Geek vs Life

I’ve been pondering a few things (some of them while starving myself for 5 days due to a parasite of some sort).

Let’s try a discussion here:

-No surprise here, Casual games are geared towards a largely growing  market of middle aged women with possibly too much time on their hands. I’m not trying to say it like it’s a bad thing though. My concern is that the companies are making the games TOO CAT FRIENDLY. If I were to leave my laptop on with Bioshock running, my cat would stay the fuck away. The pretty landscapes and southing Jazz of Bejeweled 2 seems akin to catnip. Discuss.

I just returned home tonight, on the Fourth of July, from my local fireworks show in downtown Edmonds. I have to say, I’m not very impressed. Yes, some things are personal preference, such as the change in bands from the band they’ve had every year since I remember, but others…

How about the cops doing flagging flagging everyone DEEPER into downtown when you’re trying to leave? And ignoring the people right down the street illegally lighting off fireworks (fireworks of any kind are illegal in Edmonds. Apparently, even those little party poppers bottle thingies are). Oh, and let’s not even mention the fireworks from the show running across the ground into the crowd, and no emergency response in sight. Oh, they went out, of course, since the screams of terror didn’t last long.

I most likely won’t be returning.

Going to the backwoods in Canada, I had a dandy time catching fish, eating fish, and enjoying existence without many electronic contraptions besides a pay phone and a few local channels on some cable. On the way back while grabbing some food to munch on, I found myself thoroughly frustrated with my soda cup. It had the usual brightly colored flare and graphic creativity of any given ad, but that didn’t stop me from working hard to make the white, clean cut word “iCoke” spontaneously combust.

Granted, Apple’s very recognizable “i” has been seen everywhere. The popular mp3 players that we generalize as iPods are widely used and very popular with the general public. Apple seems to group all the related products using their trademark letter with names like iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and so on. I honestly didn’t care about it when it was just them, but when I start seeing companies like Google and Coke playing copy cat, it gets rather irritating.

What follows is a column that is true in nature, but may or may not have facts. It is a piece that I would like to write about every two weeks. It will be about whatever. It will be adult in content. This means sex and or obscenity may be used. I hope to explore issues in our everyday life that we may not have the courage to discuss. It could be about race, traveling, or losing your virginity, which this inaugural column is about. Remember adult content lays ahead. You have been warned. Take care of yourself and peace!

Warning: Adult Content
Ahead

I got fucked by being fucked. This situation is not unique by any stretch of the imagination. Instead the unique occurs when the opposite happens. Of course literature always makes it sound like the opposite happens.

Dear Homer, Marge, Maggie, Lisa, and Bart Simpson,

I hope I am not alone in wishing that this whole Simpsons Movie Mania would end? Out of my deep love for the you and all that you have done, I would like to see the movie come quietly and with the dignity that it entirely deserves.

But dang Holmes, you totally sold out.

The Burger King commercials make me want to vomit. The fact that 7-11 has re-done a bunch of their stores into Quick-E-Marts sickens me.

I was watching television at my friend’s house the other day, a rare occasion for me, and EVERY OTHER COMMERCIAL was a Simpsons commercial.

I mean, come on people. Why? You’re the SIMPSONS for crying out loud! You’re the longest running cartoon in the history of mankind. You’re a cultural icon. YOU EXISTED BEFORE THE WORLD WIDE WEB.

With J. K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” being released tonight at midnight (so technically tomorrow morning I guess), people have already started lining up on the streets and this is 12 hours in advance. Insanity I say.

As JoshuaBryan had written earlier this week, the book means a lot more than just another book in the series, it is to be the penultimate book of the series, finally readers will get a sense of closure. I think it’s important to get to the allegoric point of an ending, especially to a series of the sort. We read all about Harry as he grew up, finally made some friends, got a crush and attained his true potential.

Seems someone or some ‘ones’ has/have an agenda on the UN’s IPCC (United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and certain failed Presidential candidates that think they can make films. The data that has been fed to the American public and the world about the sea levels rising due to “global warming” was… get this… falsified.

Yup, check it out: http://newsbusters.org/node/13698

It’s always nice to know that there are still some ethical scientist out there that will call the guys making millions on grant money on their BS. Now, the question is, where did these panel ’scientist’ go to university to get such outstanding morals and ethics?

Some of us like to read/watch/listen to the news. Interesting? Certainly. Entertainment? Hardly. Good journalism is the backbone of a strong society, for it forms the primary first draft of history, and it informs the people of choices that are to be made, choices that have been made, and the results and after effects of those same choices.

So why is it that Paris Hilton is the biggest piece of news going on right now? Can anybody explain to me how that could possibly be more important than:

• Russian and American political posturing and an arms race that threatens to ignite Cold War II?
• A continuing military operation that is eerily reminiscent of a little thing I like to refer to as the Vietnam War?
• The News Corp/Yahoo/Google stirring controversy by trying to buy the Dow Industrials and its associated Wall Street Journal?

Many LJ users found their journals gone. Why? The

Wariors For Innocence went hunting for pedophiles.

Which is a good thing.

The Bad thing is in order to calm the pressures from

WFI the staff at Six Apart went over board.

Deleting journals by a quick scan of interests.

Journals which had words like “Lolita” were deleted.

Completely over looking that “Lolita” is a classic

novel and a fashion style. Now, I know this because my

journal was temporarily deleted because of my interest

in Lolita. My journal did not (and still does not)

depict sex with minors.

Instead, three years ago, I wrote a nationaly

published paper on the book. After digging and

searching the net for the article and submiting to the

staff at Live Journal they undeleted my journal.

The whole debate between creationism and evolutionism is a long and hard fought struggle.

People believe each side with equal ardor. Choosing sides often is often just the way life is, ask Anakin.

So there is this site Who’s You Creator? which is trying to debunk evolution with a $5000 prize. It has been contributed to lightly for now. The way it works is that they seprate evolution into different categories (big bang, fossil records, etc..) and in each sector you can add your own arguments via links.

I mean seriously, wow. Shouldn’t they build a website with irrefutable proof that creationism is unflawed? I mean apart from quoting one book?

It’s like the whole Pepsi ad campaign that I grew up hating so much which turned me off their product. “We rock, they suck!” is so childish. Sell the merits of your side rather than the faults of your opponents.

According to a poll conducted by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan (associated with University of Michigan), Internet safety(26%) rates higher on the list of parental concerns for health safety than:

• School Violence(24%)
• Sexually-Transmitted Infections(24%)
• Abuse and Neglect(22%).

I think the media is a large contributor to the growing trend. Show like “NBC Dateline: To Catch a Predator” which seems to air every other week and Fox is preparing a series of specials as well which will star a Miss America of some sort.

I agree with the sentiment that Internet predators are pretty bad and deranged people, but the it’s ranking on the list makes it seem that the general thought on all this is: “let the kids get abused, but for goodness sake let’s not let one of em Internet weirdos do it, lets keep the abuse at home where it belongs.”

Congressmen and women, led by representative McCarthy of New York, are trying to institute another ‘assault weapons ban’. For those of you around when the first one went into effect in 1994, you know how useless it was in preventing/stopping crimes from occuring or continuing, even escalating.

Please, support the online petition to send a message to congress, declaring that we will NOT allow the government to circumvent our Human Right, under the Constitution of the United States, to protect ourself, our families and our friends, even innocent strangers, from those that would wish them undue harm.

The petition which I signed this morning as #1779 (at the time of posting, the number of petition signers was 5589): http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/409898348

The following link is the full text of the bill they want to pass: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1022