Is Maith An Scéalaí An Aimsir

So I’ve been slacking. A lot. I’ve been slacking so much, that I did not even notice I accidentally hit "Draft" instead of "Publish" on my post from the 27th, so it didn’t get posted until today.

But yes, I had a nice little hiatus there. And I enjoyed it. Gave me time to think, rather than regurgitate Boing-Boing, Ananova, and Kotaku.

I have a few essays planned on the state of American society, and they’re going well, but they're taking a while to finish.

It’s a pity there is no filter mechanism for Blogger. It would be nice if I could sort these posts, for example, into relevant essays and general rants. (Or, rather, any number of user-defined categories.)

So if a Blogger technician is reading this… Hey, how about it?

Anyway, since my essays are not yet done, I’m going to bed. Gotta get up early.

Rock on, Folks. Have a pleasant Memorial Day.

Beaver Chasing

...And not even in a sexist way.

I was driving over to my friend's house, and pulled in his driveway. There was a creature of some sort sitting right smack dab in the middle of it. I looked at it, saying "Well, it's not a raccoon or a 'possum... looks like a groundhog but it has a big flat tail... wait a second..."

It was a freaking beaver.

It turned around and waddled off right down the middle of the drive. My friend's driveway is kind of long, so I was just sort of moving nice and slow behind the misplaced mammal, all the while wondering "Damn it, why the hell did I take my camera out of my car?!"

When my car got too close, it slapped it's tail off the ground as if to say "Hey, this is gonna be done on my time, pal!" before it kept on moving.

Damn strange. But funny!

French Fries on Salads

For some damnable reason, my Hatsumi Guide is suddenly scoring a lot of hits. What did she do this time, lick one of the PlayStation 3 prototypes at E3? I don't know. Ah well, it's getting me page hits.

Anyway, I have been hanging out a lot with a friend home on leave from the military. He's an Air Force Raven, which while not as prominent in movies as SEALs or such, is pretty damn cool. Let me put it thusly: He rides camels through the Sahara, deals with Mafiosos in Russia, sleeps on a C-130 in South Africa, ends up in the alps in Italy, and guards senators in Cape Verde... Sometimes the same week. (Well, the Alps and the Sahara was in one week, and there was other stuff that I forget. The Russian mob and the Cape Verde were different occasions.) He has a map of the world, and each country he's been in has a pushpin stuck in it.

Damned thing looks like a porcupine went apeshit on it.

*****************************

Something else I must share! Not sure how this conversation got started, but over the weekend I had a talk about salad. And french fries.

For those of you who are NOT within an hour's drive of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this phenomenon will likely shock you.

For the benefit of random-girl-from-Florida, who has likely never encountered this local oddity, I will explain:

It's more prevalent the closer we get to Pittsburgh, but we do it even in my area: we put French Fries on our salads.

Yes, those kind of French Fries. The fried potato things. On our salad.

I take it, from the reactions of people from Cleveland, Texas, and Minnesota that I've told this to, that this is an odd thing. Not sure why, it's quite tasty. Especially with cheese on the french fries, so it all melts.

Yummy.

One of the three reactions I get is:
1) "That's so strange."
2) "Eww, that's disgusting!"
3) "Oh my God! The Carbs! The Fat! Salads are supposed to be HEALTHY!"

*shrug* It's just tasty to me.

It's quite funny to hear tales of locals from my area who have moved away, and tried to order french fries on salads.

Typically, we just give up, and get a salad with a side of fries.

We also put cole slaw on our hamburgers. :)

Ah well. Intermittent posting will persist for about a week. Expect me to go post-crazy on Sunday, there's been a lot of stuff I haven't had time to properly rant on.

Rock on, kids.

Paid Vacation Is a Goodness.

Ahhh, paid vacation.

This is the first time I have ever been able to take vacation and not lose money for it. There are some benefits to being salaried.

I took Friday off. That was nice. I will have Monday off. That will also be nice. Plus, I have Memorial Day off. So I have three four-day weeks. Bonus!

I've spent it as best I could... That is to say: Napping. Lots of naps. Ahh, blessed sleep.

Plus, I finally sat back, read a little, and played games. Sim City 4 and Sims 2. Plus Star Wars Battlefront. Ahh, games.

And I have one more day off, so I'm going back to it. Rock on, kids.

Revenge of the Sith Review

It's okay folks! The suckfest is over! You are now free to once again enjoy Star Wars!

Yes, the first two movies were pretty bad. A friend of mine calculated that if you removed all the crap, Attack of the Clones would be about a half-hour long. The Phantom Menace? About five minutes.

Revenge of the Sith, aside from some badly stilted dialouge, would still be mostly intact.

After A Phantom Menace, my faith in the series as a whole was shaken quite a bit. I stopped purchasing every piece of Star Wars fiction that came down the pipe. I don't even own a copy of Attack of the Clones. (I managed to convince myself I liked it long enough to buy a copy of Ep. I, but after watching it again, I had to come to terms with reality).

Fortunatly, Sith is one I will not be ashamed to have on my shelf. It is excellent.

Aside from some seriously wooden dialouge, it is amazing.

First off... I'm going to let you in on a BIG secret: Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader? Yeah, they're the same guy!

Whoops, you already knew that. Ah well.

Anyway, the storyline is pretty well known. It's all about the fall of Anakin Skywalker, as well as the transformation of the galactic Republic into the Empire.

And I must say: He fell, hard and fast. Shockingly so. It hurt to watch at points.

Nasty stuff. Many, many Jedi die.

It was kind of sad. Being a fan of Star Wars fiction, I often purchased the comics and books avalible beyond the movies. And, of course, every Jedi that the movie made a point of killing was actually a well developed character in the supplementry fiction. For about five minutes, I was sitting there going "Geez, that had to hurt. Ah, not her too! Oh, man! They're killing all of them! C'mon, he would've put up a better fight than THAT!"

Oh well. Nothing halts character development faster than the said character being killed in a huge fireball. Or being shot, many many times.

But, that being said: Most of you already know how it ends. What leads up to it is pretty damn cool as well. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but it is still darn good.

KnightErrant's Final Grade for Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: A low end but respectable A-.

Zombie Knight

Have you ever been so tired, your brain simply shut off? That's close to what happened to me the past evening. I went out for a little while, and came home a lot earlier than I typically do. But suddenly, *Click*, brain go bye bye.

I actually IM'ed a few people in that condition. I'm sure it was amusing. I'll need to check my chat-logs but I'm somewhat certain I said stuff like "Good luck with the flying furniture" or other such nonsense.

Anyway, off to work. Have a good day, folks!

(Mwah-ha! Last day of work until my four day weekend!)

SSN's as College IDs = Bad idea.

So I was reading on CNET news about Social Security Numbers, and how the government is finally deciding that letting people buy and sell such information is probably a bad idea.

Hell, I could've told you that. Having everything financial tied into one number that can never be changed never seemed like a good plan to me. Once it's out, you are toast.

Not to mention, they tend to be used friviolously. A few good friends of mine go to Kent State University. I was horrified to learn that at Kent, they use the student's SSNs as their student ID! When I was applying for temporary parking permission, my friend had to give her social security number, so it could be logged in a big book.

So, sitting on counters in several buildings at KSU, there are large books full of hundreds of student names with their social security numbers. I wonder how many students are victims of fraud because of this?

Ironically, it's my backwards country college that has the right idea: issuing unique ID's limited to just the school. Doesn't take much extra time or resources to figure out your own damn system, and it's a lot more secure. After all, who the hell wants your college ID number if that's all it's good for?

Ah well, I'll keep the ranting short.

Rock on, kids.

That Dog Is Quite Talented...

I don't feel like writing anything tonight. So instead, just click this. It's a funny picture!

What Is the Sound of Twelve Egos Bruising?

"I shall write a book. It shall be called 'The Call of the William.'
-Random KnightErrant Quote

So I'm on this company baseball team, right? We're pretty good, except for one small issue. Being desk-jockeys, we run out of steam way too fast. We play two games, and today we were out of steam by the end of the first one. So the second game we got our asses kicked.

That's not the funny part. Obviously. In fact, that kind of sucked.

(Oh, and we won the first game, by the way.)

The funny part is, there's these two new girls who work back in Support. Goooooorgeous. When they walk by, all conversation stops as the men attempt to reboot their suddenly stalled-out brains.

Yeah, they showed up at the beginning of the second game, just in time to watch our heads get handed to us. :-P

Ironic.

In my defense, I did not play the second game. So they can't blame that one on me. :)

Current KnightErrant Batting Average, Still at .500

Rock on, folks.

Blind Dates and Other Insanity

"It was a four-hundred pound flying gay Italian!"
-Random KnightErrant quote

So, one of my friends called me up randomly tonight. "Hey, I have this cute redhead sitting in my apartment who said she does not object to meeting my intelligent, ambitious friend." (Ambitious? Argh, I've never liked that word. I've always attached negative connotations to it. I've always preferred words like "Purposeful" or "Aspiring." Ambitious I just attach "Greedy pushy jackass" to. Anyway...!)

Apparently, he and his fiancée decided "We each have a persistently single friend. Therefore, they must meet!" I wasn't sure if I should be thankful or if I should strangle the bastard. However, he said the magic words: "Cute redhead." I'm a sucker for red hair. Must be the Irish blood.

So, I said "Yeah, sure, meet you there." Then I hung up. Then I went "Oh shit." Then I went into Warp-Drive mode, got showered, shaved, and changed (I went out last night, and I was quite personally planning on doing jack shit for this evening), jumped in my car and off I went.

On the way, I was thinking "Gee, they're are blatantly trying to fix me up. I daresay this shall be awkward." And it was.

I finally meet them at the restaurant (No, the fiancée didn't abandon her friend, so it was a half-blind double-date ... or something ... what's the technical term for that? Nevermind.), and all I can think is "Hey, her hair's not red..." I suppose it was sort of red, but I would say it fell safely into the brown. She did have green eyes, though. Another thing I'm a sucker for.

Anyway, I say hello and am greeted with a hiccup. Poor girl is being drug into town to meet someone, and she ends up with a case of the hiccups! That had to suck.

Anyway, it all went pretty awkwardly, but wasn't disastrous. Could've been worse. I was far too quiet (my brain shut off and I couldn’t think straight) and she had hiccups the entire night, but we swapped a few stories (be it her friend the 400 pound gay Italian, or me in a swordfight due to someone thinking I was trying to steal his girlfriend), swapped stupid human tricks (I can swear in four languages, you bualadh craicinn bitseach!), and generally made two hours of awkward conversation almost bearable. I don't see anything coming out of it, but I won't be avoiding her in the future or anything.

But that comes to my point of the evening, which will take a lot less time than the pointless story about my sort-of-blind-date: not that I particularly object, but why do the attached feel the need to find people for their unattached friends? Is it some unconscious urge? Do they feel sorry for us? What? I'm just kinda confused, is all. They shuttle us off into an awkward situation that will, in all likelihood, fail to achieve its stated objective. Makes little sense to me.

Hot tip though: if you drag your single friends to a restaurant… ORDER FOOD, DAMN IT! We sat down in a restaurant, and the two attached people went “Ahh, nothing for me.”

The girl and I just looked at each other and eventually ordered pie, but it wasn’t cool that they passed on the food. Sort of defeats the entire purpose of a restaurant to NOT eat, and just makes an odd situation … odder.

Ah well.

Enough about my odd day. Rock on, kids.

No Zippo Cases Allowed!

"I am Captain Lethargic!"
-Random KnightErrant Quote


So I was reading Boing Boing, because that site kicks ass, and ran across this interesting link.

Recently, lighters were declared illegal for carry-on luggage. They are already illegal for check-in luggage, which means you simply cannot carry a lighter at all on an airplane anymore.

Anyway, so this guy had one of those Zippo spy cameras. He declared it, so they wouldn't mistake it for a lighter: all it is is a Zippo case with a camera inside. No flammable materials.

The checker wouldn't let them through. They got the manager, who declared the camera part of the item was fine: but not the lighter case.

The lighter case. The lighter case was not allowed on board.

Obviously a flip topped metal box is a threat to the security of the aircraft. What bullshit.

This happens to members of the National Rifle Association fairly routinely. NRA members are given a keychain of a silver bullet... It's not a real bullet or anything, it's just a hunk of plastic. It even has "America's NRA" stamped in the side, and a hole through the middle to boot. Not explosive, not even the least bit dangerous. But there are multiple accounts of security screeners swiping these and not letting people on the plane with them. They detained a guy named Ray Santelli for almost an hour, questioning him and repeatedly going through his luggage before sending him on his way, but without the bullet. That was going to be disposed of because it was "threatening looking."

They did something similar to my Aunt last summer. She had a wheel of cheese that someone gave her while she was visiting us, and when she went to fly home the X-ray screener couldn't tell what the cheese was. Perhaps they thought it was plastic explosives? I don't know. They hauled her and all her luggage to a secure area. And when they got there, did they just open that one suitcase and go "Ha ha! That's not C-4! That's Baby Swiss!" and let her on her way? Of course not. She was questioned, and ALL her luggage was sifted through. Over cheese.

In 2002, something even more ridiculous happened to Gen. Joe Foss, who was one of America's top fighter aces during World War II. They temporarilly confiscated his Medal of Honor! His Congressional fuckin' MEDAL OF HONOR! To "confirm it wasn't a weapon"! It took them 45 minutes to figure out it wasn't a danger. The kicker? They didn't seem to even know what a Medal of Honor was! What the fuck?

And then they miss knives, guns, and goddamn fake bombs!.

Excerpt from CNN:

In hundreds of undercover tests conducted between November and February, security screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 60 percent of simulated explosive devices, and 30 percent of guns. Overall, screeners failed 48 percent of the time.

(Seventy percent of knives. Thirty percent of guns. And sixty percent of bombs. They were probably too busy questioning an 85 year old granny who forgot to take her knitting needles out of her carry-on.)

I don't know about you: But between the inconvenience, the ignorance, and the incompetence ... I plan on getting my pilot's license and just flying myself.

Anyway, rock on.

Video Games Are Good For You!

I ran across this article at some point in my twisty and convoluted day.

In brief?

Video games increase the "skillz" not just in gaming, but also teach important lessons usable in the business world.

Some excerpts:

* "The people who play games are into technology, can handle more information, can synthesize more complex data, solve operational design problems, lead change and bring organizations through change"

* "Gamers are better risk-takers, show particular confidence in their abilities, place a high value on relationships and employee input and think in terms of "winning" when pursuing objectives."

Yeah, that's right. Gamers rock, toots.

w00t!

So think about that next time you hear of legislation like Washington House Bill 2178 that would make game makers liable for "desensitizing kids to violence" and "making" them do violent stuff. News Link Joystiq Link

Firstly, from the nightly news to Hillary Clinton, the game most people bitch about that's "turning" kids into violent little monsters, is Grand Theft Auto III. Sorry, folks, if "kids" are playing Grand Theft Auto III then it is a parenting thing, not a game manufacturer thing. The game has an M rating, which means it's recommended for people seventeen and older. If a parent lets their kid watch an NC-17 movie filled with explicit sex and violence (heck, if the parent PURCHASES the movie for the kid), is it the movie's fault or the parent's fault?

Secondly, if you HIT someone with a baseball bat or shoot someone... That is not a "Video Games Desensitized Him" situation... That is a "The kid was fucking nuts" situation.

Let's not go and blame everything but where the problem really lies, okeydoke?

Anyway, that's my two cents. Rock on.

Tipping My Tinfoil Hat

"I think the server ate my pants."
- Random KnightErrant quote of the day

Nope, I'm not giving you the context of that. You'll just have to use your imagination. :)

Anyway, I was discussing the REAL ID act with a friend this afternoon, and got into a pretty convulted argument over it. (He's a bigger nerd than I am and started bringing up checksums and security and whatnot... I think he's smarter than most people actually in charge of government security! :P)

Anyway, the one line uttered that makes me cringe every time I hear it during a privacy rights debate is as follows:

"If I don't do anything wrong, then I don't have anything to worry about.

*Cringe! Cringe!!!* That's almost as bad as "Well I have nothing to hide."

A) Think hard enough, and I'm somewhat certain you have SOMETHING about you you'd prefer to stay between you and the lamppost

B) "Wrong" has the trouble of being somewhat open to interpretation.

People go on power trips, and this is especially true in terms of people with authority. It's bad at the local level, where people are unimportant but think they are. Can you imagine how bad it would be at the national level where people actually have some power behind them? (For examples of nonimportant power-mad folk, take the president of my alma mater and his brownnosing toadies deans and administrators. Between student-funded trips to Germany and Thailand, the fucker tried to pull such stunts as censor the student media, build himself a new mansion, and generally make a nuisance out of himself. And he actually wasn't even a bad guy. Now take him, and give him power beyond a tiny country college. Yeah, uh oh.)

So to put on my tinfoil hat and let you think a while: Although the REAL ID act does not explicitly create a "Big Brother" environment, it is yet another step in the erosion of privacy and freedom. Let's take it to the most drastic conclusion possible: A 1984-esque surveillance state where you are watched ALL the time for any hint of dissent. Could you live in a society where every action is scrutinized by authorities for potential treason? (And woe to you if you show the least bit of free-will or intelligent thought!)

Kiddos, we're not there yet, but the first steps have been taken.

My problems with the REAL ID act are legion, but that won't stop me from trying to explain. :-P

The method used to pass it was dishonest. First off, it's backdoor legislation. The REAL ID (Why did they put the damn thing in caps?) act was tagged onto an emergency funding bill. No politician in their right mind is going to vote down a funding bill to send money to Tsunami relief efforts and for equipping the troops with body armor! So when the poli-ticks have a bill that will never pass, they get it tagged on as an amendment to a sure-thing bill like the funding bill (despite the fact it has nothing to do with funding).

The rationale behind it is flimsy. The simplified version of its proposed purpose is "Stop terrorists!" Ostensibly, it's to stop them from getting on planes and whatnot. It accomplishes this by standardizing all state-issued drivers licenses.

Er... Um... The 9/11 hijackers used their passports. Their foreign-government issued passports. And they got into the country on valid student visas, approved by the Feds. They did not need driver's licenses, Sam-I-Am.

And in any case, are these licenses going to have "I AM EVIL" stamped across the top if you're a terrorist? Documents do not provide details on a person's intentions if they're planning on blowing something up!

It puts too much data in one place. It plans on putting far too much data in machine readable code on your license. No solid leads on exactly what it'll contain (see my next beef), but for example my driver's license already contains my name, address, signature, date of birth, some physical details like height and eye color, and medical issues as they relate to driving. Kids, they're not going to stop there, especially not if machine-readable technology allows them to fit even more details on. And from the wording, it sounds like Social Security Numbers will be involved. Gee … Name, Social Security Number, Address, Date of Birth… Credit card fraud, anyone?

No oversight on these regulations. The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 already covered improved ID security. And best of all, the rules were to be negotiated between the federal government, state government, and civil rights groups. REAL ID tramples these negotiations into the ground with a hearty "My way or the highway, beeeeyatch!" Compounding this error, it places all authority on exactly what goes on these cards in the hands of Homeland Security. No oversight by congress or any independent agency. Potential items included? Biometrics, criminal records, and a bunch of other stuff you don't want in the hands of a guy who swipes your wallet. And because it's "common machine-readable technology," most businesses could theoretically have it. A little gizmo by the bar, and the bartender is swiping your data to sell to ChoicePoint for a few extra bucks.

Nationwide database makes a bad idea worse. In addition to what they put on the card, your license will also be linked up to a distributed database that each state will be forced to maintain and keep in synch with all the other state's databases. In effect, a national database of all it's citizens. Not only is security a big risk (once again, I refer to ChoicePoint) as identity thieves would now have a one-stop shop for all their larcenous needs, can you think of how easy it would be to use said database to track people? They swipe your license to check your ID, and it pings back to the database: where you are, what you're doing, what you're buying, etc.

Time consuming, expensive, and states that don't have the resources to keep up get anally pillaged. Government related areas everywhere will need new machine readers and links to the national database. DMV license centers will require new encoding machines. Since it will now be a matter of national security, all DMV employees will need a security clearance. The licenses will need redesigned. Do you think all that is free? Ka-ching, ka-ching, baby. That's the sound of the price being tagged on to your taxes and license fees!
Then there is the time factor. Currently all a driver's license really signifies is that you can drive. So when you get a new license (at least in my state), all you need is a camera card and your old license. In, out, ten minutes depending on line. More documents will be added. Your identity will be scrutinized. There will likely be delays if there is a paperwork problem.

In a few years, to get your license, remember to pack a lunch! You may be a while.

Then there is the problem that if the states don't get up to snuff in time, their drivers licenses will be considered NULL as far as using them for an official purpose. No getting on planes for continental flights. No getting a job (For the proof of eligibility to work, you need at least two forms of ID, one of which is typically the driver's license). Think, and you'll probably come up with a few other places where you need to prove your Identity for a federal purpose.

Habeas Corpus, Out the Window! The REAL ID act doesn’t just focus on ID’s. Habeas Corpus, the right to petition the courts for release if you feel your being held illegally, is no longer viable in some cases. So, in effect, the law allows the government to toss certain groups of people in jail without regard if they’ve actually done something wrong. If they can’t petition for release, who’s to stop it from just becoming a “Oubliette” situation – lock them up and forget they exist? Currently, it’s limited to immigrants under certain situations – but what happens when it’s expanded to include “subversives”, “malcontents”, or “political extremists?”

Fences, fences, everywhere… Real ID also waives all requirements for the DHS to build security fences on the US borders. (Specifically, it says borders. But it will probably be expanded to “Wherever we damn well please.”) So, theoretically, they could put a fence through your front yard because they felt like it.

Your Papers Please, Herr Citizen! - It’s said that an argument on the Internet doesn’t end until someone is compared to Hitler. Well, I’m not doing that, but I am going to compare the potential end-result of the REAL ID act to the practice of Nazi Germany: All citizens, tracked and documented, all the time. Do we really want to follow in the footsteps of NAZIS?! Geez.

I’m going to end the angry, paranoid part of this post with some quotes to think over:
On the Nazi thing: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” - George Santayana
On the Freedom vs Security thing: “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security” – Benjamin Franklin
On my tinfoil-hatness: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you” – Anon :-P


**********************
Okay, on to the goofy stuff!

So this guy in Romania wrecked his car because his girlfriend was giving him Oral while he was driving. People never cease to amaze me.

Anyway, the kicker was that he had known her for a whole day. Wow, they move fast.

Anyway, so he just meets this girl, and of course the next logical step in a new relationship is get naked while driving and have the girl give the driver head. Happens all the time. *rolls eyes*

So, they come to a curve in the road. The article says he “Forgot” to turn.

Yeah, right, he “Forgot.” Mark it down as “Couldn’t be bothered at the time…”

So they go off the road, and wreck into a parked car. And they do not stop!

The couple in the car they wrecked into got out to make sure the occupants of the car that just wrecked into them. They and other spectators of the wreck ended up getting a free hardcore peep show.

After they finally got done, the driver offered to pay for the damages, and between that and the fact that they “enjoyed the show,” the people who got wrecked into decided not to press charges.

The only punishment? A 90 day license suspension. (I would daresay the young man probably thinks it was worth it.)

Crazy kids these days. :P

*******************

On one final note, I ran across an interesting interview on Boing Boing. I recommend reading it. It’s about an environmentalist who did some rather radical stuff on principal. And by radical, I mean he refused to ride in a gasoline-powered automobile for 22 years, and topped it off with a 17 year long vow of silence. It’s an interesting read. Link to it here.

Swedish Study Confirms What We Already Know: Murderers Are Nuts.

Apologies for the last post, all three of my readers. I was tired and got carried away. :-P

Anyway...

So a study for the Swedish scientific magazine Forskning och Framsteg recently uncovered what most people were already pretty darn sure of.

Murderers are nuts.

(This is the part where we say with dripping sarcasm: "No! Really? You mean people that take the lives of other people have some sort of mental problem? Wow, I could not tell.")

But in a study of 2,000 people-who-kill-people revealed that 90% had at least one mental illness from the following list: schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety, post-traumatic stress or depression. Many had two or more. And half were substance abusers.

Gee, y'think?

File that under "Duh."

What disturbs me most, however, is that there are still a big chunk that are NOT nuts, but still manage to end people's lives. That, my friends, is the scary part.

Obsessed with the Numbers? Me?!

A comment on my previous post accused me of being obsessed with numbers! Can you believe that? Man, if I had a quarter for every time someone said that, I would have $89.75. Pfft. Obsessed with numbers. Sheesh!

...

Okay, so I admit it! I have a fascination for statistics! Not that my college statistics professor would think that, as I fell asleep in his class nine times out of ten ... but it was early and he can't modulate his voice so I fell asleep. Amusingly enough, two of my friends in that class often took bets on how fast it would take me to doze off.

Bastards.

But numbers are fun! When used plainly, they are Truth! Where else, but mathematics, can you have an answer you are 100% sure of? Not in many places, I tell ya!

Not that I'm good at math. I bombed advanced calculus in math, for example. I had to get a tutor just to squeak by. But there was a bonus to that: My tutor was cute.

But seriously: I'm in the computer industry. Numbers and mathematics are inexorably tied in. It's inescapable. I'm stuck in a numerical quagmire! Ah well.

Since I'm bored:

KnightErrant by the numbers!

Life Expectancy:

The average life-expectancy of a current-day male is 28,489 days. Give or take.

As of this posting, I have been alive 9,003 days (damn, I stopped paying attention and missed my 9,000'th day celebration! No really, I was actually waiting for that.)

If all goes well and I make it to the average lifespan of a current-day male, I have about 19,486 days left in me.

I haven't taken a sick day in 7 years. My last cold was 2 years ago. I may make it to that 28,000+ day mark, after all.

Job:

After college, it took me 2.5 years to land a job worth having. I have 3 pointless jobs in the interim; 0 of which paid well, 1 of which I mildly enjoyed and 1 I flat out hated. I was unemployed for a total of eight months out of the thirty. I sent approximately 100 résumés, had seven failed interviews, and only got back about four rejection letters.

I sent four résumés and had two interviews with the company I work for now. They rejected me the first time through, and it took me a further nine months to get the second interview.

I started my current job 119 days ago. In all, 87 of the 119 have been work-days. So approximately 739.5 hours have been spent at work, with 652.5 of them slaving away at my PC. 87 hours have been spent at lunch. I have three days left until my 90 day review. I am in a state of mild panic. I would like to keep this job for at least 730 - 1,460 days. Maybe more. More would be good.

Automotive:

I got my previous car to about 197,000 miles before my mechanic refused to reinspect it. I was less than 3,000 miles from getting it to 200,000. :(

My current car has approximately 92,000 miles on it. It is 5,000 miles overdue for an oil change. Oops.

I have paid $0 to buy cars. :-p

I have, however, placed a few thousand dollars total in keeping the damn things running.

Money:

I spend in excess of $4,000 a year on computers, video games, comics, books, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic cards, CD's, DVD's, magazines, gizmos, knickknacks, snackage, booze, and other pointless crap I shouldn't buy.

Speaking of comics, I recently learned a comic I purchased when I was five (and subsequently managed to destroy) had a current day value of $1,600 had I kept it in excellent condition and had it graded. I almost cried.

I spend approximately $25 a week on lunch. I need to stop going out and pack PB&J or something.

Recently, I have also been spending $30 a week for gasoline. Damn that OPEC!

School:

I graduated college with a 3.1 GPA. It would've been higher, but I suck at math and foreign language.

My lowest test grade during the four years of school was a 17% F. Feel free to laugh.

I still managed to pass that class with a C.

I took out $0 in student loans. Thank you, Mr. Scholarship!

Completely Random

My batting average is .500.

I have 4 computers, 2 phones, 2 cell phones (neither one works, stupid coverage areas), 2 TV’s, 4 video game consoles, 1 stereo, 2 swords, 1 guitar, 1 drum set, 1 trumpet, and 1 piano.

When I was a kid, the highest number of pets we had was 17 cats, 2 dogs, 4 birds, 4 goldfish, 7 hamsters (bought one, and it ended up being pregnant), 1 box turtle, and a ghost shrimp. Yes, I said "Ghost Shrimp."

Currently, my parents have 1 dog and 4 cats.

Botany-wise, I've managed to kill 1 bonsai tree. I've gone back to cacti, as they're harder to kill.

My personal library has over 500 books in it (An exact calculation would take way too much time). I want more.

1 have 3 stone gargoyles in my bedroom. They freak some people out, and I find that funny.

I own 1 painting. It's of a knight.

It took me 1 hour 24 minutes to compile this list. It is four typed pages long. I misspelled 16 words in total. I misspelled “approximately” 100% of the time I attempted to type it, including this one.

This is my fifty-second Blog post.

And I still have nothing relevant to say. :P

STATE-O-THE-BLOG ADDRESS!

It has been fifty days since I’ve first started this blog. I’ve decided that a quick “State-o-the-Blog” address is warranted.

STATE O THE BLOG:

It has been fifty days, and in that time, I have made 51 posts.

I have had 210 visitors, who among them count for 392 page views.

I have a whopping 3 regular readers. One of them is a family member, one of them is a friend, and the third is a random college student from Florida.

Of the non-regular readers, approximately 80% of them are people here directed from search engine results looking for the girl who licked her PSP. (*rolls eyes*)

And, after all that, I still don’t have a whole lot relevant to say.

Rock on!

Nine Parishoners Booted Because They Wouldn't Vote for Bush

Usually, when people discuss the crumbling of the separation of Church and State, they mean that the government is suffering from undue influence of religion.

Here's a crazy instance where politics unduly influenced religion!

A Baptist pastor has had nine members of his church kicked out because they did not vote for Bush.

Apparently, some of the shepherds are not content with only concerning themselves with their flock's spiritual lives. They also want to control the political realm as well!

Personally, I find this disturbing and disgusting that one man decided he had the right to control the votes of others, especially a so-called "man of God" who is supposed to be watching out for other's spiritual well-being rather than his political agenda.

Privacy Is Dead

So I was reading about ZabaSearch, which is basically a free stalker's tool. Enter a name, and you get information on just about anyone with that name, or with similar names. The information includes your full name, month and year of birth, home address, home phone number, and an option to link to various map services for a map to your home, and links to search engines.

Plus, for twenty bucks, you can get a comprehensive background check which claims to include a 20 year history address, current telephone number, bankruptcies, legal judgments, property ownership, names and addresses of relatives, current and previous roommates and neighbors, liens, and more.

I find this faintly disturbing, really. Privacy has become a complete and utter myth, I swear.

Even worse, the people who run such businesses don't care about it. When asked in an interview about privacy concerns, Robert Zakari, the owner of Zaba just said something along the lines of "Well, it's not like this information isn't already public. We just make it easy to use. If we didn't do it, someone else would." (Not an exact quote, but close enough.)

I don't know what is worse: that he is so callous and uncaring, that he is absolutely right.

Everything is a goddamn commodity these days. And you being left alone just isn't profitable.

And, of course, the fact that such tools could be used by a predatory person to find out where his latest victim lives is completely irrelevant.

So to translate the Zaba-guy’s earlier statement: “I don’t care if a rapist who takes a fancy to a woman can get a map to her house, as long as I get paid.”

Or perhaps “Guys, for $20, I’ll help the drunken psycho who got pissed at you at the bar learn the addresses and phone numbers of everyone meaningful in your life.”

I hate our society. Can I change allegiance? To Mars, perhaps?

Ah well. Not making much sense, mainly because it’s 2:30 in the morning.

So rock on, folks.

Cinco de Mayo: Another Pointless Holiday for Boozing

Cinco de Mayo!

...What a pointless freaking holiday. For some reason, a lot of people think that it's like America's Forth of July, that is, the Mexican independence day. Well, it isn't. Mexico's Independence Day is El Dieciséis de Septiembre (Sixteenth of September). ...And even if it did, it still doesn't make much sense for us to celebrate it. I mean, we don't celebrate Canada Day on July 1^st. (Too close to the Forth of July, maybe?)

So what exactly does the Fifth of May signify? Well, Cinqo de Mayo celebrates a victory in a war against the French. A war the Mexicans eventually lost.

A victory over the French. Wow. There's a cause for celebration there. It's a national holiday in Mexico but not a big one outside of Puebla, where the battle took place.

I don't even think they get the day off.

So why is Cinco de Mayo so big on this side of the Rio Grande?

Well, somewhere in the 1960's something called the "Chicano Student Movement" decided they needed a holiday to drink José Cuervo to celebrate their ancestery.

El Dieciséis de Septiembre was too close to the beginning of the school year to organize a decent party to effectively organize rallies and celebrations. So, one near the end of the year was used instead. Hence, the rise of Cinco de Mayo.

Eventually, Cinco de Mayo began to be used as an excuse to eat burritos and get piss ass drunk on margaritas and tequila celebrated by those not of Mexican ancestry.

This is quite similar to the evolution of American's celebration of St. Patrick's day, which is used by you tea-swilling crumpet-munching heathens of non-Érie decent to dye rivers green and get piss ass drunk on weak American beer also dyed green for some damnable reason, desecrating the reason for the holiday in the first place celebrated by those of Non-Irish decent.

Once again proof that as Americans we will celebrate anything if it gives us an excuse to drink.

'Til next time, rock on.

Time Groupies

Now, I've spent most of this evening napping rather than doing anything of value, so I really don't have a lot to write about. But I was thinking about that time traveler's convention. I can't go (because of the distances involved, the only way I could go and do stuff I need to do here would be time travel, and I don't think I should rely on that), but I thought of one of the most wild things theoretically possible.

Time Groupies.

Imagine you were a rock star, or superstar actor, or a prolific author, or a world leader, but not yet! You are one of these things in the FUTURE! (Cue suspense music.)

You go to the time traveler convention figuring, "meh, why not?" Upon reaching the convention, you are mobbed by screaming fans for something you haven't done yet. You end up being asked to autograph items you haven't completed yet (Album, movie, book, memoirs, etc.).

Man, that would be crazy.

I want time groupies!

Dr. Who Likely Invited

Get this.

There is a Time Traveler Convention at MIT this weekend.

By "Time Traveler Convention", I mean there is a bunch of dorks using it as an excuse to throw a party and advertise on the off chance Dr. Who actually shows up.

It's one of those things I want to go to just to say I'd been there. :-P

Dihydrogen Monoxide: a Hidden Threat

Do YOU know about the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide?

You don't? Well, shame on you! Dihydrogen Monoxide is an odorless, colorless chemical compound. Accidental inhalation of this dastardly substance killed over 3,200 people in the United States in 2000 alone! Inhaling it is one of the leading causes of death in all age categories, INCLUDING children! Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns on contact, and prolonged exposure to solid DHMO can damage tissue.

For those known to be addicted to the substance, withdrawal from it means certain death!

This stuff is used as a coolant in nuclear reactors, and here you are, probably consuming it every day! I mean, seriously. Get educated, people!

Go HERE to read a fact sheet all about this dangerous substance.

The most important section from this fact sheet is this:

Research conducted by award-winning U.S. scientist Nathan Zohner concluded that roughly 86 percent of the population supports a ban on dihydrogen monoxide. Although his results are preliminary, Zohner believes people need to pay closer attention to the information presented to them regarding Dihydrogen Monoxide. He adds that if more people knew the truth about DHMO then studies like the one he conducted would not be necessary.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

For those of you reaching this far who are now paranoid about exposure to DHMO: First lesson: Di means two, Mono means one, Oxide means oxygen, and Hydrogen ...well... Means Hydrogen.

Think hard. Still can't figure it out? Don't breed.

:) So 'til next time, rock on.

Lazy Man's Haiku

I didn't want to write
But I did it anyway
Curse my laxity

Bouncing

Forty four posts before I finally was tired enough to forget to use "Rock on!" at the end of my entry. Whoops! Ah well. It was forced and contrived anyway.

I had the honor of being a bouncer this fine evening!

Okay, well, not really. My friend Jimy was assisting the bouncer. So I got to stand next to Jimy and look cool. Woo-hoo!

So good friends, plenty of lovely ladies, and I get to look cool. All in all, wasn't a bad night!

But tonight was not all peaches and cream. My stomach was flip-flopping so hard for some darned reason, I couldn't drink my whiskey.

It is a sad, sad day when an Irishman cannot hold his whiskey. I knew after one sip that if I downed it, I would have the unpleasant experience of it returning the way it came. I had to let it go to waste. Made me want to weep.

I hope this is not a trend! That would be simply depressing.

(Then again, it would be good for my health, my wallet, and my sleeping habits if I did not go to the bar. But it would also be boring.)

But in any case, I am eventually planning on writing something worthwhile. I have something on copyrights that has been stewing on the back burner for a while. Not sure if I really want to talk about my religious beliefs yet, but I may get around to it. Eventually, there will be something worth reading here! Really!

But not tonight! So 'til next time, rock on! (Not quitting using it altogether, just where it doesn't flow well. :P )