Rantings of a part-time loon.

September 17, 2004

I’ve been postponing writing in my blog for a variety of reasons, but I think it comes down to the fact that I have other things on my mind.

I meant to write yesterday (and the day before, and the day before), but my website was inaccessable for most of the day due to a problem with the computer. I rebooted it when I got home, no problem after that. My only concern was that Google might penalize me and move me down in the rankings as they usually do when my website is down for a period of time. At least I’m back on the first page. Not number one, but back on the first page.

I had kind of an odd weekend. Well, my Sunday at least. I woke up around 4 AM and couldn’t sleep, so at 4:30 I got up and started playing City of Heroes, the new game I picked up last week. Now a normal person would get up and read, but hey, I figured that would put me back to sleep, and by 5:30 I figured I might as well just stay up instead of going back to sleep. I ended up playing for about six or seven solid hours, which normally would take a good chunk out of my day, but heck, I quit around 11 AM. The whole day was still ahead of me! It’s nice to want to play a game, but to not have it take over your life as Star Wars Galaxies did after I got it in December. I still have a desire to play the game, but I haven’t played it since Sunday. I forsee that this weekend will see several things happen:

1) I’ll play City of Heroes until my eyes bleed. Again.
2) I’ll watch all my remaining “Nip/Tuck” episodes and get them on tape for my Mom
3) I’ll go see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

I’ve been looking forward to seeing Sky Captain since I first saw a trailer for it before Lord of the Rings: Return of the KIng last December. I remember sitting in the theater with my Dad and seeing the trailer, and when it was done we both looked at each other with raised eyebrows. The GOOD kind of raised raised eyebrows, like we were both thinking “What’s this? How good does this look?” The snickers around me I paid no attention to.

I wanted to point out that there’s a new version of Mozilla Firefox out. Firefox, as you know, is the wonderful web browser I use. It’s leaps and bounds above Internet Explorer in functionality and features, including a top-notch popup blocker, tabbed browsing (which once you start using you’ll never stop using), built-in search capabilities, and other goodies. Additionally, it suffers from none of the security problems that Internet Explorer does, and so you’re a whole lot less likely to be subjected to spyware that gets installed automatically, security holes, etc. I’ve been using Firefox for probably two years now, the main Mozilla browser for a year or so before that, and I’ll never go back to IE. Microsoft has admitted that they’re not going to release a new version of IE until the next version of Windows comes out, and that’s more than two years away.

So what’s it going to be, huh? A web browser that leaves your computer open to security vulnerabilities where your computer can be taken over by a malicious hacker, or personal data stolen, or spyware automatically installed on your computer without your permission, or a web browser that beats all of that AND gives you more features to boot?

But don’t necessarily take my word for it. Check out the Get Firefox website for more information and download links. Those of you whose computers I maintain will have it installed by me. Of course, you’re already using Firefox, so all you’ll notice are new features.

So I’m sitting here at work drinking tea, and I have a heck of a headache. I’ve noticed that I’m getting more and more as time is going on, and I’m not sure what’s causing them. It’s not caffeine-related, as I’m getting my second infusion of the day in the mint tea I’m drinking. It’s not sleep-related, as with the exception of last Saturday night, I’ve been getting a decent amount of sleep. It’s not alcohol-related, because while I did indulge in a bit of tequila a few nights ago with my Mexican food (hey, I don’t drink Corona, and I know that tequila goes well with Mexican food), I didn’t have that much. I mean heck, that’s a $30 bottle of tequila I have. I’d prefer to drink it slowly and get my money’s worth, y’know? I don’t think it’s food-related, but I guess I’ll never know. I’ll take some Asprin and hope for the best.

Work is going well. Nothing to report except that this should be the first paycheck with my insurance on it. I guess I’ll have to make an appointment with the dentist in the next month or so and get my teeth checked out for the first time in a year or so. I take pretty good care of my teeth, but it never hurts to have them cleaned. No, scratch that–it usually hurts a bit.

I rolled over 30,000 miles on my car the other day. I had noticed that it was coming up and almost missed it because I was spacing out, but I managed to catch it at like 30,000.4. I still can’t believe that car had under 30k on it when I bought it. Of course, that also means that I’ve put about 2000-2500 miles on it since I bought it, mostly just driving to and from work. It’s turning out to be a pretty good purchase, though I’m not relishing the idea of the whole “three years in debt” for it. Better than driving my beloved Mustang, though. I loved that car. I still love that car, but it just wasn’t practical to drive to and from work in the frequency I’d need to do it. The last time I was driving that car to and from work full time I got in an accident. Not that it was the direct cause, but it’s better to leave that car in good condition and let me drive a car that doesn’t skid in the rain, doesn’t leak, and has a better safety system.

I got into a bit of a tiff yesterday online with someone who felt the need to personalyl attack me when I stepped up to straighten out a few factual errors. Now I’m normally not one to get involved in a political debate with someone when I can’t look them in the face, but this guy really pissed me off. I’ve noticed that this year in particular, far more than other election years I’ve been aware of in the past, there’s a great deal of animosity floating between the gun-toting conservatives and the bleeding-heart liberals. I mean real animosity. There was a protestor last week at a Cheney speech, I believe it was, who started yelling Kerry slogans and anti-Bush slogans during the speech, and she was pulled out of the area as onlookers pulled her hair as she went past.

That’s inexcusable. I don’t give a shit, pardon my language, whether or not they’re being disruptive, but you don’t pull someone’s hair if you disagree with them. Likewise, I saw a picture today of a man and his three year-old girl at a Kerry rally where Edwards was speaking briefly. He’d shown up with a Bush/Cheney sign, and the Kerry supporters had pulled it away from his daughter and tore it up in front of her.

Grow up, people.

Politics has never been what I’d call a civil discussion topic, but I’ve never understood why people make it personal. If I question a candidate’s motives for saying or doing something, I’m not automatically calling anyone who supports that candidate a moron or some other name. Likewise, if I support a particular candidate that doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with everything they do or say. The fight I got into yesterday involved Kerry and his Vietnam medals, which I’m thoroughly sick of hearing about. The latest revelation is that his official records note that he received the Silver Star with the combat “V” designation, and apparently “experts” (though I’ve yet to see any mention of particular names besides the mysterious “they”) state that the Silver Star was never given with a combat “V.” What I know about medals you could fit into a thimble. In fact, I still soemtimes accidently say “the Congressional Medal of Honor” when in fact it’s just “the Medal of Honor.” But really, the documents this guy was throwing at me to prove that Kerry was lying was his official discharge document. This is proof that Kerry invented his medals? A document he didn’t type? I’m not as clear about military procedure as I should be, but I’m fairly certain that a clerk types up your discharge papers and not the soldier being discharged.

It’s not that I believe 100% that Kerry didn’t stretch the truth about the circumstances surrounding his medals, but I think that a full audit of every medal awarded in every war would probably see a whole hell of a lot of that happening. I couldn’t give a crap. But if there’s a mistake and an invalid medal designation on his official records, then it’s not his fault. I was correcting a simple factual error, and all of a sudden I’m some die-hard Kerry supporter, part of a vast liberal conspiracy. Oh, please.

The day I join a political party is the day I die. I refuse to be associated with any of the existing political parties for reasons just like this. I won’t take a party line about anything, because I think both parties are full of crap. Sure, I support a lot of typically Democrat issues, but I also support a few Republican issues, too. Frankly, I don’t like either candidate, as I’ve mentioned before. I’ve tossed around the idea of not voting at all in the upcoming election because I don’t feel comfortable suppporting either of the Presidential candidates, but as my sister pointed out, “We gave Bush a chance, not maybe it’s time to give someone else a chance.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. I don’t particularly want Kerry as President, but frankly, I don’t see how he could be any worse in my eyes.

What was so infuriating to begin with was that the original discussion had nothing to do with Bush or Kerry, but rather the Sudan and the situation there. I stepped in and corrected a few people on their usage of the word “genocide” to describe events in history, and then later the guy I fought with “threadjacked” the discussion (that is, he changed the topic of the discussion thread for no reason and without warning) to Kerry v. Bush. I didn’t want to be seen as a Kerry defender, but I also won’t let someone go around tossing factual errors if I have a chance to correct them. If someone had been saying something similar about Bush I would have done the same thing. Maybe. That’s a real pickle…which is more powerful, my need to expose the truth or my disdain for the President? Good question.

No, I guess I have a concrete example of that. Prior to a local election my senior year of college, I heard a freshmen exclaim that they didn’t understand how any intelligent person could ever vote Republican. I wanted to stomp in and basically tell them how full of crap they were, and that just because someone disagrees with you politically doesn’t mean they’re an unintelligent idiot. My own father tends to vote for Republicans more often than not, and he’s one of the smartest people I know. I may disagree with him politically a lot of the time, but I respect his opinion and he always manages to know more than me about anything I bring up. Debating with the man is folly because he’ll always be able to trump your ace-in-the-hole you think is the zinger that will prove your point.

It’s people like that that freshmen who drive me bonkers. The people who show up at political rallies and wave flags and call the other candidate unpatriotic (or sometimes, the candidate themself does it). The people who cheer when protestors are carried away. The people who act like it’s a war and not an election, and the opposing candidate is an enemy. As a student of political science, I’m lucky that I missed most of that. I tended to study government and not politics, thank goodness.

If it ever came down to it, I’d go into government, but never politics.

Obviously, as the election gets closer I’m getting more and more jaded about politics. There’s only so much of this I can take before I shut down completely and won’t listen to anyone about anything.

So yeah, that’s where I stand. If I felt more up to it I’d write an intelligent, well thought-out diatribe, but eh, I’d rather just rant. Until next time, then.

Posted in Geekery, General