The Terrorists are Among Us Already

The Racketeering Institution for Antagonizing Americans, aka the RIAA, announced last week that it couldn’t care less about music artists and their well being when it presented its case to the federal Copyright Royalty Judges to lower the amount of royalties they are required to pay artists and publishers. There is apparently a law placed back in 1981 that guides how much artists are to receive for their published works. As we have all seen over the past six years the RIAA has sued countless children, old widows, and thousands of other people for stealing music through the internet, which is stealing directly from the artists who create this music. Now, the organization that terrorizes in the name of starving artists is saying that the artists are being paid too much. I don’t think I’m going to be buying too many CDs in the near future out of protest. Go see your favorite group in concert, buy their merchandise, but please don’t support the RIAA by buying their CDs. “Steal” those from the internet, there are better ways to support your beloved musicians that don’t support American terrorism. This isn't that hard as very few good CDs have been released this year.Read the full article here.

On a similar note, the Mighty Punishers of Anxious Americans, aka the MPAA, announced that they don’t want people to watch movies in their homes. Apparently many people are setting up illegal home theaters in their homes in which to view movies in a way that is not intended for home movie viewing, according to the MPAA. Theoretically, when you buy a DVD you are technically purchasing the right for yourself to view that movie and no more. If you have 6 people watching a movie with you, technically you need to own copies for each individual watching, otherwise you would be denying the MPAA “the revenue that would be generated from DVD sales” for every other individual watching this movie. Thus to keep from losing money, the MPAA is currently lobbying Congress to require all individuals who have a home theater to license their theaters with the MPAA for a set fee. Read the article here if you must.

What is the MPAA’s definition of a home theater? A home theater is any home setup with a “television larger than 29" with stereo sound and at least two comfortable chairs, couch, or futon” in the same room. My bedroom does not count as a home theater even though I have a 6 channel sound system with a 90" projected screen, but it doesn't count as I have no chairs in my room. Yay! I’ve been good about keeping my money out of the hands of the MPAA for most of this past year, but a recent glut of good movies have been released into the theaters which I decided I really wanted to see. I still say you should fight the system and “rob” the MPAA of their potential profits by borrowing DVDs from your friends or inviting friends and family over for a movie watching party. But if you must feed the beast with your money, I’d recommend Apocalypto*, Eragon, The Prestige, Stranger Than Fiction, or Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan**. I am also told that Déjà vu, Casino Royale, and Deck the Halls are good movies but I have not seen them so I cannot confidently recommend them at this time. I guess I have been giving them business as they have released a number of good movies of late.


First Amendment (proposed by TSW): If the artists are self-published, or are on an independent label then by all means buy their CDs if they are to your liking; this will not bring funds to the RIAA cartel


*Neemund does not recommend that children under the age of 15 see this movie
**Neemund does not recommend that children under the age of 12 see this movie

Not formal enough?

Apparently the Christmas party tonight is officially the "Elevate Formal Christmas Party." I was also informed by both Brenda and Melissa that black BDU pants and my tux t-shirt are not considered formal enough. I guess I’ve got laundry to do now.

Ice, Ice, Baby!

No, I'm not ready to dig out the Vanilla Ice tapes. But I didn't have school on Tuesday thanks to ice everywhere. I got up and ready for school, only to find out that there wasn’t any. What did I do? It should be obvious, I went back to bed for five more hours of sleep. I then assisted my sisters in putting Christmas lights on our house, I kept the fire burning in our wood stove, and I drove up the hill to the library; which sadly was closed due to “dangerous road conditions”. I finished all of my reading for my business law class and worked on my paper which is due at 11:30AM PST Wednesday, assuming there is class.
The temperatures outside have dropped into the teens in Fahrenheit, I have not seen temps this cold in Seattle since 1993. It’s already colder now than it was last night. The difference is that it is very humid right now, everything already has a nice layer of frost on it, and sunrise isn’t for another 7 hours and temperatures aren’t expected to rise above freezing. The road in front of my house already has a nice layer of black ice on it. Driving will not be safe on Wednesday as black ice isn’t fun, and most people around here are idiots. IF I get my paper done, and IF there isn’t school tomorrow, I’m temped to drive downtown just to watch people get into accidents on the hills. People need to realize that if you are sliding down a hill, pushing harder on your breaks is only going to make things worse.

Hail to the Flake!

It snowed most of the day yesterday. Sadly, most of it did not stick. Even more sadly, most of it that stuck has melted already. This means that it will refreeze in the night, leaving everything with a thick coat of ice in the morning. Hopefully there will be enough to cancel morning classes @ school as I really need to get some extra sleep and finish my Business Law project.

I went shopping last night

I think the picture says it all.

Happy Birthday to Blog

My blog is now two years old today. Here are a few updates to my November 2004 postings:
1) I have managed to post semi-regularly these past two years, sometimes in binges, sometimes less than once a month
2) Febreze and Lysol spray are still not recommended as a substitute for bathing, although they are better than nothing if your only other option is not bathing
3) Black Friday is still crazy and sane people should avoid it. Yes, I’m planning to be @ Fry’s when it opens this Friday
4) The Nintendo DS is the fastest selling video games system in Japan in history. It sold 10 million units 2 months faster than the PS2 which was the former record holder. They now have an improved, slimmer version and it’s still a relative bargain compared to the PSP

What else is new? I’m sitting on a pile of Wiis (not quite literally but they’re on the same piece of furniture I’m sitting on), I still go to the same school, have the same friends, work at the same job, and drive the same truck. I’ve moved from one coast to the other and back again. Lots of people want me to introduce my girlfriend (which to the best of my knowledge I don’t have one, but that doesn’t stop people from asking anyway) to them. There is finally an mp3 player on the market that is as good as a Creative Zen but Apple still can’t match it. Intel now has a processor line that doesn’t suck. And most importantly, I have to ration my Vanilla Coke as it is no longer available.

November 5th

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd,
With a dark lantern and burning match

Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip Hoorah !
Hip hip Hoorah !

A penny loaf to feed ol'Pope,
A farthing cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down,
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar,'
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head,
Then we'll say: ol'Pope is dead.


Exactly four-hundred one years ago (give or take a few minutes) Guy Fawkes was caught attempting to rig the Parliament building to explode during the opening session, attempting to kill the entire body and King James I. James was a Protestant and did not answer to the Pope which enraged the Catholics in the country. A group of them believed that killing the king would return the religious rule of the Roman Church to Britain. Naturally they all failed and were executed.

Support Memo

Here's a tech support memo from 1989 relating to the track balls in computer mice:

Abstract: MOUSE BALLS NOW AVAILABLE AS FRU (Field Replaceable Unit)

TEXT:

MOUSE BALLS ARE NOW AVAILABLE AS A FRU. IF A MOUSE FAILS TO OPERATE,OR SHOULD PERFORM ERRATICALLY, IT MAY BE IN NEED OF BALL REPLACEMENT. BECAUSE OF THE DELICATE NATURE OF THIS PROCEDURE, REPLACEMENT OF MOUSE BALLS SHOULD BE ATTEMPTED BY TRAINED PERSONNEL ONLY.

BEFORE ORDERING,DETERMINE TYPE OF MOUSE BALLS REQUIRED BY EXAMINING THE UNDERSIDE OF EACH MOUSE. DOMESTIC BALLS WILL BE LARGER AND HARDER THAN FOREIGN BALLS. BALL REMOVAL PROCEDURES DIFFER,DEPENDING UPON MANUFACTURER OF THE MOUSE. FOREIGN BALLS CAN BE REPLACED USING THE POP-OFF METHOD, AND DOMESTIC BALLS REPLACED USING THE TWIST-OFF METHOD. MOUSE BALLS ARE NOT USUALLY STATIC SENSITIVE, HOWEVER, EXCESSIVE HANDLING CAN RESULT IN SUDDEN DISCHARGE. UPON COMPLETION OF BALL REPLACEMENT, THE MOUSE MAY BE USED IMMEDIATELY.

IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT EACH SERVICER HAVE A PAIR OF BALLS FOR MAINTAINING OPTIMUM CUSTOMER SATISFACTION,AND THAT ANY CUSTOMER MISSING HIS BALLS SHOULD SUSPECT LOCAL PERSONNEL OF REMOVING THESE NECESSARY FUNCTIONAL ITEMS.
P/N33F8462 -- DOMESTIC MOUSE BALLS
P/N33F8461 -- FOREIGN MOUSE BALLS

Taken from this site here.

Yet, I’d like to Super Size

Last night I watched the movie “Super Size Me” all the way through for the first time. After watching it, I can honestly say that I have never craved McDonald’s food as much as I did while watching that movie. The host of the documentary, Morgan Spurlock, decided to see what would happen if he ate 3 meals at McDonald’s everyday for a month.
I watched as he tried to eat everything on the menu at least once during the month, and would Super Size his value meal whenever asked. I laughed when on the second day he puked his guts trying to eat a double-quarter-pounder meal. Why was this so funny you may ask? It’s because my friends and I had contests in middle school as two who could eat the Super Sized Double Quarter Pounder Meal the fastest, including all of the 32oz of Coke. Morgan was constantly commenting on how huge his drink was that he was getting. I can drink several times that much liquid in a single sitting.
He must have had a very slow metabolism as he gained almost 25 pounds in that particular month. He averaged a little over 5,000 calories per day. That really doesn’t seem like a huge amount to me. Drinking 64oz of Coke in a day? I don’t see the problem.
I’m by no means the poster child for healthy eating; quite the contrary. I shovel more crap into my body than most people I know. I’m also in better shape than most people I know. I keep a balance between healthy and crappy eating. Yes, I eat a few thousand calories more than most people on a daily basis, but I keep my metabolism high and I’m training for a marathon. Could I eat fast food 3 meals a day and not gain weight? I could if I worked out more. I’ve done it before but usually try not to, solely because it’s expensive.
Is McDonald’s food healthy? No where close to it. Can people get fat from eating too much fast food? I’d say so. But I’m not going to blame the fast food companies for people being fat. If people were so worried about their weight they’d either eat something healthier or exercise more. If they’re too apathetic to actively do anything about their weight, they have absolutely NO RIGHT to complain to ANYONE about being fat. Thankfully congress passed a law forbidding people from suing businesses for MAKING them into the fat pigs they are. Parents are responsible for making sure their kids eat enough healthy food. People are responsible for ensuring they eat a balanced diet. As far as I know, there aren’t any fast food companies strapping people down and force feeding their food into people’s stomachs. Now, I’m off to grab something from the drive-thru after school.

Letter to a Senator

Here's a letter I found while browsing. I think I like the author's idea.

The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510

Dear Senator Sarbanes:
As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.

My reasons for wishing to change my status from U.S. citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, what I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years.

I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.
Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year, so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of the last five years taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively?
This would yield an excellent return for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005 and I estimated a gross savings approximating $72,000. After the fine this would yield me a net savings of $70,000.

In addition, I would reap the other benefits of being an illegal alien such as free health care, avoidance of paying Social Security taxes, buying automobile insurance, serving on jury panels, etc. If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative.

Thank you for your assistance.
Your Loyal Constituent


Original post can be found on strangepolitics.com

Untitled

Happy Monday to everyone. Is that an oxymoron? Oh well, if it is it isn’t as bad as “good morning” in the contradictory phrase category. Yesterday my entire family got together for my sisters’ birthday, which was Saturday. So happy birthday to the two of them, and anyone else who happened to have a birthday this past weekend.

Right now I’m sitting at school waiting around for Brenda to get out of class now that mine are over. Brandon and I drove separately today so I don’t have to wait around for him. I really need to work on my accounting and Japanese homework, so I might do that as soon as I’m done screwing around on the computer.

To add to the unrelated ramblings of my fingers, we are having a Halloween/costume party for our group at church. So far 4 of us have decided to go as the Straw Hat Pirates from One Piece. We’ll be hitting up the second-hand stores in the near future to find clothes for our costumes. It should be very interesting.

Quiz 2006

Today was the first quiz meet of the new TBQ season. I coached Aaron and Nat in the A1 level. They really need to study more. They won 1 of 9 matches, losing 2 matches to our other team. They lost to the 2nd and 11th ranked teams in the country, which is to be expected, but neither of those teams were at the top of their game. My team could have and should have done better, but they didn’t. Evan wanted to humiliate them by putting them in the higher division so they would step up the work and rise to the competition level. Did it work? Probably not. Brenda scored nearly as many points as Nat and Aaron combined. Good job Brenda. Aaron, are you planning to let both of your sisters beat you next time?

Leave My Space Alone

I’m seeing tons of campaign ads against Initiative 933 on TV and I’m hearing them all over the radio as well. They keep telling everyone how it is a bad idea and that everyone is against it. It claims to destroy farmland and cost taxpayers money. So I decided to go to the Secretary of State’s site to find out exactly what I-933 is all about.
If you have any interest in reading it, here is the entire initiative. If you’re too lazy to read six pages, so be it. I-933 essentially restricts government agencies from placing more restrictions on private property. All new restrictions must specifically state which pieces of property will be restricted and how, as well as how the public welfare will benefit from these restrictions. Any agency placing a restriction that would reduce the existing market value of any non-publicly owned property must provide compensation to the owners of said properties equal to the reduced market value of their property.
What does this initiative do? It says that my property belongs to me and is in my control. As long as I do not endanger myself or my neighbors with the use of my land, it’s mine to do with as I wish. If I want to plant fruit trees in my front yard and along the side of my house, that’s my business not the governments. If I want to cut down the trees in my back yard to get a better view of the lake, that’s also my business. If I want to sell the family farm to a developer who wants to build a new movie theater, it’s mine to sell, then it’s theirs to develop.
This initiative would definitely be a step in the right direction and I like it. It’s only a small step in the right direction but a step nonetheless.

Random Quote: "When the going gets tough, the tough use duct tape." -Random T-shirt

Today’s Business Law Class

Random Quote: If you wait too long for the perfect moment, the perfect moment will pass you by.

What does that quote have to do with my business law class you may ask? Nothing whatsoever. And I’m not currently working as a sniper so it really doesn’t apply to me, but it was a random quote I just read, so there. Anyways…from the title you can probably guess that I had my business law class today. We had a discussion about a few of the case studies from the textbook, one about Ben & Jerry’s and the other about Wal-Mart.
The Ben & Jerry’s case study was about the company not partnering with a particular Japanese company to distribute their products throughout Japan. The issue arouse because B&J decided not to partner with the particular company because it did not have a strong track record of “social responsibility”. B&J believes that all companies should be “socially responsible” by giving money to random groups. They notably give millions to dollars to such organizations as MoveOn.org, the DNC, True Majority, and other such organizations. The class generally agreed that B&J had the right to work with a company who’s stated values more closely represented that of their own. I don’t think I’ve ever bought their ice cream and have no intention of giving them any of my business; I will eat it if someone else buys it, but I’ve got better places to spend my money.
The Wal-Mart case study was very similar. Wal-Mart chooses not to carry a large variety of magazines, CDs, DVDs, and video games that they deem inappropriate. This time the class deemed that Wal-Mart shouldn’t be pushing their own values onto everyone else by using their own, arbitrary morals in deciding what products to sell. I’m convinced that people have a generally negative view of Wal-Mart mainly based upon media criticism. I like the company but very rarely shop there for two reasons. First, I try to avoid cheap, Chinese crap as much as possible, of which Wal-Mart is the largest distributor. Second, I only patronize businesses where people speak fluent English; the Wal-Marts in this area do not hire very many people who speak English nor do these people generally shop there.
I argued that these cases are essentially the same as companies have a right to choose whom they do business with and who they do not do business with. The biggest difference is that Wal-Mart is a much bigger company and has much more leverage in this area. Also, Wal-Mart gives millions of dollars to conservative organizations that I like, as opposed to Ben & Jerry’s who does the opposite.
Thus concludes my second post for the week.

Happy Oktober to Ye

School is in its third week, the temperature is consistently below 80ºF, and I haven’t posted in two weeks; just my typical fall. I’m done with my classes for today and am now killing time until Brenda gets out of class. After that we convince Brandon that we’re indeed done with school therefore he should be too; followed shortly by our departure from the campus.

I’m indeed back from my excursion out East. It was hot and humid during that week, well beyond what I am typically accustomed to here in the dry Pacific Northwest. I saw old buildings, some cool stuff in museums, annoying politicians, armed military escorts carrying enough firepower to level buildings, more historical buildings, and entire city blocks where I didn’t hear a single word of English spoken by those passing by.

I can now cross Delaware off my short list of states I’ve never visited as we stopped there to grab food at the nearest Cracker Barrel. I also ate some great food everywhere else on the trip. They have “5 Guys” restaurants which remind me of a hybrid between “In & Out Burger” and “Dick’s” therefore it was pretty good food. They also had teriyaki which wasn’t that great and lots of street vendors with food that was great. I definitely gave my digestive system, as well as my immune system, a good workout.

After getting back home I went to the Western Washington State Fair in Puyallup with Shadow Walker and his siblings. We were supposed to meet with TBQelite and Gerhalt but that meeting never took place. It was also one of those weird days when none of us had strong appetites, so we cancelled this year’s Earthquake burger eating contest. For those of you who don’t know Earthquake burgers, they are roughly one pound of lean beef grilled fresh with onions; but they cook down to be only about 7” in diameter. They are also some of the best tasting burgers around. We weren’t in the mood for a heavy lunch so we journeyed to Miako’s for normal teriyaki instead.

Those are my highlights since my last post. Maybe I’ll post something interesting later.

I'm stuck out east (again)

My dad had a wonderful idea to take a trip out to the east coast. Then he decided that he wanted me to go as well. So I’ve been stuck out east since Tuesday. I’ve been in Philadelphia, Washington DC, and I’m currently in New York City. I really don’t like any of these places. In fact, I really don’t like many places east of Montana but that has nothing to do with anything right now. I threw a few random coins into the World Trade Center Memorial Pit, I’m pretty sure I missed the random ‘workers’ who were sitting around on their hourly 60-minute break. More to come soon if I feel like it...

My Token 9/11 Post

Five years ago a bunch of idiots hijacked planes and used them as weapons. If you’ve been living in a hole since then, even you have probably heard of it. It was supposedly a grand plan involving great terrorist masterminds, I disagree. I don’t believe it takes that much coordination to take over four planes and smash them into stuff. A couple of smart guys and a handful of big, strong guys are all it would take. They also have to be dumb enough to want to commit suicide during this attack as well.

The passengers on the planes are the most responsible for letting this attack go through. They outnumbered the hijackers dozens to one and couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything to prevent the hijacking. One group of passengers took charge and got their plane smashed into the ground. They died, but they didn’t have anything to lose in the first place; so they probably saved the lives of many more people. The other groups on the other three planes could have done something similar and maybe survived. Maybe not.

Thanks to these people I can no longer carry a water bottle onto a commercial airplane. I still bring my knife with me everywhere I go since it won’t set off any metal detectors, but I get a little paranoid having it now. I’ll still smuggle water bottles onto planes and toothpaste but I really don’t care if those get confiscated. I can no longer go to the terminal gates without a boarding pass, although I’ve found no evidence that someone has ever hijacked a plane in the US without a proper boarding pass. Nail-clippers and knitting needles are no longer allowed on planes, and old ladies are being searched in their wheelchairs in case they try to smuggle a sewing needle or whatever other weapon they intend to use to hijack their plane.

The terrorists have won. They have made life difficult to millions of people without directly affecting more than a few thousand. They have made millions of idiots very paranoid and afraid to conduct their daily business. Also, they managed to destroy one of the few things I actually liked in New York.

I’ve never liked NYC. I think that people there are rude and arrogant and have no right to be either. I recall a little old lady pushing me on the sidewalk and yelling, “EXCUSE ME. WILL YOU PLEASE GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY!” It was rather humorous though. I dislike New York and honestly don’t care that thousands of people were killed there. I liked the WTC and am disappointed that it is gone but I’ll be there next week to throw a cent into the World Trade Center Memorial Hole.

Am I an insensitive jerk for thinking that way? Yes I am. Do I care? Nope. Are people going to be flaming me for this post? I doubt it, no one even reads my blog. If you agree with any of my views, wonderful. If you don’t, there are thousands of other blogs out there that probably say something you like and you should read some of them. I bow to no one; I respect no one’s opinion unless they give me a good reason to do so. The next time we get attacked by Islamic extremists, I want to see their holy sites glassed by 20 megaton nukes with “Suck it Allah” written on the casings.

Goodbye Steve

Last night marked the death of Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. He was fatally injured while scuba diving for a documentary on stingrays. He took a stingray barb to the chest and was pronounced dead less than an hour later by responding EMTs. Ironically, his documentary was supposed to show how most of the dangers associated with stingrays were groundless and should not be feared. Steve also inspired me to make two separate quests into Florida swamplands this past week in search of alligators since I have never seen one in the wild before. Both trips were a bust. So long Steve!

Sick, Tired, Want to Come Home Now

Where is Neemund right now? I’m in Orlando on a dirt-cheap, DisneyWorld vacation with TBQelite. I’m having a good time but running myself into the ground with too much to do and not enough time to do it and not enough sleep between it all. More to come…

More has now come...

We had a goal of a really fast, really cheap DisneyWorld vacation. I believe we succeeded even if I did spend more than I planned. Unfortunately I caught a nasty cold and was very deprived of sleep for the entire week. Thanks to a hurricane there was smaller park attendance which translates into shorter lines. In three days we did virtually everything there is to do at the 4 main parks. Sadly, there were some closed attractions that I was really looking forward to riding. Other cool rides we got to do repeatedly without long wait times. In total I ended up spending $360 for airfare, park tickets, and all other expenses incurred on a typical, week-long Florida vacation.

SoaP Review

I attended one of the first showings of “Snakes on a Plane” this past evening. I was pleasantly surprised in that it was actually a decent movie. It lived up to most of the internet hype, and still managed to have an almost believable plot. It was a very funny in its absurdness, yet gave the impression of attempting to be a serious movie. I am glad that I saw this movie and will most likely see it again once it is available on DVD.

Samuel L. Jackson will kill you if you don’t see this movie.

Skyrocketing Gas Prices?

People are afraid of gas prices rising thanks to the news that BP has neglected one of their main pipelines in Alaska. Here in Seattle, I’m told that half of our crude oil comes through that particular pipeline. Analysts on the local news stations were predicting an immediate return to $3 per gallon gas, with $4 looking to be a strong possibility.

Gas has dropped ten cents since that announcement. And if history is any indicator gas will slowly drop in price until around February, which is generally when gas is the cheapest in Seattle. As soon as gas drops below $1.50 per gallon people will stop hearing me complain about it being too expensive. I’ve only paid more than $3 for gas on two occasions although the average price of gas did reach $3.30 around here a few months ago. That does get quite expensive when I’m burning 20-25 gallons per week just going to and from school.

It's Getting Hot in Here

I'm not used to warm temperatures anymore; I've been back in the Northwest for too long. I've been keeping a thermometer just for kicks in my truck to see how warm it is. Mine won’t show temperatures over 50 C and this has been exceeded every day inside my cab. It’s weeks like this that make me wish I had air conditioning in my vehicle.

Facts on Global Warming that no credible scientist can deny:

Fact: Parts of the world have average temperatures that have been rising over the years.

Fact: Other parts of the world have average temperatures that have been falling over the years.

Fact: Some coastal areas have measured slightly higher sea levels than in the past.

Fact: Other coastal areas have seen slight decreases in sea levels over the years.

Fact: As an average, our planet is slightly warmer and the oceans slightly higher than they were 50 years ago.

What are the exact causes of these changes? There’s where the debate falls. Does the earth heat up and cool down on its own? Yes, we’ve had ice ages begin and end in the past. Do humans have any part in all of this current state of warming? Probably, but we would have a very hard time quantifying the affect. Do greenhouse gasses help warm things up? Most likely, everything from buses and power plants to volcanoes and cow farts all play their part. Would massively cutting human output of such gases do any good? Possibly, but I’d venture a guess that the planet is doing whatever it’s doing regardless of what we do, we may just be speeding up the process a little. Are we all going to die horrible deaths as a result of the planet getting warmer? That ozone hole thing hasn’t fried us yet, so I’d put my money on surviving this one too.

New Keyboard

After over 20 years of use, I’m putting away the qwerty keyboard and trying the Dvorak keyboard. Most typing experts say that it is much faster once you get the hang of it. I’m starting to agree. More to come soon. Although my typing speed has decreased a lot, it is speeding up.

I Think We All Survived

For those of you who didn’t know, today’s date was 06-06-06, which everyone knows to be National Emo Kid Beatdown Day, which is held on 6 June every year (unless that is a weekend, then it is held on the preceding Friday). I am not, nor do I generally associate with anything that would be considered Emo, hence I didn’t do anything different today than any other typical Tuesday. I didn’t even get around to beating down the first Emo kid I saw, possibly because I didn’t see any Emo kids today. As no one confused me with being Emo, I didn’t have to beat anyone down at all today, rather boring if you ask me.

For those of you have no clue what Emo is, it’s apparently the new Goth. Generally classified as being overly dramatic with their emotions and are often thought to be chronically depressed. Many consider them to be attention whores. Both guys and girls share similar looks including, wardrobes, haircuts, and makeup. Often considered to be homosexual because many are or give the impression of being so.

For the few who may be deeply offended by what you consider to be a horrible stereotyped definition of Emo, get over it. Go cry to your mommy and whine about me to all of your other Emo friends.

May Day, May Day

Apparently many illegal immigrants are taking this year’s Socialist New Year to boycott all things American. They won’t spend money in American businesses. To prove that they are committed to working a better job than they would otherwise work in their home country, many are walking off their jobs to attend random rallies intended to show their solidarity toward other illegal immigrants. I can see this rally as a great benefit to most legal Americans who need some form of government assistance.
If I received a serious injury on this fine Monday, today would be the most convenient day to do so. Most of the hospitals around here are plagued by illegal immigrants (from many countries, not just Mexico) who use the emergency rooms as a general clinic for any random ailment since they cannot be legally turned away. These people usually add an hour or two or more to the wait times at the emergency room. Since all illegal immigrants are being urged by other illegal immigrants to boycott all things American, the emergency rooms should be nearly empty. If I screwed up while using some of my random power tools and needed emergency room care, tomorrow would be the day to do it.
If I was one of the 4.7%* of Americans currently looking for a job, Monday is the day to search. The unemployment offices will be emptier than usual as many illegal immigrants are boycotting all things American. It would potentially be easier to get a job as many people will potentially fired for walking off their jobs to attend demonstrations. If I needed another job, this would be the time to look.
If I was of the criminal mind and took pleasure from harming people, May Day would be the day to do so. If these illegal immigrants are boycotting all things American, they would not call the authorities to report a crime committed against them because that would be a break in their boycott by getting assistance from American authorities.

My solution for the illegal immigration problem:
1) Build a giant wall along the US-Mexican border. Most of our illegal immigrants are coming into the US via this route and it must be capped. This wall would include seismic monitors to monitor underground tunneling that would probably take place.
2) Build an equally impressive wall along the US-Canadian border. Most illegal immigrants coming through our Southern border are of Latino origin. Most non-Latino, illegal immigrants come across our Northern border. Although these numbers are substantially smaller, they are probably very impressive none the less, and these people are equally guilty of breaking our laws.
3) Increase border patrols. We have millions of active soldiers and millions of National Guard troops. I don’t see why we can’t put them on our borders. If they need funding, we should get them more funding. If they need training, we should get them more training. Our congress seems to have no problem earmarking billions of dollars for their pet, pork projects; why not put some of that money to good use.
4) Monitor those immigrants we have in our country already, those here both legally and illegally. If someone is here legally on a work visa, they will usually be deported immediately if they lose their job, so why not let the same be true for the illegal immigrants too? If a Socialist Security number comes up repeatedly in the IRS databases, they should inform the other governmental agencies to investigate (and these agencies should have the resources needed to do so).
5) Heavily penalize businesses for using illegal labor. A fine of a few thousand dollars per labor hour should be sufficient to deter the hiring of an ineligible employee. Also make it easier for business owners to run background checks on their potential employees.
6) We need a better system for allowing legal immigration into the US. Unfortunately Americans are generally lazy bums who don’t like hard work for low pay. Americans are used to getting others to do hard work for close to minimum wage. We should take all of these jobs and offer them first to all those who collect welfare and unemployment handouts. Unfortunately many of these people have been sucking the tits of big government for so long that they cannot be weaned overnight. They should have their benefits slashed if they are offered a job they are capable of and they refuse. If there are jobs left over that won’t be filled, we should consider raising the pay for these jobs. Since most people don’t want to pay several dollars for a pound of produce from the store, that may be unrealistic for the time being. Thus we must offer these jobs to those who are willing to take them for a low price. These are usually the people who would be coming here illegally. Essentially we would have to allow many hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers to apply for these positions.

I’ve worked construction, I’ve worked in a kitchen, I’ve roofed houses, I’ve cleaned fish, I’ve emptied garbages, I’ve mopped floors, I’ve cut wood, I’ve picked apples, I’ve shoveled manure, I’ve done many of the jobs that illegal immigrants do. I personally don’t like many of them and would go out of my way to avoid doing them again, but my dislike is from my own experience. If I really needed the money I would consider doing some of these jobs again, but they’re not my first choice of work. I’m a little fed up that I constantly hear that these are jobs that Americans won’t do. No, they generally won’t do them for minimum wage. Anyone who tells me otherwise is now in jeopardy of losing their head, in any sense of the word you chose.
Happy Socialist New Year to you all.

*Number provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

We're all going to die!

Or at least if Al Gore gets his way. He was whining again this week about global warming. Apparently the planet is getting warmer and we’re all being slow roasted. Considering it was below 40F most of today and snowing in some places around here, Al Gore can go do something that can’t be mentioned on network TV. If snow on the last weekend in April around Seattle is a sign of global warming then I’m waiting for the heat wave to begin.

WTF!?!

My humble little school, Bellevue Community College (affectionately and hereafter referred to as BCC), has made national news thanks to one of our teachers. Apparently one of our math teachers gave a math problem that was horribly offensive. Here’s the math problem:

Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of the roof of the 300 -foot Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second. The height of the watermelon above the ground t seconds later is given by formula h= -16t2 + 20t + 300

Only one usable word went through my mind when I heard this: “HUH?” Apparently this simple algebra problem offended a black student who in turn complained about this question and the teachers was reprimanded. Maybe this student was just upset that they couldn’t answer this pre-algebra problem. I’ve read two differing conclusions from various commentaries on said math problem.
The first is that this algebra teacher is obviously racist and must be fired at once. If this teacher had substituted the name Condoleezza with the name Jessie, Al, or Martin there would be massive riots on campus and it would have to be shut down. Any reference involving a black person and a watermelon is obviously racist and must be punished immediately.
The second opinion given is that this teacher is obviously getting a free swipe at Bush. By using the name Condoleezza in a simple math problem, this teacher is subliminally telling the students that Bush is bad. Because there is obviously only one Condoleezza in the world, this problem is apparent exists for the sole purpose of demeaning Dr. Rice.

I set out to discover a little more about this. First I wanted to know how common of a name Condoleezza is. So I took out my three volume set of “Neemund’s Index of Weird Names Black People Give Their Children,” commonly referred to as my high school yearbooks, in search of the name Condoleezza. I flipped through the index of the first book, got bored, and gave up my search. I didn’t see a Condoleezza, but I found a Condolisha. I looked up Condoleezza online and learned that con dolcezza is an Italian musical term referring to a piece being played “with sweetness”.

Apparently any reference involving both a black person and a watermelon cannot be anything but racist. At one time, it is believed that slaves had to pick watermelons on watermelon farms. Most of these slaves were also black. It is so blatantly obvious of its rampant racism that heads must roll for this, in the literal sense. Personally I’ve never heard such associations as being racist before. I really don’t think a watermelon cares who eats it, or who picks it, or who throws it off of a federal building. I’ve heard associations of black people picking cotton used in a racist sense; but a problem involving Condoleezza throwing a cotton ball off of a federal building would be something you’d find in a physics class since it requires a few more variables and calculations than most algebra students could handle.

So is this teacher a racist? Or is this teacher a Bush hater? You decide.

Update

School has finally started. I’ve got two online classes plus one class that meets twice a week. I’m taking Accounting 210, English 201, and Animation 121. So far it doesn’t look like this quarter will be too painful, but I’ve only had one day so that may change really soon.
I’m still playing my same game of Defend Your Castle. I am now on level 375 with 447,875,200 points. I have 125 wizards, and 690 craftsmen. I have 365,350,596 points available to me which is still short of my goal of 90% total points available. It takes almost an hour to complete a level at this point so progress is slow, and I don’t have time to sit at my computer and play all day.
I should probably start on my taxes pretty soon. I should have done that a while ago since the government owes me a ton of money, but I keep putting it off. I guess that’s about it for the update category. I’ll post again shortly if I get inspired.

Spring is Almost Here

I have 2 regular days of school left, then one final, then my spring break will begin. I have done more studying in the last week than I have probably done all quarter. I also have an essay to write by tuesday on the documentry film, "Daughter from Da-Nang." I have been able to keep some sense of sanity by rewatching a few episodes of "One Piece" with subtitles provided by #Kaizoku-Fansubs.
I have also been killing my stress by killing anything that moves in the game, CrimsonLand; and obliterating stick figures in Defend Your Castle, where I currently have the highest score I've ever seen anyone have. I am on level 289 at the moment and gaining swiftly. Many people think that this game gets more boring the higher in level you get, because you can just hire thousands of archers to kill anything on the screen. I'm taking a different approach to the game, I'm hiring as few people as I can get away with so that I can keep most of my points to spend later. I am currently employing 925 archers, 125 wizards, and 525 craftsmen. This leaves me with a castle of 3.5 million hitpoints. I have currently earned 264,871,700 points with 203,973,552 available to spend on castle wall improvement or hiring more units. My goal is to reach the point where 90% of my earned points are spendable. Right now I can only save 87% of the points I earn each level as the rest goes into unit upkeep. After reaching 90% usable points, my next goal will be to increase my castle wall from 3.5 million hitpoints to 1 billion hitpoints. This will probably take a few weeks, but not a problem since I have just enough units to keep my castle alive when I'm not sitting at my computer playing the game. This is definately made possibly by the 'save' feature in the game as I can't feasably do more than 50 levels before my computer needs a reboot.

My Other post Disappeared

My other post just vanished without a trace when I updated last. It had the cool article about wizards not getting much help here in our dimension. If you didn't see that article, here is is again.

And the important daily advice from last month: If you can avoid having a computer monitor land on your head, you'd be wise to do such. It really hurts, believe me.

I'm Still Here

I'm sure both of my readers realize that I am quite alive and well for the most part. They might even care if I've posted or not. But I haven't for over a month and I'm doing something about it now.

News for the last month:
Congress thinks is has power to grant or deny permission for a Middle Eastern company to buy a British company. It doesn’t. But congress tries to do quite a few things it doesn’t really have power to do.
Intel is previewing their newest generation of CPU, Conroe, which should be out Q3. The engineering test they performed showed it to be about 20% faster than an overclocked Athlon FX60. Since Intel pieced the rigs together I’d be hesitant to take those benchmarks as 100% unbiased, but I wish Intel well in their quest to regain the top seat that was so violently snatched away from them many moons ago. If they can deliver a product to match power with AMD’s finest, I smell a price war coming. Which directly benefits me because computer components get cheaper. ATI and Nvidia are also in such a predicament, with ATI keeping their high throne at the same time as trying to undercut Nvidia in pricing.
I still haven’t seen snow in my proximity this year and am getting bummed. Yesterday I did see snow falling, but nothing stuck to the ground.
The US is beginning to pull troops from around the world. Since occupying Germany in 1945, we’re beginning to move a large number of our troops back home since the new German government appears to have everything under control. We’re also considering pulling troops out of Iceland as they’re not being threatened by the Commies anymore. Those troops would be better used threatening Commies and illegal immigrants here in the US. At the rate we’re going we should have a total troop withdrawal from Germany and Japan by 2095; we’ll probably have most of our troops out of Iraq by 2010. How’s that for efficiency?


Piece of advice for today: If you have a 4-5 page essay due in a class, it is advisable that you don’t wait until 45 minutes before that class begins to actually start writing that essay.

I been tagged

Curse you Rabenstrange and your tagging! But since I have nothing better to do at the moment…I guess I can do one little blog survey.

Past real jobs: (Emphasis on REAL)
Walt Disney World: I did tons of random crap and hated most of it.
Print shop: The same one as Rabenstrange, doing pretty much the same stuff. It doesn’t disagree with me the same way Disney World did.
School: I’ve worked for a school for a number of years doing their computer work, and even taught a computer class on a few occasions. (Teaching 2nd graders how to use a computer is much easier than teaching their teacher how to use a computer)
Microsoft: I test games for them, mostly Xbox and Xbox360 games. My job is usually to break them in a controlled test so that you don’t do it at home.

Movies I’ll see over and over again:
Serenity
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Punisher
Gladiator
Are we supposed to stop at 4 items?
Batman Begins
Underworld (I guess now I’ll always have to watch both of them back to back as soon as I get the second one)
Love Actually
Out Cold

Places I’ve lived:
For this definition I define living at a place at residing there long enough to get mail and stuff sent to me.
Seattle, WA: The house I live in at the moment is also the first house I’ve ever lived in.
Seabeck, WA: Technically a second home to me, but I’ve spent more days/nights there than any other place I’ve ever been with the exception of my original house in Seattle.
Lake Buena Vista, FL: My most recent expedition out of Washington brought me here for 5 months. This was purely for work related activities and I have no intention moving back there.
Oradea, Romania: Lived there for a little under 2 months. Liked it, would have no qualms with going back for a few more months.

Currently playing TV shows I watch regularly:
Red Green
Myth Busters
One Piece
Beyond Tomorrow
How It’s Made
Futurama
Simpsons
Ended TV shows I watch regularly:
Almost Live
Babylon 5
Firefly
SeaQuest

Most frequented family vacation spots by me outside of Western Washington:
Vancouver, BC: It’s about an hour from my condo so we’ve been there many times.
Disneyland: I think we’ve been there 5 times. I like it but Disneyworld had much more stuff. Disneyland is a better weekend destination because of this, and is much cheaper.
Lake Tahoe, NV: I think we’ve been there 4 times, but I’m not really sure why. Just hanging out by the lake and hiking in the mountains is about it unless you like slot machines. To date I’ve lost $2 in slot machines in my entire life; I’ve almost broke even but they’re addicting so I’ve never played one higher than a nickel.
Hattiesburg, MS: Got tons of family there, been there 3 times I believe. I’d have no problems living there, except that there are 2 computer stores within 50km and that’s a little low for my taste.
Disneyworld: Family’s been there 3 times, I like it better than Disneyland but it’s proportionally more expensive and far away so we don’t go very often.

My most frequented websites:
Overclockers.com
Pimprig.com
theInquirer.net
Orbusmax.com
fark.com
Slashdot.com
Sluggy.com
Xbitlabs.com

Food I love:
Teriyaki Chicken (real stuff not that fake crap they try to pass off east of the Mississippi river)
Chicken Katsu
Chimichangas
Most foods involving barbecued slabs of cow
Fresh Corndogs
Lean Bacon Steak (not those regular steaks wrapped in bacon, I’m talking about an 8oz slab of bacon, hard to find in stores though)

People I’ll tag:
ShadowWalker
EJB
Gerhalt

The New Coke

I was at Fred Meyer shopping for some acetone for my truck when I saw a display for Black Cherry Vanilla Coke. I already had poor feelings toward this particular pop because it replaced Vanilla Coke which is my absolute favorite flavor of soft drink. It was also on sale so I bought a bottle just to try it. I opened it and realized that it did not have a strong scent to it, so I thought that it may have a weak taste. It tasted like slightly watered down Cherry Coke (which I've never really liked), I didn't taste any vanilla at first. A second sip and there was the vanilla, part of a sickeningly sweet aftertaste that reminded me of Pepsi Vanilla which I have never really liked. I was very disappointed with this new Coke and have no plans to buy it in the future. And with the very rare purchase of some Coke Classic here and there when it's on sale, I'm essentially boycotting the company now for removing my drink from their lineup.
Dr. Pepper came out with their Cherry Vanilla drink some time ago and apparently it was popular. I tried it once and didn't really like it. In fact I really don't like anything that has artificial cherry flavor in it. I've send several letters to Coca-Cola to express my dissatisfaction with their choice to remove Vanilla Coke from shelves but they probably don't care. In the meantime I have a stash of Vanilla Coke that will take years to deplete.

Happy Birthday Ben!

Apparently today is Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday. Nope, nothing else important going on at the moment.

Home is Home

I've now been home from the other coast for almost two weeks and I'm glad to be back. The only advantage of being on the east Coast as opposed to the West Coast is seeing TV 3 hours earlier. I really can't think of another good reason to live there. And unless my life revolved around TV, that isn't a really good reason at all. And now that I'm home again I TiVo 90% of my TV anyway so there's really no point being able to record it a few hours earlier if I'm not planning to watch it right away anyway. My biggest issues with living on the east Coast as opposed to the West Coast are as follows:
A) I think it's the first time in my life I've lived more than 2 miles from a Starbucks. Even when I was in England and Romania there was a Starbucks within 2 blocks of me.
B) I had to search long and hard to find a computer store. They're really rare as far as I could see. The only one I actually found and visited on my expedition out east was in Hattisburg, Mississippi; unfortunately it got leveled by Katrina only days after my last purchase there. What's even more unfortunate was the fact that I still needed more stuff from there.
3) No big electronics stores. There was a Best Buy about 10 miles from my apartment in Orlando, but that's the closest they have to a big electronics store. The one there was also the smallest one I'd ever seen, about half the size of the one around here. Which makes it maybe 1/10 the size of our Fry's Electronics.
D) No Tillamook dairy products. Nothing that even tasted close to their ice cream.
E) The time change was a pain to deal with. People calling me at 3 in the morning since it was only midnight at home. Not being able to call people in the morning because there was no chance that they'd actually be awake enough to answer their phone.
F) It's not my home and never will be.
g) They have hurricanes. I had to go through 2 of them, both Katrina and Wilma. They're annoying and not good for much except getting extra time off of work. I think Congress should outlaw them or something like that.

I'm currently in school again, I'm tired of it already but I need good grades in my class to get my GPA as high as possible. I plan on taking one more quarter which will consist of English, Vector Graphics, and Photoshop class, and then I'll be able to graduate with 2 separate AA degrees. Don't ask me what I'm doing after that point because I don't have any idea. I might transfer to a different school and work on a degree in Business Psychology; I might quit school and get a job that I pays enough to live on and doesn't suck too much, or I might stay at BCC for another quarter or two as an excuse not to do either of the previous options. I got plenty of time to figure it out.

In important news: Seattle didn't break its 53 year old record for most consecutive days of rain. We went 27 of the 34 days required to break the record. Now I'm a little disappointed. I don't remember ever getting close to the record and we only needed one more week. This does make up for last year when we had the driest February on record when I was walking at school in shorts and a Tshirt in 20C weather in the middle of winter. AMD released their Athlon FX60 processor last week, which is really fast and even more expensive There's a rumour flying around that Fox may bring back Futurama. I just threw my Christmas tree off of my back deck last night and it landed on the fence and is still hanging there at this moment; I might put up a picture later if I remember to take one while it's light outside. I have joined TBQelite's rank and, for various reasons, have withdrawn my membership from ShadowWalker's He-Man-Woman-Haters Club. And for the next 16 hours my basement will be relatively clean since I moved all of the random crap out of there and into my bedroom. After school tomorrow I'm probably going to take all of the junk that isn't mine and put it back in the basement so that my room will once again be semi-clean.