FW:

"That's just the way the world is."

Are you as sick of hearing that as I am? Everytime someone says that to me, because I'm getting sick of chucking my rights under the wheels of democracy so that someone else has their OCD in check, I want to gouge their eyes out with a spoon - and then I want to shake them and tell them that there is something you can do. You can say no. It's all right - everyone do it with me now:

NO!

See - wasn't that easy! You don't need a law saying that I can't swear at you on the highway - just ignore me.. or even better shout back! Let out some of that agression you've been fostering for bad drivers like myself! You don't need to deal with cameras going up everywhere the eye can see or bag searches everywhere else. The world is only like "that" because all you dumb people were really supposed to be reincarnated as cocker spaniels - boy, did God play a good one on the rest of us, eh?

There are always going to be people with guns, knives and - because we can't control our own testosterone and need to be #1! USA, USA, USA!!! - bombs bigger then ours. Thats the way the world works. Remember when you were a kid and your mom would get you a big ice cream off the truck, but that brat that you hated down the street, well his mom got him and even bigger one. We don't grow up - we just get taller folks. Instead of ice cream its who can get to space faster or, who can build the most destructive bomb, fastest car, smartest robot. Can you imagine if all of human kind just stopped being so damned competitive for only one day?

Gas prices would plumbit.
Hundreds of people wouldn't die due to a pointless war.
We might get somewhere with a space program, (and no, I don't think that delaying a manned space flight for three weeks, watching a trillion dollar sensor smash up in a comet, or a wind sail burning up in the atmosphere after getting lost for 72 hours any sort of major advace.)

The list could go on - unfortunately I haven't even gotten to what brought all of this on in the first place: Now federal and state governments will be installing cameras in even more places! I don't really care about a camera - on private property where there is a vested interest for the store owner or building to keep an eye out in an after hours or hard to see area. But don't put them up so that you can run everything through your stupid little databases and track my every move for the past 5 years. That's just insane.

But so many people - every age color creed and nationality - disagree with me don't they? They feel safer with them up. Being watched doesn't bother them because there's nothing to watch. Yes, I understand your argument. But what happened to actually hiring police officers and security guards? OH! That's right! You sent them off to fight your war didn't you? Damn - I guess the only thing you can do is put up those cameras huh? Then expect one guy to do the work of 20 - you know... routine government cut backs.

What did people do without technology? They were a lot safer for sure. So, they didn't have computers or cell phones... heck you go far enough back and they don't even have the ones you plug into the wall. But it is this very same technology that we strive to fear every day. When did it go from a convieniance to something we fear enough to create more technology in order to destroy other advances?

New Commercial

So, I was stuck watching actual, no-fast-forward, TV tonite because I forgot to tell the TiVo what to record today- well come to think of it I probably didn't forget but there wasn't anything on!!! - and I finally ended up on a repeat of "Nip Tuck" on FX. Not a bad show usually - tonite was a perticularly emotional one.. but the show isn't the important part... the fantastic commercial I saw is!

(open b&W, a family sitting down for breakfast, the man is ready to go to work with his briefcase and newspaper ready to go with him)

Announcer: This Man will die in 12 minutes.

(focus first on the smiling face of him, then his wife, then his two sons eating breakfast)

Announcer: But his family is taken care of. He has life insurance and college funds set up for the kids.

(pan to man toward the door)

Announcer: But he hasn't taken care of himself

(fad out to black and then up to some Baptist church)

I give the church credit - at least there making good commercials. Heck, they had me fooled into thinking it might actually be something important. But that's why I have TiVo - I watch commercials I do one of two things: buy things or go mushy.

Reinstating the Patriot Act

This is great! Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! I honestly cannot believe what the hell is going on with this country! Is anyone else out there awake or are you all just walking zombies?!

When "The Act" was passed the first time, I was afraid for everyone's civil liberties. Those whom I told retorted by telling me that it was only put in place to make sure that everyone was safe for now, and that as soon as the 'danger of terrorism' had gone by then "The Act" would be writted back out of law. While I hoped this was true I still managed my scepticism and let those supporters know that while I honestly hoped that this was the case I feared a much darker and almost sinister control device being put in place by the US government.

My worst fears have been realized. While the original wording of 'The Act' will only be effecitive for a few more months - the Senate has agreed to write it into permanent law... with only minimal changes. The biggest of which? Now, instead of any FBI agent being able to access your library rentals only the head chairman can sign off on this invasion of property. To make matters worse, that amendment to the original wording only passed by narrow margin.

Folks, what have we done here? What have we let them do? Does anyone out there with more brains then a retarded gerbil have any idea what they can do now? It starts with small things like what the NYPD are doing on the subways in light of the recent bomb detonated in London.

It will get worse.

Mark my words folks. I don't mind making sure that the bad guys go to jail and that the good guys are protected - but I have never been one to treat everyone like a bad guy and push the good into a corner. Eventually, we will be so scared of our own shadow that there will be laws forbidding people go outside during anytime but noon exactly.

Grow up. Be responsible for yourself. Don't go sue happy and don't blame your mommy. The world will go on when you die and maybe you should consider hitting your kids - we'll have less terrorist, murderers and cry babies that way. Take a break - work isn't your life. But a life isn't made up of naps and video games either. Go outside, enjoy the sun - if you can't then at least pick up a book and read.

Above all else, just because you are afraid or you disagree doesn't mean you have to halt others in this behavior. You are not a parent to the country - you are a citizen. We all have rights - even murderers as some will most likely point out. But if I'm not hurting you - period - then why would you care what I do? I know, because you think I could harm myself - or someone near me - or a baby inside me that doesn't even have a brain yet.

I realize I've moved very far away from the US "Patriot Act" as it has been so ineptly named - but a patriot means something... if you have forgotten that definition maybe you should look it up and you might possibly realize everything I've said here is more closely related then you think.

The Declaration of Revocation

This little blurp written by John Cleese hasto be one of the best things I've Stumbled upon yet! Read this because I'll probably be talking about it for the next couple of days - and you want to know what I'm talking about.... don't you??

New Graduation Year: 2015?

Well, the title might be a bit of an overexaggeration, but if I keep going the way that I am that's about when I'll be happy with my level of education. If everything goes well on Saturday with the Mass. comprehension and literacy test, (gee you think?), I'll be able to apply for winter session at WSC. If not, then I might as well resign to being a banker forever. At least, being a banker until a robot moves in to take my job.

Finished Potter Book 6

For the last two days I have been spending any free moment reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince because, like millions of other people world-wide, I am obsessed with the series - which I hope helps to explain my lack of any real posting here on the site. But I'm not here to apologies... barely anyone take the time to read these things anyway... I'm here to tell you all about "Potter Mania".

On Friday night after work I was beginning to get excited. The book that I had waited a year for was finally being let free into the world. My big master plan at the time was to just go down to Stop and Shop, (New England finest grocery store conglomorate), and raid their book section at 5 past midnight. Now normally I wouldn't do this, but you all have to understand how quickly these books sell out - Scholastic had over 8 million copies printed for the release and still had to begin printing more starting yesterday morning because the world was nearly out. Now I want you to think about that if only for one second and realise that I wouldn't have stayed up untl midnight to buy a book if you didn't think I had reason to. If I hadn't then I'd of had to wait another day or two for the book. I had the weekend off to read the book and wasn't willing to do that.

Regardless, I somehow convinced my non-Potter fan of a boyfriend to go down to Barnes and Noble at around eleven thirty with me... just to see what a "Release Party" looked like.

IT WAS AWFUL. I will never go again. Funny in that "Steven King writing-about-little-childre- in-a-cornfield" sort of way. The entire shopping plaza parking lot was full to the point where people where parking in fire lanes and anywhere else they could cram an automobile for a few hours. I was lucky enough to find an actual parking space in the far diagonal corner to the book store. The theory there is while people are more then willing to break the law to get a premo spot, they'd rather do that then walk an extra 100ft, (go obesity yeah!). So after parking and walking it was about ten of midnight and was that bookstore crazy. My boyfriend pointed out that the place was never even that busy for Black Friday... I tend to agree... I felt like a sardine.

The worst part about the whole release party, was that this really wasn't a "party" at all. You would think you'd have all the elements for a pretty good one. Crazy people dressed in cloaks and thick bottle rim glasses, lots of other people pointing at these other people and a huge space with plenty of floor space and a little cafe'. But there was nothing going on, just a giant serving of clostrephobia and tired children zombies dressed like Harry being dragged around by their wild-eyed parents.

After only using there bathroom and taking a quick tour to see if we happen to know anyone, (to both of our relief we didn't), we left the building and drove down to Stop and Shop as I had previously intended. By the time we got down to the supermarket it was exactly 12 midnight and I was happy to just walk in, buy my book, and go home.

By the way, the book was excellent. I was a little sad at the end because of what Rowling decided to do with one of her fantastic characters. But like every rabid Potter fan out there all I can do is wait for the next installment - probably a year and some change from now - and hope it all turns out okay.

Microsoft's Gates to Fund Medical Research?

Those of you who know me have probably heard me go on some sort of Bill Gates related rant. Mainly because this man has done a fantastic job, (hehe... poor Steve), of making money by climbing relentlessly over others. And while I still hold onto everything I have ever said regarding his past actions he has finally done something that I've wished every billionaire on the planet would do: put a good chunk of that change he's earned off others and put it back.

He's not just donating it either. The man has funded 43 different scientific ventures. Now, granted, I've got to maintain a slice of pessimism here: He is doing it to make money later. This is something we all have to be comfortable with because if he's not doing it then its just not happening. It's obvious that our government is more concerned with killing us off then making life better for everyone, worldwide.

Besides, if the world is ever going to find a cure for something as big as AIDS, it will probably come out of a millionaires research facility - which will then make them richer and make us all more envious of them.

Fast Fact

Did you know that the first Chinese astronaut didn't enter space until October, 2003?

The Bracelet in Question!

Plastic Bracelets

Over the past few months the subject of those charming little bracelets that started with Lance's "Live Strong" fund raiser have come up in conversation abnormally often. This is only because every company, fund raiser and organization has come up with their own take on the product. I didn't think all that much on it until I read an article in either People or Time talking about how the introduction of this trinket has ruined fund raising for everyone - and I tend to agree with the reasoning. You see, the bracelet itself was a phenominal idea: The customer gets a small, cheap piece of rubber in exchange for the $2 they paid to the charity Lance supported. The problem came about when stores began to run out of them and other entrapraneaurs put them up on E-Bay for hundreds of dollars... The fashion of having the bracelet began to become more important then the reasoning behind it.

Soon after, every store was carrying some take on the 'jewelry' to fill demand. First it was Adidas with its multi-colored pieces of rubber with their own logo on it. These were pricey and the profit went into corporate coifers. Then other charities picked up on - which was okay but it diluted the meaning of the original bracelet. Now we're stuck with every sports team, country, holiday, fashion line and corporation coming out with their own piece of the phenominon.

What brings me to comment on this now and not before was the company I work for recently began distributing these bracelets to all the collegues. I wouldn't be so upset but my boss asked me to wear one. The bracelets aren't tacky or cheaply made, but I refused to wear it on principle. I haven't fallen into this pit of modern trend and don't have any intention of ever falling in. At the time it was difficult for me to word my objections as well as I could have and my boss thought I was just being a "negative Nancy", (as she likes to say). It even seemed as though she took a mild offense to the fact that I wanted no part of the trend, but because these bracelets support nothing but the coorporate machine I work for I saw no need to become one of the crowd.

Eventually, twenty years from now, our children will be watching the modern equivalent of VH-1 "Back to the 2000's" and we're all going to have to listen to the comedians, actors and singers of their day put us down for our stupidity. I want to be able to honestly say that I never took part in this - even if it means that my boss and everyone else thinks that I'm just trying to be difficult.

Welcome!!

Kristen! It's nice that you decided to show up finally! Hope everyone takes the time to officially welcome her to the blog.

And in response to her take on the rats: Yes I'm obsessed, at least this seems to be the general consensus - but they are cute and loveable and I'm sure that they would love you too... just because something has a yucky tail doesn't make them yucky. And they smell like fritos. Are you saying you hate fritos? :-D

Love ya'all!

Penguins!

This post here is for Jessie. I know that she likes (?) penguins and I just happened to stumble on this desktop pic. It's cute by any means. Penguins for everyone! Just do me a favor and ignore the fact that the desktop pic is provided by Veggies.com... I don't know if you know it or not - but they are the "good clean" childrens entertainment co. that has a bit of a religious twist to it.

This is not to say that I support organized religion in any way - but a penguin is a penguin any way that you slice it.

Millionaire on a Leash?

There is one person out there who thinks I might think a bit too much about my beloved rattius, Bubba. While this may be true, I pose this question to her: Which one would you rather think of - a egotistical millionaire who names burgers after himself or a big squishy rattius?

I'm with the rattius myself - he doesn't mind being put on a leash and dragged around the yard. A crazy millionaire might have a problem with this... or even scarier still, might not. LoL.

Bubba, Bubba the Dom

Isn't he so cute and squishy!!

While I find this image amusing - I am also deeply concerned as to what this product is made of. (Insert image of Bubba in a Pink Floyd's The Wall video during the "We Don't Need No Education" part.)

Happy Independance Day!

There won't be much to the post today, (I do have a life outside of the blog), but I thought that I'd leave you guys with a virtual fireworks display - you know... to stay in the spirit of things.

Symbolic Order

This has to be the most interesting and intelligent web site I've seen in a long time. It helps that I agree with just about everything that they say! Check it out: Symbolic Order: Politics and Culture for Smart People