And one more thing...
Is it just me or whenever I hear about widows or victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks it always has to do with them not getting money?
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Is it just me or whenever I hear about widows or victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks it always has to do with them not getting money?
There are a lot of complaints about news media that I hear from time-to-time and it is usually something that I avoid thinking about. I figure it's difficult to relate stories without adding some personal bias here and there...I can deal with that. But I did have a bizare feeling of "that doesn't seem right" while watching Good Morning America while munching on eggo waffles (mmmm...eggo). The story was about a young man (teenager I think) that had accidentally struck a mother and her baby resulthing in the death of the mother. Evidently the jury had found the teen guilty and given him the maximum sentance of 15 years though...now the odd thing here is that the judge ruled that the jury was working on emotion rather than the facts and threw out their decision, thus letting the accused off scott free.
They did interview both sides, the husband and baby daughter of the deceased woman and the young man with his attorney. The husband was just pissed off it seemed, understandably so (I'd wanna kill that like punk too...regardless of facts, evidence or testimony) and most of what he said seem emotionally charged. The attorney spoke for the young man almost the whole time, and the argument seemed logical, well layed out: basically (as I understood it) it was a horrible accident, but there was no clear-cut evidence to support that his client had been driving recklessly...while neglegent, it wasn't a criminal act.
However you feel about that situation (I actually sidded with the teen) the thing that disturbed me most was that while the young man and his attorney were talking, on the other side of the split screen they were doing close ups of the little baby girl (who was way too cute) and they were leaking audio of the little girl saying "momma" & "daddy" amongst other baby babble. It was heart wrenching, but that was my problem with it. It seemed like a cheap ploy to make everyone hate the teen and feel even more sorry for the victims...which I already felt sorry for them, they have my deepest sympathies. BUT what about the teen that happened to hit them? I somehow doubt this kid is a monster, he doesn't deserve that...irregardless of trials, this kid has to live the rest of life with the memory of what he did...neglegent...yes, no doubt...but a crimal act? I think that's being harsh and simply seeking revenge. This was an already sad, tragic event and there is no way to punish someone that makes up for the loss of a life.
Of course, I won't even touch the issue of the judge throwing out the jury's verdict..which seems wrong in and of itself.
Damnit I hate it when I'm already to blog and I forget what the heck I was going to write about. **stomps foot in frustration**
I've been reading stuff on conspiracies, it all started innocently enough by viewing the history of Michael Jackson's face (a testimony that the stress of stardom can make people do odd things). From there I got led into looking at pictures of odd things, anomalies and what-not. After having read a few passing refrences to chemtrails I decided to look up exactly what they we're talking about. I figured they were just talking about contrails, but the refrences to "spraying" kept confusing me. I found a lot of websites that explain chemtrails and the mystery that surrounds them and I admit that there are some pretty peculiar circumstances...but nothing that looked so odd that it didn't look natural. I then looked up some debunk sites and the science behind these chem/contrails seems as logical (if not more so) than the conspiracy theories. I did really enjoy the anonymous letters on one site that explained how one airplane mechanic had discovered extra plumbing in the waste disposal units (for spraying the chems) and another from an airline executive who had actually been debreifed on the chem spraying. Nice stories, but then I think I could have written better.
After the chemtrails controversy I moved on the the faked lunar landing. Unlike the chemtrail which I thought was an actually a fairly plausible story (read: they had me going for awhile) the fake lunar landing seems silly to the point of absurdity. All the points that the faker conspiracy theorist make are just plain illogical and incorrect. It really amazes me the amount of energy that people put into things like this. I mean I like a good story as the next person, hell I'll admit that a faked moon landing could make for an interesting novel of some sort.
In other news: I've been listening to Aqua (Barbie Girl song fame) way to much lately. It's peepy up beat techno sounds are great therapy :)
I've not felt compeled to blog much lately...for those of you who come by here regularly...sorry 'bout that.
I finished reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and I highly recommend it to anyone, even if your not typically into Sci-Fi. Good book, makes ya think...it left me a little depressed, but it was a good depressed.
I've never read anything by Lovecraft, but I've always left him on my list of "want to read if and when I get around to it and/or the opprotunity presents itself". I may bump him up to a more prominent mental list now...the wife and I watched Dagon over at a friend's house yesterday evening. The movie was pretty much a B horror flick, that was enjoyable despite the low budget cheese-e-ness. Despite the lack of big budget special effects and CGI the makers did a good job of creating an eerie, nightmarish feeling through out the film. The actual horror didn't get to me too much, but I appreciated the effort. Like I said, I haven't read any Lovecraft, but the film met my expectations of what I thought a Lovecraft "feel" should be. The gore/viloence/nudity get's a little out of control briefly, but the flaying had a nice effect and overall I enjoyed the flick. I hesitate to say "I recommend this", because quite frankly I'm sure a lot of people would hate it for various reasons (to be honest I'm not all that confident that I didn't hate it)...but if you like horror or good B films(lo-budget) or Lovecraft (and your not a purest-Nazi-fanatic) or if you just like to experience weird things...I'd say check it out.
I saw a 30sec blurb on the news that yesterday was the 75th Anniversary of Mt. Rushmore, a monument that demonstrates amazing engineering skills, unbelievable artistic scope and represents US history on several levels. I barely noticed it though, smushed in between all the 25th Anniversary of Elvis's death stories that have saturated the news all week.
Dilbert is greatness...I went to the Dilbert website and spent the last hour going through the month archive...should I have been working? Probably. But now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I hate Chess, I suck at it...I don't know how to play it. I've learned, painfully, that knowing how the pieces move does NOT equate knowing how to PLAY chess. I am in the process of acquiring ChessMaster 8000 and I will one day defeat the computer on "drooling slack-jawed yokel" level. *maniacal laughter trailing off into contemplative gibbering*
I think once you begin to accept the general level of stupidity and random insanity, life becomes a lot easier.
I just found it disturbing that a computer application has better spelling and grammar than I do. The really sad thing is that when I get chastised for bad grammar, I'm never really sure if the computer is right or wrong.
I don't really have anything to talk about right now, but Dyanna seems to think that I should blog something so I'm just going to sort of boldly move ahead without any real direction. Watch out folks it could get dangerous...or at the very least just plain confusing.
There actually is a lot of stuff that I could comment on, but I don't really feel like discussing anything too serious...that and as soon as I get into it something will come up at work and I'll have to go off and loose my train of thought. I think I might try something simple:
I really am getting tired of software that tries or does load your system with tons of crap. They either try to install some third-party POS software that hunkers down in the system tray and refuses to go away or they throw forty shortcuts all over your desktop, start menu, quick launch bar and then up your butt for good measure. I've simply resigned myself to always selecting custom installation and that seems to help. So my computer tip for today fellow troopers...always select custom installation, don't trust the software to act in your best interests.
If you really want to get on my bad side you can be like Iomega (zip drives) and offer no custom install option. What I really loath about this is the fact that you don't even really need the software, or if you do all you really need is one itty bitty .inf file...instead they don't tell you that and then you end up with a ton of utilities installed on your hard drive that I think I've seen only a handful of people actually use.
Anyway, that's my useless rant for the day
I was talking to my cat one day, happily informing him of my superiority over him as his master and lord. Reminding him how nice it was to on the top of food chain...his attitude didn't change; he continued to lick himself pausing only briefly to regard me with overwhelming indifference. I suddenly began to reflect on the whole pet-master relationship. I also began to reevaluate my position in this hierarchy...after all, who cleans whose shit out of a box? Who pours food into whose bowl on demand morning, afternoon or night? Who massages whose body on demand, regardless of convenience and who's the one that was reminded, painfully, that when he wants to hide under the bed...he wants to hide under the bed and not be drug out in front of company.
I guess that's why I love our cats (we have two, you've seen them in the header pictures (if you hit refresh enuff)...Blue & Gray) they let us believe we're in control. I suppose that's why I love my wife so much too. Yes baby, I still love you, even after the "purple towel" incident (as it came to be known).
As those of you who come by here regularly or quasi regularly have probably noticed the picture at the top of the page has changed to cats (though I believe the Tolkien images will circulate too). My lovely and oh-so talented wife whipped up some very nice images in Photoshop utilizing pictures of our cats from our newly acquired digital camera. Speaking of my wife she's been a little perturbed that I haven't mentioned her on the site, but actually I have, you just have to go pretty far back in the archives.
When I started doing this blog thing, it was with the intention that I wouldn't do it to document my day-to-day life or use it as a personal journal. Quite frankly there are a lot of people who already do that, I feel that they're lives are far more interesting to read about than mine, so I wanted to use this as a journal of my intellectual thoughts and ramblings (whether that proves more interesting than my personal life is up to some conjecture). However, I've been thinking that doing a little of both personal and quasi-intellectual would probably be the best thing to do, since invariably the two are mixed together.
And to be quite honest, I don't really have the time, aptitude or fortitude with which to drop all my mental mish-mash...so in the spirit of blogging regularly I think I'm going to start doing more personal "journal" type entries. We'll see what happens and at least I'll do what I can to keep it interesting and/or entertaining (If only to myself *smile*).