there was a way to convey the utter contempt that the rest of the world holds Bush in to those who would have him elected. Maybe a national field trip to the middle east? Goddammit! How are the shitheads and the weasels allowed to get so far ahead in life? Is it really just cash? How sick.

It just becomes painful.

The End of Times Approaches! Finals are occuring almost daily here at U. of A. I prepare for a summer of Work while my fellow mids who are lucky enough to be on scholarship take a three-week vacation to the fleet called Cortramid. But I'm not jealous, goodness no, for I will be in North Carolina and Colorado and massive debt for moths to come.

Smile!

Well, that was fun.

We were ambushed this morning by our 3rd class mids in sweat tops and cammie bottoms and roped into a PT session the likes of which we hadn't seen since orientation. I was doing fine until we had to stand at attention inside a hot (to me) gym, then my gut rebelled against the unexpected pressure and I heaved into one of the heads and nearly collapsed from hyperventilating. They called the campus paramedics and everything, took biometric readings and fed me oxygen until I could get back on my feet. By the time the whole episode was over everyone had eaten the catered breakfast, which I was kinda sad about. They had a lot of eggs and meat. A Lot.

I still don't think that many people at the unit fully understand my disease, which is unfortunate. But it's my responsibility to make sure that it's understood and that I don't do anything too stupid in light of it. In any case we earned our 3/C anchors, which is nice, and as the year is wrapping up now's as good a time as any to reflect on the lessons learned, trials overcome, competitors bested.

Maybe later.

This is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever heard from anyone about anything.

It's sick. It's absolutely sick.

For those too lazy or too late to follow the link, our !President said, in response to a question about the new wave of violence in Iraq, "That's what you're seeing going on: These people hate freedom, and we love freedom, and that's where the clash occurs... it's going to take a while for them to understand what freedom is all about."

Fuck you. Fuck You you shiteating walking corpse. I'm watching my brothers and sisters die for your jackass policy of forcing people to live by the American code of freedom (and there's no shortage of irony there), and you stand here behind your SS guard and ivory-plated toothbrushes and grin like your mother just won $50 in a bingo game.

Doesn't it seem a bit wrong to anyone else that we're showing them how to love Freedom by occupying their country and dictating terms about how they should govern themselves? WTF?

Ugh. I didn't want to go to the last Sub Club meeting of the year, mainly because I've been sleeping all day since the Final of Doom and the Midn in charge of the club is a (I just found out mysoginist) douchebag. Our sub lieutennant came in and demo'd a fairly realistic game where you play a sub commander, and he talked with us for a bit. Towards the end he mentioned that if we ever get a chance to talk to some old WWII sub vets, we should, because these guys had seen and done more by the time they were our age than we will in our entire careers. Combined with the LT's obvious depth of technical skill I left our unit feeling like a ten year-old kid who doesn't know nothin' about nothin'. It's really the first time in a long, long time that I've actually felt young.

Woah. I just had my ass handed to me by a test, which I normally don't really mind. If it's a subject like calculus, the red hate for which boils in my soul to a rythmic pounding like that of an Apache helo on it's way to kill, then I pretty much expect to do poorly and it's no shocker when I do. But this was in Naval History, my chosen major, man! My fellow midshipmen relied on me last night to help them in reviewing for this test, and I feel like I've let them down horribly. The dates of battles, the major players, all things I've heard and read about a thousand times, I discovered had never really solidified in my memory. Who was in charge of TF16 in the Battle of Midway? RADM Spruance, but did I get that right when it mattered? No one can say.

Damn. It's humbling, which is good, in a way. Guess I've got some reading to do.